Louis Maufrais was retired and nearly blind before he had the time to write his memoirs as a WWI doctor on the front line. He recorded his experiences on 16 cassettes that he left with his children. Stored in a shoe box in the back of a closet, these tapes were silent for 25 years until Maufrais's granddaughter found them...

This is a mind-blowing text. It is the work of a doctor, who, from 1914 to 1918, experienced the entire Great War in the trenches...He offers no ideology, no judgment, no analysis. In the horror of first aid outposts covered in mud, blood and subjected day and night to falling shells, Louis Maufrais experiences his own war, not that of leaders or historians.

Not only was he on all of the war's fronts in France, but under fire all four out of four years. For that, his story is unique. It is also unique in the sense that his role as a doctor-paramedic required him to take notes in order to monitor the wounded. These notebooks are what enabled him, 60 years later, to dictate certain passages with an unequalled precision...

During these four years, Louis Maufrais lived outside of History. If he battled, it was not for an idea or against an enemy; it was against the death of his companions, the shells, the shrapnel, the mud, the gas, these bodies he crushed while transporting the dying...

He saved lives and was an outstanding doctor.

Excerpt from the Preface by Marc Ferro