Review: Before My Helpless Sight

Leo van Bergen’s book, Before My Helpless Sight, is a history of suffering in World War I, a description the author readily admits: “At the roots of the book lies the question of what can happen to a soldier between the moment he steps onto a train or ship bound for the theatre of battle an the point at which he is evacuated wounded, or whether dead or alive, buried in the ground” (pg. 1). Needless to say, the book is not a light read.

The book is divided into five parts: Battle, Body, Mind, Aid, and Death. Battle is a chronological history of the suffering on the Western Front. Body explores trench life, disease, and wounds. Mind examines shell shock (PTSD). Aid describes the medical services (or lack there of). Death looks at killing, being killed, and burial.

Van Bergen cannot be criticized on methodology. The book is impressively well researched (and cited), including qualitative and quantitative sources in numerous languages. Apart from the organization of the book itself, you see very little of the author in the pages. Readers are bounced from anecdotal accounts to descriptive statistics with little commentary or fanfare. This is not necessarily a negative, the sources speak for themselves. Their sheer, horrifying weight is ample to progress the book forward.

Whether on purpose or by accident, readers are left mostly alone in a dense text of grim personal accounts and tragic statistics. Where the author does introduce himself often seems out of place. At one point during a discussion of mustard gas the text digresses onto a quick commentary on wearing kilts in war, leaving readers jarred. The author also has the nasty habit of not properly introducing and defining new concepts. During the same description of gas weapons, the author awkwardly switches from referring to the weapons by their common name (mustard gas, chlorine gas, etc…) to referring to them by the the color of the artillery shell’s identification markings (yellow cross, green star, etc…) without connecting the two labels.

Finally, the author has the curious habit of including fictional descriptions in his sources. Readers are forced to be mindful of whether an anecdote is a primary source or the passage from a novel. I resorted to skipping fictional accounts when I came across them altogether, if only to keep separate in my head what was based on observation and imagination.

However, in the light of the book’s contribution these issues are quickly forgotten. Before My Helpless Sight is a powerful counter to the innumerable discourses on WWI tactics and strategy. Van Bergen pulls back the curtains of glorious offensives and magnanimous generals, revealing the grim, muddy reality of life on the Western Front. It is a story of pus, rats, hunger, dirt, disease and madness. You do not know World War I before reading this book.

Full Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book.

Christopher Albon is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in armed conflict, public health, human security, and health diplomacy.

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