This was a common condition suffered by soldiers in World War I. By World War II, it was more often called Battle Fatigue. Now it is known as Traumatic Stress Disorder (while still in battle) or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (when the symptoms reappear later).

The simplest explanation is the story of the three stages someone in combat goes through. The "can't, could, and will" stages.

In the "can't" stage, the young and eager soldier knows he can't die. His side is better and stronger than the other side, and the good guys always win.

In the "could" stage, he's seen enough others on his side die now to know that he could die, but believes that so long as he is careful, does the right things, and doesn't goof up, he won't die.

In the "will" stage, he's seen enough careful soldiers doing the right things who also don't goof up - but also die - to now know that death is going to come to everyone, and that the longer he is there, the more likely it becomes. He knows now that it is inevitable, and is on some level just waiting to die.

At this point, he needs to be taken off of the battle field.
Shell Shock was a term used during the First World War to describe the psychological trauma suffered by men serving on the war's key battlefronts - France, Flanders, along the Isonzo and in Gallipoli.

The intensity of the essentially artillery battles fought along these war fronts - most notably in France and Flanders; hence the tag popularly applied to the disorder - often caused neurotic cracks to appear in otherwise mentally stable soldiers.

Men who saw service of any great length on an active front quickly came to recognise the symptoms of shell shock among their fellow men. Recognition in the form of military authority was rather slower to develop. At first shell shock victims were believed to be suffering from the direct physical effects of shell blasts, or from a form of monoxide poisoning.

Symptoms varied widely in intensity, ranging from moderate panic attacks - which sometimes caused men to flee the battlefield: a crime which was invariably regarded as rank cowardice and which resulted in a court martial for desertion - to effective mental and physical paralysis.

Sent home to recover many shell shock victims recovered over time, whereas many others continued to feel its effects for years afterwards.

Treatment for shell shock was primitive at best and dangerous at worst; psychological theories governing its treatment developed only gradually. Reliable figures relating to the total number of shell shock sufferers are not available.

Click here to read W H Rivers' 1917 paper, The Repression of War Experience, in which he details the treatment of shell shock, including illustrative cases.

Shell Shock is what we would call today "Battle Fatigue" or "Battle Exhaustion", both of which are far better descriptions of what is really happening.

The name "Shell Shock" came from the belief that it was caused by the concussion of shells exploding nearby rattling the brain inside the skull, causing the neurological symptoms.

The reality is that Shell Shock was applied to virtually anyone who showed symptoms of reluctance to fight. We now recognize that modern warfare causes huge psychological damage to any human being, from a whole variety of sources. All human beings have a limit as to the amount of psychological trauma they can sustain; exposure to warfare can bit-by-bit chip away at this reserve of mental endurance, until it finally becomes too much, and the person starts to exhibit varieties of mental illness symptoms. We do not understand why some people can take more than others, nor why certain things cause more stress on people than other experiences. But what we do know is that all humans have limits of mental endurance, and that mental illness invariably follows once these limits have been exceeded.

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