Exactly in 2 weeks I will be in France! I have been doing lots of research for my project finding new things everyday and understanding the soldiers and families from the war more and more. When i’m in France i want to find perspectives from the French side and see if there’s any records of soldiers explaining how they felt in their diaries. I found some great information about soldiers returned home and information about my own family.

After the war many soldiers were greatly traumatized. Many returned home in a different state and some searched for help but not many did or not many had the facilities to do so. Shell shock was one of the psychological effects on soldiers. Shell shock was a reaction soldiers encountered due to the intensity of the shelling that took place during the war. Shell shock didn’t inflict physical wounds but had major psychological impact on the soldiers. One wounded soldier reports an experience he encountered by another man with shell shock, "one man called out at night. No one could stop him. The doctor questioned him and he said he had a hole in his back. Looked there, nothing. Took off his pyjamas and not a mark could be found." This just shows what kind of extreme mental effects soldiers had after war, which makes one think what were they actually feeling and thinking during the war.

When my great granddad returned home from war there was no talking about his experience or he didn’t mention the war. It was only that there was a war, many people died and some returned home. Since many men didn’t talk about their experiences or any problems they were facing, they locked it all up and tried to move on with their lives. But my great granddad dealt with his problems by drinking and literally drank himself to a un-natural state. My family says that it was his way of talking, but this comes to show that men didn’t want to re-live the experience by talking about it and were too traumatized. War took the life out of the soldiers and when they return home it was hard to find where they left off.