“A person could spend a lifetime poring over nothing but memoirs from the period and never hope to read all of them. Yet, there are a number of works from the Great War that stand out.”

By Mark Carmichael

THE GREAT WAR was conflict like no other in history. It extinguished the lives of millions, toppled empires and changed the world in ways we’re still living with a century later. And no event up to that point left behind such a profound literary footprint. That’s because Europe in 1914 was home to one of the first generations brought up in the era of mass education. The populations from which Great Britain, Germany and France recruited their armies was more literate than any that had come before. And understandably, those who faced the blunt terror of history’s first ‘modern conflict’ chronicled their experiences in letters, diaries and journals. Later still, survivors of the war would use the pen to come to terms with the horrors they suffered. Collectively, this lost generation produced a rich and vivid, historical record of life and death in the trenches. A person today could spend a lifetime poring over nothing but memoirs from the period and never hope to read all of them. Yet, there are a number of works from the Great War that stand out. Erich Maria Remarque’s semi-autobiographical All Quiet on the Western Front is a classic must-read. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway is another. To be sure, there are many more wartime memoirs your personal library or bedside table shouldn’t be without. To that end, we’ve assembled a list of ten seminal ‘must-read’ works from the period.

Storm of Steel – Ernst Junger

Written by a German soldier who was wounded 14 times in the course of the war, Storm of Steel, is a true ‘page-turner.’ And every time you turn a page, it seems the author is getting shot or peppered with shrapnel. In fact, it’s only 60 days from the war’s conclusion that Junger suffers an injury that finally sidelines him. This memoir may be the greatest all-around account to arise from the Great War. The author used his 14 tattered diaries to create a literary masterpiece, detailing his experiences in battle, from the Somme to Ypres to Artois, Champagne, Arras and finally Cambrai. Many argue that his clear-minded, matter-of-fact approach results in a something approaching a glorification of war. I concur. Yet his superb writing style, classic Germanic frankness tempered with his own humanity make Storm of Steel a compelling read. That’s why it’s at the top of my ‘must-read’ list.

Somme Harvest – Giles Eyre

The Battle of the Somme visited devastation on a whole generation. Britain assembled more than 1.5 million of its finest young men to take part in the offensive; after six months, as many as a third of them were either dead or wounded. Giles Eyre was one of the lucky ones; he survived to tell his tale. In Somme Harvest, the one-time infantryman brings you along as if you were one of his squad-mates and lets you experience the war as he saw and felt it. Eyre’s dramatic battlefield descriptions will transport you back in time, and may make you feel as if you’re right there with him, dodging bullets and shells and crouching in craters or plodding through muddy trenches. Written in 1938 as war clouds once more loomed over Europe, the care and passion Eyre put into his writing was meant to remind society what his generation experienced in hopes he could spare future ones from a similar fate.

Poilu – The World War One Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker 1914-1918

In his colossal podcast on the Great War, Blueprint for Armageddon, Dan Carlin tells of the millions upon millions of shells hurled upon the ancient fortress of Verdun, which created a veritable meat-grinder that chewed up hundreds of thousands of men. Louis Barthas was one of them. His narrative compiled from 19 notebooks detailing his exploits over five years of service is essential reading for those who have limited their exploration of the war to the British experience. Poilu will open your eyes to the vast suffering and sacrifice of the French people. The book ultimately illuminates to readers as to why many in that country were so vehemently opposed to conflict in 1939.

Infantry Attacks – Erwin Rommel

Rommel’s account of his own personal introduction to warfare includes little about the future Desert Fox’s own feelings about conflict. He writes surprisingly little about the sense of fear and dread he certainly experienced as he fought his way through an artillery barrage in the seemingly endless battles of the Isonzo in the Italian Alps. He doesn’t attempt to secure our sympathies after watching his men get mowed down in the Battle of the Frontiers. No. Writing in 1937, for each battle he chronicles, from 1914 until the German army’s surrender in 1918, he exhibits a didactic methodology in his dissection of each attack, revisiting key decisions made by himself or his superiors and then with the benefit of hindsight recommending how he would do it differently if he could do it over again. Short on humanity, but for military history wonks, Rommel provides a master class in strategy and tactics.

Testament of Youth – Vera Brittan

Testament of Youth likely won’t satisfy readers looking for battlefield action. Similarly, it may also leave those interested in strategy and tactics cold. Yet, in this monumental classic, Vera Brittan, a British wartime nurse, tells what it was like to be a young accomplished woman navigating the wavering patriarchal world of the early 20^th Century. Along the way, she witnesses the unspeakable aftermath of combat and experiences a seemingly never-ending stream of personal loss and hardship. Yet despite the overwhelming suffering to which she is exposed, Brittan never bends or loses her humanity.

There’s a Devil in the Drum – J.F. Lucy

Perhaps one of the most striking moments in this Irishman’s account of the Great War involves the number 96. According to John Lucy, a foot soldier in the British Expeditionary Force of 1914, that’s how many men out of the original 100 he served alongside who were killed or wounded in the war’s first year alone. And thanks to this formidable account of the slaughter in France and Belgium, one gains a more complete understanding of the early stages of the war and how the British Army was forced to evolve from a small professional force to a mass army manned by millions of citizen soldiers. However, the ultimate value in Lucy’s work lies in his insights into the war’s devastating impact on a man’s mind, body and soul.

Memoirs of an Infantry Officer – Sigfried Sassoon

Anyone compiling a list of the top ten most important books to come out of the period can’t overlook Sassoon’s classic semi-autobiographical novel about the transformation of the fictional George Sherston from an aristocratic and patriotic officer to a committed critic of the war. After leading his men to their deaths at the Somme, and himself sustaining an injury at Arras the following year, our protagonist returns home to recover, where he ends up penning a letter to the House of Commons condemning the slaughter in Flanders. Risking a death sentence for speaking out, he is branded a victim of shellshock and ostracized. If you’re like me, you might have encountered Memoirs of an Infantry Officer in high school. If so, dig out your old copy and re-read it. If you’ve never read it, add it to your reading list.

Undertones of War – Edmund Blunden

Poets see the world differently. To our benefit, the years 1914 to 1918 were replete with them. Among the greatest was Edmond Blunden. Despite being caught up in the storm of war at the age of just 19, Blunden uniquely captured the horror of battle and brought all its cruelty and unconceivable terror using his astounding majesty of the English language. Undertones of War is a beautiful read, a journey into hell and back through the stark, discerning eyes of a talented wordsmith.

Goodbye to All That – Robert Graves

Using gritty, earthy prose Graves’ classic, Goodbye to All That, walks us through the time the author spent serving on the Western Front. In his unique matter-of-fact fashion, the he paints the grimmest of all pictures of the gory realities of trench warfare. From the moment he was almost killed at the Somme, to his flagging commitment to the cause while convalescing at Craiglockhart Hospital in Scotland, like Sassoon’s Memoirs, Goodbye to All That, is perhaps one of the most important documents to come out of the war. It provides an intimate, articulate window into the life of a man forged then devastated by the combined forces of his English upbringing and an unrepentant war.

The Great Push, An Episode of the Great War — Patrick MacGill

Just after the start of battle of Loos, the largest British battle of 1915, Patrick MacGill was recovering in a battlefield hospital pencil in hand, writing this book. Talk about raw. Although the Great Push covers only two months on the Western Front, MacGills’ mission was to tear down the false narrative that war was noble and rightous. And being a stretcher-bearer on the front-lines, he had a hands-on perspective on the mankind’s perverted effort to destroy itself.  This short memoir was his chance to tell the worth the truth as he saw it.

Mark Carmichael is a military history blogger and member of the Central Ontario Branch of the Western Front Association.