Recall: The Great War in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

Always an imprecise term,’ shell shock’ attracts new layers of meaning with its growing distance in time and memory from the Great War.¹ In the last year of the hostilities, E.A. Mackintosh could show the condition straightforwardly as a horrifying, uncontrollable madness. In War, the Liberator (1918) he describes it as follows: The Corporal… collapsed suddenly with twitching hands and staring, frightened eyes, proclaiming the shell-shock he had held off while the work was to be done.’² Here, shell shock is synonymous with the most destructive images of industrial battle: bombardment in the trenches of the Western Front, the supposed passive suffering and obliteration of soldiers in the line, the long-term damage to the psyche and the spirit that the war inflicted on its participants. Twitching, staring and terror signify too the negative image of shell shock: the common fear of lunacy and the asylum that was also an important part of the condition’s public profile in these years, as were the implicit military associations with cowardice, malingering and degeneracy. At the same time, Mackintosh allows sympathy and suggests heroic effort. Despite his strict devotion to duty, the awful- ness of the war swamps the corporal’s mind; moreover, the horror of the incident shows the severity of his sacrifice: losing his mind was just as terrible an injury as losing his face or legs.