And I wonder, a hundred years later, if you find that it is under-read or underappreciated or underrated, and if so, why?

Well, I think the importance of, uh, Barbusse's Under Fire is that it is first-person testimony, uh, about what combat in the First World War was by someone, uh, who went through it and suffered terribly as a result of his military service.

So it's a, an autobiographical, uh, account of a kind that was meant to strip away the glory of war as, I would say, produced or marketed i-in the popular press.

Uh, his voice was the very first to break through what was called eye wash by soldiers, namely the, uh, heightened, uh, language of bravery, uh, and of, uh, nonchalance of soldiers who faced things that you and I could only barely imagine, uh, facing.

So in nineteen, uh, fifteen, when he fought, the war was young.

He volunteered for it.

He'd had to serve as a French citizen, but he, he was a, a supporter of the war.

Mm