 Limbless British Veterans after the First World War |
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In the First World War, European societies offered up young men as “gifts” to the nation-state. These young men often gifted body parts.
A French soldier wondered if their “gift of blood” was not the “supernatural source of life which must be given to our country.”
Like a hungry vampire or shark, nations during the First World War fed off the bodies and blood of soldiers. Death in battle was the “supreme sacrifice.”
The men above gifted only parts of their bodies—one, two, or three limbs—and preserved the rest of their selves.
Nine-million men gifted their entire bodies.
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