ABSTRACT
Three quarters of a million british soldiers died in World War I. Nearly 2 million more were wounded, hundreds of thousands hopelessly maimed and disfigured. Many suffered war's newest curse, shell shock, and spent years in mental hospitals. Shock of all kinds lodged itself in the memories of frontline soldiers, the shock of the most horrible of wars, of muddy trenches, murderous shell fire, the constant fear of death, the tediousness of endless watches, the stupidity of blundering attacks, and the overwhelming sense of the war's futility.
