The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Backwash of War, by Ellen N. La Motte

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Backwash of War
The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an
American Hospital Nurse

Author: Ellen N. La Motte

Release Date: October 12, 2008 [EBook #26884]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BACKWASH OF WAR ***

Produced by Meredith Bach, Rene Anderson Benitz and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

Transcriber's Note: Variations in hyphenation and spelling have been
retained as in the original. Minor printer errors have been amended
without note.

_By Ellen N. La Motte_

The Tuberculosis Nurse

The Backwash of War

The
Backwash of War

The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield
as Witnessed by an American
Hospital Nurse

By
Ellen N. La Motte

G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1916

Copyright, 1916
BY
ELLEN N. LA MOTTE

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

To
MARY BORDEN-TURNER

"The Little Boss"

TO WHOM I OWE MY EXPERIENCE IN
THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES

INTRODUCTION

This war has been described as "Months of boredom, punctuated by moments
of intense fright." The writer of these sketches has experienced many
"months of boredom," in a French military field hospital, situated ten
kilometres behind the lines, in Belgium. During these months, the
lines have not moved, either forward or backward, but have remained
dead-locked, in one position. Undoub