What is Back of the War

by Albert J. Beveridge

Front Cover:

This is a very interesting old book about World War I, or the Great War. This book was published in 1915 by The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Publishers, Indianapolis. The book measures 5 ½ inches by 8 ¼ inches and contains 430 pages. The blue cloth cover has an embossed and textured finish. The title is in gilt on the front and down the spine. The cover shows minor signs of wear to the edges, corners and to the top and bottom of the spine. The spine is tight and the hinges are strong. The pages are printed on good quality paper and show no signs of rips or foxing. Exceptions noted, the overall condition of this old book is very good.


Spine


Title Page

Excerpt – A day of Winter Battle
(Lodz, Russian Poland, January 31, February 1, 1915)

Although you do not go to bed until near midnight, and you are asleep before your head touches the pillow, you need no thundering on the door to awaken you at half past four this morning. The bellowing wind performs that service for you—you had no idea it could howl with such a penetrating voice. And its tones are arctic. They announce a temperature which makes you shiver before you feel it.

Perhaps your experience the day and night before subconsciously puts an edge on the blasts of the gale in your imagination. For you are in Lodz, in Russian Poland, and you have driven from Posen, nine hours at top speed of a swift automobile in the face of a driving wind, sharpened by particles of snow which sting your face like wasps. You are on your way to a battlefield, some ten miles beyond Lowitsch; and Lowitsch itself is about thirty miles from Lodz. You are soon to see fighting within an hour’s automobile ride, in peace time, of Warsaw.

Advised by yesterday’s frigid journey, and cautioned by officers, you take extreme measures against the expected chill of the day before you. Three suits of woolen underwear; riding breeches, shirt and coat; a woolen sweater; fur-lined vest; heavy fur coat with a long cape over all; thick, long, woolen hand-knitted socks; riding boots with heavy wool socks over these, encased from knee to ankle in leather puttees; thick, wool-knit headpiece beneath the cap covering forehead, ears and chin and warmly circling the neck; automobile goggles for the eyes; gloves, with soft, thick mittens worn over them—such are the fortifications which, you are informed, you softened and unseasoned civilian tissues will require against the cold, speeding in an open automobile…
End excerpt


Title Page - Verso

Contents:

  1. On the Doorstep of War
  2. German Trench and Battery
  3. The German Emperor and Two of His Fighting Chiefs
  4. A Day of Winter Battle
  5. Some Fruits of War
  6. A People at War
  7. German Thought Back of the War – I
  8. German Thought Back of the War – II
  9. Especially Shelled: French Front
  10. France in Arms
  11. French Thought Back of the War – I
  12. French Thought Back of the War – II
  13. War Conditions in England: A Contrast
  14. British Thought Back of the War – I
  15. British Thought Back of the War – II
  16. Probabilities


Frontispiece – Preparing to go into action, French front, February 27th, 1915. “’It is a matter of exact mathematics,’ elucidates the artillery commander.”


Big gun of a heavy masked battery at the French front, February, 27th, 1915. “A growth of small pine trees thinly veils the location.”


Headquarters 5th French Army. Col. De Lardemelle, chief of staff to General Franchet d’Esperey, in centre. The French officers are highly trained and efficient. “One notable military fact of this war is that France appears to be extremely well equipped with highly educated and seasoned officers.”


“Food for the voracious guns.” Germans ammunition train going to a section of the batteries. A little incident in a snowy battle day. Battle of Bolinoff, Russian Poland (before Warsaw), January 31st, 1915. The German organization is as perfect as the good cheer and physical fitness of the German soldiers.


German officers watching effect of artillery duel before Arras, France, January 8, 1916. “The harsh but not repellent crash of the cannon’s barbaric orchestration.” In the French village below the people are going about their daily affairs as if nothing unusual were happening.


German fighting trench near Arras, France, January 8, 1915. The French trenches are from forty to an hundred yards away. The good-humored faces and excellent physical condition of the German soldiers are notable. Heavy rifle firing a few feet beyond; “sometimes only a p-f-l-o-t! p-f-l-o-t! and again so frequent that it is like scores of giant firecrackers exploded by a single fuse.”


French bridge “built for the eternities, blown into gigantic fragments” by the retreating French; steel structure quickly but strongly built by the Germans to replace it; barb wire entanglement to check possible night attempt to dynamite bridge.

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