Sometime after her divorce in 1913, Edith Wharton moved to Paris. Helped by influential French government connections, she was one of the few foreigners allowed to travel to the front lines. Wharton described those trips in a series of articles, originally appearing in Scribner's Magazine in 1915. These articles became part of The War on All Fronts" series, originally published by Charles Scribner's Sons 1919.

The articles begin with the outbreak of war and the mood of the populace around Paris, from "We don't want war; this kind of thing has got to stop" to the gradual acceptance of martial law and total war.

Wharton describes four tours of the front, the first being to the Argonne at the end of February 1915. Motoring east from Paris, she passes through Châlons, where she first encounters the " 'éclopés' - the unwounded but battered, shattered, frostbitten, deafened and half paralyzed wreckage of the awful struggle." Farther east she first encounters the ruined village of Auve, "a mere waste of rubble and cinders...", then on to Verdun, south to Bar-le-Duc, and back to Paris through Vitry-le-François.

The next trip, in mid-May, was to the Lorraine. Approaching Commercy, on the Meuse, she heard the first sounds of the front. On to Nancy, "the most beautiful town in France," where she lunched with the General Staff. (She is really connected!) North, along the Moselle, to Pont-à-Mousson, where, in August, the German offensive was stopped and a memorial shaft is inscribed: Here, in the year 362, Jovinus defeated the Teutonic hordes.

In mid-June, she is off to the north, where she encountered the British khaki, and even the villages look English! With the British in Cassel, Poperinghe, and Ypres (Ieper), which had "been bombarded to death,.." In Cassel she hears the big siege gun of Diksmuide as it bombards Dunkerque. In Nieuport, which "seems to have died in a colic," the Belgian troops are quartered in ruined basements. Along the coast to La Panne and Dunkerque, then south to St. Omer, through British and Indian troops streaming north, and back to Paris.

Visiting a French Outpost

On 13 August, after inspecting one of the new Red Cross sanitary motor units in Reims and viewing the front, she set out for re-conquered Alsace, hitherto inaccessible to even highly placed French officials. Up into the Vosges above Thann, she meets the "chasseurs Alpins," rides mules and scrambles up through mud, trenches, and tunnels to visit the front lines and even forward outposts!

Throughout her travels, she is visiting hospitals, "ambulances," officials, and, always, the General Staff. She concludes these articles with "The Tone of France," which is a very sympathetic look at the character of the French at war. I would heartily recommend this book as a narrative by a noncombatant, written at the time. Her impressions of the people, troops, landscape, villages, and towns are quite revealing.

Edith Wharton worked tirelessly in charitable efforts for refugees throughout the war. In 1916 she was named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in recognition of her commitment to the displaced.

Fighting France, From Dunkerque to Belfort, Edith Wharton, Hesperus Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-1843914518.