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course, during the First World War, men were not killed or maimed one by one, or in small clusters. Modern communications made it possible to coordinate multiple armies with at least some measure of success; the extended battle lines made it necessary to do so. Tactical doctrines called for mighty blows to smash the enemy's lines, and with both armor and air support in primitive stages of their development, this placed the burden on infantry alone. The early phases of the war had shown, at least, that the cavalry could not be expected to carry the day. In the absence of better alternatives, infantry support was provided by ever larger barrages of artillery.

On the human level, the artillery was very effective. It is estimated that 67% of casualties in the First World War were caused by artillery, and possibly as high as 75%. In part this was due to new technological discoveries, but much of it is a result of the tactical realities of the war. The machine gun was so lethal that extensive trench defenses were dug to protect defenders. When defenders were so dug in, direct fire was of little effect, and so an attacker relied far more heavily on artillery in preparation for an attack. Strategically, however, these efforts were much less useful. The complex trenches of the Western Front, in particular, offered strong protection for a large portion of the defending army when the barrage began; when it ended, the defenders knew that the enemy was approaching, and hastened to defend. It was then that the machine gun was able to do its part in blunting a massed attack, if not staving it off entirely. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme alone, Allied forces lost about 60,000, mostly felled by machine guns.

For those who survived, the wounds they suffered could be grievous. The bullet can be devastating enough. One man might suffer a through-and-through wound in the calf, and suffer no long-term debility, while another man could lose a leg. The effects of artillery, however, were far worse. Survivors might lose limbs, but they might instead (or also) lose much of their faces. Early forms of plastic surgery might be used in some cases, while others had to make do with cleverly-made masks.

A new category of weapon entered the arsenals of the First World War: poison gas. It never accounted for a large proportion of casualties, in part because they were deployed too quickly to make a large impression before both sides developed countermeasures. Among the survivors,

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