The Road to St. Julien

The Letters of a Stretcher-Bearer of the Great War

William St. Clair, John St. Clair

• Publisher: Leo Cooper
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9781844150175
• eBook ISBN: 9781783034437
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

William St Clair is perhaps the only soldier to have left a continuous account of his experiences day by day from the moment of joining up in 1914, through the years of horror in the trenches, to the march into Germany in 1919 and the long aftermath of trying to make sense of what had happened. A private in the medical corps, St Clair wrote daily letters, sometimes more, to his future wife Jane. Often scribbled under fire, and sent in the green envelopes that were exempt from censorship, they tell of the famous battles of Loos, the Somme, and Passchendaele, as they happened, with excruciating vividness. They speak too of aspirations, of conversations, of literature, and of love.Published for the first time, these raw, truthful, and deeply moving. letters give us what we have not properly had before, the voice of an ordinary soldier who is also a wonderful writer. The book takes its title from the village of St Julien in Flanders, where, in a captured German pill box, the mind of young soldier was transformed, an event that he later turned into an award-winning play.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter One - Call to Arms
• Chapter Two - 1915 The Glamour of this War is All at Home
• Chapter Three - 1915 Missions of Mercy at Festubert
• Chapter Four - The Battle of Loos
• Chapter Five - Reflections
• Chapter Six - Winter in the Trenches
• Chapter Seven - The Scales of Sacrifice
• Chapter Eight - 1916 The Battle of the Somme
• Chapter Nine - 1917 ARRAS
• Chapter Ten - The Damned Clergy
• Chapter Eleven - Passchendaele and St Julien
• Chapter Twelve - March/April 1918 The Kaiser’s Battle
• Chapter Thirteen - ‘The Knighthood’ of the Air
• Chapter Fourteen - 1918 ‘The Black Day of the German Army’ and the Defeat of Germany
• Epilogue
• Appendix
• The Prayer by W. St Clair
• References
• Index