In the Line of Battle: Soldiers' Stories of the War

Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
382K words
Chapters
39

Tags

English Originals War and Military FictionDocumentary Literature Historical SceneWar MemoryWar StoriesComradeship in WarLife-and-Death TrialsHeroismFrontline ReportageBattlefield NarrativeSoldier Perspective

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.In the Line of Battle: Soldiers' Stories of the War by Walter WoodAuthor: ,Language: English, Class: D501: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: World War I (1914-1918), Release Date: Jan 29, 2015

Editor's review

In the Line of Battle: Soldiers' Stories of the War, edited by Walter Wood, is a public-domain ebook in the World War I history category, released free by Project Gutenberg. Its core value lies in presenting wartime experience through soldiers' own accounts or soldier's-eye stories, letting readers feel the situations and emotions of ordinary combatants rather than relying on grand narratives of strategy. Such material is uniquely useful for understanding individual experience in war, soldiers' psychology, and daily life at the front, and can serve as supplementary reading for the social history of World War I and oral-history sources. Note that this is an English public-domain text lacking modern editorial notes and background explanation; the selection and arrangement of stories reflect the editor's period perspective. Readers should combine it with basic World War I background and distinguish individual accounts from overall historical fact. It suits readers interested in individual experience of World War I, military history, or war literature, and is most rewarding when read within some historical framework.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. First learn the basic timeline and main theaters of World War I, then enter the soldiers' stories
  2. After every few pieces, review the subjects' situations to avoid taking a single story as the whole picture
  3. Note recurring emotions and details to appreciate the historical value of individual accounts

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39

FAQ

Can this book be read as a history of World War I? It is not suitable as a complete war history. It focuses on soldier's-eye stories and individual experience, with limited coverage of strategic background, decisions, and the overall course. It is better used after gaining a basic World War I framework, as supplementary material for sensing frontline experience and soldiers' situations.
Are the soldiers' stories original oral records? According to the available information, the book was edited by Walter Wood and is a compilation of soldiers' stories, but the sources do not specify how each story was collected and arranged. It should be read as soldier-perspective texts selected and arranged by the editor, not as unprocessed original oral archives.
What should readers note when reading the public-domain ebook? This edition is released by Project Gutenberg as an English public-domain text, usually without modern notes, introduction, or map appendix. Readers need to supply their own background knowledge of World War I and be mindful of the expressions and standpoints of the editing and writing era, avoiding equating individual accounts directly with comprehensive historical fact.

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About the author

Project Gutenberg Author

Project Gutenberg is not a single author but a nonprofit digital library founded by Michael Hart in 1971 and one of the world's earliest free ebook platforms. It relies on volunteers to digitize, proofread, and freely distribute public-domain works and is now operated by the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Its collection contains 2,692 works, mainly religious texts, epics, and story collections, including the King James Bible and the Douay-Rheims volumes, the epic Mahabharata, a literal translation of the Arabian Nights, and Danish editions of the Old and New Testaments. Public information is limited, and its nature is closer to a public-interest compiling and dissemination body; these texts are open to the public, easy to consult and circulate, and have had a profound influence on the spread of ebooks and the preservation of public-domain resources.