Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway

Although England was on the "winning side- at the end of World War I, its soldiers had suffered much on and off of the battlefield. .
             There were many horrors of war, on both sides, encountered by soldiers; among them disillusionment, trench warfare, and poisonous gases. At the beginning of the war, many young men raced to sign up so that they could fight for their country. Often, their involvement in the war was strongly encouraged by authority figures. One example of this is in the movie All Quiet on the Western Front where the teacher gives a patriotic speech about fighting for the fatherland. According to David Dowling, many Europeans went off to war to escape the harsh realities of the industrial revolution "to discover comradeship and the satisfaction of physical labor and risk- (8). Unfortunately, the young soldiers soon found out that war was not glamorous at all. As German soldier, Herbert Sulzbach stated, "We pull forward, get our first glimpse of this battlefield, and have to get used to the terrible scenes and impressions: corpses, corpses and more corpses, rubble, and the remains of villages- (Gilbert 93). In order to cope with these appalling scenes of war, numerous men hardened themselves and turned off their feelings. .
             Trench warfare was one of the distinguishing aspects of World War I. Many battlefields were abundant with deep trenches that held fighting soldiers, dead and alive. These trenches were characterized by being filled with mud and thick water, teeming with disease. Many of the soldiers would contract "trench feet," a condition caused from standing in the damp, mud-filled trenches. This disease will cause the flesh to rot until the surgeon removes the infected, gangrenous foot in order to save the leg. The troops were also subject to catching lice and being bitten by rats. Not only did the mud and filth cause occupational hazards of the infectious type, but the mud would regularly clog the soldiers' rifles.