The Experience of War
The nature of the Great War was one of horrible conditions the soldiers on the front line had to endure and the suffering of the civilian population at home. In the passage 'The Experience of War', we are given a first hand look into the conditions that both the soldier and the civilian had to go through during this difficult time. The letter from the soldier expresses his concern over the losses his regiment incurs as well as how the newspapers glorify what is happening on the battlefield. The excerpt from the diary of the Viennese women explains in detail the dilemma that the civilian population had to go through just to get a small serving of horsemeat and the civil unrest associated with it. World War I was an experience that educated all people on the home front as to the gruesome conditions that the soldiers had to go through during times of conflict. The media of the time presented the war as a "romantic endeavour", an adventure that all men should not want to miss. This could not have been farther from the truth. Life in the trenches, on the front lines of the war was intolerable. Men sleeping in the wet mud, with little or no shelter, artillery smashing the earth all around you with their massive concussions and t
To the woman in the passage this incident really does not seem to be out of the ordinary at all when she says that it was "perfectly natural". The soldier in the passage is one of those unlucky men picked to defend a captured enemy trench. It bears His seal and is altogether His. This gives us an indication what the atmosphere was like for most people living in Vienna during the war. "They passed the time by chattering", their conversations would mainly consist of what they have eaten and what they were going to eat. Acts of violence and unruly behaviour must have been a daily occurrence for a riot to appear as normal to someone. From the sounds of the woman's diary there must have been a lot of social tension, possibly from the worry of being labelled a spy or thrown in jail for speaking about things that the government didn't want people to be talking about. There was rationing of many goods, which meant that there was less to go around to the general population. This passages describes how food shortages became such a concern in the area around Vienna that the army started to slaughter reserve calvary horses to try to help relieve the problem. All around him, everyday, his comrades are killed and wounded protecting that tiny section of land. They would only tell of the great victories that their powerful army had won, and yet nothing about the thousands of men who died conquering a few kilometres of broken wasteland. The civilian population at home had no idea of the horrible events that occurred on the front lines until well after the war. For those hit by an artillery shell their bodies would be "horribly mutilated", and for those that had the misfortune to look upon them, it would be quite a ghastly sight.
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