The Plans of both the Germans and French went on much longer and were different from what they thought the war would entail. The armies fought on for four years and dealt with hardships that included terrible living conditions, the attacks of heavy artillery, and shells that released gas. I did not know that any of this went on during the war and it was interesting to read what happened during World War I.
The Scieffen Plan of the Germans was a realistic plan, but it feel behind schedule and their mistakes along with the strong firepower of the French caused them to be at a standstill. France’s Plan XVII was not much of a plan at all, just having high expectations for the French soldiers. I had no idea that the armies lived in such terrible conditions during the war. The armies mostly lived in mud-filled trenches that sometimes held corpses, had unsanitary conditions, and there was an unbearable stench in many of them. The war had an effect on the mental state of the armies. One man wrote in his diary: ‘Humanity is mad! It must be mad to do what it is doing. What a massacre! What scenes of horror and carnage! I cannot find words to translate my impressions. Hell cannot be so terrible. Men are mad!’ The noise of the bursting shells would make them so afraid, but so would silence. The part that I found the most interesting was about the use of gas during the war. It was first used at the Second Battle of Ypres on April 22, 1915, against the French colonial troops. In the beginning, chlorine, which causes a slow death, was used, but then the use of mustard gas started to become more popular. Mustard gas would rot the body from both inside and out. Both armies, almost right after the first gas attack, took safety measures against it. There were 58,000 gas casualties of the American Army.
The four long years of war caused many casualties and the armies endured many adversities that many people could not dream of having to go through. The excerpt of this book was really interesting to read because I did not know much of anything that went on during World War I.
