1915). When the war bogged down into a stalemate in the fall of 1914, both sides literally dug in with a military strategy known as trench warfare.
In this form of combat soldiers were burrowed into tunnels and faced frontal attacks by those hoping to root them out of the trenches. We see in many firsthand accounts of war from the era how psychologically devastating such a casualty-prone strategy was on those who manned the trenches. From lice, trench foot, alcohol abuse, and dysentery in the trenches, to shell-fire, gas attacks, and bombardment from outside the trenches, life in the trenches was sheer psychological hell. In his account of this lifestyle, a violinist recounts his four weeks in the trenches during WWI when even horses were a deadly threat from the vantage point of the trenches: “My next sensation was a crushing pain in my shoulder, struck by the hoof of a horse, and a sharp knife pain in my right thigh. I fired my revolver above me and then lost consciousness” (Kreisler 1940).
The military tactics of those against the allies caused irreparable psychological damage in many citizens of Great Britain. The Great Zeppelin raid by German forces is one such military attack that caused great loss of life, including civilian casualties, and scarred many individuals for life. In a letter written by Tom Morgan we get a glimpse of such psychological horrors am
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