How did trench warfare affect the families of soldiers?
The families of the soldiers fighting in the war suffered a lot of hardship, especially those with a father, husband or brother fighting in the trenches. When the father or husband of the house is away, fighting in the war, the rest of the family needed to work harder to provide food and money. The families could still suffer from the effects of war after their relative or friend has come back from due to the diseases, mental illnesses and amputations the soldier may have to live with for the rest of their lives.
When a soldier had come back home with an amputation or disease, the rest of the family would need to work harder to provide for themselves. This could mean the wife of the house getting a job if she hadn’t of had one before, or even some of the children getting jobs |
If you were unlucky enough to receive bad news that your relative or husband was killed in action you would be grief stricken but some soldiers said they would have preferred dying than having to live with the diseases and disfigurement.
The ones lucky enough to come back would have told stories about war. Hearing about all this death, disease and trauma would have scared people away from the war and that was why after time the number of people enlisting to fight in the war dropped greatly. If you heard about the living conditions in the trenches, would you still want to go to war? Although many people still had the ‘typical Aussie spirit’ and wanted to fight for their country, many others feared for the lives. Written By Hayden Watts |