Shell Shock · the Psychological Impact of War

ON the 100th anniversary year of the First World War, there has never been a better time for a comprehensive historical and psychological exploration of the terrible physical effects of sending men into battle.

‘Shell shock’ was first believed to be caused quite literally by the shock of exploding shells but those who fled from conflict were shot for their ‘cowardice.’ Known as ‘malingerers’, ‘waverers’ or ‘lacking in moral fibre,’ the unfortunates who suffered genuine physical and psychological trauma from their experiences were often treated with unflinching brutality by psychiatrists and army medics under strict orders to get them back to the front line.

The death penalty for cowards was revoked after the First World War but little was done to alleviate the suffering of those who were conscripted for World War Two a few years later. Killing, watching friends die, leading fellows to their deaths - all had a profound effect on those involved. And with Vietnam, Korea and the First Gulf War, so the effects built to epidemic proportions. There is a limit to what a soldier can endure before he ‘gets the wind up’ and becomes the victim of ‘hysteria’, battle fatigue, post-traumatic stress disorder or whatever terminology is in vogue. Only in modern times have the psychological effects been fully explored and examined.

In this book’s exhaustive historical research, using the case histories and painful testimony of numerous veterans and their doctors, individuals tell their own stories of horrors to which they have been exposed, and of events that pushed them to the brink of human endurance. Shell Shock also relates the history of military psychiatry and the dilemma of those entrusted to balance the demands to ‘cure’ soldiers and return them to battle with the needs of the soldiers themselves, who were struggling to understand their condition.A timeless book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

WENDY HOLDEN is the author of more than thirty non-fiction titles, many of which have become international bestsellers. They include Tomorrow to Be Brave, the story of the only woman in the French Foreign Legion; Behind Enemy Lines, about a French spy in WWII; Till the Sun Grows Cold, the story of a young British woman caught up in the Sudanese war, and Mr. Scraps, a novella about a dog in the London Blitz – written under her nom de plume Taylor Holden.

A respected journalist for The Daily Telegraph, London, Wendy Holden covered wars and news stories around the world, including Northern Ireland, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. She has ghosted numerous autobiographies of remarkable women.