The Peak of the Load; The Waiting Months on the Hilltop from the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes to the Second Victory on the Marne

by Mildred Aldrich

Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. This means that we have checked every single page in every title, making it highly unlikely that any material imperfections – such as poor picture quality, blurred or missing text - remain. When our staff observed such imperfections in the original work, these have either been repaired, or the title has been excluded from the Leopold Classic Library catalogue. As part of our on-going commitment to delivering value to the reader, within the book we have also provided you with a link to a website, where you may download a digital version of this work for free. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience. If you would like to learn more about the Leopold Classic Library collection please visit our website at www.leopoldclassiclibrary.com

294 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1918

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This set of letters follows on from the author's previous set (June 1914 - April 1917) in her book "A Hilltop on the Marne". "The Peak of the Load" covers the period April 1917 through to the beginning of the retreat of the German forces in the summer of 1918, from near her adopted French home town of Huiry, about 40 kilometres east of Paris. Once again I marvelled at her writing skills, her descriptions, and also the pluckiness of her attitude in the face of the German assault. She still managed to get to Paris on occasion and this despite all the troop and supply movements of Allied forces moving up to the front. I was surprised to learn that the Germans were firing a huge cannon called Grosse Bertha at Paris from a very long distance and the shells arrived throughout this period causing some damage in the city. The Parisians basically ignored the onslaught, but were more concerned about the aerial bombing that was also occurring. Mildred continued to visit Paris despite the shelling and bombing. Her home in Huiry had shells fired near her and at one stage the small settlement come very close to accepting the fact that they would have to evacuate. A very brave and able woman who I am sure would have been a pleasure to meet.

The e-book (free) can be found here

https://archive.org/details/peakofloa...

and is available to download in a range of e-Reader formats. Note: because the book was published many years ago, the optical readers used to digitize the publication have sometimes screwed up some words and numbers which can be entertaining or frustrating and as an example the date 1918 at the beginning of one of her letters sometimes comes out as igi8