The War

Abstract

The zones of war that conditioned the lives and possible deaths of the combatants were shaped by a number of fundamental elements, experiences and sensibilities. These included the primal trenches themselves, followed closely by barbed wire and the other new technologies of death, such as gas, the tank and the bewildering variety of artillery and other munitions the war spawned. Common experiences of the front included the ration party, the comforts, billets and the monotony that pervaded the lives of soldiers much of the time. Ultimately and incessantly there was the experience of death, both dealing with it when comrades — sometimes even the enemy — were killed and coping with the strong possibility that you would be the next to ‘go west.’ The means and modes to articulate extinction had to be found. They were provided by the trench press, which drew from the experiences that constituted the narrative terrain of the war and transformed them into the iconic images and expressions of the war.

I’ll never forget the first whizz-bang I heard. It seemed screaming beside my ear. My hair stood so stiff I think I could have broken it off.

US Marine, AEF in The Devil-Dog April 26, 1919