The Englishman's Daughter: A True Story of Love and Betrayal in World War I Paperback – February 4, 2003

The gentleness of some and the brutality of others shines through as does the bucolic setting torn up by war. This author earns the readers’ trust and time. A pleasure to read an author with a precise vocabulary who knows how to craft a narrative out of interviews and archival material. A true story that provides a window into a bygone time.

This is an interesting book about a chapter of the First World War not often spoken of in the history books. We read a great deal in books about the Second World War how the various civilian populations, and stray lost soldiers, resisted the Nazis, but we read almost nothing with regards to World War I on the same subject. This book recounts a particular incident where 7 British soldiers found themselves caught behind German lines at the beginning of the war, during the first campaign. They hid in a village named Villeret, spending two years there, blending into the local population, making friends, and even in one case falling in love and fathering a child.The main story of the book surrounds this love affair and the resulting child (still alive when the author wrote the book in 1999). After her birth, the child's father and his comrades were captured and four of them (including the father) were executed. This part of the book, and the subsequent reunion of the family in 1930, is told simply and rather elegantly by the author.The interesting part of the story, to my mind, was the backdrop to the actual affair. I've always been fascinated by this sort of thing, and the author does a good job of recounting how the French civilians were treated during World War I if they were in territory occupied by the Germans. The Germans apparently looted quite thoroughly (the commander in the story issues a proclamation that eggs are for German officers exclusively!) and shot anyone who showed much defiance. There were French espionage rings operating behind German lines (one figures in the plot, murkily, in the background). There wasn't, however, the concerted effort to kill individual German soldiers and sabotage their operations that there was in the later war.I enjoyed this book a great deal. I have MacIntyre's other books too, and I intend to read them when I get a chance.

This is a very interesting (true) story about how the inhabitants of a small (pop. 600),out-of-the-way French village behaved when occupied by German troops during World War I. From previous wars, the Germans had a gruesome reputation and when their troops arrived the villagers looked upon them with hatred. This was amplified as the Germans compiled detailed lists of all people, crops, livestock and items down to each familys' metal pots and pans for requisition for the German war effort. The village and surrounding areas were saturated with troops billeted in villagers' homes with offficers in nearby chateaus. Also billeted in the village, unbeknownst to the Germans, were seven British soldiers, separated from their withdrawing units, who were unable to get through the German lines to rejoin them.In normal times, the village was rife with ancient family feuds, jealousies, gossip, and crime. The arrival of the British stragglers and the German troops created a kind of unity: protecting the British fugitives was a patriotic duty, they were considered trophies of resistance. At great risk to themselves, the villagers kept the British hidden (often in the same houses billeted with Germans)and fed. As months passed, the villagers' fears began to recede; relations between fugitives, their protectors, and the German invaders began to evolve. Individually, German troops were actually often human, courteous, helpful, and some even attractive. The British, on the other hand began to be seen as seven more mouths to feed in desperately hungry conditions. They were leading a soft life while others on both sides did the fighting, and the pregnancy of a village girl by one of the British soldiers produced a subtle but unstable reaction: old jealousies and animosities re-surfaced, whispering began, and the Germans began receiving anonymous denunciations.

The fact that this is a true story makes it worthwhile reading of history. I finished the book in awe of the people who took such personal risks. The author gives a lot detail that could have been relayed with more interpersonal emotion. Unfortunately this amazing story doesn't unfold with satisfaction, but is interesting.

Trapped behind enemy lines in WWI, a small group of Allied soldiers are sheltered by French villagers. Numerous attempts to breakaway are unsuccessful and the soldiers become part of village life. Unfortunately too much of village life, as a local maiden becomes pregnant by her lover, one of the soldiers. The soldiers are betrayed to the Germans by a jealous villager and they are shot. The story begins in the present at the village, then flashes back to wartime, where the story is told, then returns to the present and the daughter of the Englishman. An interesting true war story of people caught up in unusual circumstances. Drama, intrigue, and romance. Well written and interesting.

As an aficionado of WWI (and all of the other wars in which the US has participated since), this book would naturally appeal to me. To my great delight, it was much less about love than the way the war affected Frenchmen in small villages. It really brought to life the devastation the Germans brought to the villages and villagers. Some places were wiped off the map, never to be rebuilt. For that reason, I loved it. I felt it really brought the war to life from a human standpoint. Best of all, I learned something and that is always rewarding.

Lets face it...WWII has thousands of stories that should be told before the people who lived that war pass on. This is an incredible story of how a small town in Brussels hid several British airmen from the German army for years. It brings to life an era in Europe that set the foundation of life today. Written like a novel and incredibly interesting.