Suicide in the Trenches
"I knew a simple soldier boy Who grinned at life in empty joy, Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, And whistled early with the lark. In winter trenches, cowed and glum, With crumps and lice and lack of rum, He put a bullet through his brain. No one spoke of him again. . . . . You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and pray you'll never know The hell where youth and laughter go." - Siegfried Sassoon Survivors No doubt they'll soon get well; the shock and strain Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk. Of course they're 'longing to go out again', These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk. They'll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died, Their dreams that drip with murder; and they'll be proud Of glorious war that shatter'd their pride... Men who went out to battle, grim and glad; Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad. - Siegfried Sassoon |
Shell Shock
Shell shock, or post- traumatic stress disorder, was common during the first world war, but not completely understood until after. Soldiers experienced symptoms like, unrelenting anxiety,nightmares, nervous ticks, and deliriously reliving experiences of combat. For example some soldiers who had bayoneted men in the face developed hysterical tics of their own facial muscles and stomach cramps pccured in men who knifed their enemies in the abdomen. By the end of the war the army had dealt with about 80,000 cases of shell shock.
At first Soldiers who suffered from shell shock were looked upon as weak or cowards. Many soldiers were admitted and treated in mental asylums. For doctors and nurses, Shell shock was a difficult illness to understand. In the beginning of the war it was believed that shell shock was the result to physical damage of the nerves. It was later recognized that not all soldiers affected by shell shock had always been on the front line. Suffering from shell shock was frowned upon. Soldiers that arrived in mental hospitals were said o be greeted by silence. |