An Interesting Memoir Dealing with WWI and the Automobile: William Yorke Stevenson, "At the Front in a Flivver"

At Verdun

Recently I ran across a citation for an interesting book on WWI and the Ford Model T -- Stevenson's "At the Front in a Flivver." (New York and Houghton Mifflin, 1917).  The work is really a diary written by an American Ambulance Driver and what he saw during 1916. He drove a Ford Model T with a ambulance body improved and placed o the chassis.  He is a member of an American volunteer corps, and his account has some real merit to it, particularly related to his description of the battles of Verdun and Champagne.

The Fords just keep going, repaired when necessary, drive on muddy, shell hole marked "roads." A good number of Americans participated in this effort, funded by the wealthy, mostly from the East Coast and with Ivy League social connections. 

From time to time the narrative has striking parallels to descriptions from Erich Maria Remarque's  All Quiet on the Western Front.  What did I learn from reading this book?  First, I did not know that Russian troops ever served on the Western Front. Secondly, Stevenson's description of the French Colonial Senegalese and Into Chinese troops was quite interesting.