THE REPRESSION OF A DANGEROUS PHENOMENON. ABOUT SELF-INFLECTED WOUNDS IN WORLD WAR ONE

Abstract

Having the War for Romanian Reunification experience still fresh in the social memory, Constantin Kirițescu, invoking the respect for truth principle stated that: ”not all our army’s human material reached the peaks recognized by the foreigners and praised by us”. Some of those deployed, lacking moral resilience and being insufficiently intructed, had been however thrown into battle also demoralising their comrades, a possible explanation according to the great historian for cases of fleeing, mass surrender or self-inflicted wounds which, in some regions, brought upon themselves the most severe repression measures. We thereby aim to find answers to these aspects regarding our war during 1916-1920, such as: why did they appear, why was the repression of this phenomenon necessary and what other things were involved?