Letters of a Soldier, 1914-1915

The collection presents personal letters from a young soldier to his mother written during the opening months of the war, tracing his transition from depot duties to active service while recording daily routines, long marches, crowded trains, and encounters with refugees and wounded. He meditates on duty, fear, and solidarity, contrasts the horrors of combat with consolations drawn from landscape, memory, and an artist's sensibility, and describes censorship, shortages of news, and the emotional toll of separation. The letters combine vivid scene sketching with reflective passages about conscience, courage, and the attempt to preserve inner life amid upheaval.