Psychiatry virtually didn’t exist as a medical speciality before WWI, but the terrible emotional shocks that soldiers suffered on the battlefields allowed this science to evolve at a great speed and help many men and women.
The Great War had a unique relationship with the supernatural. Sightings were all but uncommon on the battlefields, and even on the home front, people turned to the supernatural in search of relief for the grief of their loss. As traditional religious beliefs failed, the supernatural became stronger.
Neutrality in WWI is a complex matter. Nations that managed to remain neutral did so not only because of their choices but also belligerent states had the interest to keep them neutral.
Facial wounds are the particular hell of the Great War. Due to trench warfare characteristics, facial wounds in WWI were more numerous and more terrible than in any conflict before or after. It created severe physical and psychological problems.
It’s the Lost Generation for so many reasons. They lost their lives and their health in the fields of the Great War. They lost their future. They lost their hopes.
All through the Great War and especially after it, Kaiser Wilhelm’s mental conditions were hotly discussed. This argument was used both to explain why Germany dragged Europe in the worst war ever fought and why Germany could not be held responsible for it.
WWI was a terrible setback for journalism. Reporting became propaganda, as hiding was more important than revealing. Newspapers only bloom again after the war.
The Spanish Flu pandemic started in the very last stages of WWI. Historians have long determined that the war indeed factored in the insurgence and spreading of the pandemic. Unprecedented numbers of people moved with modern and faster transportations allowing influenza to spread worldwide at an alarming speed.
The concept of masculinity – just like femininity – went through great change during the hard four years of war. If, on the one hand, the link between masculinity and soldiery become stronger because of the social discourse around patriotism, on the other, the terrible circumstances of trench warfare allowed the emergence of a different,…
Gas was employed massively as a weapon during WWI, and its use was so atrocious that it was prohibited right after the war.
Women’s experience as nurses in WWI factored into the advancement of their social role even after the war. During the war, women proved to be able to do what men did, to sustain the same stress and the same roles. Both women and men brought this knowledge home when the war was over.
The Great War demanded a heavy toll on human life in many different ways, but alongside this, there was another damage we seldom consider: the destruction and ruination of the environment.
It was so heavy and disruptive that its effects can still be felt after 100 years.