To make matters worse, there's no easy way out. They know that if they are in capable conditions, they will be pushed to their limits. The only good way out is a "Blighty", a small wound that will send them home relatively as a whole. The other way out is death. Either unluckily or sometimes even wanted, such as for Fry's case. .
"So long, I won't come out of this I"m going to get it this time. And I don't care either. I"m fed up.".
The narrator clearly shows us, through the eyes of a soldier, who the enemy is.
"We have learned who our enemies are - the lice, some of our officers, and death".
While the Generals are far behind the line, and dieing generally of only natural, painless causes, the soldiers are in the trenches, infested with lice, surrounded by rats fattened off corpses, suffer from painful wounds and "die in a lousy trench".
Being trained to be war machines, however, isn't the only reason they hate their leaders. .
Not only are they forced into these situations that make them act like savages, but they are also cheated by their leaders. Their General played them like pawns and resorted to using false information to motivate the young soldiers to kill without compassion or remorse. There are many, many factors that contribute to this "transformation", but first of all, what goes on in their mind while they are still normal. Before going into the trenches, the civilians and soldiers think of going as an honorable, brave and glamorous thing to do. What they don't know, however, is that their drills and training haven't fully prepared them for the actualities of the trenches. .
As in GDB, the novel starts off with cheering crowds, music and a farewell parade. Immediately, we go straight into the stench of the trenches, the lice, the plump rats, and also dividing up their stale "war bread". This quick jump from the city to the trenches shows us how the soldiers were rushed into the war, transformed, and awoken from their glamorous ideas about war.
