Aldrich settled in Huiry, about 30 miles east of Paris, where she had worked as a journalist. Huiry was part of a commune of towns, villages, and hamlets that were near the Marne River that flowed through eastern France.
A Hilltop on the Marne is a collection of letters that Aldrich wrote to unnamed friends from June 3, 1914 to September 8, 1914. These letters originally appeared in The Atlantic Monthly.
The early chapters describe a happy life that Aldrich enjoyed for only about two months before war came. When A Hilltop on the Marne was published in October 1915, these early scenes helped people fondly remember a life that was seriously disrupted by the European war that had started more than a year earlier.
Aldrich used a very disciplined, direct writing style to describe how her world gradually changed, from the news of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on June 28 to the successful defense of her section of the Marne by British and French troops.
In the process, she showed the effects of war on different individuals. You clearly see how the failed efforts of diplomats and heads of state rippled down to everyday civilian life.
In a letter dated July 30, 1914 (just before the war broke out), Aldrich wrote:
The tension here is terrible. Still, the faces of the men are stern, and everyone is so calm—the silence is deadly. There is an absolute suspension of work in the fields. It is as if all France was holding its breath.In that same letter, she made a stunningly accurate prediction about the war:
It will be the bloodiest affair the world has ever seen—a war in the air, a war under the sea as well as on it, and carried out with the most effective man-slaughtering machines ever used in battle.In Aldrich's neighborhood, young men marched off to war, while women, children, and older men stayed behind to tend to farms and other responsibilities. As the war got closer, you feel the tension and fear rising, as people departed for safer areas.
 |
| Title Page |
She heard many mentions of the year 1870, a shorthand reference to the Franco-Prussian War that cost France the Alsace-Lorraine area along the border of Germany. She also heard stories about hatred towards Germans who lived and worked in France, including a barber in nearby Couilly whose shop was destroyed after he left France when the war started.
Soldiers became a part of the everyday life of Aldrich, who decided to stay behind and face whatever came, with the able help of her housekeeper Amélie. Her decision proved to be wise, because of the help she provided to passing troops and because of the hectic conditions faced by neighbors who had fled.
The military formalities of these soldiers helped to anchor Aldrich's daily life with some civility while war raged a few miles away.
First, she met British soldiers, who were happy to meet someone who could speak their language. Aldrich did all she could to make these soldiers feel welcome in her home. The soldiers repaid her kindness by trying to make her feel as safe as possible.
Later, Aldrich had a close call with some German soldiers who sneaked into her area. These soldiers were later captured by French soldiers who passed through Aldrich's area on the way to the battlefield.
The hilltop of the title provided military officers with a good view of the Marne River valley where fighting took place. This view from Aldrich's garden was ironically one of her favorite parts of her new home.
The second half of the book consists of several chapters that are dated September 8. These chapters cover the early days of the Battle of the Marne, which lasted from September 5 to 12. Huiry was at the western end of a battle line that stretched for more than 100 miles.
In these later chapters, you get a close look at many of the details of this small section of the battle, including artillery exchanges, destruction of bridges by retreating British forces, the cutting of telegraph lines, and barricaded roads. Aldrich was directly threatened only once, when a German airplane shot some bullets near her.
The book ends on an upbeat note, as British and French forces repel German forces from their march towards Paris. But by then, Aldrich had seen enough war to realize that society and civilization had been severely disturbed.
And here we are today, in the twentieth century, when intelligent people have long been striving after a spiritual explanation of the meaning of life, trying to prove its upward trend, trying to beat out of it materialism, endeavoring to find in altruism a road to happiness, and governments can still find no better way to settle their disputes than wholesale slaughter.A Hilltop on the Marne was very popular, perhaps because it reminded people of the old world that was swept away by the war. My hard cover copy of the book is the Fourteenth Impression that was published in November 1916.
"Who would have supposed that a beautiful book could be written about the European war?" wrote Elia W. Peattie in a review of A Hilltop on the Marne in The Chicago Daily Tribune on October 30, 1915. Later in the review, Peattie commented, "It is a singular and valuable record and one that should be preserved."
The book is an important part of the library of fiction and nonfiction books that were written about the beginning of the war. The main body of the book is enhanced by maps of the Aldrich's area and an appendix that describes an official order by French General Joseph Joffre on September 4, 1914 about how the Battle of the Marne would be conducted.
Aldrich continued to write letters about her life during wartime, which produced the nonfiction books On the Edge of the War Zone (1917), The Peak of the Load (1918), and When Johnny Comes Marching Home (1919). She also wrote the novel Told In A French Garden, August 1914 (1916).
After Aldrich died in 1928, the magazine The Nation recalled the strong impression that A Hilltop on the Marne made when it was published:
This picture of the gray tides of war flowing in upon her from all sides remains one of the permanent literary accomplishments of the war.
A Hilltop on the Marne was published around October 16, 1915, when it was advertised in the New York Sun. According to the copyright page, it was published in October 1915. Front page headlines from the October 16, 1915 edition of the New York Sun included:
- TRAINED ARMY OF 1,000,000 IS GARRISON PLAN / Would Organize Force of "Continentals" With Six Year Enlistment / 600,000 REGULARS IS PART OF PROGRAMME (about military preparedness in United States)
- WAR DECLARED ON BULGARS BY GREAT BRITAIN / Russia and Italy Likely to Take Similar Step Without Delay / SERB RESISTANCE SURPRISES TEUTONS / Berlin Announces Occupation of Pozarevac by Assault / CAPITAL MAY BE MOVED FROM NISH / Invaders Are, However, Only a Few Miles Inside Frontier
- BIG GUNS CLEAR WAY FOR GERMAN GAINS / Some of the Points Lost to French Recaptured in Heavy Fighting / VOSGES DRIVE FURIOUS
Online versions:
Newspaper information from Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/)
No comments:
Post a Comment