In the Trenches of the Aisne

Mundane, mutinous, muddy and miraculous; daily life, in the trenches described by a man who lived through the chaos, the mud, and the moments of pure joy in a life reduced to the attempt to stay alive.

In the Trenches on the Aisne, the author looks back with considerable poignancy and even nostalgia, paints detail into the daily existence of the soldier in the front-line trenches, bunkers and caves. He muses on universal worries and individual anxieties, the romanticism and the danger of death at every turn.

“Who has time during the rise and fall of the attack, at the peak of emotional tension, to keep his eye on his comrade? Who can then tell whether he has been torn apart by a shell and scattered to the winds or whether he has found a peaceful, abandoned spot in the forest for his grave…”

Here is an honest book by a soldier confronted with loss trying to come to terms with the extraordinary events of which he is part.