author
G.-P. (Gustav-P.) Capart
b. 1881
Remembered for a vivid First World War memoir, this early-20th-century writer brought the experience of the French soldier to English-language readers with immediacy and conviction.
1 Audiobook
A Blue Devil of France: Epic figures and stories of the Great War, 1914-1918
by G.-P. (Gustav-P.) Capart
About the author
G.-P. (Gustav-P.) Capart, born in 1881, is known from surviving library and public-domain records as the author of A Blue Devil of France: Epic Figures and Stories of the Great War, 1914-1918, published in 1918. The book is presented as the work of Captain G. P. Capart, and contemporary editions describe him as having served on General Pétain's staff.
In the preface to A Blue Devil of France, Capart says the book gathers true episodes taken from his diary and written from what he had personally seen or heard. That gives his work the direct, eyewitness quality that still makes it stand out for readers interested in World War I memoir and the daily character of the French poilu.
Very little biographical information beyond his birth year and wartime authorship could be confirmed from the sources reviewed here. Even so, his surviving book leaves a clear impression: a soldier-writer trying to record courage, suffering, and comradeship with simplicity rather than flourish.