“Whoever could fire the greatest number of shots into a given area would be home and dry” (Ernst Jünger, The Storm of Steel, 1923). Until the twentieth century, soldiers on the battlefield were killed or wounded by bayonets or bullets: during the Great War, 80% of casualties were inflicted by shell fire. Bodies were mutilated, shattered, crushed and torn apart. The survivors of this massacre were known as gueules cassées (broken faces). 

In addition to the unbearable physical suffering, the victims experienced the trauma of being physically maimed, losing their former bodies and faces, even their identity. Like the protagonist of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis (1915), they were stripped of their humanity in the eyes of others. After experiencing the hell of war, they were now forced to live the hell of the survivors: the humiliation of losing one’s face.