Ellen Newbold La Motte was an American nurse, journalist and author. … and in 1915 volunteered as one of the first American war nurses to go to Europe and treat soldiers in World War I. In Belgium she served in a French field hospital, keeping a bitter diary detailing the horrors that she witnessed daily. “I am a professor of American studies and recently spent several years researching the life of Ellen N. La Motte, a long-forgotten nurse and public health crusader. In particular, I focused on her war writing. Soon after World War I began, she volunteered as a nurse in a French field hospital; later she published an explosive book of stories, “The Backwash of War,” about the experience. I spent endless hours immersed in those deeply unsettling and darkly humorous tales of wounded and sick hospitalized soldiers…. Cynthia Wachtell is a research associate professor of American studies at Yeshiva University…”

By : Ellen Newbold La Motte (1873 - 1961)

00 - Introduction

01 - Heroes

02 - La Patrei Reconnaissante

03 - The Hole In The Hedge

04 - Alone

05 - A Belgian Civilian

06 - The Interval

07 - Women And Wives

08 - Pour La Patrie

09 - Locomotor Ataxia

10 - A Surgical Triumph

11 - At The Telephone

12 - A Citation

13 - An Incident

This war has been described as “Months of boredom, punctuated by moments of intense fright.” The writer of these sketches has experienced many “months of boredom,” in a French military field hospital, situated ten kilometres behind the lines, in Belgium. During these months, the lines have not moved, either forward or backward, but have remained dead-locked, in one position. Undoubtedly, up and down the long-reaching kilometres of “Front” there has been action, and “moments of intense fright” have produced glorious deeds of valour, courage, devotion, and nobility. But when there is little or no action, there is a stagnant place, and in a stagnant place there is much ugliness. Much ugliness is churned up in the wake of mighty, moving forces. We are witnessing a phase in the evolution of humanity, a phase called War—and the slow, onward progress stirs up the slime in the shallows, and this is the Backwash of War. It is very ugly. There are many little lives foaming up in the backwash. They are loosened by the sweeping current, and float to the surface, detached from their environment, and one glimpses them, weak, hideous, repellent. After the war, they will consolidate again into the condition called Peace.

After this war, there will be many other wars, and in the intervals there will be peace. So it will alternate for many generations. By examining the things cast up in the backwash, we can gauge the progress of humanity. When clean little lives, when clean little souls boil up in the backwash, they will consolidate, after the final war, into a peace that shall endure. But not till then.