‘Any wonder men break?’
Hastings bank clerk George Bollinger recorded the physical and mental discomforts of the soldier’s life in his diary:
“Is it any wonder men break down? The heat is intense, flies swarm the trenches in millions. The stench from the bodies of our men lying on trenches in front is choking and nearly unbearable. It is hard to think that each of these men is some mother’s son. We see such scenes and still some newspapers have the audacity to suggest we like this life. Sometimes I think England is bankrupt for troops. We are doing 96 hours a week without sleep in the trenches.”
Bollinger was wounded in action on June 8, 1917, during the Messines offensive and died two days later. His brother Herman was killed in March 1918 and their father, Max, later died, it is said, “of a broken heart at the loss of his sons”. The Bollinger family also had eight cousins who died on the Western Front fighting on the other side. Listener, April 25, 2015