by Tracy R. Walsh
In a review of Paul Jankowski’s Verdun: The Longest Battle of the Great War, Robert Zaretsky considers what kept soldiers from deserting the trenches:
Why did they accept being fodder for cannons when they saw through the official justifications for the hecatomb, when there seemed no end in sight, when the only winner was the battle itself? The reasons were complex. … In the end, it was neither military constraint nor fear of punishment that kept men in the trenches. Nor was it patriotism or republicanism, even though Jankowski suggests that many soldiers absorbed the dehumanizing propaganda aimed at “les boches.” Instead, what mostly kept the men going – the fuel to a Beckettian “I can’t go on, I will go on” – were the bonds to family and fellow poilus.
Perhaps the most astonishing statistic of the war, and not just Verdun, is that more than 10 billion letters were sent…
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