© 2004 ed. Max Author
336 pages
Forgotten Voices of the Great War is a
chronicle of the first great war, a
story told not by one author but many. Interviews and written recollections
from soldiers and civilians, young and old, give readers a first-hand view of
the debacle as it unfolded. The editor divided the book into five year-by-year
sections, and begins each with a brief (two-page long) summary of the year’s
fighting before allowing the participants of history to give the full, intimate
account. Aside from the occasional insertion
of dates and battle names, the narrative consists of first-hand excerpts,
generally no more than a paragraph long.
There are distinct home front and military sections, and no bias as far
as the soldiers’ attitudes go: the
account begins with feelings of thrill and anxiety at the war’s declaration,
but by the first few months virtually everyone sounds weary. There’s no
polemicizing here, though after witnessing the despair of soldiers enduring these
long years at the front what reader can
escape antiwar sentiment? All of the
combat accounts are set on the Western Front or in Gallipoli,, but there are
accounts of Germans, French, and Americans mixed in with the Commonwealth
nations’ excerpts, constituting half the
work. Forgotten Voices leaves grand
narrative behind and allows readers to experience the grisly details – the stories
of soldiers tripping through dark trenches filled with cables, of the wounded
sinking into muddy shell holes and attempting to effect their rescue by singing
loudly amid the clamor of combat; and of
course, the rats, living in the legions of bodies and growing as large as dogs,
with shooting them a dismal option because their own bodies will only add to
the stinking foulness. It’s not pretty, but such is the nature of war and
modern readers would do well to heed these voices instead of those singing of
war’s glories.
Thank you for this recommendation. About two years ago, I read a huge, three-volume set on the history of the Third Reich, but have never read up on WWI that much. Time to remedy that, it looks like.
ReplyDeleteIt was a grisly affair, but it's almost a relief -- when you're used to WW2 books -- to read a story of a war where one side isn't as villainized. Not that the powers involved are all 'good', but there's as many morally dubious actors on the Entente side as there are on the Central Powers side.
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