Dear mother:

How is everything going? I miss you so much in these days. I

hope there will be enough bread for you and brother. I am fine,
almost fine. Dont worry about me, your son is a 26 years old
strong German solider, I can take care of myself. You know,
since the war began, nobody can actually have a safe situation.
People are dying, starving and suffering. The battlefield is curve,
and the war wasnt fought for a good reason, which means it is a
non-justice war, at least for us. This war is mainly a war for the
imperialist countries. The allied countries including our country,
Bulgaria, Osman Empire, Italy and Austria-Hungary started this
war in order to re divide the world, scramble for colonies. The
basic reason for our country to raise the war is because of the
imbalance of economic development. Our country is becoming
much stronger compare with the past, we have more and more
industrial products, and in fact, our strength is now over British
and France. Since the distribution of colonies profit is not
balance to our country, we need to expand the colonies in order
to expand our marker. With the strong profit demand, our
country launches the war. But the world has already been
divided, our country must break the situation of the world
colonies, that is we need to fight with England. Telling the truth,
I dont think our country is on the right side. We started the war
not for defense our country, we are here to invade other
countries. Our countrys purpose is to occupy colonies, not like

Serbia, they are fight for maintain their nation independence, but
all the countries expect them, are fight for the interest of their
own country. I remember the proverb that you taught me in my
childhood, When dog bites dog, each gets a mouthful of fur,
this sentence can perfectly indicate this situation, which this war
is an unjustifiable disputes. I decide to join the war because of I
have seen the death of the battlefield as a noble life, I love my
own country, even if I lost my life, I consider it as an honorable
reputation if I dedicate my life to the country. I was affected by
a lot of conscript posters and radios at that time. It seems like all
of my friends and people around me are solicitous to the war,
people are appealing to fight for their country, die for their
country. This kind of high atmosphere raises my strong desire to
conquer, I became one of these people who are enthusiastic to
their motherland, put their own life in to their motherland. Even
without your permission, I decide to join the war voluntarily.
After I joined the war, actually, I am not happy to be fighting in
the war, at least for now. At first, I am avid in fighting, I thought
this is my honor to be standing on the battlefield, I am willing in
contribute to my motherland. But after I fight in the war for two
years, my feelings changed. I saw most of my friends, hundreds
of soldiers died beside me, civilians life got worse, children
were homeless because of the war. As a solider, I stayed with
guns and weapons all day and all night, we trained everyday, we
are getting tired everyday. Sometimes other soldiers shared their

feelings with me, some of them are same with me, voluntarily
join the war because of strong desire to conquer, fight for our
motherland, but we dont know where are our avid and desire
now. My enthusiasm decrease a lot, I am tired in war.
My life is a trench was absolutely horrific, awful and horrible.
I didnt have a bed that as same and comfortable as you, in fact,
I had an interesting bed that called dugout. This is like a hole
that present in the trenches in order to let me get earned rest and
protect me everyday. Actually, I had never get enough rest in
this small hole. Also, the major components of a trench were
very simple. Instead of the dugout, there were some barbed
wires that placed six feet (35meters) away from the trenches,
these wires were held in by metal poles, which were the first
line of defense of the trenches, use to stop the emeries from
entre the trenches. In addition, each trench will have a fire step.
This is a step to let me get over the top of the trench to shoot the
emeries around the trench, thus provide me a better aim when
shooting out of the trench. There was also a thing called parapet.
Parapet was a very important component outside the trench,
placed behind the barbed wires. When I am standing on the fire
step and shooting the emeries, the parapet protected my shoulder
and head by its layers of sandbags, which can effectively
immune the rifle fire from emeries, but it cannot hold the
artillery shellfire. There was an ammunition shelf near the fire
step, which can supply the demand of ammunition (such as

grenades and bullets) timely. Moreover, there was a sump

present under the duckboards that I usually stand on. This sump
is use to drain water and collect to the bottom of the trench in
order to let the trench can remain relatively dry. The food in
trench was not as luxurious as our homes, it was disgusting and
lousy. We have dog biscuits, bread, potatoes and tea, sometimes
got meat if I was lucky, but these meat are usually in tins. We
didnt have eggs, sometimes our breakfast is porridge. But all
the food werent fresh, for example yesterday I ate bread, and
this was a bread that took 8 days to reach the trenches, I tried to
eat it by breaking it up and adding some potatoes and onions and
anything that I can add into it and boiling in the sandbag to form
a mixture, absolutely I cant describe the taste. Apart from the
food, rain is the most terrible thing that happened in trenches.
The trenches will become waterlogged, fill with water. During
that time, I need to stand for hours in a freezing waterlogged
trench. This usually led in to trench foot, which one of my friend
is suffering by it. His foot change color, swell, and starts to
smell due to damage to the skin. Moreover, the rain made me
much hard to climb out of the trenches. The mud in the trenches
will easily become slippery, and it is hard to get a proper grip to
get out. Besides, the bottom of the trenches often flood, lead to
some supplies were damaged. Also, some parts in the trenches
would easily collapse and erode during the heavy rain. Everyone
was soaked and standing or sleeping in a marsh. I have seen

many terrible injuries, which there was people who was shot in
the abdomen, it is very serious that the intestines of the soldiers
are out of his abdomen. This scene is cruel and I will never
forget the rest of my life. I had two best friends, one of them
was killed and one of them was wounded. The one was killed
because of bullet shrapnel. There are shrapnel in his chest, the
shrapnel bring some dust into his wound and cause infection,
and he died because of wound infection. The one that survive
was shot in the leg, fortunately he didnt infect after amputation.
I watched one of my friend died but I couldnt do anything. My
job in trenches is mainly fighting and stand sentry. During the
time that I dont have to fight, I sometimes check the weapons,
worked on chores and spend my spare time on catching up sleep
and writing letters.
The most bloody battle that I will never forget was the battle of
the Somme, started at 1916, July 1st to November 18th, totally six
months of fighting. During this battle, British and France allied
in order to break though the defense line of ours. The fighting
took place at the River Somme region in the northern France.
However, the battle of Somme supposed to start at June 29th, but
the rain delay the battle, which it truly began at the first day of
July. The weather was rainy, hot, and overcast during the
beginning of the battle. In November when the autumn is
coming, the weather began to deteriorate. Due to the continuous
rain and the muddy road, the battle gradually came to the end.

British and Frances battle plan ended in failure. The result of

this battle was cruelly and bitterly, over 1 million people killed
during the fight, but it helped change the British military tactics
to be more suitable for the modern era, which improved the
effectiveness of the British army. Meanwhile, it also changed
my strategic views that our country will not consider British
army as a serious opponent. Although British and French troops
did not reach and break our line of defense, but they suppress
our offensive to Verdun, further weaken our strength. We lost a
large number of elite troops, experienced soldiers that we were
unable to replace as easily as either the French or British, which
will be a great impact on the future operations.
The major weapon used during this battle was the tanks. The
total amount of tank that British had were 49, there were 17
tanks left behind due to mechanical errors, 5 tanks sank into
swamp, 9 tanks were damaged, finally there were only 18 tanks
left. In September 15th, British army made these eighteen tanks
appear in the battle of Somme and advanced to our defense for
4-5 km. These enormous tanks gave my infantry with great
shock, all our soldiers abandon their position and escaped in
panic. But at that time, Britishs tanks were just a primary
product, which was a kind of immature weapon. Actually, its
deterrence is greater than the actual role, which couldnt develop
any tactical advantage. Our army only began to feel scared in a
short period, and later on we figure out the weakness of these

tanks. As a result, even British army used 18 tanks to attack us,

but they still didnt achieve the goal that breaking our defense.