The participants became part of a killing process that was enormous and relentless-slaughter on an industrial scale. In fact, the dominant characteristics of battle proved to be anything but romantic: soldiers found anonymity, chaos, brutal assaults on the senses, the infliction of terrible wounds and painful deaths, bloody and traumatizing in the extreme. They would charge forward in glamorous uniforms, decorously stepping forward over the fallen who assumed restful poses, to rout the demoralized foe. Recruits thought that combat would be an adventure, filled with noteworthy individual exploits, heroic and redolent with glorious deeds. To have seen the elephant was an experience to brag about for years to come. This exotic creature, rarely to be found outside the big cities, and only when a traveling circus came to town, epitomized the exotic and romantic in lives often dominated by the humdrum. Many of the men and boys who enlisted in either army, particularly in the early stages of the war, did so to see the elephant.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |