A Soldier’s Manuscript [Illustrated Edition]

Includes The Americans in the First World War Illustration Pack - 57 photos/illustrations and 10 maps
“THE narrative of adventure, travel, combat, and escape, which composes this volume, is the straight-forward work of a straight-thinking young American. Cornelius Winant gives a clear assessment of the great movements in which he had so chivalrously borne a part. Perhaps he had no thought of the manuscript ever going beyond his family, which now, in response to the natural wishes of many friends, privately distributes the account in printed form.
“Four boys with their mother and father composed the Winant family. The house on 71st Street must have re-echoed to the gay laughter and happy comradeship of these four devoted brothers.
“That was in 1900, when our soldier-narrator was but a little child; it was long ago, before the boy had left the endeared home for boarding school, before they had graduated from Princeton, before the catastrophe, in which each bore a distinguished part, shook the world.
“The reader will quickly become involved in a narrative which takes him, with Cornelius Winant, after his prompt will-to-enlist, through the early ambulance days, through a winter at Monastir, to the western front in the French Army, and twice into the harrowing experiences of German prison camps.
“The quality of the account is an utter fairness, as utter an uncomplaining courage, marked throughout by a boyish, naïve, selfless delight in the game. Of his terrible journey to the Dutch frontier he writes: “I remember thinking, as I was going along this road, that in spite of the hardships it was darn good fun, and I appreciated it at the time.”-Foreword