The War’s Misery: Attitudes Toward the War

Abstract

In the trenches of the western front millions of ordinary men—British, Germans, French, and Belgians—endured nearly four years of perhaps the most sustained misery in recorded history. If the war’s occurrence could be viewed as evidence of the limitation of reason, then the ability of that hapless creature Everyman to withstand its protracted horrors and discomforts without going stark mad confirms Dostoevski’s observation that “Man is an animal that can become accustomed to anything.”