Kreisler was visiting Switzerland with his wife when the war broke out. He was immediately called into service by his native country of Austria. His wife Harriet joined the Red Cross as a nurse.
As a lieutenant in charge of a platoon of soldiers, Kreisler fought against the Russians in the Battle of Galicia (or Battle of Lemberg) in what is now Ukraine. He was injured in battle and then discharged from service. Four Weeks in the Trenches helped inform people about fighting on the Eastern Front of the war, instead of the much more publicized battles on the Western Front.
The short but concisely written Four Weeks in the Trenches is filled with many observations about the soldier's life. Kreisler's words often reflect his particular sensitivities as an artist. You come away from the book with a deeper understanding of the mental stresses of being a soldier.
For example, the book begins with Kreisler questioning the accuracy of his memory because of "the extraordinary physical and mental stress under which the impressions I am trying to chronicle were received." He concluded this section with words that are probably true for any personal memoir of World War I:
I am, therefore, reduced to present an incoherent and rather piecemeal narrative of such episodes as forcibly impressed themselves upon my mind and left an ineradicable mark upon my memory.Later in the book, Kreisler talked about how possible (if not easy) it was to get used to the most difficult kinds of conditions, because of the intensely immediate concerns of warfare. He wrote:
Human nerves quickly get accustomed to the most unusual conditions and circumstances and I noticed that quite a number of men actually fell asleep from sheer exhaustion in the trenches, in spite of the roaring of the cannon about us and the whizzing of shrapnel over our heads.
The soldier's reaction to death is a theme of Four Weeks in the Trenches. The death that most affected Kreisler was the first one that he witnessed. He also told a poignantly sad story about both the public and private reactions of an officer to the death of his soldier son. There are also powerful observations about accepting the deaths of others and even your own death.This mental and emotional pressure seemed to reduce Kreisler's focus to just fighting for the guy next to him against the guys on the other side. This kind of loyalty probably saved Kreisler's life after he was wounded and thought lost before someone came back and carried him to safety.
Kreisler tried to portray his Russian opponents in a sympathetic manner. He described informal truces in which opposing soldiers left their trenches to exchange goods, followed by a resumption of fighting.
The musical talents of Kreisler proved valuable at times. His keen sense of hearing helped him identify the direction and source of artillery fire, which proved useful to his commanding officers. Conversely, Kreisler sometimes felt that his sensitivity as a musician made it more difficult to control his emotions in battle.
At the time of the book's publication, Kreisler might have felt conflicting loyalties to his native land and humanity. After he was discharged, he went on a concert tour in the United States, where many people saw Austria as an enemy, because of its strong association with Germany.
But Kreisler's loyalty to Austria didn't seem to matter much in America, based on the positive newspaper reviews of the book. A May 9, 1915 review in The Los Angeles Times read:
No more interesting, and no more modest, story of experiences in the war has so far been put into print than "Four Weeks in the Trenches," by Fritz Kreisler.
Four Weeks in the Trenches was published around April 17, 1915, when an advertisement for the book appeared in The Chicago Daily Tribune. Front page headlines that day in the Daily Tribune included:
- RENEW AIR RAIDS IN 3 COUNTRIES / FLIGHTS MADE INTO GERMANY; ENGLAND HIT / 12 British Towns Targets; Amiens and Calais Are Struck; 14 Victims / LONDON IN DARKNESS
- WAR ON GERMANY CRY IN HOLLAND / Handelsblad Resents Sinking of Ship and Advises Joining the Allies
- GREECE PREPARES FOR WAR? / Return of Prince George to Paris Believed to Presage Intervention on Allies' Side
Online versions:
Newspaper information from newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/).
Photograph from Four Weeks in the Trenches.
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