Leonora Raines And Cecil Dorrian Cover The Great War (1914-1919)

In the spring of 1915, American war correspondent Leonora Raines visited Western front battlefields as the guest of a French military unit. “With the latest and most improved method of killing,” she wrote, “the trenches for more than 300 miles are nothing more than a double line of slaughter pens.” On this tour she saw intense shelling, but she also discovered camaraderie—and hope. “These men are all soldiers,” she explained, “fighting for their beloved land. And they are also human beings.” Raines not only provided New York Evening Sun readers with first-hand observations of belligerent troops, but she also revealed how civilians across Western Europe were struggling to cope with loss, despair, and uprooted lives.<p></p>