Towards the end of 1937, having just completed his South American Amazonas trilogy (The Land without Death), D blin embarked on a new project much closer to home. As a military doctor in Alsace he had experienced firsthand the chaotic scenes in Haguenau and Strasbourg that followed the Kaiser's abdication and the Armistice. His skill at depicting historical events in vivid epic prose would now be applied to seminal events still within living memory,...