A fifty-three-year-old Anglican priest and poet when the First World War broke out, Frederick George Scott was an improbable volunteer, but also an invaluable war memoirist about life at the front. Enlisting at the very beginning of the conflict and serving on the Western Front until the Armistice, Scott became the most decorated Canadian chaplain. A High Anglican and staunch British imperialist described by one of his fellow officers as "an old snob of the old school," Scott also defied stereotypes, often rejecting the privileges he was entitled to as an officer and insisting on being at the frontlines with the rank-and-file soldiers, with whom he felt genuine kinship. As a result, he was seriously wounded in the autumn of 1918, near the end of the war. The Great War as I Saw It is an idiosyncratic portrait by a man of strong religious convictions witnessing the horror of modern warfare. In evocative prose shaped by his background as a poet, Scott moves between lighthearted moments and dark tragedy, including his wrenching account of searching for his own son's body in a ruined battlefield.
Rich in detail, it is one of the most diverse and complete first-hand accounts of the war ever published.
- ISBN10 1505273625
- ISBN13 9781505273625
- Publish Date 23 March 2015 (first published 11 October 2007)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 27 October 2016
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 332
- Language English