So far, I’ve found Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth to be extremely moving. It’s such a real, human account of the war. Yes, you can read the statistics, memorizing the battles and the number of casualties, but this autobiography contains more meaning than even the most horrific of the statistics.

Personally, Vera Brittain’s account of her relationship with Roland holds the most significance for me. As a twenty-year-old female in a long distance relationship, I feel like I can empathize at least partially with her distress. Being away from someone you love is not pleasant situation. However, unlike me, Brittain also endured the haunting thought that each of Roland’s letters could be his last. Through Brittain’s writing, I am forced to view WWI as something that left a massive impact on Europe as a whole, not just the soldiers on the front. For every British woman like Brittain, there were also French, Italian, Russian, German, American, Serbian, Indian and Austrian women, all who desperately wanted their fiancés and husbands to return safely home. The War’s effects reached far beyond the front, invading intimate personal relationships all across the world.