shell shock

Longing for oblivion: The Warm Hands of Ghosts, by Katherine Arden, reviewed

2 March 2024 9:00 am

Arden’s novel spares us no details of trench warfare on the Western Front and the severely traumatised men dreaming of escape into amnesia

Harry Farr, a soldier with the 1st Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment, was executed for cowardice, aged 25, in 1916 when he refused to fight, despite almost certainly suffering from shell shock

The shocks and shells of the Somme

30 April 2016 9:00 am

In the final months of 1914, medical officers on the Western Front began seeing a new kind of casualty. Soldiers…

Leaving Afghanistan — with a pack of potential troubles

The way we treat our heroes is a disgrace

19 September 2015 8:00 am

Matthew Green, former Financial Times and Reuters correspondent, remains unimpressed by officialdom’s response to casualties who aren’t actually bleeding: Ever…