A Month at the Front: The Diary of an Unknown Soldier

by Bodleian Library

From The Things They Carried and Platoon to today’s documentaries of soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ordeals of wartime soldiers are gripping, morally complex narratives of human strength and frailty. A Month at the Front offers another fresh and personal perspective on war. Recently acquired by the Bodleian Library, it is a first-hand account of a young and anonymous British soldier fighting in the frontline trenches of the First World War. A Month at the Front chronicles one month in the life of a soldier from the 12th East Surrey regiment, and the economical yet powerful narrative vividly brings to life the sights, sounds, and horrors of war. “The first night passed uneventfully, except that we were shelled”—so begins the young man in spare prose, and the quiet drama unfolds from there. Constant bombings and the sobering landscape of war—“It was nothing unusual to come across . . . a dead comrade lying waiting for burial”—are occasionally relieved by humorous events such as the discovery that a troop of advancing Germans was “nothing more than few short willow shrubs waving about in the breeze.” The young soldier describes how his comrades gradually fall one by one, until he and three remaining fellow soldiers are captured by the enemy, an event that abruptly ends the narrative. A Month at the Front is not penned by a famous author, nor does it claim to offer any broad perspective. Rather, it is the lone voice of an unknown young man thrust into fatal circumstances.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, War

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

The Bodleian Library, established in 1602, is the main research library of the University of Oxford and one of the oldest libraries in Europe. In Britain it is second in size only to the British Library.

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Reviews

[Robert Hepple · Rating 4 out of 5]

First published in 2006, 'A Month at the Front' is a short journal compiled by a British soldier in the Western Front in July 1917, shortly before he was killed. It is what it is - a short no-nonsense snapshot of life at the front, expressed in often broken English yet very descriptive for all that.

[Aisha Mohammed · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is basically the journal of an unknown soldier that was found after he was killed in the first World War.
After Anne Frank's diary, a lot of journals and diaries were discovered afterwards so it's really hard to know which ones are real and which ones aren't. The book was okay, I mean I didn't love it nor hate it. It was just okay.

[Iain Watson]

A Month at the Front: The Diary of an Unknown Soldier (2006)