A Surgeon in Arms

Early in the conflict, after the Germans had been pushed back from their rush on Paris, the French were in a bad way for many of the necessities of a country at war. Among the n...

Practically all men and most women are brave when the occasion requires it. Out there one sees many types of brave men. There are few cases of cowardice in the face of the enemy...

The handling of the sick is not so easy a matter as the caring for the wounded in the lines, for the reason that it is not what disease the man has that the medical officer must...

The method of caring for the wounded at the front depends a great deal upon whether a battalion is holding a set of trenches on a standing front, or advancing, either in a big p...

At this period of the war the restaurants of Paris--and no other city is so famous for its restaurants--were not appreciably curtailed in their food supplies. They still served...

His name tells his nationality. His philosophy, especially as regards the war, is usually interesting and always instructive. Yesterday he accompanied me to headquarters out in...

Something that is noticed by all who have served at the front is the drollery of the men in dangerous or uncomfortable surroundings. Sometimes it is good-natured, sometimes ill-...

Up to the present the greatest aid given by the air service to any of the armies in this war is that of acting as scouts; or, in other words, the air service supplies the eyes o...

On Easter Monday, April 9, 1917, occurred on the western front the great push which has been named by the press the Battle of Arras. For some days previously our bombardment of...

Paris, that queen of cities, has been an interesting study to all who have paid her a visit at any time, but particularly interesting is that study since the war began.

To anyone who has served any time at the front the above word will bring back recollections of various kinds, for dugouts are of varying types. The term is employed to denote an...

When one battalion goes out of the line it is relieved by another, and no section or company of a battalion may go from its point of duty until a corresponding section or compan...

About a month after the Canadians had taken Vimy Ridge we relieved the ---- Canadian Battalion in the town of Vimy, where our battalion was in support to another battalion holdi...

When a man has gone over the top of a front line trench in an attack on the enemy, he has reached the stage in his career as a soldier at which the title, "veteran," may honorab...

Generally speaking, when he is under the surface he is in his wine cellar, or he is dead. But at the front all this is altered. Both the enemy and ourselves have reverted to the...

Talleyrand once wittily said that language was given us to hide our thoughts, and this saying might be enlarged by adding that slang was given us to hide our language. The Frenc...

Life "out there" is so strange, so unique, so full of hardship and danger, and yet so intensely interesting that it seems like another world. It is a different life from any oth...

Leave is the be-all and end-all of anyone who has been at the front for any great time. It is supposed to come every three months. It never does, but you know that if you stay l...

At the front you never need to go beyond the day on which you write to find things of interest to tell those who have not known the life, who are so unfortunate as to have to re...

Now, the ordinary combatant officer who perhaps will read these lines may expect a diatribe against what the boys call, "the brass-hats," but, if so, he will be grievously disap...

It is true that more decorations, from the Victoria Cross down, have been awarded in this war than in the hundred years before it. It may be stated that for each of these distin...

Since the war began and the Germans undertook the drowning of women and children by the submarine method I have crossed the Atlantic four times. Two of these voyages were on tro...

One day toward the end of March, 1917, our battalion was in reserve in huts and tents at Bois des Alleux, a mile or so back of Mt. St. Eloy, so I took advantage of a fine aftern...

Just before the great Vimy Ridge offensive a crowd of us stood on a small hillock beside our camp, which is in a wood six or seven miles behind our lines, to watch the "earthqua...

Our dugout was in a communication trench some five hundred yards from the front line, and probably six hundred from the German. The dugout was one of those steel-roofed affairs,...

"Good-by, docthor; Oi'm lavin' fer the great beyant. There's no use grumblin' an' Oi don't, fer Oi've had a full loife--me frinds often said too full, but sure they didn't know,...