The War The Infantry Knew, 1914-1919

Book excerpt: Memoirs of British medical officer J. C. Dunn during World War I: “The first duty of a battalion medical officer in War is to discourage the evasion of duty...not seldom against one’s better feelings, sometimes to the temporary hurt of the individual, but justice to all other men as well as discipline demands it.” “Sometimes, through word of mouth and shared enthusiasm, a secret book becomes famous. The War the Infantry Knew is one of them. Published privately in a limited edition of five hundred copies in 1938, it gained a reputation as an outstanding account of an infantry battalion's experience on the Western Front.”—Daily Telegraph “I have been waiting for a long time for someone to republish this classic. It is one of the most interesting and revealing books of its type and is a genuinely truthful and fascinating picture of the war as it was for the infantry”—John Keegan 'A remarkably coherent narrative of the battalion's experiences in diary form...a moving historical record which deserves to be added to the select list of outstanding accounts of the First World War”—Times Literary Supplement “A magnificent tour de force, the length of three ordinary books.”—London Review of Books