Essay Database

Britain's declaration of war upon Germany in 1914 was an act that was to significantly change people's views on war. The First World War was a war of new technology, but old tactics. Generals commanded their men as if any serious damage could only be done at close range (as had previously been the case), failing to notice that the recently developed machine guns could simply sweep across fields and gun down whole companies of men …

…describe or even imagine what the experience must have been like without having been there. Indeed, veterans of the First World War have said it is not possible to properly tell of the true horror that the war was, and certainly not to imagine what it must have been like. The fact that they say this alone magnifies the dark visions that one thinks up tenfold, and still they are probably not quite gruesome enough.