“Eye-Deep In Hell: Trench Warfare In World War I” Analysis Book Reviews Example

It is known that there is not a lot told about World War I. People used to concentrate on World War II because of the amount of deaths that it brought and the cruelty that it was followed by. Also, we talk a lot about World War II because it’s a relatively recent war, and some of the people that took part in that are actually still alive today. That is why we do have a lot more evidence about World War II – there is still an opportunity to talk to the eyewitnesses. World War II shocks us with its severity and brutality. However, when it comes to World War I, it becomes clear that no one actually remembers it because it happened more than hundred years ago. Of course, this is not fair to the people that had died fighting the enemy and to those whose family members still remember all of the events of the 1914. In this paper, I’m going to analyze the book called “Eye-Deep in Hell: Trench Warfare in World War I” and describe the forgotten importance of the very first World War in the history of humankind. I’m also going to answer the question of how the use of the trench warfare influenced the behavior of the soldiers and dehumanized them.
Book deeply affected me. It very vibrantly described all the horrors of the World War I, and it is a great example of how messy and ugly wars can get. Sometimes, in the end of it, it’s not even clear who started the war, who was right and who was wrong, but it’s always clear that it carries nothing but death, misery and loss. “Eye-Deep in Hell: Trench Warfare in World War I” talks about how the soldiers lived in trenches. This was a horrible experience for all of them, which, I believe, no writer had discussed before Ellis. We do not really know a lot about the experience of the soldiers who lived in trenched, but Ellis describes it with a very vivid precision. The soldiers who lived there were deeply affected by their living conditions. They had to exist around the sick that didn’t have a single chance to be cured, and around the decomposing corpses. As Ellis describes, the worst came when it was raining. It was not possible to bury the dead, because people had to constantly hide from the enemy, and if they showed up, they would be immediately shot. There was no chance to get rid of the dead whatsoever, and so they remained there with their smell and the diseases that they carried. One of the most vibrant moments that I remember was when Ellis described one corpse that was moving, as the soldiers noticed. When they looked closer at it, they understood that it was moving due to the rats that were eating it from the inside. This sounds just horrible, and as I was reading it, I was actually surprised that no one ever seriously talked about people living in trenches with the dead. It’s surprising how people managed to stay alive in such conditions, where all kinds of diseases ruled, and they breathed the rotten air when they were awake and when they slept. Of course, this atmosphere got into their blood once and forever.
In the beginning of the 20th century, the medical care wasn’t yet highly developed. People didn’t cure from diseases easily. In my opinion, the thought that they got diseases from the dead corpses might have driven some of the soldiers nuts. In “Eye-Deep in Hell: Trench Warfare in World War I”, there is no light; people live in an entire darkness that doesn’t seem to end: they live on the bare ground, which gets wet and smells like rotten dead bodies. Which bright thoughts were these people supposed to have? How could they feel anything like compassion, or love, or admiration? How could they experience feelings like sadness or happiness? In such conditions, only hatred and cold indifference could exist. And that is what people were filled with. They didn’t care about the enemies that they were killing (to me, it didn’t matter whether that was the enemy or not – it was still a slaughter!) and about their dying friends. Soldiers were so used to death that they lost all the humanlike feelings.
We can only imagine how hard it was for them to go back to their families, where they had to love their wives and children, care for them and be examples for them. They had to justify the fact that their families were so proud of them. However, after experiencing such horrible things on everyday basis, they had lost all the good that was in them on the battlefield, and they had to learn to love all over again. Some of them might have never learned that again. Some of them were so used to seeing death that death lost its tragedy for them. Sadly, they couldn’t relate to those who were grieving. It can be surely said that after coexisting with decomposing corpses, the soldiers of the World War I became dehumanized. They were forced to kill and they were forced to live in trenches in spite of the fact that none of them actually needed this war. People were not fighting it for themselves; they were going it because their governments told them to. From the books like “Eye-Deep in Hell: Trench Warfare in World War I”, we get to know the events that were not voiced before.
This paper talked about how the life in trenches affected the soldiers during the World War I. While reading the book, I came to a conclusion that such experience couldn’t just come and go. Of course, it left a deep mark on every personal story of each of those soldiers described by Ellis. Of course, this experience was a personal drama for them, which they had to live with for the rest of their lives. It sounds cruel, but I actually think that it was easier for those who remained on the battlefields forever. They didn’t have to carry the burden anymore. Some of the things get so deeply rooted in people’s hearts that it is not possible to get them out of there ever. I think that the events described in “Eye-Deep in Hell: Trench Warfare in World War I” were like that as well.