This book continued the story that Aldrich started in A Hilltop on the Marne (1915), which described Aldrich's life from June 1914, when she moved from Paris to a quiet rural area of France, to early September 1914, after the pivotal first Battle of the Marne that was fought near her home.
On the Edge of the War Zone starts in mid-September 1914 and continues through April 1917, after the United States entered the war on April 6, 1917.
That event was particularly significant for Aldrich, a U.S. citizen who had moved to France. In a letter dated April 8, 1917, she wrote:
The sun shines, and my heart is high. This is a great day. The Stars and Stripes are flying at my gate, and they are flying all over France. What is more they will soon be flying—if they are not already—over Westminster, for the first time in history.Earlier in the book, Aldrich mildly criticized her native country for not being more involved in the war.
During the 25 months covered by On the Edge of the War Zone, Aldrich experienced very little of the actual fighting. But ripples from the war continually affected her and her neighbors in the small hamlet of Huiry.
Winters were particularly hard, because of limitations on coal. Aldrich survived by using other kinds of fuel, and also by reminding herself how much rougher life was for the soldiers in the trenches only about 40 miles away from her home.
For Aldrich and her neighbors, the "new normal" included plowing around the graves of soldiers who were buried where they were killed. People also had to get used to loud noises from the battlefield; irregular communications from the rest of the world; and constant security checks by military officials.
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| Mildred Aldrich |
Troops traveling to and from the front lines often rested in Huiry, including soldiers who fought in the famous Battle of Verdun.
Aldrich's home was a favorite lodging place for officers, whose manners impressed her. She struck up a special friendship with one officer whom she identified as the Aspirant. This officer later corresponded with Aldrich.
The strain on Huiry of the soldiers, their equipment, and their horses was balanced in part by the helpful chores that soldiers performed, as well as the news they brought from the outside world.
Aldrich's experiences with the war became a point of contention with the unnamed person in America to whom she was writing. This friend thought that Aldrich's life near the fighting was more exciting than what Aldrich described.
But for Aldrich and her neighbors, much of their life was general feelings of tension and uncertainty about how the war might affect them and how much longer it would last. Several times, Aldrich wrote that her friend in America probably knew more about the progress of the war than Aldrich.
Before moving to Huiry, Aldrich worked as a journalist in the U.S. and France. Towards the end of On the Edge of the War Zone, she took a historian's long view of the war as she watched soldiers march away from Huiry:
As I stood watching them all the stupendousness of the times rushed over me that you and I, who have rubbed our noses on historical monuments so often, have chased after emotions on the scenes of past heroism, and applauded mock heroics across the footlights, should be living in days like these, days in which heroism is the common act of every hour. I cannot help wondering what the future generations are going to say of it all; how far-off times are going to judge us; what is going to stand out in the strong limelight of history?Between the publication of A Hilltop on the Marne and On the Edge of the War Zone, Aldrich wrote the novel Told in a French Garden, August 1914. In this book, she used described how different kinds of fictional people (like a nurse, a sculptor, and a lawyer) reacted to the beginning of the war.
Aldrich continued her unique style of war reporting in The Peak of the Load (1918) and When Johnny Comes Marching Home (1919).
On the Edge of the War Zone was published around September 13, 1917, when it was advertised in The Pittsburgh Post. Front page headlines in that day's Post included:
- KERENSKY MAKES HIMSELF DICTATOR; KORNILOFF IS DECREED OUTLAW.
- ARGENTINE MOB BURNS GERMAN CLUB; ENVOY IS HANDED PASSPORTS.
- UNITED STATES PERFECTS NEW AIR MOTOR TO HELP CRUSH KAISER.
Online versions:
Newspaper information from Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/).
Image of Mildred Aldrich from On the Edge of the War Zone.
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