Letters received from soldiers in the field describe many features
of the various campaigns of the war, the descriptions coming from
representatives of widely differing classes of society. Unlike the
rigid censorship imposed on the allied troopers by their official
censors; the letters of Germans in the field show that wide liberty
of expression is allowed, with only the names of places, troop
divisions, and commanders, and occasionally dates, deleted.
At the front are many men of prominence in many walks of life.
Some of the greatest present-day poets and novelists are in the
field, and that, too, serving in humble capacities, taking their
risks side by side with the men in the ranks or as non-commissioned
officers and sharing the daily routine of the common soldier's life.
Undemocratic as officialdom is in times of peace, and harsh as its
discipline has been pictured in time of war, letters from notables
at the front show a surprising spirit of democracy in the relations
of high and low on the battlefield, in the trenches, and on the
march.
The letters from the front include missives penned or scribbled by
nobles and members of the royal families, high military officials,
authors, Socialists, tradesmen, skilled workmen, and writers who,
in peace times, have been more expert with the farmhand's scythe or
manure fork, or with the street cleaner's broom than with the pen
that is supposedly mightier, and certainly to them more unwieldy,
than the sword.
Nevertheless, even among the privates, it is extremely rare that a
letter shows illiteracy to any marked degree. In the letters written
by high and low alike, there is to be noted a certain theatrical
consciousness of the stage on which they are now engaged in battle
before the world.