by Christopher Schultz
Canadian Journal of History, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Winter 2011): 563-584.
Trench culture is a field of First World War studies that, until recently, has received primarily descriptive... more
Trench culture is a field of First World War studies that, until recently, has received primarily descriptive attention. It is, however, a key element in avoiding oversimplified and occasionally facile analyses of participants’ wartime experiences. Employing a multi-sensory analytical style, this article explores topics in visuality, materiality, and aurality in an attempt to trace both continuities and contradictions in these aspects of trench culture. Moreover, this article pleads for a mode of analysis that distances trench culture from “purpose-driven” narratives—these too often resulting in participants’ experiences becoming subordinated to military objectives and war aims. By analyzing the aforementioned concepts, one sees firstly that trench culture is not necessarily attached to any sense of military pragmatism, and secondly that war participants often were required to negotiate the potentially deadly lines between the spectacular and the terrific.
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