Horrors of World War I explained by soldier-poet, music

By Jon Connor, Army Sustainment Command Public AffairsMarch 8, 2012

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1 / 6 Show Caption + Hide Caption – George Eaton, Army Sustainment Command historian, begins his briefing on World War I trench warfare to attendees March 2 at Rock Island Arsenal's Caisson Room. An image of Lt. Wilfred Owen, the British soldier-poet, is shown on the screen. This prese... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
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2 / 6 Show Caption + Hide Caption – An audience of about 60 people listen intently to George Eaton, Army Sustainment Command historian, as he explains the hardships of fighting in trench warfare during World War I at the Hotel Blackhawk March 1. Eaton told the story of a young British... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
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ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, Ill. -- War is hell; its horrors brought to light in literature, art and music.

Usually portrayed as filled with fire and brimstone, hell can also be a cold, wet and very muddy place. At least that's how it was for millions of soldiers fighting in trench warfare, said George Eaton, Army Sustainment Command historian.

Eaton told of the horrific conditions for soldiers during World War I at a presentation at Hotel Blackhawk in downtown Davenport, Iowa, March 1. It was one of two presentations he gave on the subject in support of the Quad-City Symphony Orchestra's March 3-4 performances of Benjamin Britten's 1961 "War Requiem." The other presentation was at Rock Island Arsenal March 2.

War Requiem combines the Requiem Mass with nine poems of a British soldier who fought and died in the war to end all wars.

Incredible as the numbers sound, World War I resulted in the deaths of 8 million soldiers and 20 million wounded, Eaton said. In fact, 75 percent of the 12-million men mobilized by the Russian Army were either killed, wounded or considered mission in action. Likewise for France's mobilized 3.7 million-man Army.

One of the soldiers who fought was Lt. Wilfred Owen, 25, a British infantry officer who was shot dead the week before the Armistice went into effect -- Nov. 11, 1918. Prior to joining the Army, Wilson was a teacher -- an educated man who would eventually convey the agony of war through his poetry.

His poetry related firsthand accounts of the hardships of war being fought in trenches.

"You didn't get to go back home," Eaton said. Back then, when soldiers arrived on the battlefield, they did not go home unless they died or were badly wounded. Once healed , they were sent back to fight.

Eaton initially told his audience of about 60 people that the topic was "not light and bubbly." He stayed true to his word through a series of photographic slides and video clips that depicted the extremely harsh conditions that soldiers endured in that war.

Owen did return home for medical care from an artillery barrage left him "shell shocked." He was diagnosed and treated, sent back to the front lines and eventually killed.

Doctors forced him to write war poetry as a form of therapy, Eaton said.

He did, and it is his sobering account of the war through poetry that lives on, reminding humankind that no one wins in war.

"He was a soldier-poet first," Eaton said.

Owen's diagnosis of shell shock would be the equivalent diagnosis of today's post traumatic stress disorder. Because doctors said he was successfully treated, they sent him back to trench warfare -- a war where soldiers lived in ankle deep water, surrounded by mud. A war where you can't wait to get out of the trench only to be met machine gun fire, mustard gas, and artillery shells in "no man's land," month after month, year after year for the gain or loss of a few hundred feet of land -- with no hope for end in sight.

Forests were devastated and the landscape changed, Eaton said.

"Neither side took technology into account," Eaton said of the British, French, German and Russian ground forces.

The two main factors were machine guns and barbed wire. One made for easy targets and the other all too efficiently took great numbers of men out in a few blinks of the eye.

Owen was trained to be a soldier and an officer. Nothing, however, could've trained him for what was really coming. Owen arrived in France Jan. 1, 1917. It was then that "his whole attitude of the war changes," Eaton said, as Owen experienced combat for the first time.

Owen wrote this upon arriving at the trenches on the frontlines: "…like a paddock where beasts are kept." The men have "a look of set doggedness…not despair, or terror…more terrible than terror…a blindfold look, and without expression, like a dead rabbit."

Owen added that he thought the officers looked harassed and the "men's depression hung on us like weights."

"Because shell shock is a cowardly thing," Eaton said of sentiment back then, Owen expected to be sent back to the war in France to "find gallantry."

His poetry would continue, Eaton said, because Owen thought "war can't kill art."

Owen believed that if he didn't achieve a reputation as a fighter, his work would just be viewed as that of another pacifist.

"I hate washy pacifists as temperamentally as I hate whiskied Prussianists. Therefore I feel I must first get some reputation for gallantry before I can successfully and usefully declare my principles," Owen wrote.

The "romance" of war -- propagated by poets with no experiences whatsoever of trench warfare -- believed by those living comfortably at home -- was a key element in successfully recruiting large armies, Eaton said.

When the war started in 1914, the British Army only had 240,000 regulars and 160,000 territorials. That was a stark contrast to Germany which had 3.8 million and France with 3.7 million soldiers.

But fighting men quickly learned there was nothing romantic in the terrible battlefield conditions. Yet the stories, photographs, and film clips of the war were carefully managed to show a good image of the war, Eaton said.

It was painfully clear to those fighting that recruiting photographs of soldiers smiling in trenches were staged. And that there was nothing glorious in dying when hundreds of soldiers would be mowed down by machine gun fire, or blown to bits by artillery shells.

Owen found his gallantry on Oct. 1, 1918. He was in command of a unit, and while standing in full view of the Germans, Owen turned a captured German machine gun on the enemy line -- he was eventually awarded the Military Cross. In this battle, Owen's orderly bled to death in his arms.

Owen's life ended Nov. 4, 1918, as he was attempting to cross the Oise-Sambre Canal at Ors, France, in a raft. He was shot in the head. A week later on Nov. 11, his mother received word of his death as Great Britain, France and the United States were celebrating the Armistice.

Owen was buried in Ors, on the far side of the canal he died crossing.