Mobilized in 1914, he was quickly promoted to lieutenant and fought heroically on the front. Genevoix was seriously wounded on 25 April 1915 at the battle of the Marne and returned to Paris, where later he did charity work for French orphans. The battle left a deep impression on the young soldier, and he devoted his many months of convalescence to recounting his war experiences. His first book, entitled
Sous Verdun, août-octobre 1914 (1916; translated that year as
Neath Verdun), was the initial volume of the tetralogy
Ceux de 14, which also includes
Nuits de guerre (Hauts de Meuse) (Nights of War [Heights of Meuse], 1917),
La Boue (The Mud, 1921), and
Les Eparges (Eparges, 1923).
Sous Verdun provides a straightforward account of the horror of the war experience and was well received by the press. Genevoix's talent in achieving an acute realism made him a celebrated witness and also quickly labeled him an "écrivain de guerre" whose words represented a protests against all war and a pacifist cry against those forces which would shatter man's harmony with nature.
For reasons of health (he had had Spanish influenza) Genevoix returned to his beloved Loire region in 1919; the area remained his home for thirty years.
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