ABSTRACT
The World Wars played a major role in Wilfred R. Bion's development as a person, as a psychoanalyst and as a thinker. After a short training, Bion joined the front with his tank on 31 July 1917 in the third battle of Ypres and Passchendaele in Belgium, the notorious Salient where 185,000 soldiers lost their lives only to win two to three kilometres. In the autumn of 1917, Bion's battalion was transported from Ypres in Belgium to a small village near Metz in France, opposite to the Hindenburg line. Bion's account of the end of 1917 conveys his feelings of defeated hopelessness at this time. In The Long Weekend he described how when the soldiers were offered unlimited food and beer, some needed a week to get sober. By April 1918, the Germans were breaking through in the North and pushed the front line back. The Battle of Amiens of 8 August was decisive for the outcome of the war.
