My Year of the War: Including an Account of Experiences with the Troops in France and the Record of a Visit to the Grand Fleet Which is Here Given for the First Time in Its Complete Form

In August 1914, the world had been at peace for a generation. Then the guns roared and Frederick Palmer, an American correspondent, crossed the Channel into England two days after Britain declared war. What follows is an extraordinary eyewitness account of the war's first months: the desperate Belgian resistance against the German advance, the exhausted soldiers sheltering in ruined villages, the civilians fleeing with whatever they could carry. Palmer embedded with British forces from the front lines to the naval bases, and his account of visiting the Grand Fleet remains a singular historical document, giving readers access to the largest naval concentration the world had ever seen. Written with the urgency of a man who knew he was witnessing the end of one era and the violent birth of another, this is not distant history but a dispatch from the moment everything changed. For anyone who wants to understand how World War I actually felt to those caught in its opening days, there is no substitute for this memoir.