Technology in relation to war has always been a determining factor in the outcome of battle, and no war reflects this relationship as much as the First World War. In preparation for the war, there was a plethora of opportunity for young inventors and factories to produce revolutionary machinery following the Industrial Revolution. The creation of weapons became an industry, and factories rushed to produce killing devices. Machine guns and rifles were designed for trench warfare and had the ability to kill far faster than any weapon previously created. Yet, as advanced as the machines were, the mentality of how a war should be fought was still rooted in the Nineteenth Century military tactics. The war tactics of the American military were fairly simplistic compared to the advanced weaponry it was using, and “improvements in artillery and the proliferation of machine guns made offensive warfare a bloody business.”1 Due to the primitive fighting tactics of trench warfare and the advances in technology, World War I was not just ‘bloody business;’ it was a brutal blood bath that shocked the military as well as the entire human race.

Trench warfare is usually attributed to the Germans who successfully used it in 1914 by blocking British forces to create a stalemate at Chemin des Dames Ridge.2 Trenches were designed with a high front and lower back, lined with sandbags and usually dug in a zig-zag pattern, so that soldiers could fire at the enemy without exposing their entire bodies.3 Trenches were in no way a glorious place to be. They were dark and cold, often flooded and rat infested, and as one historian concludes, “there were actually occasions where men had to stand for days on end up to their waists, or even their armpits, in freezing water. Usually the water mixed with the earth in the trenches and turned to thick mud, making each step an effort.”4 Soldiers were supposed to stay in the trenches for no more than four days, but this rarely happened, and many men spent over two months straight in the trenches.5 The strategy was to outlast the enemy, attack (usually at night) and conquer military personnel in the opposite trenches. However, this mainly resulted in deadlock fighting and immense casualties.

trenches

Despite the use of trenches, military officers used the strategy of direct frontal assault, ordering troops to charge the enemies in the opposite trench. Getting through No Man’s Land, the few hundred yards in between the two trenches, was nearly impossible. Machine guns, amongst other barriers men had to pass, waited in the opposite trenches to pick off charging soldiers one by one. No Man’s Land was often a ghastly landscape of mutilated, bullet-ridden bodies tangled in barbed wire. Such ill-advanced military strategy caused horrifying casualty rates. For example, in the battle of Verdun in 1916, the French lost approximately 360,000 men and the Germans lost approximately 340,000 men.6 These horrifying numbers are a direct result of the juxtaposition of advanced weaponry and archaic military strategy.

barbed wire entaglements

New weapons like the machine gun and quick firing rifle also contributed to the bloody atrocities of World War I. The machine gun allowed a soldier to fire with immense speed and accuracy. Any combatant venturing out into No Man’s Land was an easy target for the machine guns that could fire from great distances. Machine guns were the most effective killing machines the world had seen and were a main contributor to the war’s extremely high casualty rate. Rifles and machine guns became even deadlier when used with the newly created sniper scope. Sniper scopes enabled men to fire from below the trench and pick off soldiers on the opposing side.7 Fear of the enemy raiding a trench at night when it was difficult to see, sparked the invention of a tripwire that would activate a series of rifles, fixed in zones susceptible to enemy penetration.8 Unfortunately, every technological advance in weaponry was misplaced in a war where strategy and military intelligence had not progressed.9 The advances in technology of weaponry resulted in the deaths of millions of soldiers for both the Allied forces and the Central Powers. The American military was ill prepared for the effects of these advanced weapons and failed to recognize their tactical failures.

machine gun

The objective to win World War I was to break the deadlock fighting of trench warfare and attack. This proved to be a near suicide of thousands of men because the majority of weapons aimed towards the charging soldiers in No Man’s Land. Unfortunately, the generals during this war did not realize that attacking with only a strong will to win was in no way a match for the powerful weapons that were waiting in the defending trench.10 This meant that not only did generals of both sides fight with an outmoded tactical approach, but also with an outmoded expectation of “good soldiering.” According to one historian, generals “relied upon old-style frontal infantry assaults, and by their contempt for defensive firepower, they were responsible for the horrifying casualty returns of the great set-piece battles.”11 Once a soldier stepped up out of the trench to charge, he was an easy target for the machine guns and grenades that fired upon No Man’s Land. Living with the horror of dying or being horribly maimed, soldiers struggled with their private fears.12 Any war can bring immense amounts of psychological damage to soldiers, but WWI brought shock and uncertainties to the men that fought in it because it was unclear what was being accomplished in attacks except for the mutilation and murder of millions of men.13 Soldiers were not prepared for the consequences of fighting in the way they were ordered to, and according to one historian, “the horrific nature of the war hardened hearts and caused belligerents to demonize their enemies.”14 

The combination of trench warfare, irrational tactics, and newly designed technological weapons led to a gruesome world war that initiated many of the bloody wars that followed.  The accuracy of the machine gun “ultimately dictated those ‘laws’ that regulated life and death at the front,” according to one analysis.15 With life and death belonging to a machine with no moral or humane conscious, it is no wonder that the war exterminated as many young men as it did. It is often difficult to justify death in war, but it seems that the brutality of World War I could have been prevented if the tactics of the generals and military personnel would have matched the minds who invented the revolutionary weapons. According to historian Eric Leed, “The central contradiction of trench warfare, a contradiction that came to define the deepest emotional responses of those living within the defensive system, arose from problems inherent in the technology of war.”16 In other words, the inconsistency of trench warfare tactics combined with weaponry advancement led to a controversial psyche for the soldiers fighting. So what was the fate of those soldiers who survived the ghastly war? Could they ever obtain a reverberation of peace? Or was peace during and after World War I a lost cause for the men who suffered in its blood covered battlefields?

1 Robert H Zieger, America’s Great War: World War I and the American Experience (Maryland: Roman and Littlefield Publishers INC. 2000) p. 28.

2 John Ellis, Eye-Deep in Hell: Trench Warfare in World War I (New York: Pantheon Books 1976) p. 10.

3 John Ellis, Eye-Deep in Hell, 1976.

4 Ibid., p. 44.

5 Ibid., p. 28.

6 The Battle of Verdun-1916, May 2005, http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/battle_of_verdun.htm.  Internet, accessed 1 December 2005.

7 Anthony Saunders, Dominating the Enemy: War in the Trenches 1914-1918  (Thrupp: Sutton 2000)

p. 100.

8 Ibid., p. 128.

9 The American military used tactics similar to that of the Civil War, which was a war that also faced issues of advanced weaponry versus ill-advanced military tactic. The reason for so many amputations in the Civil War was because of the new designed bullets that lodged into soldiers from close range combat.

10 John Ellis, Eye-Deep in Hell, p. 86.

11 Ibid., p. 80.

12 Ibid., p. 96.

13 Ibid., p. 96.

14 Robert Zieger, America’s Great War, p. 29.

15 Eric J. Leed, No Man’s Land: Combat and Identity in World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1979) p.97.

16 Ibid., p. 100.

World War I: Peace through the Eyes of Soldiers

As in nearly every war, World War I had various echoes of peace heard through anti-war organizations and peace movements. These organizations hoped to achieve peaceful societies. As Progressives, many peace leaders wanted to make a change towards peace on the social level instead of the individual level. Because they focused on social issues, they often neglected to address the needs of soldiers who participated in the Great War. For example Jane Addams organized the Women’s Peace Party in 1915, which held conferences worldwide with other women fighting for peace.1 She organized the first anti-war parade in New York City and, as will be discussed later, used literature to promote the ideas of the WPP. According to one historian, “poetry . . . was one of the few modes of public pronouncement that permitted women an active role, and the WPP used poetry extensively.”2 The WPP wanted to spread their ideas about peace to citizens still on American soil that could have an effect on politics. Although her efforts were admirable, she paid no attention to individuals, more specifically soldiers, who were looking for peace as well.

In addition to the WPP, the American Union Against Militarism also opposed American military involvement in World War I.3 Led by Roger Nash Baldwin, the AUAM was the largest U.S. anti-war organization and focused on preserving the civil liberties of citizens, especially those opposed to the harsh tactics of the military.4 According to many historians, Baldwin “considered himself a convinced pacifist, opposed to all wars and a willing participant in none.”5  He did not agree with the institution of the military and their tactics of training men to kill. Baldwin and the AUAM worked to promote peace in the military and encourage men not to join. Yet again, like the WPP, AUAM concentrated on basic rights including freedom of speech in the military, but soldiers who chose to fight or were drafted and forced to fight were forgotten.

Everyone involved in these peace movements attempted to prevent the horrors of war, but what happened to the soldiers who were actually fighting the war? It is often assumed that individuals involved in the military must not agree with the literal meaning of peace: the absence of war or other hostilities.6 However can peace not also be a harmonious relationship where one is content with his/her inner self? Mark Van Wienen makes the argument that “the military was not, and never has been, the most likely place to find opponents of war and critics of patriotism,” which is a common assumption that insinuates that the military does not support peace.7 However, just because men fought and killed in the gruesome war, does not exclude them from the mass amounts of people that hoped and still hope for peace worldwide. Post World War I, veterans of the war struggled to find peace within themselves as well as in society, and there was no peace movement or organization designed to assist them. I would like to uncover the harsh psychological damage the soldiers went through during and following the war due to the brutality of deaths they witnessed, and how they attempted to achieve an inner peace.

The idea of peace in relation to resolution and peace of mind is something that many soldiers search for when they return from battle. World War I was no doubt the first modern war because of the advances in technology, but as one historian argues, it was also a war that mobilized the logic that war existed as an alternative to life in civil society.8 This meant that society pressured these young men to glorify war and treat it as an alternate job that was now over, which was nearly impossible for men who had seen mutilation from barbed wires, blown up bodies and diseased soldiers dead in mucky trench water. According to Eric Leed, “in war, combatants learned that there [was] only an industrial world, the reality of which defined them in war much more than it had in peace.”9 Many soldiers returned consumed by the mechanical psyche that had occupied their minds and could relate more to this mentality than to the idea of peace. So how were veterans supposed to come home and begin living peacefully again when they had lived in a haze of violence for so long?

Usually, peace movements are most active during the height of the conflict, but peace efforts after war are rarely developed. When WWI ended on Nov. 11, 1918 so did many peace movements that were protesting fighting and combat. In my research, I was unable to find any United States group or organization that targeted helping combatants find peace after being shell-shocked from such a horrific war. Maybe this was because the U.S. entered the war so late and many assumed that our soldiers did not experience as much as some European soldiers. Maybe it could be because many Progressives tended to focus more on social issues rather than individual issues. Or it could be simply that Americans, including members of peace movements, viewed soldiers as dispensable and powerless and therefore unimportant to their overall vision. Regardless, society seemed to assume that the soldier would easily blend back into the culture, and they were only used as examples for further peace movements as to why the human race should not wage war against each other. As Leed argues, “In peace, as in war, [the soldier] was to become an instrument of some mysterious, unspecified fate.”10 In other words just like they had been used as bodies to fight in ridiculous ways against all powerful weapons, during peace they were also used as bodies that only modeled what a horrific war can do to mankind. This brings war and peace, two entities which we often consider to be opposites, together, and confuses combatants who feel their role in peace is the same as their role in war: instruments to be played by others and their objectives.

One form of protesting the war that did focus on the psyche of the soldiers, was the literature with anti-war sentiment that emerged after World War I. Various American writers, including Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner and T.S. Eliot, moved to Europe where they grew popular with their devastating war stories.11 As many literary historians have suggested, these authors “contributed to the pacifist movement during the 1930s and had a lasting effect on public attitudes toward modern warfare.”12 Through their writings, many of these ex-soldiers or personnel of WWI were able to express their thoughts of peace based on the massive killings they witnessed. Hemingway once stated the war to be a “senseless slaughter.”13  Pound was another powerful voice who wrote shocking poetry about men on the western front including lines like men “walked eye-deep in hell/believing in old men’s lies.”14 Pound’s profound political beliefs made various references to war as being unnecessary and a crime to mankind.15 Powerful messages like this embedded in literature, conveyed the importance of peace worldwide in forms much more personal than a peace movement. A book or poem can reach individuals on a personal level because it reveals inner thoughts and individual lives of characters. This connects people more passionately and intimately to the idea than an anti-war parade or rally. Literature was a way in which these men scarred by the images of the war could find their inner peace.

World War I, a war where technology of weapons far advanced tactical strategy, left soldiers with devastated personas. American society as a whole was unaware of these painful experiences and did not provide answers of peace for soldiers as they provided answers of peace for war. Literature was a main way in which many veterans could express their hatred towards the war as well as their belief in promotion of peace.

Political involvement was also another release for WWI veterans searching for peaceful resolutions. Unfortunately, like Michael True argues, many people assumed that for the soldiers, the “aberrancies of war would work themselves out in peace time,”16 which many times never happened. When we search for answers to peace and resolutions to conflict we should not forget the men who first hand experienced this conflict. Being involved in war does not mean one does not deserve to have peace, whether it is contentment in one’s life or an actual peace agreement to cease fighting. World War I was a key example of a war where this idea was overlooked and soldiers were left groping in the dark to find a beacon of peace.

1 Maura Sullivan, “Social Work’s Legacy of Peace: Echoes from the Early 20th Century,” Social Work 38 (1993): 513-520.

2 Mark W. Van Wienen, Partisans and Poets: The Political Work of American Poetry in the Great War (New York: Cambridge University Press 1997) p. 41.

3 Robert H. Zieger, America’s Great War: World War I and the American Experience (Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield 2000) p.36.

4 Robert C. Cotrell, “Roger Nash Baldwin, The national Civil Liberties Bureau and Intelligence During World War I,” Historian 60, no. 1 (Fall 97)

5 Robert C. Cotrell, Roger Nash Baldwin and the American Civil Liberties Union (New York: Columbia  University Press 2000) p. 47.

6 http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=peace. Internet, accessed 9 November 2005.

7 Mark W. Van Wienan, Partisans and Poets: The Political Work of American Poetry in the Great War,  p. 107.

8 Eric J. Leed, No Man’s Land: Combat and Identity in World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University

1976) p. 193.

9 Ibid, p. 94.

10 Ibid, p. 199.

11 Michael True, “Draft Resistance and the Labor Movement,” An Energy Field More Intense than War (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press 1995) p. 37-56.

12 Ibid, p. 59.

13 Qtd. in Ibid, p. 61.

14 Qtd. in Ibid, p.61

15 Voices and Visions: Ezra Pound Vol. 10 Prod. Ammenberg/CPB collection. Videocassette. 1988.

16 Michael True, “Draft Resistance and the Labor Movement,” in An Energy Field More Intense than War,  p.188.