author
Eugène Emmanuel Lemercier
1886–1915
A young French painter turned soldier, he left behind vivid letters from the First World War that have been remembered as one of its most human testimonies. His life was brief, but his writing gives a striking sense of courage, tenderness, and growing disillusionment at the front.
2 Audiobooks
Letters of a Soldier, 1914-1915
by Eugène Emmanuel Lemercier
Briefe eines Soldaten: Deutsche Ausgabe der Lettres d'un soldat
by Eugène Emmanuel Lemercier
About the author
Born in Paris on November 7, 1886, Eugène Emmanuel Lemercier grew up in an artistic family and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts while also developing as a painter. Before the First World War, he exhibited his work and built a life shaped by art, but his path changed when military service and then war pulled him into the French army.
He is best known today for the letters he sent to his mother from the front between 1914 and 1915. Written with warmth, clarity, and emotional honesty, they trace the daily reality of trench warfare and have been valued as an important firsthand account of the war.
Lemercier disappeared in action at Les Éparges on April 6, 1915, at just twenty-eight years old. Though he died very young, the letters published after his death ensured that his voice endured, not only as that of a soldier, but also as an artist trying to make sense of a shattered world.