"Now that I could hear these shells coming over, I really began to know what fear was..."
Cpl Quiren M. Groessl
Company F, 5th Wisconsin Regiment
Injury
While firearms had come a long way from the slow and clunky weapons of the 19th century, no one was prepared for the devastation that new artillery wrought. The machine gun flung bullets faster than any other weapon in history, making their bullets impossible to dodge. Moreover, trench warfare made the face particularly vulnerable to snipers and shell attacks.
Larger artillery weapons like railway guns flung shells at an unprecedented range, ensuring soldiers never knew where the next attack could come from. For example, the German Paris gun could bombard troops from 62 miles (100 km) away.
Chemical weapons such as chlorine gas, mustard gas, and phosgene caused severe blistering of the face and lungs. These blisters led to long-term damage to the skin and respiratory system that would plague soldiers for the rest of their lives, such as in the photo seen here. These chemical weapons also had severe psychological effects on soldiers; the smoke screens were disorienting, and fear of suffocation caused immense panic even in the most experienced soldiers.
Environment
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Trench warfare was wretched. On the Western Front through France, Belgium, and Switzerland, the weather was cold and wet, which caused a number of conditions. Frostbite ate away at mens’ noses, lips, and limbs during the bitterly cold winters.
Trench foot, caused by the feet being wet for long periods of time, caused tingling, pain, and blisters. Eventually, the skin of their feet would die and slough off.
The close quarters of war brought a slew of diseases. Lice carrying epidemic typhus killed over 200,000 people in 1914 alone. Infrastructure damage increased instances of insect- and water-borne diseases like malaria across Europe.
The 1918 influenza pandemic spread rapidly in wartime conditions, as the constant movement of troops spread the virus across continents. When the pandemic finally ended and the flu became endemic, between 25 and 50 million people were dead.
Coming Home
Some of the most devastating parts of the Great War came after the final ceasefires. Shell shock, or as we understand it now, post-traumatic stress, plagued soldiers for years after they served. Due to extreme stigma and a lack of mental health infrastructure, very few veterans ever sought treatment.
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One of the most affected groups were known crudely as les gueules cassées: the ones with broken faces. As reconstructive surgeon Harold Gilles dryly recalled after the war,
"Mirrors were banned from the ward but [one] boy had a small shaving glass in his locker. At the sight of himself he collapsed... Only the blind kept their spirits up."
While any injury was traumatic, soldiers with facial injuries faced extreme marginalization when they came home. Some chose to live with their injuries, some braved the nascent field of plastic surgery to varying degrees of success, and some chose portrait masks and prosthetics.