The First World War was the first total war in the history [of] mankind. It threw hundreds of thousands of men into a cauldron of inhuman conditions. It was a “Carnival of Death” where men perished in mud, were torn by exploding steel, where the constant threat of sudden death was compounded by squalid, unbearable conditions. The war was described by a German soldier as “Lice, rats, barbed wire, fleas, shells, bombs, underground caves, corpses, blood, liquor, mice, cats, artillery, filth, bullets, mortars, fire, steel.” Into this Hell went normal men, farmers, clerks, sons, fathers, brothers, and husbands. The stress on living and dying was often too much and for the first time expressions like shell-shock and self-inflicted wound became part of day-to-day vocabulary.Suicides in the trenches were not uncommon. Desertion was a problem. Generals neede to keep up the discipline of their men, so in keeping with military law draconian measures could