TRUE STORIES OF THE GREAT WAR
TRUE STORIES OF THE GREAT WAR
TALES OF ADVENTURE—HEROIC DEEDS—EXPLOITS
TOLD BY THE SOLDIERS, OFFICERS, NURSES,
DIPLOMATS, EYE WITNESSES
Collected in Six Volumes
From Official and Authoritative Sources
(See Introductory to Volume I)
VOLUME I
Editor-in-Chief
FRANCIS TREVELYAN MILLER (Litt. D., LL.D.)
Editor of The Search-Light Library
1917
REVIEW OF REVIEWS COMPANY
NEW YORK
REVIEW OF REVIEWS COMPANY
INTRODUCTORY
Thirty million soldiers, each living a great humanstory—this is the real drama of the Great War as it isbeing written into the hearts and memories of the menat the front. If these soldiers could be gathered aroundone camp-fire, and each soldier could relate the mostthrilling moment of his experience—what stories wewould hear! "Don Quixote," the "Arabian Nights,"Dante's "Inferno," Milton's "Paradise Lost, and Regained"—allthe legends and tales of the world's literatureout-told by the soldiers themselves.
It is from the lips of these soldiers, and those whohave passed through the tragedy of the war—the womenand children whose eyes have beheld the inferno andwhose souls have been uplifted by suffering and self-sacrifice—thegenerations will hear the epic of the dayswhen millions of men gave their lives to "make the worldsafe for Democracy." The magnitude of this giganticstruggle against autocracy is such that human imaginationcannot visualize it—it requires one to stand face toface with death itself.
A member of the British War Staff estimates thatmore than a million letters a day are passing from thetrenches and bases of the various armies "to the folkback home." Another observer at the General Headquartersof one of the armies estimates that more thana million and a half diaries are being kept by the soldiers.[ii]It is in these words, inscribed by bleeding bodies andsuffering hearts, that posterity is to hear True Stories ofthe Great War.
It is the purpose of these volumes, therefore, to beginthe preservation of these soldiers' stories. This is thefirst collection that has been made; it is in itself an historicevent. The manner in which this service has beenperformed may be of interest to the reader. It was myprivilege to appoint a committee, or board of editors, tocollect stories from soldiers in the various armies—personalletters, records of personal experiences, reminiscences,and all other available material. An exhaustiveinvestigation has been made into the files of Europeanand American periodicals to find the various narrativesthat have "cre