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How and why was the distinction between soldier and civilian increasingly blurred, and in some cases obliterated, during the First World War?
There were many reasons we can say that to make distinction between civilians and military was difficult after world war 1, some of them are as following -
1. This war was fought not only against the army but to capture land and thus civilians were also the targets of opponents. Hence feeling of nationalism among civilians also increased and they decided to fight for the country and joined military in some or other way like being a doctor, engineer, ambulance driver etc.
2. All this also reduced the supply of essentials to the country and thus civilians were also affected at ground level which caused them to arise in anger against the opponents and they joined hands with military to fight against enemy. An interesting thing is that many civilians grew cereals and food for military and to keep them awake and energetic, they fought for nationalism.
3. The invading armies were doing lots of atrocities to the civilians and thus they had no other option except involving into war.
4. They also encouraged military accepting that they want nothing less than victory. Many poets wrote poems to keep military alive. Some of them were Wilfred Owen, August, Rupert Brooke, Rudyard Kipling etc.
They did so by writing poetry, by becoming ambulance driver, by voluntarily working in hospitals and schools and in all other ways they could help for the country.
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