'It was the war to end all wars'.

September 1914

It was a beautiful summer day. There was nothing special but it felt different. Maybe it was because I had just heard the news; the news of the Great War.

I was 18 years old. I didn’t really understand anything about the war. You can’t blame me; I lived a normal life with limited information about the world.

I worked in the town’s biggest factory. I didn’t make much but it was enough to sort out my life and sometimes I had some money left to give to my family. My parents worked at home; they were in the clothing business. My younger sister spent her time at school or at home helping mother. It wasn’t the perfect life but I was happy with the way things were going. At least I was till that beautiful summer day. I was going home from the factory when something caught my eye. There were hundreds of men in a queue; they were from 14 to 45 years old. I went closer to read the signs. That was when I realised; these men were here to sign up for the war. This proved to me the seriousness of this battle. I stepped back to look at them. Some looked happy and enthusiastic, as if they’re going on a fun trip, leaving their boring lives and jobs behind. Some of them looked scared and pressured, as if they were forced to come. For some reason I felt something inside me, didn’t know what it was at the time but I had a feeling things were about to change.

That evening on the way home I saw posters and signs all around the place (there was a picture of a man pointing forward and under it said ‘your country needs you’), it was like they were all pointing at me. I tried to ignore them till I got home.

My mum was standing there, looking at me. There was something in her eyes, she was about to say something but she didn’t have to, cause’ it hit me; I knew what that feeling was. I was one of them. I was meant to be in the queue; in the war.

The next day when I woke up, I didn’t feel awake I was half sleep. When I managed to think straight again, I found myself outside the sign up office, standing next to my father. We were both signed up. I looked at the papers in my hand; it was real, I was awake and I was part of the war. That’s how it begun.

In a matter of days I was there. There were so many of us, we all had uniforms and rifles. We were all trained for a short time and we were ready for war. I was scared more than I’ve ever been before in my life, I didn’t want to be here but I had no choice now, there was no going back from here. I was at the western front.

My dad was sent to another part of the war. I didn’t know where exactly but it was somewhere closer to home.

January 1915

As days went by in the western front, I was catching up with the things I didn’t know. Most people that knew about the war were saying that the reason this battle triggered was one man, Gavrilla Principe. Principe was a student from Serbia that later assassinated the prince of Austria-Hungary. No one knows whether he was hired by the Serbian government or not, but Austria-Hungary thought of this as an act of war and declared war on Serbia. Serbia was a small and weak country but had a strong ally, Russia. The Russians declared war on Austria-Hungary, Germany being an ally of Austria-Hungary, declared war on Russia. Russia wasn’t alone in the war either; at this point France entered the battlefield and declared war on Germany and that’s why they blamed Gavrilla Principe for all of this. But when I thought about It, it wasn’t all because of Principe; before the war started all of these powerful countries had their long-term problems with each other, these problems were industry, navy, land, the empires and the fight over the Balkans.

If even Principe hadn’t done the assassination, something else would’ve started the war.

We entered the war later because of the Schliefen plan. Schliefen was Germany’s plan of attack on France by going through Belgium. Britain had a treaty promising to help Belgium if it was attacked. That’s why we declared war on Germany.

This was the first time the world had seen a war like this, with many countries that fought against each other with all these new weapons, and so many lives lost as the result.

At the start of the war, we were taken to the ...

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If even Principe hadn’t done the assassination, something else would’ve started the war.

This was the first time the world had seen a war like this, with many countries that fought against each other with all these new weapons, and so many lives lost as the result.

At the start of the war, we were taken to the reserve trenches but later we were moved to the front. The trenches were dug in long lines, hundred meters apart from each other. In the western front the British and French trenches were on one side and the German’s on the other, and the land between was called No Man’s Land. This area was a place where you wouldn’t come back from; all of the trenches had a clear shot on this land.

Where was I? Oh yes. The trenches, these holes were our homes in the war. Sand bags to keep the mud from coming in and barbed wire to repel the enemy surrounded the trenches. Inside we had a dugout that kept the beds, food, ammunition and our stuff. There was a fire step that we could stand on to shoot the enemy coming on foot, and then there was the champion of war, the machine gun. Machine guns were the perfect weapon at the time, it shot 600 bullets a minute and we didn’t have to load it every minute. It wasn’t the best house but kept us alive. Like any other house, the trenches had their problems; first there was the mud, dirt and microbes everywhere, you could get diseases from doing anything. One of the diseases was trench-foot, when your feet went septic and sometimes had to be cut off. Thanks god I never had that diseases. But that wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to you, there was always shell-shock. That’s when you go mentally ill from the sound of the shells; you wouldn’t be able to do anything not to mention having to fight. I remember a guy called peter; he was a good guy, proud of fighting for his country. He would talk to me about good things of life and that kind of stuff, just so that I don’t loose hope. The poor guy couldn’t take the noise no more; he went crazy, started asking for his family, shouting in the middle of night and that sort of crazy things.

December 1915

Not we didn’t have enough health problems, we had these friends that will make sure we wouldn’t walk out of the war in one piece; these good friends were rats and lice. The rats ate our food and the dead bodies and they helped to carry the diseases around. Lice were everywhere; you could count hundreds of them on your body. Sometimes I dreamt of lice, they were our biggest enemies after the Germans. We couldn’t care that much about our health with the war and everything but some of the soldiers would actually try to get diseases so they would be taken back from the western front; they sickened me.

Life in the western front wasn’t all about war; we had other things to take care of. One third of the soldiers had to go back to the support trenches to bring food, letters and ammunition; most of them were hit on the way, that meant we had to starve for days, didn’t receive any letters from home and would run out of ammunition;( and if they could get back, there was no Christmas day meal, all we got was tinned beef, stale biscuits and bread. We had the same thing everyday; it was hell.)

One third of the men had to spent days just fixing the trenches; the trenches were a mess after a close shell or an attack from the enemy. (we were practically crawling in the mud.)

The other third of the soldiers where on sentry duty, that meant staying guard. That was what I had to do. I use to patrol in a line while holding my rifle (the more time you spent on sentry duty, you felt like your eyes are getting stronger; maybe it was just me.) we also had to clean our weapons every day, a dirty weapon could cost a soldiers life; trust me I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

More and more soldiers were dieing everyday, it was becoming a daily routine to see your fellow fighters die in front of you; it felt terrible. But nothing would stop this and the slaughter kept increasing when the new weapons came to war; first there was the machine guns and the shells but that wasn’t enough for the war, so the British and he Germans brought new stronger weapons like gases. There were two kinds, chlorine and mustard gas. These were chemical poisonous gases and led to the most painful death if it was breathed in or absorbed through the skin. Then came the tanks, this monstrous weapon was the perfect thing for more destruction, the tank could easily get to the enemy trenches without getting stuck in the barbed wires or something else. It could shoot bullets and shells; it was hard and strong for protection. But even the mighty tank broke down a lot, they said it was because the tanks weren’t complete yet and they still had to work on it.

October 1916

No matter how many soldiers there are in war, you are always alone. You are away from home and you can’t do anything about it. We had to fight all day and night, we had to suffer from many things and still try to stay alive, and there was no one to talk to. People at home didn’t know what’s happening down here. I wrote letters for my family any chance I could get. Our letters didn’t make it past the trenches but there times when the letters were sent home. I used to complain in my letters about how bad the war is, how close I am to give up and other things about the environment and the conditions, but whenever I received a letter from home it was like they didn’t know what I’ve wrote for them at all, it sounded like they thought I wasn’t having a bad time. There was this crazy guy in the trenches he used to say to me that some people censored our letters before they were taken back to Britain. I never believed that guy, well, I was starting to feel suspicious. I asked around for a while, I wanted the people in Britain to know the truth somehow. As I talked to some people I met this guy that told me ‘‘when you get sent home, they would order you not to tell anyone about the truth of war’’. That was when I realised the crazy guy was right; the letters didn’t get home the same way we wrote them. Why else aren’t we allowed to tell people when we go home? After the war I found out the whole truth about the censorship. (In one of the letters at home my mum wrote that in Britain women would walk in the streets and put white feathers in the hands of the men that weren’t in uniform.)

I looked at those people there, writing their letters, thinking that their families are goanna feel sorry about them and try to help them, if they know the truth; the poor guys didn’t know that no one knows the truth. I didn’t tell anyone about this, I figured it didn’t matter; there was nothing I could do about it.

June 1917

I was getting stronger and used to the hard and tough life. I was faster with my riffle and the machine gun. I was becoming a real man, the war made me different from before. But as good things where added to me other things were being subtracted. I was slowly losing my feelings; the war would leave you dead inside.

The war continued with the soldiers fighting with all their power, giving their lives to protect their country. This war was a new thing to everyone; even the generals didn’t know what to do. With No Man’s Land in between the two sides, there was no way to capture the enemy trenches. So the generals came up with the idea of Attrition. That meant trying to wear down the enemy by attacking their trenches on foot, over and over again; hoping that the enemy’s supply of soldiers and guns run out before our own.

This was the worst thing that happened to us in the war, it was suicide. This act of idiotic leadership proved that the generals where using our lives as their weapons.

No wonder the soldiers of the war were called ‘Lions Led By Donkeys’.

They would force us to fight, to run down No Man’s Land, when they knew that there was no chance for us to reach the enemy. The soldiers had lost hope, there was no reason left to fight; they were giving up, I was giving up.

The inexperienced commanders, the bad conditions and the poorly organised war led to angry and frustrated soldiers who would rebel against those in charge (these people where called mutineers) or ran away from their post and the commanders (these people were called deserters). Soldiers who deserted or mutinied were shot. The army wanted to make it a lesson to every one. They would make us think that rebelling or running away was worse than taking part in the war. I was very close to join the mutineers but something always told me that it was wrong that I shouldn’t get involved in something that I would regret one day. We were the nations protection they were depending on us. If we didn’t fight, no one would.

I stayed and held to what I believed and I continued to fight. There were times that I thought this war was not to end.

I was told about an organisation of men who refused to fight cause’ their conscience didn’t allowed them to. They were called the Conscientious objectors. At first I hated them and I felt angry about the idea of us fighting out there while all they did was talk. Later I learned that these men weren’t cowards. They showed great bravery when they went to the front and worked as bearers and support work in the trenches.

November 1918

I was getting tired of the war. It was just too long. Too much death, destruction and loneliness. I can’t say how but I could feel that every other soldier I the world was tired of fighting. So many of us ran away or got killed tying to. A lot of them died through the attrition attacks. Some would volunteer and the rest were force to or just wanted to get it over with. We had no chance of surviving. It was the 8th of the month, I haven’t had a letter from home in months, there was no food for days and we were slowly running out of ammunition and we were so close to give up the battle.

It was another normal day in the western front; most of the trenches on both sides were destroyed. No man’s land was a lot deeper due to the shells hitting the ground.

Like all the other days, everyone did their jobs, there were the attacks, and the defending and then there was still the attrition. I was sitting there and looking at them getting ready for their attack on foot across no man’s land. I don’t know why but I got up and walked up to them. Some people thought I was crazy or just wanted to die, and you know what? For a second there I did want to die. I volunteered for the attrition. Some of my friends and people I knew also came. We were all cold and motionless.

It was time. We ran out of the trenches and towards the enemy; this attack was different. Fewer soldiers were dieing, they knew what they had to do, and they were experienced. I was shooting faster than I’ve ever shot before. I could smell the enemy; the war had turned me into a man, I was no more the person that left home for war. I could see my friends and fellow soldiers fall as they advanced towards the Germans, but I didn’t feel anymore it felt normal; death was part of us.

Suddenly I realised that we were closer than I thought; we could see the German trenches. Some of the troops got to the trenches and jumped in them and the fight really began. When I got there, I froze for a second; all of the our soldiers were down. The German trenches were mostly destroyed and he rest of their troops were pulling back very fast. I knew there would be more attacks from our side in few minutes. I looked closer in the trenches; there was one German. Before I could raise my gun, he shot me over my waist. I fell to the ground, for a minute I thought I was dead. The German soldier was also injured; he walked up to me with his rifle. He aimed at me and said something in German, but I didn’t let him finish it. I had my gun slightly raised on my side; I tuned around as quickly as possible and shot him right in the neck and he was out cold.

The next thing I remember was the support trench. I was patched up and the bleeding had just stopped. I looked around; there was a guy over there.

‘ What happened? Did we get the trenches?’ I asked.

‘ Yes. They’ve all pulled back.’ He answered. That was best thing I have heard in weeks.

We were pulled back after a few days. I didn’t know what was going on. On the way back I was told about it. At first I couldn’t believe it, took me sometime to even make sense out of the idea. The War Was Over.

I didn’t know how it happened but I figure it out; the German troops in the western front were on the run, the allies no longer wanted to fight and back in Germany there were riots in the streets when people had reached the breaking point. The Germans had no choice but to accept defeat and hope for lenient terms from the allies. So that was it; at 11 am on 11th November 1918, the First World War came to end when the Germans surrounded. Soldiers were getting killed till the last minute.

I couldn’t believe it; all of the suffering was over, we were free and back to our lives but none of us were the same again.

It’s true, the war wasn’t forgotten but it wasn’t remembered in the right way. The are the war memorials, the ceremonies each year and pictures, but no one will ever know how it felt; sleeping and waking up with the sound of the shells, the cold and mud, the loneliness, having to fear for your life every second and trying to remember that if you don’t fight your country will fall.

The war changed us from boys into men; it made us brave, fast, deadly, cold, motionless. We were dead but we were victorious.