Volunteer Poilu [Illustrated Edition]

Illustrated with a number of photographs from the French Front Lines in and around Verdun. Also Includes The Americans in the First World War Illustration Pack - 57 photos/illustrations and 10 maps.Henry Beston Sheahan was a noted American novelist and naturist who wrote many well-known books, including the Cape Cod classic The Outermost House; he volunteered for service in the French Army during the First World War. In volunteer Poilu he recounts his experiences in the American Ambulance Service in the evacuating casualties in and around Verdun during 1916. In the midst of the bloodiest prolonged siege in the world at that time the number of wounded French soldiers were prodigious; the Ambulance services needed every able body even if they did come from the neutral United States. In spite of the huge workload that Sheahan undertook he managed to scribble notes of scenes and anecdotes of the great battle and the soldiers of the French Army.A rare and movingly written memoir from the Great Battle of Verdun.