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Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort
As nuanced in her observations of human behavior as she is in her vivid depictions of French landscape and architecture, Wharton fully exploited her unique position as consort to Walter Barry, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris, which allowed her unparalleled access to life in the trenches. Sensitive without sentimentality, and offering a valuable and extremely rare female perspective of a war dominated by the male viewpoint, this series of articles is nothing less than an inspirational testament to the strength of the human spirit at a time of the greatest adversity.
238 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1915
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244 people want to read
About the author
Edith Wharton
1,474 books5,307 followersEdith Wharton emerged as one of America’s most insightful novelists, deftly exposing the tensions between societal expectation and personal desire through her vivid portrayals of upper-class life. Drawing from her deep familiarity with New York’s privileged “aristocracy,” she offered readers a keenly observed and piercingly honest vision of Gilded Age society.
Her work reached a milestone when she became the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, awarded for The Age of Innocence. This novel highlights the constraining rituals of 1870s New York society and remains a defining portrait of elegance laced with regret.
Wharton’s literary achievements span a wide canvas. The House of Mirth presents a tragic, vividly drawn character study of Lily Bart, navigating social expectations and the perils of genteel poverty in 1890s New York. In Ethan Frome, she explores rural hardship and emotional repression, contrasting sharply with her urban social dramas.
Her novella collection Old New York revisits the moral terrain of upper-class society, spanning decades and combining character studies with social commentary. Through these stories, she inevitably points back to themes and settings familiar from The Age of Innocence. Continuing her exploration of class and desire, The Glimpses of the Moon addresses marriage and social mobility in early 20th-century America. And in Summer, Wharton challenges societal norms with its rural setting and themes of sexual awakening and social inequality.
Beyond fiction, Wharton contributed compelling nonfiction and travel writing. The Decoration of Houses reflects her eye for design and architecture; Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort presents a compelling account of her wartime observations. As editor of The Book of the Homeless, she curated a moving, international collaboration in support of war refugees.
Wharton’s influence extended beyond writing. She designed her own country estate, The Mount, a testament to her architectural sensibility and aesthetic vision. The Mount now stands as an educational museum celebrating her legacy.
Throughout her career, Wharton maintained friendships and artistic exchanges with luminaries such as Henry James, Sinclair Lewis, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, and Theodore Roosevelt—reflecting her status as a respected and connected cultural figure.
Her literary legacy also includes multiple Nobel Prize nominations, underscoring her international recognition. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature more than once.
In sum, Edith Wharton remains celebrated for her unflinching, elegant prose, her psychological acuity, and her capacity to illuminate the unspoken constraints of society—from the glittering ballrooms of New York to quieter, more remote settings. Her wide-ranging work—novels, novellas, short stories, poetry, travel writing, essays—offers cultural insight, enduring emotional depth, and a piercing critique of the customs she both inhabited and dissected.
Her work reached a milestone when she became the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, awarded for The Age of Innocence. This novel highlights the constraining rituals of 1870s New York society and remains a defining portrait of elegance laced with regret.
Wharton’s literary achievements span a wide canvas. The House of Mirth presents a tragic, vividly drawn character study of Lily Bart, navigating social expectations and the perils of genteel poverty in 1890s New York. In Ethan Frome, she explores rural hardship and emotional repression, contrasting sharply with her urban social dramas.
Her novella collection Old New York revisits the moral terrain of upper-class society, spanning decades and combining character studies with social commentary. Through these stories, she inevitably points back to themes and settings familiar from The Age of Innocence. Continuing her exploration of class and desire, The Glimpses of the Moon addresses marriage and social mobility in early 20th-century America. And in Summer, Wharton challenges societal norms with its rural setting and themes of sexual awakening and social inequality.
Beyond fiction, Wharton contributed compelling nonfiction and travel writing. The Decoration of Houses reflects her eye for design and architecture; Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort presents a compelling account of her wartime observations. As editor of The Book of the Homeless, she curated a moving, international collaboration in support of war refugees.
Wharton’s influence extended beyond writing. She designed her own country estate, The Mount, a testament to her architectural sensibility and aesthetic vision. The Mount now stands as an educational museum celebrating her legacy.
Throughout her career, Wharton maintained friendships and artistic exchanges with luminaries such as Henry James, Sinclair Lewis, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, and Theodore Roosevelt—reflecting her status as a respected and connected cultural figure.
Her literary legacy also includes multiple Nobel Prize nominations, underscoring her international recognition. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature more than once.
In sum, Edith Wharton remains celebrated for her unflinching, elegant prose, her psychological acuity, and her capacity to illuminate the unspoken constraints of society—from the glittering ballrooms of New York to quieter, more remote settings. Her wide-ranging work—novels, novellas, short stories, poetry, travel writing, essays—offers cultural insight, enduring emotional depth, and a piercing critique of the customs she both inhabited and dissected.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
July 6, 2017
This is the collection of a series of articles that Edith Wharton wrote in 1915 from a tour of the Western Front in World War I France. She wasn't in the midst of battle but she did go into the trenches to get a view of that perspective, and she heard the roar of the big guns as each side traded volleys. But her chief contribution was her detailed description of the bombed out French villages and the impact on the average French citizen. Even though she was an American living in Paris when the war started, she was tireless on the French home front, helping displaced women workers and child refugees of the conflict. She was later awarded the French Legion of Honor.
August 3, 2012
This is an interesting bit of war propaganda and valentine to the French nation. Wharton was living in Paris when war broke out in 1914 and she describes its effects on the civilian population, their shopping habits, cafe life, the availability of taxis and such. She then takes a driving tour of some of the decimated, burned, bombed out villages and cities of the Western Front - Nancy, Rheims, the Argonne, Lorraine, the North coast, Alsace. On several occasions in her memoir she actually goes to the front, visits the trenches, and sees war (usually with field glasses). What she sees are flares, puffs of smoke, bombers flying overhead, the sound of a German sniper firing occasionally from a tree. There's not all that much horror of war here.
I have no doubt that Wharton was being truthful here to her own vision and experience of the war, but it's a very romanticized vision.
In Lorraine she descends into a trench with her military guides and peeps out onto "a strip of intensely green meadow" where "all about us was silence, and the peace of the forest. Again, for a minute, I had the sense of an all-pervading, invisible power of evil, a saturation of the whole landscape with some hidden vitriol of hate. Then the reaction of unbelief set in, and I felt myself in a harmless ordinary glen, like a million others on an untroubled earth." "It is one of the most detestable things about war," she writes blithely, "that everything connected with it, except the death and ruin that result, is such a heightening of life, so visually stimulating and absorbing." She finishes the memoir with a hagiographic chapter titled "The Tone of France" in which the French have become not only the most intelligent people in the world, but also the most sublime.
I have no doubt that Wharton was being truthful here to her own vision and experience of the war, but it's a very romanticized vision.
It is not too much to say that war has given beauty to faces that were interesting, humorous, acute, malicious, a hundred vivid and expressive things, but last and least of all beautiful. Almost all the faces about these crowded tables - young or old, plain or handsome, distinguished or average - have the same look of quiet authority...
In Lorraine she descends into a trench with her military guides and peeps out onto "a strip of intensely green meadow" where "all about us was silence, and the peace of the forest. Again, for a minute, I had the sense of an all-pervading, invisible power of evil, a saturation of the whole landscape with some hidden vitriol of hate. Then the reaction of unbelief set in, and I felt myself in a harmless ordinary glen, like a million others on an untroubled earth." "It is one of the most detestable things about war," she writes blithely, "that everything connected with it, except the death and ruin that result, is such a heightening of life, so visually stimulating and absorbing." She finishes the memoir with a hagiographic chapter titled "The Tone of France" in which the French have become not only the most intelligent people in the world, but also the most sublime.
April 7, 2018
4.5 stars (liked a lot)
Through gorgeous and flowing prose, Edith Wharton relays her perceptive and warmly sensitive observations of France during World War One with the feel of a travel memoir. Wonderfully vivid imagery of landscapes, architecture, people, and activity gleaned from her travels through the country. She excels at juxtaposing beauty and war as experienced through all of the senses and in painting a picture of the country in such a way that it feels like a living and breathing entity that is concurrently thriving and struggling to survive. I considered posting sample excerpts but I thought the writing was so continuously exceptional throughout that it would be nearly impossible to narrow the excerpts to just a few. My one minor critique was the definitive and sweeping characterizations of the French in the final chapter but I believe Wharton's intent was likely to assist the reader in better understanding the country's citizens in the context of war. Overall, this was a very fulfilling read despite its relatively short length.
Through gorgeous and flowing prose, Edith Wharton relays her perceptive and warmly sensitive observations of France during World War One with the feel of a travel memoir. Wonderfully vivid imagery of landscapes, architecture, people, and activity gleaned from her travels through the country. She excels at juxtaposing beauty and war as experienced through all of the senses and in painting a picture of the country in such a way that it feels like a living and breathing entity that is concurrently thriving and struggling to survive. I considered posting sample excerpts but I thought the writing was so continuously exceptional throughout that it would be nearly impossible to narrow the excerpts to just a few. My one minor critique was the definitive and sweeping characterizations of the French in the final chapter but I believe Wharton's intent was likely to assist the reader in better understanding the country's citizens in the context of war. Overall, this was a very fulfilling read despite its relatively short length.
September 1, 2013
Free download available at Gutenberg Project.
Unfortunately, the author presents us with a very naive vision of the World War I, as feel as how the French people would face their destiny in this bloodily war.
Unfortunately, the author presents us with a very naive vision of the World War I, as feel as how the French people would face their destiny in this bloodily war.
July 11, 2024
While nothing extraordinary compared to her fiction, Wharton does write nonfiction in pretty much the same style. (Though I don’t know whether to commend or scold her for being so near the front! Like girl back up!)
April 9, 2017
Edith Wharton's memoir of touring the Western Front -- often describing being right in the trenches with the fighting men! -- during the first year and a half of the Great War. Beautifully written, as you might expect from Wharton, and completely focused on the day-to-day changes in France as the country mobilized, cleared out the areas where the fighting was expected to take place, tightened their collective belt and then started to mourn the thousands and thousands of war dead. A must read if you want to understand this war.
November 28, 2014
A small collection of essays from Edith Wharton, from her first hand experiences in France during WW1.
Full review here: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2014/...
Full review here: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2014/...
August 2, 2018
Un testimonio fidedigno de la situación del frente occidental en la Primera Guerra Mundial y una exaltación del Élan francés.
December 7, 2018
In addition to being a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, essayist, and author of short stories, Edith Wharton was one of those Americans who fell in love with France at an early age. She would in fact make it her principal place of residence from 1911 up to her death in 1937. When the First World War broke out in 1914, she was – not unexpectedly given her social connections (a book jacket note describes her as “consort” to Walter Berry, then Chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in France) – one of the few neutral foreigners allowed to remain in early wartime France. At the age of 52, she returned to France from England and began to work for war charities, showing a special interest in the widows of French soldiers killed in the war by finding them work, even hiring 90 of them herself to make fashionable lingerie for sale.
Much of her relief work involved traveling by car across the length and breadth of the war front in France, from Switzerland to the English Channel, even visiting the war front. In addition to reports of her observations for the Red Cross, among others, six of her car trips became the subject of magazine articles and this book in 1915. The phrase “From Dunkerque to Belfort” in the title referred to the two fortified cities located at the two ends of the trench lines that had quickly stretched the length of what came to be called the Western Front. The author clearly hoped that, after nearly a year of war, her collected observations on wartime France and how it affected both the French and her would persuade Americans to support France and even enter the war as a French ally.
From the vantage point of the 21st Century with its ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is an almost touching degree of innocence in Edith Wharton’s writings about the war and about France at war. I was repeatedly reminded of the things that the author did not yet know about France, the French, their experience of the impact of the First World War, and how that experience would affect them as a nation and a people. Writing in 1915, she knew nothing about the mutinies that would wrack the French Army in 1917 – just two years into the future. Reportedly up to 30,000 French troops would leave the trenches and go to the rear, involving as many as half of the divisions then in the French Army. The authorities would respond with mass arrests and military trials which would pass death sentences on more than 600 soldiers, more than 40 of which would be carried out by firing squads. But these worn, desperate, tired French soldiers are not the ones seen and written about by Ms. Wharton in 1914-1915.
In another passage, Ms. Wharton describes visiting the fortress of Verdun, in the face of German attacks and artillery barrages. And yet, as dramatic as her visit to that citadel may have been, the true sausage grinder of the famous Battle of Verdun is still a year in the future – 21 February to 18 December, 1916. The German High Command would deliberately attack the fortress for the sole purpose of drawing in and killing as many French troops as possible. The final French casualties would amount to 371,000, including 60,000 killed; 210,000 wounded; and 101,000 missing. Nor does our author know that the French commander responsible for its defense, General Pêtain, would rise to become a living symbol of French defiance – only to fall to ignominy and be convicted of treason twenty years later for his collaboration with Nazi Germany. But no one in 1915 knew these things.
“Fighting France” is well written and easy to read little volume that might help the modern reader to understand how the war was perceived and experienced by at least some of those actually present. A map or even an historical atlas of the First World War might help some readers better follow Mrs. Wharton’s peregrinations around France and recognize the militarily significant locations and dates she mentions. The book would also be of interest to those devotees and fans of Mrs. Wharton’s novels and short stories who would like to know and understand more about the woman who drew so often upon her own experiences in writing her fiction. It seems clear that whether or not any of her own novels could be considered autobiographical, many elements of her life and experiences might lend themselves well to the novel, the stage, or cinema including the experiences described in this slim work.
Much of her relief work involved traveling by car across the length and breadth of the war front in France, from Switzerland to the English Channel, even visiting the war front. In addition to reports of her observations for the Red Cross, among others, six of her car trips became the subject of magazine articles and this book in 1915. The phrase “From Dunkerque to Belfort” in the title referred to the two fortified cities located at the two ends of the trench lines that had quickly stretched the length of what came to be called the Western Front. The author clearly hoped that, after nearly a year of war, her collected observations on wartime France and how it affected both the French and her would persuade Americans to support France and even enter the war as a French ally.
From the vantage point of the 21st Century with its ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is an almost touching degree of innocence in Edith Wharton’s writings about the war and about France at war. I was repeatedly reminded of the things that the author did not yet know about France, the French, their experience of the impact of the First World War, and how that experience would affect them as a nation and a people. Writing in 1915, she knew nothing about the mutinies that would wrack the French Army in 1917 – just two years into the future. Reportedly up to 30,000 French troops would leave the trenches and go to the rear, involving as many as half of the divisions then in the French Army. The authorities would respond with mass arrests and military trials which would pass death sentences on more than 600 soldiers, more than 40 of which would be carried out by firing squads. But these worn, desperate, tired French soldiers are not the ones seen and written about by Ms. Wharton in 1914-1915.
In another passage, Ms. Wharton describes visiting the fortress of Verdun, in the face of German attacks and artillery barrages. And yet, as dramatic as her visit to that citadel may have been, the true sausage grinder of the famous Battle of Verdun is still a year in the future – 21 February to 18 December, 1916. The German High Command would deliberately attack the fortress for the sole purpose of drawing in and killing as many French troops as possible. The final French casualties would amount to 371,000, including 60,000 killed; 210,000 wounded; and 101,000 missing. Nor does our author know that the French commander responsible for its defense, General Pêtain, would rise to become a living symbol of French defiance – only to fall to ignominy and be convicted of treason twenty years later for his collaboration with Nazi Germany. But no one in 1915 knew these things.
“Fighting France” is well written and easy to read little volume that might help the modern reader to understand how the war was perceived and experienced by at least some of those actually present. A map or even an historical atlas of the First World War might help some readers better follow Mrs. Wharton’s peregrinations around France and recognize the militarily significant locations and dates she mentions. The book would also be of interest to those devotees and fans of Mrs. Wharton’s novels and short stories who would like to know and understand more about the woman who drew so often upon her own experiences in writing her fiction. It seems clear that whether or not any of her own novels could be considered autobiographical, many elements of her life and experiences might lend themselves well to the novel, the stage, or cinema including the experiences described in this slim work.
August 4, 2022
Extraordinary opportunity to read about being a war correspondent during WWI travelling through Belgium and France. Her description of the destruction of Ypres is especially moving as it’s somewhere I visit regularly since 2005 but obviously had no idea how it looked in 1915. It’s a fascinating insight into WWI, how it was organised, how the troops were deployed, the guided tours through each war zone and her chanced to meet the locals and the troops involved.
I’m not sure how easy it would be these days to be this close to the action or to have the freedom to drive between war zones and to notice how different communities dealt with the situation. Some carried on as normal with street markets and parties in the street, whereas others lived in their cellars and helped out their neighbours where possible.
This book was recommended by Luce Doucet, the very experienced BBC war correspondent and I’m very glad I found her review which is what drew me to this book.
I’m still reading it as the detail is so intense that it takes a lot of concentration so it’s definitely not a quick read.
I’m not sure how easy it would be these days to be this close to the action or to have the freedom to drive between war zones and to notice how different communities dealt with the situation. Some carried on as normal with street markets and parties in the street, whereas others lived in their cellars and helped out their neighbours where possible.
This book was recommended by Luce Doucet, the very experienced BBC war correspondent and I’m very glad I found her review which is what drew me to this book.
I’m still reading it as the detail is so intense that it takes a lot of concentration so it’s definitely not a quick read.
May 14, 2025
The best part of this audiobook was the excellent introduction, which was taken from "The End of the Age of Innocence: Edith Wharton and the First World War," which summarizes Wharton's charity efforts in France during World War I. The actual book that Wharton wrote is a series of short essays on her time in France and her various trips near the front lines. She lived in France at the start of the war, and her motivation for writing was to cajole the American public to support the Allied cause. I found her observations about how Paris changed in the early months of the war to be the most interesting. She doesn't really have a lot anything profound to say about the war, but that's hardly her wheelhouse. Kudos to her for stepping out of her comfort zone. I think it's clear that her experiences, and to some extent, these essays, informed her World War I novel, "A Son at the Front."
July 26, 2018
Interesting read
This book and Wharton’s observations are a leverage which brought the US into WW I. She helped bring a personal accounting of the ravages of war to American public and its politicians. However the language is too flowery and emotionally distant for my tastes. Worth the read given its brevity.
This book and Wharton’s observations are a leverage which brought the US into WW I. She helped bring a personal accounting of the ravages of war to American public and its politicians. However the language is too flowery and emotionally distant for my tastes. Worth the read given its brevity.
July 15, 2023
Edith Wharton was a francophile par excellence and her reports from the front line during World War I are incisive and passionate. It is fascinating to see this traumatic period of history from a French perspective. Their government honoured the author after the war and reading this book one can appreciate why.
April 22, 2019
"The next morning... We woke to a noise of guns closer and more incessant"
Whartons first hand account of traveling through France during the first world war.
Interesting, but not captivating.
June 21, 2019
A remarkable series of newspaper articles Wharton wrote for US magazines from within France in the first two years of the Great War. Her prose is beautiful as ever. Highly effective and moving propaganda and a verbal portrait of how fast civilisation can break down despite all efforts to stop it.
April 11, 2025
Fighting France is a collection of articles Edith Wharton wrote while living in France when the first World War broke out. Her observations are essential Wharton: pro-French, but not exactly jingoistic. She says what she sees, but at the same time, doesn’t hide the uglier side of things.
September 20, 2025
Would have preferred if this was more about the trenches than it was
September 18, 2018
Wharton, who lived in Paris, toured the front lines in 1915 and, in this brief series of dispatches, reported on the ruined towns, gallant soldiers, and resilient villagers she encountered. A vivid account of France in wartime.
(I listened to an audibook version of this book as part of my My Year in 1918 project (myyearin1918.com)).
(I listened to an audibook version of this book as part of my My Year in 1918 project (myyearin1918.com)).
July 5, 2013
This will probably never be a WW1 classic like All Quite On The Western Front because it contains no actual scenes of combat, but -- early in the book -- life among the civilian populace in the early days of the war, and later behind the lines as the author toured the countryside by car visiting various headquarters, bombed-out villages and so on; she does however get to set foot in trenches on a few occasions, and often the big guns are booming nearby or overhead.
The appeal of the book is Edith Wharton's expert command of language, and wonderful powers of description, and it is easy to see why she later went on to win a Pullitzer for The Age of Innocence (although I haven't actually read this).
As mentioned by another reviewer, it a very romanticised view of war and the French people, but I'm sure has it's place as historical source material if nothing else.
The appeal of the book is Edith Wharton's expert command of language, and wonderful powers of description, and it is easy to see why she later went on to win a Pullitzer for The Age of Innocence (although I haven't actually read this).
As mentioned by another reviewer, it a very romanticised view of war and the French people, but I'm sure has it's place as historical source material if nothing else.
October 5, 2017
Not really an unbiased look at one of the worst periods in history, as it actually reads more like subtle propaganda. The author romanticizes war and makes the whole fight seem like France is a knight in shining armour, battling "the Beast" that is Germany. In retrospect, this should have been more obvious from the title.
There are better books out there that deal with the war, I would not recommend this one.
There are better books out there that deal with the war, I would not recommend this one.
March 8, 2015
I suppose the most interesting thing about this book is that the articles in it were actually written in the middle of the First World War. Wharton's support for the war coloured what she saw and how she wrote about it. However, I could not get away from the fact the what she was describing could well have been seen by my great uncles who fought and died in France.
October 1, 2015
It's not bad, it's probably just not what I was feeling like reading, I suppose. I don't think she quite knew how to approach the topic, and the book is a mix of pastoral scenery, the triumphs of human spirit despite war-torn circumstance, and contending with destruction on a scale heretofore unseen. That having been said, why was she on some kind of war sites grand tour in the first place?
August 26, 2013
Fascinating at first, the flowery writing quickly becomes too much for a full-length (albeit short) book. It's good for getting a feel for early-WWI Paris and Alsace-Lorraine, but it's hard to get any real information through all the obvious propaganda pushing.
December 29, 2014
Remarquable témoignage de cette femme qui, en 1914-1915, a beaucoup donné de son temps et de son argent aux blessés
September 6, 2015
She went on a trip to the trenches. What the ever living...
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November 21, 2017Wonderful unexpected read! The glimpses of the battlefront are gripping, but to me most impressive are the towns that somehow survive under the shadow of war. She describes the women who nurse, feed, and uphold spirits under the worst of circumstances. Edith Wharton observed France during WWI war daringly, able to see the lines of battle and hear shells drop. Her observations are not of politics or strategy (which are the basis of so many historical narratives) but of people and lands caught up in the conflict. To me, the courage and strength of a people oppressed should inspire us to reach to our own hidden powers in these very trying times.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews