The Peak of the Load;

the waiting months on the hilltop from the entrance of the Stars and Stripes to the second victory of the Marne

Mildred Aldrich was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1853. After graduating from Everett High School in 1872, she taught elementary school in Boston, Massachusetts.
Aldrich began her career as a journalist with the Boston Home Journal and later contributed to Arena and the Boston Herald. For a short period in 1892, she also edited the magazine, The Mahogany Tree.
In 1898, Aldrich moved to France and while living in Paris became a close friend of Gertrude Stein. Aldrich worked as a foreign correspondent and newspaper critic until retiring to Huiry, a village on the outskirts of Paris. She wrote to Stein in June 1914: "It will be the bloodiest affair the world has ever seen - a war in the air, under the sea as well as on it, and carried out with the most effective man-slaughtering machines ever used in battle."
During the First World War, Aldrich wrote A Hilltop on the Marne (1915), a book based on her journal entries (3rd June - 8th September 1914) and on letters she wrote to Gertrude Stein. The book sold well in the United States and she followed it with On the Edge of the War Zone (1917), The Peak of the Load (1918) and When Johnny Comes Marching Home (1919).
The French government believed that Aldrich's work helped persuade the US government to declare war on Germany and in 1922 was awarded the Legion of Honour.
Mildred Aldrich died in Huiry, France, on 19th February, 1928.
Text taken, whole and complete, from the edition published in London: Constable, 1919.
Original Page Count – 245 pages.