Preface
This account is neither a history textbook nor a purely fictional novel. It is a documentary novel: an invented story based on real events, exact dates, historical figures, and the everyday lives of ordinary French people between January 1914 and December 1920.
Month by month, you will follow Henri Castayrol, a young schoolteacher from the Lot, his sister Jeanne and his brother-in-law Paul in Lyon, as well as Captain Étienne Verdier, an officer at the Ministry of War. Through their lives, you will see pre-war France, then the country's entry into the conflict, the trenches, the home front, and finally the fragile peace of 1919.
The aim is simple: to make tangible what textbooks sometimes summarize too quickly. To understand how a Europe that believed itself civilized plunged, in the space of a few weeks, into the greatest catastrophe in its history. And also to understand that the war was not merely a matter of generals and military maps, but an upheaval in the lives of millions of ordinary people.
This project is experimental. Part of the research, fact-checking, and writing was carried out with the assistance of artificial intelligence.
This work was originally written in French. The English translation and its review were carried out with the assistance of two AI systems.
If you are a middle-school or high-school student, read it as you would a chronicle: without looking for constant heroism, and paying attention to the little things (a letter, a stove that does not heat properly, a note that disappears into a folder). It is often there that history truly unfolds.
Please feel free to leave me a message if you enjoy this project, and share your thoughts and impressions: fredo.ecrit@hotmail.com
I hope you enjoy reading it,
Frédéric