Why was the first world war so painful?

Answer 1

The First World War in my opinion was so painful primarily because it was a war where the loss of innocence occurred on a massive scale for the first time. Young men volunteered in their thousands and did not want to miss out on the adventure and wanted to be part of the type of heroic battles that had gone before. Instead they got trench warfare, artillery bombardment, gas, disease and many suffered lifelong mental anguish and most had no idea of what they were fighting for. Compared to other wars so many more countries were involved and in Britain so many young men died that after the war women in their mid 20's had to marry old men or young boys, it was very rare for any family not to have been deeply affected by this war. The old tactics of war where of no use in WW1, trench warfare had been used in the American civil war for the first time so it was not new. The commanders of the British forces on purpose made the soldiers live in the trenches out in the open so they would not get soft, the Germans looked after their men better and were in better shape to fight. When it came to the fighting the artillery did the killing and it was indiscriminate. At that time medical treatment of battlefield casualties was in its early days and disease was responsible for many deaths. The pain of this war lingered on with shell shock destroying many men who would never be the same again. All classes suffered and nothing much was really resolved at the end of the war the winners did not feel like winners and the losers so badly mauled by retributions that the seeds of the next world war had already been sown. What a complete waste of life !!. All down to politics as most wars are.