Trench madness: the neurosis of the First World War

Trench madness, also known as soldier’s heart syndrome, combat neurosis, battle fatigue or trench shock, was a common disorder in the soldiers who participated in World War I. In this context, the continuous situations of extreme stress derived from combat caused significant problems in the mental health of the combatants.

Among the main consequences and symptoms of this disorder were recurring nightmares, hypervigilance or the feeling of being in danger while already out of combat.

The origins of the disorder

On August 12, 490 BC, the battle of Marathon took place. This was the armed confrontation that defined the outcome of the First Medical War between the Greeks and the Persians. In this battle, the soldiers of Athens and Plataea, with forces of about 11,000 combatants, faced the more than 25,000 soldiers of the Achaemenid empire.

In later years, Hippocrates and Herodotus spoke about the nightmares and symptoms of the survivors of this battle. Many centuries later, In the Flanders Tercios that participated in the Thirty Years’ War, soldiers suffered from general emotional disability. Doctors of this time studied this phenomenon but did not find any type of physical injury on which they could intervene.

The evidence of “trench madness”

Jumping back in time to a more current era, you can review documents, photographs and recordings of soldiers who fought in the First World War. They collect cases of loss of speech, spasms and blank stares. This last and curious symptom was called the “thousand-yard gaze,” since the soldiers seemed to fix their gaze on distant distances, as if there, in the distance, they were following the enemy’s trenches.

The evidence of this disorder was evident. In no previous armed conflict had so many soldiers entered without physical injuries that they were not able to continue fighting. What increased the number of cases was the novelty of combat techniques. For centuries, both soldiers and commanders were aware of how armed confrontations were resolved, and knew the effect of arrows, swords, bullets and cannons. However, World War I was a devastating conflict that can be considered the beginning of modern warfare.

Modern war and disorders in soldiers

In this war, technologies such as the machine gun, battle tanks, underwater and aerial warfare began to spread and, as one of the causes that could cause the most disorders, the use of toxic gases. As an example, soldiers who fought in the Second Battle of Ypres, between April 22 and May 25, 1915, saw how the Germans used asphyxiant chlorine gas to try to kill.

To their surprise, the fighters on the allied side could see how a bluish cloud was approaching them, blinding and burning the lungs of those who breathed it. This type of combat technologies caused the life expectancy of soldiers to be drastically reduced, allowing them to die in the most savage and unexpected ways.

After the aforementioned battle, soldiers began to use gas masks to defend themselves against chemical attacks, but that did not prevent them from being victims of the continuous innovations in combat that each side developed day by day.

Trench madness and the invitation to suicide

The main reasons for trench madness were because soldiers waited for the enemy in the trenches like scared rabbits hiding in their burrows. Many soldiers remained motionless when they saw how a comrade was killed by a bullet or a shell. However, These sensations are nothing compared to the panic they felt when they heard the whistle that told them to leave the trenches and run towards the enemy, who were shooting at anything that moved.

After these situations, the continuous stress of combat caused many soldiers to lose their minds. The nightmares and the inability to sleep meant that they could not differentiate what they experienced from what they dreamed. As expected, The most extreme cases of this type of neurosis caused some soldiers, unable to recover their normal lives and forget the horrors of trench warfare, to feel uncontrollable suicidal instincts.

Thus, the enormous number of soldiers who died in this war must be added to the count of victims to all those combatants who, once the conflict ended, without physical injuries, were unable to adapt to a life without war, being marked by an experience that had overwhelmed them and damaged their emotional world forever.

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