Self-Censorship
All letters generated by troops at the front were, in theory, read and censored by political officers attached to regiments. However, often this was often unecessary. Troops would impose a certain amount of self-censorship on what they wrote for a variety of reasons. The most common was that their experiences were too awful for most to put into words and, secondly, many felt it was their duty as soldiers to keep-up morale at home. They wanted to distance their loved ones from the terror of war, that is why they were fighting.
Consider the attached letter from 1917, do you consider this to reflect a full range of emotions? If not why not?
