The Note-Book of an Attaché: Seven Months in the War Zone

When the July 1914 crisis turned Paris into a nervous hub, a young American architecture student entered the U.S. Embassy as an attaché. His first days are filled with throngs of frightened German civilians and anxious American expatriates demanding answers about passports, money and safe passage. The narrative captures that frantic mix of bureaucracy and humanity, showing how quickly a quiet scholarly life can be swallowed by war. Through his notebook he records clattering footsteps, whispered prayers and the uneasy calm before the storm.

Over the next months he is thrust onto the front, traveling from the Marne to the Aisne and slipping across borders to deliver secret dispatches. He watches French, British, Belgian and German troops in action and later meets soldiers in Switzerland, Holland and the Austro‑Hungarian heartland. His notes remain deliberately neutral, describing the grit of fighters, the scars on towns and the odd etiquette of wartime diplomacy. Listeners will hear a vivid, diary‑like account that brings the early months of the Great War to life without revealing later outcomes.