Propaganda

Propaganda was a massive thing WW1. This was because the country needed as many men as it could because of how many got killed.
These are some of the most famous.

The Soldiers Attitudes towards eachover

The two sides (mainly British and German) have what I think is quite an odd relationship between eachover. Why? This because they are so nice to eachover. For example on Christmas morning Germany and Britain played a football match on no mans land. They also on Christmas exchange gifts.

This at first seemed strange to me that they were so nice to eachover one day and then shot at eachover the other day. But I soon started to realize that neither sides soldiers actually want to fight. It is the people who are sitting way up away from the line drinking whiskey and wine and chatting about how much money they own who have the quarrel with other country's leader. I thought this was even stranger that rich people didn't get their hands dirty so put the country at war!

Casualty Numbers

There were a huge number of casulties in WW1.

Artillery Bombardment

Artillery Bombardment was a huge turning point in the great war and warfare in general.

 This meant that neither one of the sides could move out their trenches without getting blasted. This elongated the war by a lot.

Conditions of the trenches

This is a diagram of the trenches

This is what the trenches were really like

Mason's Humor

Mason seems to be the only short light commercial sense of relief in this dark and gloomy play. He provides a good relief to the tired and bored soldiers. He also adds spice to and variety to just the normal upper class and well spoken officer.

I think personally the reason he provides humor is just because he is very different to the other officers. also another huge thing is that he takes such light an optimism from situations. this to the reader makes Mason seem like he is almost dumb because he is so ridiculously unaware of real life!