One of the saying created to persuade men to join was "home by Christmas", but after war broke out and the trenches were dug they realized that they didn 't know what Christmas they would be home by. In the movie The Wipers Times the main character realizes the dilemma of not knowing by what Christmas the war will end. After the men settle in the trenches for a long war of attrition the glamour of war fades away and the grim reality of war sets in. The attitude of war changes from wanting to do their duty in fighting for their country to questioning why they are …show more content…
There were several difficulties facing the soldiers such as realizing that war is different than anticipated, the way they were trained didn 't reflect the war they were fighting, and their training didn 't provide them with defense against newly emerging technology. The soldiers believed that they would be fighting a face to face war that had swift victories, but the reality was digging trenches and fighting from great distances. The men were faced with the horrors of trench life with medical issues such as Gangrene also known as Trench Foot and the after effects of chemical warfare. The horrors of trench life were filled with death in or out of the trenches. The training provided at the beginning of the war was inadequate for the emerging technology at the beginning of the war. The soldiers were trained to ride on the battlefield on horses and charge the enemy with bayonets. The emerging technology in the First World War includes mechanized transport such as tank, chemical weapons like phosgene gas, and upgrades to current technology such as metal boats instead of wooden. The problem with the new technology is that neither side had the officers experienced in new technology to effectively train the soldiers to use it or defend against it. The soldiers in the First World War were fighting in a new kind of war that they had to adapt to as