Technology and Warfare

Rebecca West gives us a very unique look into the lives of the shell shocked veterans that were, in their own right, luck enough to make it back home. The presence of World War 1 shaped the new and far more brutal way that war and technology coexisted. Prior to this war such things like biochemical weapons and trench fighting were only acts of fiction. The gruesome reality that a war could be won not by the amount of enemy territory captured, but by the sheer number of fatalities is a harsh thought in itself. When modern technology was brought into the military, for the simple reason to kill the enemy in any way possible, the world saw the worst of what man was capable of. Now what West does that makes this story unique is using a point of view that reflects the change in the men who went to fight. The abence of detailed war acts leaves the reader in a state of unknowing possibilities. I think that this absence of detail directly correlates with the loss of memory that we see in Chris. Its as if Chris is so distraught by what he has seen that he relinquishes all thought from his mind. West does an amazing job at capturing the brutal technological advancements that faces the solders of World War 1. In my personal opinion World War 1 was the most profoundly brutal war this world has ever seen.