During the war, many soldiers suffered due to their lack of sleep and experiencing horrible casualties. To begin, horrible and unsanitary conditions caused the soldiers to lose sleep. In the text “All Quiet On The Western Front”, the German soldiers have to cope with billions of trench rats. The author says “Almost every man has had his bread gnawed. Kropp wrapped his in his waterproof sheet and put it under his head, but he cannot sleep because they run over his face to get at it.” (70). In the trenches, there were billions of huge trench rats searching for food and dead bodies to feed on. Trench rats would crawl on soldiers faces in attempt to find food in the soldiers pockets. Soldiers often felt horror of their presence and would lose sleep while trying to ignore and …show more content…
During the war, Germans had bought lice with them and spread the lice to the Canadians. Soldiers would lie awake at night scratching their skin due to the lice which also resulted in bleeding. During the war, many of the men started to fall ill and called it trench fever. It was until after the war that doctors discovered that louse had carried bacteria with them. There were many symptoms of trench fever (skin rash, aches, pain) which was a barrier for soldiers to have a good sleep. Furthermore, soldiers were traumatized due to the horrible casualties that happened to themselves or their close army members. In the text “All Quiet On The Western Front”, German soldiers become terrified due to deadly attacks. The author says Their pale turnip faces, their pitiful clenched hands, the fine courage of these poor devils, the desperate charges and attacks made by the poor brave wretches, who are so terrified that they dare not cry out loudly, but with battered chests, with torn bellies, arms and legs only whimper softly for their mothers and cease as soon as one looks at them.