The Great War As I Saw It: Volume 230 (Carleton Library Series) - Softcover

Scott, Frederick George; McGowan, Mark G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0773544259 ISBN 13: 9780773544253

Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2014

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Mark G. McGowan is professor of history at the University of Toronto, Principal Emeritus of St Michael’s College, and the author of Michael Power: The Struggle to Build the Catholic Church on the Canadian Frontier and The Waning of the Green: Catholics, the Irish, and Identity in Toronto, 1887–1922.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0773544259
• ISBN 13: 9780773544253
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 376