Low Morale, No Victory Essays - Military History By Country

Low Morale, No Victory Low Morale, No Victory The First World War will be a war that shall always be remembered with tragic thoughts. This was to be the first war in which a man could rarely see his enemy. One would just shoot his gun and hope for the best. Trenches played a major role in this war. In fact the whole war revolved around trench warfare. This is not the only war to use trench warfare, but it was a much bigger conflict than any of the others. Soldiers lived, ate, slept, fought, and died in the trenches. This drove some men crazy. The British troops were forced to stay in a big muddy ditch and listen to millions of shells explode and just hope that the Germans are dying. The Germans were just trying to outlast the bombardment, and they were awaiting the attack of the British infantry. This must have affected their morale a great deal. But the question is, what were effects of the conditions in the trenches on the morale of the soldiers? It is believed that living in the trenches would have greatly hurt the morale of the soldiers because it was such horrible place to be. With the advancement of artillery technology for indirect fire (lobbing bombs onto an enemy rather than shooting directly at him) and the unlimited mass of firepower brought onto the battlefield, soldiers of the First World War quickly found themselves living underground in huge trench/bunker systems for their own survival. Since soldiers were just lobbing bombs towards the enemys trenches, it was necessary to bury oneself as much as possible. So the Germans made massive trenches, some over one hundred and fifty feet deep, to bear the heavy artillery firing of the British. It takes the humanity out of the soldiers lives. They become like little mice just hiding for protection. Their minds tend to stop thinking intellectual thoughts and start becoming all consumed with survival. In a sense they become animals, because that is what separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. Being able to carry on intellectual conversations and have intellectual thoughts is an important part of humanity. Would this have an effect on the morale of the soldiers? Lacking the ability to have these intellectual thoughts, would the soldiers even notice that they are losing their humanity? That is a tough question and it may have no true answer, but it is an important concept to take into consideration when dealing with trench warfare. The conditions of the trenches varied depending on which army you were fighting with. It seems that the Germans were much better prepared for this type of combat, for they had been planning far in advance. The German trench system was much more evolved, and they were prepared to stay there as long as necessary. The British on the other hand thought that the trenches would be temporary. They had planned on advancing soon after arriving. They were unaware that the Germans had anticipated such a move, and they were also unaware that the Germans trenches could with stand such bombardment. Since the British were not prepared to live in their trenches, this left many problems for their soldiers to deal with. When the bombing ceased and the British attacked, the Germans were supposed to already be dead, but to no avail. The Germans had strategically placed their machine guns around so that all the shells that had been coming towards them for the last week did not hit them. This enabled the gunners to slaughter the attacking British soldiers. That was when morale should have hit rock bottom. The troops were being forced out of their temporary homes just to be mowed down by some machine gun they couldnt even see. There is not much humanity in that. That would wear down at ones self esteem and make it hard to want to follow orders. As a result morale would be low. In Paul Fussels book The Great War and Modern Memory, he quotes a soldier named Graves as saying, This paradox made most of the English soldiers serving in the purgatorial trenches lose all respect for organized Pauline religion, though still feeling