A proud Newfoundland soldier’s memoir gives unprecedented details of life as a German POW during the First World War.

I’m going to tell my story. With those words, eighty-three-year-old Arthur Manuel set his remarkable First World War memoir in motion. Hidden in the Manuel family records until its 2011 discovery by his grandson David Manuel, Arthur’s story is now brought to new life.

Like many Great War veterans, Manuel had never discussed his wartime experience with anyone. Determined to escape his impoverished rural Newfoundland existence, he enlisted with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment in late 1914. His harrowing accounts of life under fire span the Allies’ ill-fated 1915 Gallipoli campaign, the Regiment’s 1916 near-destruction at Beaumont Hamel, and his 1917 Passchendaele battlefield capture. Manuel’s seventeen-month POW experiences, including his nearly successful escape from a German forced labour camp, provide unique, compelling Great War insights.

Powerful memories undimmed by age shine through Manuel’s lucid prose. His visceral hatred of war and the leaders on both sides who permitted such senseless carnage is ferocious, yet tempered by his powerful affection for common soldiers like himself, German and Allied alike. This poignant, angry, witty, and provocative account rings true like no other.