It Was the War of the Trenches

A Suivre.^[5] The novel is a series of anecdotal stories set in the trenches of World War One. Many are based on stories Tardi remembered from his grandfather, who was a veteran of that war, and books he read about the topic. He said: "When I was small, my grandmother used to tell me stories about my grandfather in the First World War. I think the first book I read that wasn’t a picture book was a war story about an army dog who saved his master. And I still get this recurring nightmare of finding myself standing in front of a Call-Up poster - it’s a personal anxiety of mine, being caught up in a situation I can’t control."^[6] The stories focus on the daily horrors and injustices soldiers experienced.^[3] Tardi had dealt with World War One as a subject before in Adieu Brindavoine, published in Pilote (1972-1973) and Le Fleur au Fusil (1974).^[5][6] It Was the War of the Trenches is a more ambitious work for whom Tardi documented himself thoroughly, asking advice from various historians and based his drawings on numerous photographs from this period. The comic has a clear anti-war theme, reflecting the soldiers who are permanently physically and psychologically scarred and the numerous who died for a seemingly pointless cause, which are portrayed in brutal graphic detail.^[5]