Lovely War(115)

Many never returned from the war. Others returned but were never the same. Still others returned to bigotry and hatred that history has yet to leave firmly in the past. They paid a price.

Their children paid a similar price in the global war that followed.

We owe a debt.

How might the twentieth century have gone if nineteen-year-old Gavrilo Princip had failed to assassinate Austria-Hungary’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand at a June parade in Sarajevo in 1914? Possibly some other spark would have lit the same fuse. Possibly not. We can’t know.

But we can choose to use whatever means lie in our own power to be agents of healing, hope, justice, plenty, and peace.





SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY




Adie, Kate. Fighting on the Home Front: The Legacy of Women in World War One. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2013.

Badger, Reid. A Life in Ragtime: A Biography of James Reese Europe. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Brittain, Vera. Testament of Youth: An Autobiographical Study of the Years 1900–1925. New York: Penguin Books, 2005. First published in Great Britain in 1933 by Victor Gollancz Limited.

Graves, Robert. Good-bye to All That: An Autobiography. London: Penguin Books, 2008. First published in the United Kingdom in 1929 by Anchor.

Harris, Stephen L. Harlem’s Hell Fighters: The African-American 369th Infantry in World War I. Washington, DC: Potomac Books Inc., 2003.

Hunton, Addie W., and Kathryn Magnolia Johnson. Two Colored Women with the American Expeditionary Forces. Brooklyn: Brooklyn Eagle Press, 1920.

Lentz-Smith, Adriane. Freedom Struggles: African Americans and World War I. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009.

MacMillan, Margaret. The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914. New York: Random House, 2013.

Miles, William (director). Men of Bronze: The Black American Heroes of World War I. 1977.

Nelson, Peter N. A More Unbending Battle: The Harlem Hellfighters’ Struggle for Freedom in WWI and Equality at Home. New York: Basic Civitas, a member of the Perseus Books Group, 2009.

Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. Toronto: Little, Brown & Company, 1929.

Sparrow, Walter Shaw. The Fifth Army in March 1918. London: John Lane, 1921.

Tuchman, Barbara W. The Guns of August: The Outbreak of World War I. New York: Random House, 2014. Originally published by Macmillan, 1962.

Wright, Richard. Black Boy (American Hunger): A Record of Childhood and Youth. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006. Originally published 1945 by Harper & Brothers.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS





THE WAR TO END ALL WARS failed to live up to expectations. It didn’t end in a month. It wasn’t over by Christmas. It wasn’t glorious, and it most certainly did not halt future war.

Those who supported me in writing this book, however, exceeded all expectations.

My first draft was supposed to be over by Christmas. It wasn’t. But when it finally appeared, my editor, Kendra Levin, climbed fearlessly over the parapet into the no-man’s-land of those early drafts, time after thankless time. There ought to be a Distinguished Service Medal for editorial valor. I’d go further and lobby for Kendra’s nomination for the Victoria Cross.

My agent, Alyssa Henkin, and my publisher, Ken Wright, have championed this project from its inception. I hope always to live up to their faith in me.

The entire team at Penguin Young Readers embraced Lovely War. Regina Hayes and Dana Leydig provided superb insight into early drafts. I could do nothing without Janet Pascal. Special thanks to Kaitlin Severini for her painstaking efforts. Kim Ryan has taken my work around the globe. Marisa Russell brings my work into the sun, and Carmela Iaria puts it in just the right hands. Samira Iravani and Jim Hoover make my books gorgeous, and Jocelyn Schmidt and Jennifer Loja make all of this possible.

I’m lucky to have early readers who shared their time and insights so generously. To Nancy Werlin, Debbie Kovacs, Kelly Anderson, Alison Brumwell, Kyle Hiller, Hannah Gómez, Herb Boyd, and Luisa Perkins, thank you for leaving your mark upon this story.

I prayed my way through every page, and that which has carried me aloft thus far never forgot me. Divine help gave life to this project, including but not limited to Aphrodite’s contributions.

The pace and process of researching and writing this book was unusually intense, and my family had to live with a Julie who was present but not. They cheerfully carried on, gave me a wide berth to do what I needed to do, and celebrated each milestone with love and takeout. Thanks especially to Daniel, for always believing. It really is the Berry family who brings these books into the world.

At the vanguard of the Berry army stands my glorious Phil, my best-beloved, and Lovely War’s subject, theme, and inspiration.