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Teachers’ Briefing Notes.

Most recruits had only six weeks training before being sent into battle. This was hardly sufficient preparation for experiencing living conditions in the trenches … enemy trenches within sight and sound … sniper fire … shelling … poison gas attacks … going over the top … uncut barbed wire … seeing friends cut down by machine gun fire … the dead and wounded lying out in No Man’s Land. The difference between the training field and the battlefield could hardly have been greater. Patriotism versus Realism would be a good subject for debate. Perhaps this is the time to talk about Conscientious Objectors and the shell-shocked so-called ‘deserters’ and their inevitable fate if they were ‘other ranks’. Officers in the same situation were treated differently as is portrayed in Regeneration by Pat Barker . Class distinction … another subject for discussion/debate.

J.O.H. 

13th July 2012

Content last updated 

15 December 2012