1. Most historians would say that the 20th century began during or after WWI.
A. IT CHANGED THE WORLD IN A MAJOR WAY: We went from the 1800s to the 1900s not on New Year’s Eve in 1899, or 1900, but when WWI occurred (1914-1918) and the massive post-war changes. All walks of life were affected.
2. Empires and kingdoms vanished and 10 new countries were created:
Why did World War I begin? As with most wars the reasons behind why the Great War began seem like a difficult task to untangle, but in reality, they are fairly easy to distill. The following, in no particular order, are the 4 main reasons for the war to break out in the autumn of 1914:
The words that I’ve heard personally trench warfare life from the many World War I veterans that I have interviewed describing what it was like to live in the trenches would be: “disgusting, wet, filthy, inhumane.”
We left off in the last blog with the list of WWI trench life conditions that were tremendously adverse to the health of the soldiers living in them.
3. Body odor—Although it seems like a small bothersome evil compared to the other items on this list, imagine if you will: Soldiers in the front-line trench would not a shower for at least 12 days. Remember, they would live for 8 days in that trench, and then be moved back to the reserve trench for another 4 days. Also, they never took their clothes off, unless they were to look for lice living in their shirts, or seams/waistlines of their trousers. Also, they kept their boots on at all times in case of an attack. Generally, there was always a nasty odor living in these dark, wet, hot, cold Hellish trenches.