A Rifleman Went To War: The incredible first-hand account of a WW1 soldier

by Herbert W. McBride

Over 70 years after it was first published, this book remains one of the all-time classics on the art of military sniping, and is still on the required reading list of the U.S. Marine Corps Sniper School. The author grew up learning to shoot and hunt in the woods of Indiana, and went on to compete nationally as a sharpshooter. When World War I broke out in Europe, he was so eager to fight that he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Wounded seven times and finally invalided home after two years on the front lines, he was an enthusiastic soldier and a superb sniper, with over 100 confirmed kills. His story includes frequent digressions on the mindset, the tactics, and the weapons of sniping, and has many hard-won lessons about personal survival on the battlefield. It stands out as one of the best first-person accounts of World War I.

Genres: History, Military Fiction, Nonfiction, World War I, War, Memoir, Military History

391 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1935

About the author

Born in Waterloo, Indiana to Robert W and Ida S. Chamberlain McBride, Herbert had a long family tradition of military service. His grandfather was killed in the Mexican War, and his father served the Union cavalry during the Civil War. Herbert McBride’s memoir "A Rifleman Went to War" is considered one of the best first-person accounts of World War I. McBride’s life was a mixture of honor and valor interspersed with personal failings. He noted in his book that by the end of 1916 he felt in his heart “the game was over,” and a series of alcoholic binges resulted in his court martial and dismissal from the Canadian Expeditionary Force in February 1917. He was wounded a total of seven times while in the service of the Canadian Army. McBride joined the Indiana National Guard as a Captain in 1917 and was assigned as an instructor to the 139th Machine Gun Battalion, 38th Division. He served out the rest of the war at Camp Perry teaching rifle marksmanship and sniping tactics. After the war, his alcoholism apparently under control, he worked in the Oregon lumber industry for most of his later years. McBride died in Indianapolis of a heart attack on March 17, 1933, shortly after finishing “A Rifleman Went To War.” He served honorably and with valor for both his adopted Canada and his native United States He lies at rest today in a family plot at the Crown Hill Cemetery of Indianapolis, Indiana.

Reviews

[Christian D. D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

McBride's book is a stark contrast to your typical First World War literary material, whether fiction ("All Quiet On the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque being the most famous example) or non-fiction books, which portray the "Great War" as endless horror & misery. Instead, this author, while acknowledging the horrors and miseries of war, seemed to genuinely enjoy the fighting, thus reminding me of the chapter from LTC Dave Grossman's famous book "On Killing" describing that 2% of combatants who genuinely like war.

And readers like me can't help but be entertained by McBride's book either; exciting and detailed descriptions of battle, life and culture in the British Commonwealth armies, and a wicked politically incorrect sense of humour.

The author's chapter on pistol work in particular give me a hankering to purchase one of Colt's reissued WWI-style M1911 .45 autopistols (the M1918 they call it now).


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RANDOM STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS (and noteworthy passages) (page #s are from the Nook Edition)

--p. 11: "...what makes them go is MEN.....the individual man, with whom battles are always won." Amen.

--p. 13: "Perhaps no other single thing in the soldiering games is so little understood as rifle shooting."

--15: Author giving props to the NRA!

--p. 23: Col. Robert L. Moorehead, "one of the first to recognize the fact that individual proficiency with the rifle was the very highest attainment of the 'doughboy.'" And God bless him for it!

--p. 26: "but from that minute, golf was not for me. There was a war on and I did not intend to miss it." Hooah!

--p. 27: "But the best thing we did was to march and shoot--march and shoot." Sounds just like Demo Dick Marcinko! :-)

--p. 30: Haha, so the acronym "S.O.L." already existed back then, I see!

--p. 34: "This was but one of the asinine regulations that our High Command promulgated. Had they spent one-tenth of the time in trying to teach the newly-made soldiers the real and practical side of warfare, there would not be so many graves over there for the Mothers to visit." Well, some things haven't changed after all these years.

Well then, God bless Gen. Sam Hughes!

--p. 36: The old fife and drum bands of Civil War days...That's marching music and fighting music, I want to tell you." Indeed, the good ol' days.

--p. 43: "A short day of carefully planned instruction, with several hours of freedom for rest, recreation or study, will bring results far more quickly." Amen.

--p. 46: "Sized up" = taller-tapping?

--p. 54: "Generals are always late in keeping their appointments, but this one finally came." Some things haven't changed--so much for leadership by example.

"....the Hotel Faucon, which latter I particularly remember owing to the excellence of its cold beer." Haha, cheers mate!

--p. 55: "'Oolan?'"

--p. 56: Hmmmm, apparently "Archie" (ack-ack/triple-A fire) wasn't so effective back in WWI: "so far as we knew, never was a plane brought down in this manner."

--p. 57: Wow, VERY interesting commentary on "All Quiet on the Western Front (and "the 'sob-stuff'" in general)! "The parts which dealt with the actual battle were excellent.....It was only in the portrayal of the individual *men* that I had any reason to find fault--but that was quite enough to sicken me on the whole show. Why, confound it, man; men do not act like that whether in war on in peace." [Original emphasis]

--p. 58: Rum as "'*Medicine*'" [original emphasis]


--p.118 : "That was the word: 'they will retaliate.' Well, hell's bells, let 'em. What the devil are we hare for? A summer picnic?"

--p. 163: "The entire case of the pistol can be summed up in 'I don't want this thing often, but when I do I want it damn bad.'"

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish you could rate with half or quarter-stars, as I think four is slightly below what this book deserves, but I'm learning to be much, much more picky with my "fives." With that said, I'll list out the reasons that readers with an interest in World War I, the history of firearms, the history of 20th century warfare, "western" armies (the United States, British Empire and Western Europe) ought to dig this one out and give it a go.

1) This book is most decidedly NOT in the "Lost Generation" style, or literary camp, of WWI writing. This is far from the perspective of "All Quiet on the Western Front," "For Whom the Bell Tolls," "dulce et decorum est," and the form of war writing that most readers are probably more familiar with, and this is a good thing. Feel free to be offended by McBride's perspective and lack of contemporary political correctness; he's not forlorn, he's not bitter, shell-shocked (at least not so that it comes through in the writing), nor is he jingoistic or bloodthirsty. He writes in the voice of a professional, career soldier both as a national guardsman and a full-time infantryman and machine gunner, someone who's seen several armies at work. He writes as a professional and as an instructor, for the Indiana National Guard, the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and the inter-war US Army. The wording is straightforward, down to earth, realistic, and if it's seems distant, it's because it is the writing of someone who sees the concept of war, training for war, and the conduct of war, as a matter of fact endeavor. He is content to leave the theorizing to others. We can argue for all time whether his perspective is superior or inferior to the much well known style of WWI writing, but what matters to me is that readers see this perspective in addition to the literary one we know and "love."

2) This book is a look inside the mindset of a mid-western American male at the turn of the 20th century, looking back (circa 1932) because he can possibly "sense" the war clouds forming on the horizon again, and writing as someone who saw the good, the bad, the ugly, the brilliant, the brave and the stupid side of war, and pulls no punches in wanting to prepare his countrymen for it. It's surprisingly lacking in guile and comes across as sincere. That lack of irony (though there is quite a bit of snark) is also refreshing.

3) The practicality and value of expertise, earned experience; if you're not a "gun nut" or obsessed with the minutiae of tactics, you'll find a lot in here you'll want to skip and could probably do so with little loss. However, when it comes to descriptions of infantry tactics, trench life, planning and how the men operated on the attack, on the defense, as a unit and as individuals, it might paint a VERY different picture of the Great War than you're used to, and for that reason, this detail is valuable. McBride doesn't skimp on the horror, or the deadlock of the trench, but his description of raiding and other tactics reveals that the Front (at least portions of it) were far from static, stagnant, endless artillery duels, and also far from cinematic "over the top" slaughters. All of those are gross oversimplifications for what was a complicated, difficult war, and the men who fought and led during it were more often than not, NOT the "upper class twit" or "morose Junker" often depicted (though McBride shows enough of both to imply some justification for the stereotypes, especially as he dissects the good and bad of the British "Tommy" and the aristocratic officer class).

4) Most importantly, and alluding back to my first point, he demystifies the war, something that 100 years on we should be very intent on doing. This is not Tuchman's Guns of August, this is not poetry, nor is it film, nor is song. This is not the pop culture war, this is a memoir of someone who soldiered, and for whom soldiering was his business. No more, no less. The other books I mentioned are valuable for what they are, and my comments are not meant to disparage them, but simply to say that you need more than them to understand this conflict and the men that fought it.

From a personal perspective, it was a bit both relieving, and disappointing, to see many of the same criticisms of US forces looking back on 100-80 years ago, remain valid today. Relieving because it makes me think we're not all that different (speaking as a servicemember) and disappointing, because we truly don't have "lessons learned," merely "lessons identified."

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag. It's a personal narrative of the author's experience in World War I, but it's pretty impersonally told until the very end, with all the verve and intensity of describing a trip to the grocery store. And it's not much as a detailed account of the methods and tactics he and his unit used, either, because he relates things in such general terms, except for a couple of short chapters near the end on tactics.

Also, McBride went off on some tangents with predictions and prescriptions for the organization, training, and equipping the army for the next war - he was writing in the 1930s, so his strongly expressed views were put to the test less than a decade later in World War II, and his batting average was dismal. If it had been up to McBride, our troops would never have seen the M1 Garand rifle, because he was sure that soldiers couldn't exercise the self-discipline to refrain from firing off all their ammo right away if they were allowed to carry semiautomatic rifles. Wrong... And he felt that it was impossible to meld soldiers from different regions or ethnicities into cohesive units - wrong again. And so on. His crystal ball had some serious cracks in it.

Finally, at the end, McBride wrote reluctantly about the impact combat had on him as a person, discussing what sounds like a deep depression he went through, in the depths of which he had lost hope of survival and actually looked forward to getting it over with. A relief to find that he wasn't quite the robot or psychopath he'd professed to be at the beginning, but disappointing because if he'd woven that into his narrative throughout, it would have been much easier to relate to his experience.

I won't be reading his second book, because I'm not interested enough in the subject (a machine gun unit) if he's going to stay clear of the psychology and interpersonal part of his experiences.

[Michael Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent account of the Rifleman's experiences in the Great War. A little too technical at times, but still a fascinating read. Highly recommended.

[Shortsman · Rating 4 out of 5]

McBride seems to barely view Germans as human, but it's a very interesting read nonetheless. Much more disengaged from the fabled horrors of war than most books, it seems more like an instruction manual at times.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed it tremendously as a first person account of war in and around the trenches. While the writer is very self assured, he does not present himself as a hero, fighting for the glory of ?

I especially like that he is able to be loyal to his country (US), yet also be loyal to the members of his unit (Canadian). He seems to recognize BS where he sees it, and is not afraid to voice his thoughts.

I had a very different view of the First World War, and the fighting and tactics. Artillery played a much greater role than I knew, the night patrols to capture enemy soldiers from their trenches were extreme acts of courage and cunning, and the conditions inside the trenches were deplorable.

I loved the book's authenticity, especially since it goes against the common perception of what WW1 was about.

[Syntactical Disruptorize · Rating 3 out of 5]

McBride describes his service as a sniper in World War I with the bouncy enthusiasm of a Boy Scout on a dandy adventure. When he talks about the technique of wounding an exposed enemy soldier in order to kill his rescuers, he doesn't change his tone. This is awesome and terrifying at the same time.

McBride significantly advanced the art of military sniping in his time, but he doesn't dwell too much on technical specifics here. Still, he explains things well enough to tell a compelling story of a man whose main joy in life was to kill other men, at a time when this was not considered especially deviant.

[John Barlow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reads as if it was written directly as it was spoken. For me, this made reading the book feel like I was being told a story. For some it may seem a bit unprofessional, and truth be told it was written by a soldier not a writer. It is a very engaging read, and gives a great deal of insight into the history of the U.S. army during World War I.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great war book written from the perspective of a man who was "down in the trenches". Much of what he says worked then still works today, and insights he wrote about it seems we have forgotten and relearned multiple times since he first wrote them.

[Thomas Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dated language and spelling. Narrative is first person with a mostly sequential story, but McBride chooses to describe certain related events together and others aren't explained until later in the narrative.

[Doc]

Reflections Aplenty!

A Rifleman Went To War has an encyclopedic aspect to it's writing: the narration itself is superb along those same lines. There are many angles to explore within a single topic. Students of warfare benefit not just from opinions about how they USED to fight in the Great War.... but furthermore, the author writes of his trench experience some 15 years after the fact. Whether it is an academic discussion about angle of fire between a Colt machine gun or of a different make - this author clearly labors to tell you WHY. Sometimes, if we gather info on the appearance of the Colt 1911 Auto handgun, we also discover the HOW military authorities ultimately decided that this particular weapon was to be the primary weapon of trench warfare where opponents often were waiting, rifles drawn, for you to walk into their field of fire. Automatic handguns we're far more easier to maneuver in cramped spaces just the same. We discover tactics of artillery and how the Allies could accurately guess where the next German offensive would erupt out of those trenches when their artillery quietened down. One remarkable aspect of reading about the emergence of tank warfare was the realization that it was just this kind of wasteful type of warfare that brought tanks to a much higher degree of mobilization in just a matter of time later. Truth is....the model of using tanks for lightning-,like strikes in theory, when put on paper, was intercepted by German military minds at nearly the same exact time the author wrote this book. Sadly, the Allies ignored this paper despite Winston Churchill's championing of what advanced mechanized warfare could accomplish. This, it was Hitler's game to call, and Blitzkrieg was partly born through this very avenue of strategic thinking. Alas, the motto "Loose lips sink tall ships" apparently is conveniently ignored....the "lips" being advanced military strategies on paper nevertheless.

A Rifleman Went To War mostly avoids truly graphic details of humans being slaughtered and maimed, though one instantly agrees that innocent families caught in crossfire's usually we're the most tragic deaths of such evil attempts to take over the sovereignty of other Nations. God only appears in print in one or two paragraphs; the author states that soldiers mostly concentrated on the job at hand and only the VERY religious made time for themselves and their Creator. How sad, one thinks, to be eye-to-eye with a sworn enemy who declares you and your kind to be less worthy than animals...and one doesn't requests God's help?!?

Alas, the author has a splendid, breezy manner of relating his opinions on everything from training camps to superior officers to actual enemy he killed with his sniper rifle....and everything in between. He keeps a solid devotion to tempo, mindful that this manner of writing must dispel sheer boredom from reader's minds. To wit, this is doubly difficult, for could there be anything as boring as being restrained in a trench and/or shell hole for days - if not weeks- at a stretch?! This one comes to admire this author's tenacity at alighting upon sub-topic after sub-topic while remaining in the arena of his general subject. It is his style of writing that reminds me of a butterfly flitting from flower to flower.....versus other military authors whose writing reminds me of a solitary moth alighting upon a curtain....and remaining there. Huge difference!

Granted, his narrative on rifle Scopes made sense to a seasoned aim such as myself....but when he discussed minutes of angle, scope recticle-types, et. al. ....I believe most readers would become lost at this point. Just my tuppence to give....

The truth remains clear that many of the things that makes warfare complete Hell is the perspective that war often is said to be 90% boredom.....and 10% sheer terror. Honestly, we are not given that much indication of such a perspective. You do not encounter huge crowd of refugees. You do, however, become that much more of a veteran observer through a Veteran's eyes, a Veteran whom we cannot discern suffers from any form of PTSD, etc. He DOES speak to the necessity of mindset, speaking up that war "is not for sissies". Written in 1932, he does use racial slurs in one portion of his book, something no publisher would allow in most any book printed at this hour. We must remember that this was written little under a century ago....

I found this writing - minus any offending portion - to be a refreshing source of what actually DID happen in WW 1. We later discover that "the War to end all Wars" truly wasn't....not does the author carry that slogan anywhere in his book. This book would be a good refresher course in military history colleges that seek to train future officers in today's fighting world,one might think.

I give high grades for skipping truly gory details and military know-how....and subtract accordingly for the breezy use of racial/cultural names that are avoided at all costs in this day and age.

[Svein M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read, quite a few modern viewepoints but also some firmly anchored in his time. Aa an American national guards officer serving with the Canadians in the secon Canadian division as a other ranks he offer a different perspextive than a lot of the other accounts from the trenches. But a bit of tighter editing might have been an improvement, but then again it might have taken away the autenticity of the story he tells and the points he wants to put accross. I would also ha e liked a bit more about his own story than he gives. But then again he staes it in the title, it is the generic rifle man he wants to emphasis, not him self. Alas he uses him self as an example. The publisher thoug is doing him a disfavor, the way the title and subtitle is set. He did not claim to have revolutionized anything, but he has clear opinons on certine matters

[Frank Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting insight into the Canadian Army and the First World War. A great insight into the work of a rifleman as well as an overview of training and operational experience. H. W. McBride gives keen insight into the British Army as well as a more critical look at the U.S. Army. The determined Scottish Regiments in the British Army and Canadian Army are described humorously as "The Ladies from Hell". The more serious role of the rifleman selecting targets and using weaponry is contrasted with the of the theorists in charge. There is the cold reality of war in the trenches on the front line and the use of various rifles and machine guns. This book is worth a shot!

[Craig Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intriguing, surprisingly good, read

Very unconventional and strangely effective. Told the way someone might tell a story over a beer in a bar. I learned a great deal about First World War soldiering. Very believable. Sometimes too understated. But overall worthwhile.

[Reynaldo Reyes Jr · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Va soli,”

human derived ideology and creeds are hopelessly flawed if not utterly wicked trust your, gun, knife and preparation. too trust is to surrender your liberty and well being.

[Hugh Millward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read

McBride talks about his war time experiences and his experience of fighting in France with the Canadians. He contrasts this experience later with training the US army before they come to France, very interesting.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book about WWI and some interesting people that helped to shape the modern version of the scout sniper programs most military use today.

[George Polansky · Rating 5 out of 5]

A readable and entertaining view of World War One as seen through the eyes of one of its veterans.

[Ronda Wian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing !

I read this 30years ago. Borrowed from a library. Went through it to fast. I really enjoyed my own copy.

[Gary L Bastin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overview of the life of a Rifleman in WW I.

Gives a good feel of the daily struggles of an American Rifleman serving with Canadian forces in WW I. Well worth reading.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

An unusual view of the First World War in that the author was an American who volunteered to serve in the Canadian i.e. - at the time - British Army.

[Haston Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shows what you gotta do to survive war.

[Elaine A. Bozek · Rating 2 out of 5]

An author who has an opinion on everything has no opinion worth knowing.

The book I believed I was purchasing was about the Rifleman at War! As it turned out this account has something about individual tactics, but too much about the author's opinion on the British Army, the German Army which would be enlightening if he knew something of each, but he might of well have been writing from his trench because he did no research and certainly has the 2 mixed up. He sings the praises of the Brits who got their butts handed to them, and heavily criticizes the Germans who did most of the ass kicking until the American Army arrived. He goes on and on and on with nothing to back up his opinions. It's too bad because I think he had some interesting experiences, but he refuses to write about those. So if you decide to check it out don't say you weren't warned.

[John Hansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is kind of a rambling, somewhat disjointed, anecdotal account of the author's experiences as a rifleman and machine gunner in the Canadian Army during WWI. At times it seemed, or was, repetitive and was trying to read. Still, my reason for reading this book was as research for a book that I am writing. In that regard it provided me with a good first hand description of what trench warfare was like.

[Robb Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Timeless principles

The author presents immutable rules to live by. Some principles of warfare stay the same through the centuries. Read Attila the Huns principals of leadership, or Sun tsu's Art of War. This author's observations are a little more down to earth, but they still stand the test of time.

[Doug · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting read, mostly about how sniping began in WW1, by one of those who watched it and participated in it. It was as interesting a vision of how WW1 was in general as it was just about sniping. A bit tedious at times (the author could be pretty wordy and tended to drift off topic) but once he could get on track I enjoyed it.

[Susan Driskill · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't read it to the end

I started reading this book and found it interesting. I read the book half way through. I then looked the authors Canadian enlistment record on line. He was discharged under less than honorable conditions for his alcoholic ways. So how much was truth or fiction?

[Sean McClintock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay

Doesn't really follow much of a organized memior. Each chapter is about a different topic and he just goes into his wqr experiences involving that topic. Great for first-hand information from someone who experienced years of combot in World War 1, but not that good of a story overall.

[fred carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can apply the lessons learned to today's war.

This story could have been written as a text for the riflemen of today. Many of the principles of this story are timeless. A good read for young men contemplating military service.

[Sheila Banovetz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent description of WWI trench warfare

Sober and unemotional analysis of WWI trench warfare with concepts that are applicable to warfare in general and particularly re preparing soldiers for battle.