author
Lieutenant René Nicolas
Written from the front lines of World War I, these pages offer a vivid, close-up view of a French officer's daily life in the trenches. The voice is direct and human, turning wartime routine, fear, and endurance into a powerful personal record.
1 Audiobook
Campaign diary of a French officer
by Lieutenant René Nicolas
About the author
Very little biographical information about this author is easy to confirm, but the available library records identify him as a French lieutenant named René Nicolas who kept a wartime diary during World War I.
His best-known work is Carnet de campagne d'un officier français, later published in English as Campaign Diary of a French Officer. Library of Congress records note that the diary covers February to June 1915, and that parts of it first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in 1917 under the title The Lieutenant's Story.
What makes the book stand out is its immediacy. Rather than offering a distant history of the war, it brings readers into the everyday experience of an officer at the front, with all the strain, mud, danger, and reflection that came with it.