War was a very traumatizing experience for soldiers on the western front. The Germans had used poisonous chlorine gas as an effort to break through stalemate during the Second Battle of Ypres. Later on, artillery and machine guns were introduced, and pilots began dropping bombs from their planes. This new war technology caused millions of casualties on either side and resulted in huge bloodbaths instead.
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Mark I was the first tank used in WWI by the British military. It was built to break through trenches and to get across No Man's Land.
These disturbing pictures are actually the most revealing of the western front. Soldiers were risking their lives every second out in the trenches. They had to stay in terrible conditions and tried their best to avoid being killed in action. Artillery warfare caused many to return from battle with horrible injuries, mangled bodies, and missing fragments from their faces. Alive but disfigured, soldiers had to deal with not only the physical pain of face mutilation, but the psychological stress as well. It was a disheartening loss of identity because soldiers were constantly insecure about their appearances and worried about how their families and friends would react. Some facial injuries were beyond repair and plastic reconstruction was sadly not an option for these unfortunate soldiers. Anna Coleman Ladd was an American sculptor who painted portrait masks with oils based on old photographs of men before their injuries. Remarkably, they were so intricate and detailed that they had almost precisely resembled former facial features of the patient. Ladd dedicated most of her time into her restorative work and meticulously, "produced masks that would allow men who gave so much for their country to return home as physically whole as possible" (Browe).