"World War I Project" (Reaction Essay and Letters Home)

Life in the trenches was like a living hell for the men. They lived with fear, hunger, thirst, and with the physical extremes of deafening noises of the dead corpses being gnawed away by the maggots, sudden flashes, extreme cold, and agonising pain. The soldiers encountered such problems as mud, trench foot, the unbearable cold, an abundant amount of dead bodies, huge rats that will eat humans and the rats disease, lice and their disease, itch mites, maggots, flies contaminating all the food, and way more.

The trenches were ankle-deep in mud but there were occasions when men had to stand for days up to their waists, or even their armpits, in freezing water and where the temperature was below freezing. Rainfall was the heaviest for thirty-five years and the cold being so bitter put a burden on these soldiers. Mark Plowman wrote of the trenches and said, "The mud makes it all but impassable, and now sunk in it up to the knees, I have the momentary terror of never being able to pull myself out." One man had been trapped up to his neck in mud for 46 hours and was eventually rescued but died fifteen minutes later anyways. The mud was so unbelievably horrible that men even drowned in it.

The wet conditions of rain were responsible for the the curse 'trench foot' which is caused by being days on end without being able to remove wet socks or boots. Trench foot was very similar to frostbite and the men's feet would become numb and gangrene would set in which led to many amputations. During the war, 74,711 British troops went to hospitals with trench foot or frost-bite. Soon, the soldiers were ordered to change their socks 2-3 times a day and try to dry their boots. Periods of extreme cold with mud made trenches collapse. In the packet "Natural Miseries", it stated that the cold was so bitter that they had to provide heat in the trenches using a brazier and from time to time men died of asphyxiation. Another disease admitted was nephritis which affects the kidneys and men got it by excessive exposure of wet and cold and 35,563 cases were admitted to the hospitals in France.

Dead corpses were everywhere and were a great hazard. Many men in the French lines were buried almost where they fell. The working party in digging a new trench would come across large numbers of decomposing bodies buried just beneath the surace. Corpses along with food scraps attracted rats. A canadian soldier had said 'Huge rats. So big they would eat a wounded man if he couldn't defend himself.' These rats were fecund and if they were well fed, they'd produce big litters as much as 880 in one year. Rats would eat away at dead bodies especially the livers and eyes and basically lived in these bodies. Rats contaminated food and spread disease and carried the disease Weil's Disease. In the packet "Natural Miseries," A french soldier said, "The man displayed a grimacing face, stripped of flesh; the skull bare, the eyes devoured. A set of false teeth slid down on to his rotting jacket, and from the yawning mouth leapt an unspeakably foul beast."

In Conclusion, I believe the life in trenches was in reality no life at all. Soldiers were either dying of wounds, living sickly, getting eaten away by maggots and rats, suffering the cold, drowning in the mud, getting trench foot or any other disease from rats and lice and more. I feel bad for what they had to go through. It was even the fighting in the war that killed them it was the surroundings of it. I would've never believed that the trenches were ever like that. I guess they are far worse than I ever imagined.





Mark Plowman

November 1916

2:30 p.m. in Germany



Dear Mama:

The mud makes it all but impassable and now sunk in it up to the knees, I have the momentary terror of never being able to pull myself out. Such horror gives frenzied energy, and I tear my legs free and go on...Both sides are glued where they stand...Little or nothing is done for the simple reason that the deity has not yet constructed men able to make or repair trenches when the earth at every step holds them immobile.

The Guards battalion lost sixteen men throught exhaustion and drowning in the mud. Men are drowning in the mud and sometimes is even happening in the trenches themselves. There is a great danger that the men could easily fall into a shell-hole and slowly be sucked down. I stumbled across a man who been blown into the mud that was still alive with only his head and the stump of a leg still visible and we were forced to leave the wounded man to sink slowly.



C.M. Chenu

January 1915

8:30 in Germany



Dear Mama:

I see an army of cowled phantoms, enveloped in blankets, strips of canvas, oil-cloth table covers and draped in canvas cloaks, like knights of old, wearing their helmet over their cap comforter and giving the appearance of some kind of ancient helm. Muffled up in strange woollens sent from home, their sheepskin capes made them look like the peasant soldiers of earlier days. The number of cases of pneumonia mom is remarkably low but, unfortunately, the disease nephritis is spreading and there has been 35,563 cases admitted to hospitals in France.

Rain doesn't even wash away the filth of this place. The stench of urine, excreta, and corpses fills the trenches and the air. Men are unwashed which produces uncleanliness and disease. Corpses are everywhere. They are a great hazard and are buried basically where they fall. I don't know how long I'm going to survive with the cold, the diseases, the mud, the maggots, the lice and the rats.

J.Germain

July 1915

10:30 in Germany


Dear mama:

An immense cloud of smelling of corpses swept the plateau incessantly, choking the combatants with its fetid odour. Thousands of flies with blue and green stomachs covered the countryside, shrouded our meagre rations...and hid the sky in a shimmering cloud. One morning on our shoulders fell a rain of maggots which all through the night above our heads had made a noise like rustling silk as they gnawed their way through some dead bodies. Itch mites are around that cause scabies as us men scratch the skin.

Rats are everywhere and they are huge rats. They are so big that if they encountered a wounded soldier that couldn't defend himself, it would eat him. They are fecund and if well fed they will produce more and bigger litter even as much as 880 a year. Life in these trenches isn't the greatest, but I want to make you proud mama. I am strong and I don't have the will to give up.

Was Reconstruction a "Splendid Failure"

My opinion is that yes, reconstruction was a "splendid failure" indeed. I agree with Eric Foner's side on this story. He believes that although Reconstruction did not achieve radical goals, it was considered a "splendid failure" because it offered African Americans in the South a temporary vision of a free society. Reconstruction was the violent, dramatic, and controversial era following the Civil War, also known as an era of unrelieved sordidness in American political and social life. The central participant in the drama of Reconstruction was the black freedman. It was grounded in the conviction that blacks were unfit to share in political power. Many black people tried to share their opinions on these issues in there books but they were just simply ignored. The right to vote was not simply thrust upon them by meddling outsiders, since blacks began agitating for the suffrage as soon as they were freed. Freedmen did enjoy a real measure of political power and in most states, blacks held only a small fraction of political offices. I really do believe that in 'reconstruction', it did however benefit the blacks so they wouldn't get treated unfairly anymore.

Was the Mexican War an Exercise in American Imperialism?

I do agree with Professor Ramon Eduardo Ruiz that the Mexican War was an exercise in American Imperialism. He argued that the purpose for conquering Mexico's northern territories was because the United States waged an aggressive war against Mexico from which Mexico never recovered. The long-range effects on American foreign policy of the Mexican War were immense and the Monroe Doctrine was used to force the French ruler out of Mexico. Fearful of losing control over Texas, the Mexican government prohibited further immigration from the United States in 1830. Politicians were afraid if Texas were annexed it would upset the balance of power between the evenly divided free states and slave states that had been created in 1819 by the Missouri Compromise. Congress had voted for war 174 to 14 in the House and 30 to 2 in the Senate despite those who opposed the war. Ramon Eduardo Ruiz argued that the U.S. waged a racist and aggressive war against Mexico for the purpose of conquering what became the American southwest. Manifest Destiny was strictly and ideological rationale to provide noble motives for what were really acts of aggression against a neighboring country. President James Polk pursued the aggressive policy of a stronger nation in order to force Mexico to sell New Mexico and Texas to the United States and to recognize America's annexation of Texas without causing a war. Manifest Destiny was first territorial expansion but then later recognized as more than a mere land hunger; much more was involved. Manifest Destiny stood for democracy as Americans conceived it; to spread democracy and freedom was the goal. I think that Ramon Eduardo Ruiz had many good arguments that are listed in the above selections.

Did the Election of 1828 Represent a Democratic Revolt of the People?

I believe that no, the election of 1828 didn't represent a democratic revolt of the people. I agree with Richard McCormick's opinion on this packet. He believes that voting statistics demonstrate that a genuine political revolution did not take place until the presidential election of 1840, when fairly well-balanced political parties had been organized in virtually every state. Jacksonian democracy consisted of urban workingmen, southern planters, venturous conservatives, farm-bred nouveux riches, western frontiersmen, frustrated entrepreneurs, or yeoman farmers which are considered true "Jacksonians." Features of Jacksonian democracy are correspondingly diverse. With suffrage barriers it brought forth of democratic energies, evidenced by a marked upward increase in voting. Shifting legislative choice of electors to the election by popular vote, together with steady population growth, obviously swelled the presidential vote. Comparing the rate of voting in the Jackson elections with other presidential elections before and after his regime as well as with state elections helped find out whether or not voter participation rose markedly in the three presidential elections in which Jackson was a candidate. But all in all, none of the Jackson elections involved a "mighty democratic uprising" in the sense that voters were drawn to the polls in unprecedented proportions.

Were the Founding Fathers Democratic Reformers?

I would have to say No, the Founding Fathers were not democratic at all. I agree with Charles Beard's opinion and view on the issues. The Founding Fathers in fact, were not wise and were just trying to keep a balance among the dominant forces. The fifty-five men who gathered in Philadelphia to discuss the Constitution were mostly lawyers, or men of wealth, had money loaned out at interest, and many held government bonds. However, four groups were not represented in the Constitutional Convention: slaves, indentured servants, women, and men without property. The Constitution was guarded as to not including the interests of these groups. The Founding Fathers didn't want an equal balance between slaves and masters, propertyless and property holders, Indians and white. Charles beard warned us that governments, including the one for the U.S., are neutral and that they represent the dominant economic interests and that their constitutions are intended to serve these interests in which they failed to do. The problem of democracy was in fact the division of society into rich and poor.

Federalist Paper #51

Federalist Paper # 51 states the appropriate system of checks and balances that can be created in government that also aims for a separation of powers within the national government. This means that the legislative, executive and judicial branches all have equal power. This helps to contain an equal government. The purpose of #51 is to form a more correct judgement of the structure of government planned by the Constitutional Convention. The system of checks and balances controls tyranny while still leaving a government that fulfills the needs of the people because not one branch of government is too powerful.
I do agree that the checks and balances system was a great improval for government. It helped maintain the separate branches of government, and to protect the rights of the people. From reading both Federalist Papers #10 and #51, I concluded that we’re not democratic to the extent where the people vote on every issue, but the people do have some sort of say I guess.

Federalist Paper #10

The Federalist papers in general were series arguing for the approval of the United States Constitution. Federalist paper #10 is one of the most famous of the Federalist papers, along with #51, which were both written by James Madison. Number 10 discusses on how to guard against factions, which were groups of citizens with interests not agreeing to the rights of others, or the interests of the whole community. In number 10, Madison argued that a large republic, (like the whole community) would be a better guard against dangers rather than smaller republics (like the individual states). Number 10 explains that the founding fathers did not expect the U.S government to be supporting.
In my opinion, I agree with James Madison. He displays some strong arguments in this short essay. He gives many great points as to why working with the whole community, rather than individual states, would be more beneficial. It would be a better guard against dangers and by working as a whole we are much stronger and more successful.