Title: Paths of Glory Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front

Author: Irvin S. Cobb

Language: English

Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front

BY IRVIN S. COBB

AUTHOR OF "BACK HOME," "EUROPE REVISED,' ETC., ETC.

"The paths of glory lead but to the grave."
—Thomas Gray

To the Memory of
MAJOR ROBERT COBB
(Cobb's Kentucky Battery, C. S. A.)

NOTE

What is enclosed between these covers was written as a series of first-hand impressions during the fall and early winter of 1914 while the writer was on staff service for The Saturday Evening Post in the western theatre of the European War. I tried to write of war as I saw it at the time that I saw it, or immediately afterward, when the memory of what I had seen was fresh and vivid in my mind.

In this volume, as here presented, no attempt has been made to follow either logically or chronologically the progress of events in the campaigning operations of which I was a witness. The chapters are interrelated insofar as they purport to be a sequence of pictures describing some of my experiences and setting forth a few of my observations in Belgium, in Germany, in France and in England during the first three months of hostilities.

At the outset I had no intention of undertaking to write a book on the war. If in the kindly judgment of the reader what I have written constitutes a book I shall be gratified.

I. S. C.

January, 1915.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. A Little Village Called Montignies St. Christophe.
II. To War in a Taxicab.
III. Sherman Said It.
IV. "Marsch, Marsch, Marsch, So Geh'n Wir Weiter".
V. Being a Guest of the Kaiser.
VI. With the German Wrecking Crew
VII. The Grapes of Wrath..
VIII. Three Generals and a Cook
IX. Viewing a Battle prom a Balloon
X. In the Trenches Before Rheims..
XI. War de Luxe…
XII. The Rut of Big Guns in France..
XIII. Those Yellow Pine Boxes..
XIV. The Red Glutton..
XV. Belgium—The Rag Doll of Europe .
XVI. Louvain the Forsaken.