The Wars Timothy Findley

The Wars by Timothy Findley was a book set in the time of World War One. The
book incorporates many real facts about the war and about how life was lived in
that time period. These real facts about the war include things from the weapons
that were used to the ways wars were fought out. The author took these facts and
added his own slight twist to incorporate his characters such as Robert.
The life of a soldier in World War is not the most pleasant of one. Every soldier
everyday faces many fears besides the fear of the enemy. These fears also include
rats, ticks, lice, and trench foot. The life of a soldier is to protect not only his own life
but also the lives of his fellow soldier and the freedom of his country. That task
becomes even more difficult when these other obstacles become apparent. A quote
from the book (Pg 127) Robert caught the rat by the tail. Here is someone still alive
and the word alive is amazing. This quote shows that in Roberts own Trench had
lived a family of rats.
While the enemies are attacking the soldiers on the ground front, and the rats are
attacking the soldiers in the trench holes, They are even getting attacked in their
sleep. In their blankets and pillows lived ticks. These ticks would burrow into the
soldiers skin and suck their blood and rid them with diseases. Although ticks are not
talked about much in this book the author, Timothy Findley, made it quite clear that
the enemies on the front line were not the only worries of the soldiers. The other
fear during battle was trench foot. The soldiers would stand in mud all day long and
the mud and water around their feet would eventually rot their skin. They called
this trench foot. Trench foot was easily avoidable by just changing into new socks
very frequently but clean socks were hard to come by.
In World War one, horses were of so many uses. They were used to carry materials
as well as used for transportation. The most common use was war vehicles. In this
time machinery used for transportation did not exist. Soldiers would both use
horses to carry their equipment and weapons as well as use it to ride into battle. In
this book Robert has a special connection with animals for example his horses and
when he runs with the coyote. In the battle of Somme The British troops used
hundreds of thousands of horses to ride into battle, which was a great advantage
over the enemy and was a major cause to the victory of that battle. In The Wars
horses were used for the same purpose of riding into battle to have the vehicle
advantage over the enemy. They were also used to carry weapons and injured.
The biggest part of any war is the weapons being used. The main guns in this book
include, the standard musket, artillery, the brand new introduction to the
flamethrowers, and Robertss personal Webley automatic pistol. The Webley pistol
has a large amount of relevance in this story because Robert was talking with his
family while he was deployed and he asked them for the gun. This gun has relevance
because it was also used in World War one and it was given to Robert from his
family. This was also the first time flamethrowers had been used and the book

describes the destructive power of them. The artillery was the cause of shell shock
in Roberts allies and as well as the enemies. In this story the weapons play a huge
part of the story. In the book it talks about the man who uses rocks to take down
targets. Robert believes that the man should teach him to be a soldier because he
no longer feels that killing is actually killing.
The war introduced a new weapon of mass torture and suffering called gases. These
gases include the basic smoke gas as well as chlorine gases and mustard gases. The
basic smoke gas was used to hide troops while they advanced so they had a better
chance of making it to the next trench with out being spotted and shot. The smoke
was not deadly and was used more of a transportation tactic. The mustard gas and
the chlorine gas were very similar other than a few basic details. The chlorine gas
would be inhaled and destroy the lungs and the body from the inside. The mustard
gas acted as a gas version of acid, burn through skin. The reason it was called
mustard gas was because of its mustard like yellow colour. In the story it describes
Robert at war and his fellow soldier had started to inhale chlorine gas. The only
defense to the chlorine gas besides gas masks, which were scarce, was to pee on a
cloth item and cover your face with it. This created a filter of air so you would not
inhale the chlorine. Robert hands his fellow soldier a piece of cloth that he had peed
on to stop the soldier from inhaling more chlorine. Unfortunately it was too late and
the soldier died minutes later.
The life of a soldier on the front lines was a dangerous one. They lived a life
consisting of being attack by not only the enemy soldiers, weapons, and gas but they
also feared things such as rats, ticks, and having their feet in mud too long which
caused trench foot. Wars were a terrible place to be, so much death and pain. This
book did a great job of portraying the realist facts of the life of a soldier and how
wars were won and lost as well as endured. Timothy Findley shows wars from the
point of Robert and he did a great job of showing the real life war, but that was not
just Roberts life, it was also the life many hundreds of thousands of people life every
day for many years of their lives.