The first World War was a horrible experience for all sides involved. No
one was immune to the effects of this global conflict and each country was
affected in various ways. However, one area of relative comparison can be
noted in the experiences of the French and German soldiers. In gaining a
better understanding of the French experience, Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et
Decorum Est was particularly useful. Regarding the German soldier’s
experience, various selections from Erice Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the
Western Front proved to be a valuable source of insight. A analysis of the
above mentioned sources, one can note various similarities between the
German and French armies during World War I in the areas of trench warfare,
ill-fated troops, and military technology.
trench warfare was totally unbiased. The trench did not
discriminate between cultures. This “new warfare” was unlike anything the
world had seen before, millions of people died during a war that was
supposed to be over in time for the holidays. Each side entrenched
themselves in makeshift bunkers that attempted to provide protection from
the incoming shells and brave soldiers. After receiving an order to
overtake the enemies bunker, soldiers trounced their way through the land
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Compare the experience of the French, Spanish and English in colonizing New World, What common perception of the region did they share? Discuss difference in their relationship with Native Americans. The history of colonial North America centers primarily on the struggle of England, Spanish, and France to gain control of the continent. Settlers crossed the Atlantic for different reasons, and ...
between the opposing armies that was referred to as “no man’s land.” The
direness of the war was exemplified in a quotation taken from Remarque’s
All Quiet on the Western Front, “Attacks alternate with counter-attacks and
slowly the dead pile up in the field of craters between the trenches. We
are able to bring in most of the wounded that do not lie too far off. But
many have long to wait and we listen to them dying.” (382) After years of
this trench warfare, corpses of both German and French soldiers began to
pile up and soldiers and civilians began to realize the futility of trench
warfare.
However, it was many years before any major thrusts were made along
the Western front. As soldiers past away, recruits were ushered to the
front to replenish the dead and crippled. These recruits were typically not
well prepared for the rigors of war and were very often mowed down due to
their stupidity. Both the French and Germans were guilty of sending
ill-prepared youths to the front under the guise that “It is sweet and
fitting to die for one’s country.” (380) Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est is a
prime example of this “false optimism” created by the military machine in
France to recruit eager new troops to die a hero’s death on the front
lines. Remarque also alluded to the fact incompetent young recruits were
sentence to death. In reference to the young recruits Remarque stated, “It
brings a lump into the throat to see how they go over, and run and fall. A
man would like to spank them, they are so stupid, and to take them by the
arm and lead them away from here where they have no business to be.” (383)
Millions of French and German soldiers, both young and old lost their lives
during this world-wide struggle for survival.
It is not necessary for one to go through an intense amount of
abstraction in order to note similarities in the weaponry each side
employed during the first World War. “Bombardment, barrage, curtain-fire,
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The Schlieffen Plan is commonly - though misleading y - identified with the German western offensive at the start of the First World War in August 1914, which began as a campaign of rapid movement but ended in deadlock and trench warfare. The plan is generally seen as a desperate gamble almost certain to fail, and its recklessness is counted as part of Germany's war guilt - the plan held out the ...
mines, gas, tanks, machine-guns, hand grenades” were all weapons that
served the same purpose. (383) It did not matter if these weapons were in
the hands of German or French soldiers, they all indiscriminately dealt
death to the opposition. Gas was a particularly horrid creation. It would
seeming spring out of the ground without much notice and if one did not
seek the security of a gas mask, dreams would be smothered “under a green
sea” and as one solider stated (in reference to those who were caught up in
the pungent clouds of death) “He plunges at me, guttering, choking,
drowning.” (380) Typical sights for soldiers on any given day were “men
without mouths, without jaws, without faces; we find one man who has held
the artery of his arm in his teeth for two hours in order not to bleed to
death. (384) The destructive weapons of war contributed to the massive
amount of death neither the French nor German army could escape.
Both the accounts looked at in this inquiry unveil a mass of
similarities between German and French soldiers during the First World War.
Based on Remarque’s firsthand encounters with trench warfare in World War I
and Owen’s vivid descriptions of the French soldiers experiences it is
unduly apparent that many perished along the Western front. All of this
death rarely yielded more than a few hundred yards for the “victor.”
However, regarding trench warfare, one could argue that there were no
victors, only losers in a hopeless battle for territorial supremacy.
