An Eye in the Storm

A singular view of the Great War on many fronts At the outbreak of the First World War the United States of America was a neutral power. This gave its journalists the opportunity to visit the various war fronts with a freedom to view campaigns from all perspectives and with impartiality from the lines of several of the combatant armies. War Correspondent Arthur Ruhl dropped his fishing rod jumped on a steamer and arrived in Europe in time to witness from the viewpoint of the invaded the overwhelming might of the Imperial German Army as it bore down on Belgium. He experienced the chaos as France feared for its imminent fall and the fall of Antwerp before crossing the lines to see the war from the perspective of an elated Germany. Experiences of the German front line were followed by a journey to the east as news broke of Winston Churchill's Dardanelles adventure. After coming under fire in company with Turkish troops at Gallipoli Ruhl concluded his tour of the maelstrom that was the Great War on the Russian Front. Ruhl's was 'an eye in the storm'-a view of a war not his own by a professional writer-making it a unique engrossing and multi-faceted narrative of some of the most momentous events in the history of human conflict.