This article critiques cultural history’s tendency to reduce human experiences to social structures and discourse, neglecting the felt and embodied dimensions of historical events. Using the Augusterlebnis of 1914 as a case study, it challenges revisionist interpretations that dismiss war enthusiasm as propaganda or coercion. Instead, it argues that experiences are pre-discursive, shaped by bodily reactions and immediate perceptions. By overlooking the lived, sensory aspect of historical events, historians risk distorting the past. The article calls for a historiography that integrates both cognitive and embodied experiences to better understand how individuals truly experienced historical moments.