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The Backwash Of War: The Human Wreckage Of The Battlefield As Witnessed By An American Hospital Nurse

Ellen Newbold La Motte (1873 - 1961)

Ellen Newbold La Motte (1873–1961) 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…” (New York Times 22 May 2020)

Genre(s): War & Military, Medical, Modern (20th C)

Language: English

Keyword(s): World War I (141), Great War (38), nursing (25), anecdotes (15), military hospitals (2), war wounds (1), war deaths (1)