TRUE STORIES OF THE GREAT WAR VOL 1

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This volume is from 1917. A summary from the book's Introduction:

Thirty million soldiers, each living a great human story— this is the real drama of the Great War as it is being written into the hearts and memories of the men at the front. If these soldiers could be gathered around one camp-fire, and each soldier could relate the most thrilling moment of his experience— what stories we would hear! "Don Quioxte," the "Arabian Nights," Dante's "Inferno," Milton's "Paradise Lost, and Re-gained"— all the legends and tales of the world's literature out-told by the soldiers themselves.

It is from the lips of these soldiers, and those who have passed through the tragedy of the war— the women and children whose eyes have beheld the inferno and whose souls have been uplifted by suffering and self-sacrifice— the generations will hear the epic of the day when millions of men gave their lives to "make the world safe for Democracy." The magnitude of this gigantic
struggle against autocracy is such that human imagination can-
not visualize it--it requires one to stand face to face with death
itself.

A member of the British War Staff estimates that more than a million letters a day are passing from the trenches and bases of the various armies "to the folk back home". Another observer at the General Headquarters of one of the armies estimates that more than a million and a half diaries are being kept by the soldiers.

It is the purpose of these volumes, therefore, to begin the preservation of these soldiers' stories. This is the first collection that has been made; it is in itself an historic event. The manner in which this service has been performed may be of interest to the reader. It was my privilege to appoint a committee, or board of editors, to collect stories from soldiers in the various armies:
personal letters, records of personal experiences, reminiscences,
and all other available material. An exhaustive investigation has
been made into the files of European and American periodicals
to find the various narratives that have "crept into print".

More than eight thousand stories were considered. The vast amount of human material would require innumerable volumes to preserve it. It was the judgment of the committee that this documentary evidence could be brought into practical limitations by selecting a sufficient number of narratives to cover every human phase of the Great War and preserve them in six volumes.

These volumes are in the nature of a "Round Table" in which soldiers, refugees, nurses, eye-witnesses — all gather about the pages and relate the most thrilling episodes of their war experiences. We hear the tales of the soldiers who invaded Belgium, through the campaigns and battles on all the fronts, to the landing of the American troops in France. Diplomats tell of the scenes at the outbreak of the war; despatch bearers relate their missions of danger from Paris to Berlin, London, Vienna,
Petrograd; refugees describe the flight of the Belgiums, the
exodus of the Serbians, the invasion of Poland. Emissaries at
General Headquarters tell of their dinners with the Kaiser and
the Crown Prince, with Hindenburg and Zimmerman, and de-
scribe the scenes inside the German Empire. Soldiers from the
Marne, the Aisne, Verdun relate their experiences. We listen
to passengers tossed into the sea from the Lusitania; revolu-
tionists who over-threw the Czar in Russia; exiles returning
from Siberia. We hear the tales of the fighters from South
Africa, Egypt, Turkey; stories from the Far East; along the
seas of China.