Which is worse? WWII or WWI

WWII is definitely worse, but what i am trying ot ask is which war have worse living condition for the soldiers. At first i have no doubt WWII is worst war a soldier can volunteer for. But after doing some research and reading books like "All silent on the Western Front", by opinion started to switch. Trench Warfare seems horrible and disgusting, the soldiers have to live through:
Poisonous Gas, Shellings, Trench water overflow, Rats, Lice, and worst of all, the dread of one day your commander ordering you to charge accross No Man's Land.
I am asking about your opinion, cause i am pretty divided.

 

Really hard to decide, because of the length of one's life, how long they were in one place, and where they were, thousands of variables. But let's say you're immortal and you're a regular infantryman in WW1. You'll basically sit in mud for four years, the only form of entertainment you have is looking at clouds. I think that would be more miserable to WW2 Euro fighting (excluding russian front, that probably tops anything) and Italy was probably worst for the Americans, but they didn't sit in one place for years. Also, WW1 medical technology wasn't as great. Now if you were fighting in the Pacific, that was terrible as well, in my opinion worse than what someone would have to endure over in Europe. But, I would still lean towards WW1 being worse, because in the pacific although there was higher casuality rates, diseases, and weather, you were only fighting on islands for a few months, not years. It can also depend on the person who's fighting. Eugene Sledge mentions a high ranking guy who fought in WW1, but he cracked during the WW2 combat in the pacific. So it's probably impossible to tell unless you are everywhere at once.

 

thanks for the info man. I was asking this cause if people were asked this question without backgrounnd knowledge, they will say ww2 right away, with all the jews dying and "the battle of stalingard"

 

When you have seen the moon craters of Verdun, the villages that have been swallowed for ever, places where trees will never grow back and thousands of deads still waiting to be discovered your answer might be WWI no matter if you ask the Germans or the French.

 

All the veterans I have ever spoken to (including my late Father ) are of the opinion that; "we never suffered like the poor buggers in the 1st war"

 

WW2 is the most destructive war in history, city's and towns were completely leveled due to the sheer firepower that could be brought down on one particular target with even less force then ww1.

However in terms of casualties and day to day living, ww1 was far worse, with thousands and thousands of troops lost in single days engagements, whole divisions being decimated across no mans land in minutes.

Then there is the trenches themselves. In ww2 most front lines were static due to the mobilized nature of the war, so they had to being able to quickly retreat or attack therefore. However the WW1 trenches were designed to stay put and halt the enemy completely, and when retreat did happen it was simply to another row of trenches.

These trenches themselves were deep with steps or ladders on the side of the wall, and there was usually a firing platform where the defenders would fire from.

These trenches would fill with water in the rain, and become muddy marshes, the rats would be everywhere as well as lice. Trench foot would be common, as well as other disease's and infections, as already mentioned medicine was not nearly as advanced and casualties remained high due to not being able to treat the wounded, not only because they didn't know the advanced techniques of today but also because the shelling would cause roads and fields to become nothing but large holes in the ground, which filled up with mud and water.

By foot became one of the only motions of transport thorough these areas and then the men themselves became targets for the artillery and snipers continuously waiting for a head to pop up over the trench slits.

Overall, for a soldier, ww1 was the worst, both in terms of day to day life, survival rate, causality rates, physiological effects and more. It is hard to believe what happened in ww2, and I think ww1 was a whole nother kettle of fish.

 

WW2 was a different war, as I said the lines were static and moved and therefore shelling would not normally turn the area into holes, so transportation was easier, and therefore medicine more readily availability as well as the ability to rotate units out of the line therefore making the soldiers life in ww2 not as difficult as a solider from ww1.

Don't get me wrong I think that the ww2 soldiers suffered just as horribly as the ones from ww1, but in terms of an overall view, it would be ww1 as worse.

 

It would depend where you served, and the nation you served with. I would think the Eastern Front or in the islands of the Southwest Pacific would probably be the worst. With the temperature extremes and ,more often than not, poor logistics. The Japanese had a particularly hard time, on their island holdings, during the late war years.

For that matter, was not the US Civil War worse than World War I?

Maybe it's just me, but I find the question pointless...

War IS Hell!

 

The civil war can not be the worst, the everyday soldiers life was not really that bad, only the battles themselves, what they did required such bravery to march up to an enemy line of muskets and allow them to fire is amazing.

Anyway back to the question. In ww2, the logistics are not comparable to those of ww1. In ww1 shelling day and night, continuously for years meant that Britain herself actually faced a shell shortage, and on one particular hill the British fired that many shells that they actually took 20 inches of the top of the hill.

WW2 can not compare to such things, in terms of a continuous way, only over a few days or even months such as Stalingrad, but not years.

 

You might want to look at this site to learn about WWI - I have it bookmarked at the page for Tyne Cot Cemetetery First World War.com - The Western Front Today - Tyne Cot Cemetery.

Both wars were horrid.

The conditions for the soldiers in WWI, gas attacks, the shear numbers that were deemed acceptable as losses in a single day's action are almost impossible to comprehend from a modern perspective.

World War II - had a greater global impact for excessive civilian casualties. The conditions for the soldiers in WWII were also difficult. They were not subjected to trench warfare or gas attacks, but did face aerial bombardment, artillery bombardment from further away; tanks, machine guns and mortars in greater numbers; and for non-North American troops wondering whether their loved ones would be safe or survive the war.

It is really impossible to specifically compare them, although my own commentary in terms of battle and media coverage after recently being at the European sites of battles and cemeteries for both wars, is that western societies attitudes towards war and death has evolved. In WWI tens of thousands of soldiers'deaths in a single day were accepted "Covering four miles of trench lines, the gas affected some 10,000 troops, half of whom died within ten minutes of the gas reaching the front line. Death was caused by asphyxiation. Those who lived were temporarily blinded and stumbled in confusion, coughing heavily. 2,000 of these troops were captured as prisoners of war (from the above website)", in WWII in a single day the reporting of hundreds of soldiers' deaths in an single day were met with horror (i.e. Dieppe), and today we mourn each death in Afghanistan and Iraq which are publicized and in which we usually learn the soldier's name, how he was killed, and something about his life.

The conditions for soldiers in warfare have theoretically improved in terms of quality of materiel supplied, but when it comes to the psychological side - I actually think it may have become worse in each successive modern war.

 

As to the living conditions alone, WW1 is the "winner", and I use that term advisedly. The lack of decent rations, the horrendous "over the top" charges, the swamps the trenches became in the warm months, the gas attacks, the less effcient medical services, and on and on.

There is a place in France somewhere (I lost the pic of the place) which was mentioned by another. The amazing thing is that it is a field of bayonettes, they are on the ends of men's rifles and protruding from the ground.

These soldiers were buried alive by a massive bombardment which filled their trench with dirt and soil so rapidly they couldn't escape. Now that is eerie, and a bit bizarre as well. Don't hold me to that, but I did have a photo of the site once I hope it wasn't photoshopped. Mayhaps Skipper knows if this is true or not?

 

The soldiers would be rotated from the front a lot more in the great war compared to the second world war. Five weeks on end in "the triangle" beeing shelled silly by Nebelwerfers and howisers, and the disparity in equipment...

As for rations and quarters... Brian (sapper on the forum) never had hot meals on the line.

No live and let live shelling policies.

If you surrendered, nobody would be machine gun you because it was inconvenient to take prisoners.

Nobody would chase women and children into a church and then light it.

Both wars were a terrible events.

 

I can't think of anything much worse than being a soldier on the eastern front or in one of the many Sino-Japanese or pacific island campaigns.

Overall I believe those situations were even more nightmarish than anything WW 1 could bring. Remember in the pacific campaigns there were salty WW1 vets who said that the pacific was still far worse.

Not saying the western front was a walk in the park because it wasn't..but there was at least some human decency there.

 

IMO WW1 was mostly a war of soldiers. The current technology and lack of immaginative leadership turned it into basically attrition strategy and that's the worst kind of conflict possible. WW2 was probably less attrition based on the front lines but turned into attrition strategy against the whole enemy population including civilians, so while for soldiers it may be less bad overall it was much worse.

I also believe the better fragmentation of WW2 shells, no use of gas and better medical services including first generation antibiotics, made the sort of horrendous wounds common in WW1 less likely.

A bit of a minor issue but IMO the use of awareness enhancing drugs in WW2 was a lot worse than WW1 that limited itself to acohol as "dutch courage generator".

 

Both wars were horrible, but in terms of conditions for soldiers I would say WWI was worse than WWII.

 

All wars are horrible and really hard to relate/compare to one another.

In some respects, further you go into history....worse the war was. Heck I would pick WW1 over Medevil battle ANY day of the week. But in other respects they got worse....

Pros and cons to everything.

For example, would you rather be in war where it's 100% melee (ala medevil) and very few IF ANY civilian casualties? Or in a war that was modern weapons but experience heavy civilian casualties.

At the end of the day, they are both horrible....but one thing is for sure, it's hard to say ONE is worse than OTHER.

 

This is a little bit off topic, but i remember watching a documentary on the japanese's experince in Iwo Jima. They seemed to commite mass ritual suicide after lossing a main battle. Wouldn't it be worst for the Japanese who have to dig into cave all day and live in them. While having to follow the order from a leader to commite suicide when the time comes.

 

First let me say, I understand what you are saying above.

Please don't take this as trying to flame this answer, I am not. This is a very valid question, and the fact that it is being asked shows me there is someone truly trying to understand the reality of war.
If more people asked questions like this, maybe we would fight less wars.
Print can sometimes come across as blunt, and I really am not trying to be arguementitive. "Friends" John

Tomcat summed it up well pointing out the immobility of WWI caused many peripheral problems that weren't as prevolant in WWII. The biggest being diseases caused by the stagnant positions and all that comes with it.

 

Thank you for supporting me. From alot of reality novels i have read, it always say how bad wars are. But some of them also try to point out how people like us will never know how "hellish" the condition they live in. In All quite on the western front, it mentioned a farmer suffering from home sickness, and then he went AWOL. "A week after we heard that he had been caught by the field gendarmes, those despicable military police. He had headed toward Germany, that was hopeless, of course--and, of course, he did everything else just as idiotically. ANyone might have known that his flight was only homesickness and a momentary aberration. But what does a court-martial a hundred miles behind the front-line know about it?" (123, remarque).
When i read novels about war, i tried to make myself "feel" there, but that paragraph horrifies me, and make me think about how little i know about war. You can never experience WWI even if you join Iraq war or read all the books and movies about WWI.
Soldiers fought FOUR YEARS of war, and most of them have just graduated. IMAGINE THAT. TWENTY YEARS of learning to love and be a man have been destroyed by war. "We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war."