Why I Set My Novel During World War I

Or…Who the hell cares about one year early last century?

It began innocently enough. I was about to be married. We’d planned a small affair of maybe twenty-five people, so it came as a surprise when my good friend’s new significant other begged off. He had another commitment two states away. Apparently, every so often this fellow dressed up as a German soldier and spent a weekend living in a trench. My introduction to the world of historical reenactment. Annoyed by the last-minute revision of my seating arrangements, I asked myself, who are these insane people? And why World War I?

Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the Treaty of Versailles. That was the extent of my knowledge of this first conflict of the Modern era.

So I started reading.

A summary of the basics: 1914-1918. England and France vs. Germany, Austria and, for a while, Italy. Russia was there somewhere, too, on the allied side. Four years of muddy, bloody, hungry stalemate. An influenza pandemic created as much carnage as the brand new war toys—machine guns, mustard and phosgene gasses. Only medical care is still stuck in the 19th century. Saw and hammer field surgery. No antibiotics.

America got in late. 1917. But once we finally committed, the war impacted every facet of our society. Food control programs decided which days people could eat meat or wheat products. The purchase of Liberty Bonds to fund the war became unofficially obligatory…fail to buy and your neighbors would shun you. Or worse. Neighbors were encouraged to observe and report upon the non-compliant. This idea of “citizen patrol” gained momentum resulting in the rise of groups like the American Protective League. Through its local patriot clubs, the APL issued tin badges to members and tasked them with monitoring the conversations and actions of their friends and co-workers. Insult President Wilson, talk down the war effort, and they just might break into your home searching for proof of your subversive and seditious activities. People were arrested and given sentences of five, ten, fifteen years because their own child, not realizing the danger, mentioned to a friend that her father “thinks the President is an idiot.” Forget publishing your opinion via news editorial or even a private pamphlet. Off to jail with you.

Another point worth mentioning is that at this time women were not allowed to vote. And, though there were women doctors, they were not generally allowed to practice under the auspices of the U.S. Army. In the course of my research, I read dozens of memoirs by women who went overseas as relief workers and nurses aides. Over and over again, I came upon passages describing the gory results of trench warfare…mass casualties…a lack of medical facilities and surgeons to care for them. At the same time female doctors were allowed only to act as nurses. Bed pans and dressing changes. One report even described a woman doctor scrubbing floors as a volunteer at a YMCA post. Without private money, and a lot of it, that was the only way even qualified women could get Over There. Yet the support and service of women—in many capacities—during this conflict is credited with giving the final push to the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote.

I could go on. Talk about how the war impacted the U.S. Labor Movement. The shady behavior of local draft boards, especially in urban areas, with their high populations of new immigrants. We could talk about the peace, so hard won, and probably the biggest political and human failure in recorded history, certainly the genesis of much of the misery that haunted the 20th Century.

And after all this, many people don’t consider World War I to be an American war. There are almost no American novels about it. Few American films have been made on the subject. The people who suffered through it? People like my own great-grandfather, who was gassed in France and spent the remainder of his life in and out of mental institutions for uncontrollable bouts of rage? Gone. Forgotten. In America anyway.

Except for a few very strange people, who miss weddings to dress up like soldiers and spend perfectly nice weekends in muddy trenches.

To them I say, thank you for annoying me and opening my eyes.

I set my novel during World War I, because it is an era rich in stories worth exploring. In a way, I feel like I’m standing at the long-buried mouth of forgotten mine, waving my arms and shouting “Look what I’ve found! There’s something in there and it’s glittering.” Maybe, as we get closer to the centenary of our country’s involvement in this global conflict, other novelists will look at my work and catch the fever. And together we’ll reclaim this vein of forgotten history, this wealth of untold tales.