A.A. Milne
I presume he had PTSD after the war? Was PTSD diagnosed back then? Probably not.
shareIt didn't have a name then, people just said "He had a bad war".
shareIt did have a name. It was called "shell shock".
shareActually, "shell shock" was more commonly used to describe post-concussion syndrome, which is a series of neurological disturbances that can follow the kind of concussion that comes from being too close to an exploding bomb or shell.
Which can of course occur at the same time as PTSD, and neither condition was well understood. So yeah, sometimes people did just say "He had a bad war", which is as good a description as any.
Actually, "shell shock" was used to describe exactly the same symptoms that are referred to as "PTSD" today. I knew many veterans of both WWI and WWII who used this term in that way. Perhaps there was a narrower clinical definition, but to the public, in everyday speech, "shell shock" was the same as "PTSD". I never heard any of those people who were there in those wars say that somebody "had a bad war". "Shell shock" was the common expression.
shareWell, I've read otherwise, and I'm not willing to get into a pissing match over this issue.
I will just say that neither PTSD, post-concussion syndrome, nor traumatic brain injuries were well understood in the early half of the 20th century, and if anybody knew they were all distinct conditions than I haven't read about it. But I think that all three conditions were lumped together under the vague popular term "shell shock".