Teachings of WWI through poems

... War Poetry What has your reading of the poems of Owen, Rosenburg and Sassoon taught you about the First World War? The Great War, also known as World War 1, started in 1914 and lasted through to 1918. Many people think that the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the Archduke of Austria, triggered the start of WWI but there were many events that led up to the war such as colonial and economic rivalry, misunderstandings in diplomatic communications and unresolved previous disputes. Many war poems are about warfare in the trenches. Conditions in the trenches were terrible. Rain and cold were constant problems. Artillery fire destroyed the drains, so the battlefield became quagmires of mud - often, men drowned in the mud. Sanitary arrangements were unsatisfactory, and disease killed as many men as the enemy. Antibiotics had not yet been discovered and, in dirt, even a small wound often led to blood poisoning,

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