ABSTRACT
Battle narrative is among the oldest forms of storytelling. Through the epic, it has defined heroism and martial masculinity and told the tale of social groups from tribes to empires and nations. It has also figured prominently in painting and sculpture. Yet the Great War confronted those fighting it with multiple shifts in perspective and cognition. In a democratic age, the hero was less the commanding general (who rarely fought) than the collective common soldier. Moreover, the kind of war he confronted defied prior understandings of combat since it involved the stalemate of trench warfare and unprecedented levels of death and destruction. This chapter explores how, and how much, the verbal and visual languages of battle changed during the Great War, with particular reference to the great encounters of 1916 in the west, Verdun and the Somme.
