In the Front Line: A Doctor in War and Peace. Alec Glen

[CarylW]

I was going to post this in 'What WW1 books are you reading' but thought this book deserves a review of it's own

Recently finished reading this very interesting first-hand account 'In the Front Line : A Doctor in War and Peace' Alec Glen. The book is a recently published memoir of a Glaswegian doctor who served as an RAMC officer in various theatres of war and was awarded a Military Cross. The book was originally written by the author for his sons and published by family members.

The book begins with his time as a medical student in Glasgow hospitals. After the outbreak of war, Alec Glen applied for a commission into the RAMC and started his war service at Tidworth Military Hospital where he was put in charge of the surgical wards. A large part of his time was taken up examining recruits declared unfit for service. His next posting was to Salisbury plain to help train Kitchener's new army of recruits and he was apparently chosen because pre-war he'd spent four years in the OTC and had a certificate. After basic training, a thousand recruits were divided into units of 200 men each to form a field ambulance for a brigade of the new army and he helped to train the men in stretcher-drill and first-aid. His subsequent posting was to Galipolli as a medical officer, and this part of the book details some very graphic accounts, and where according to the book, Alec Glen was fortunate to survive because out of his battalion of 1000 only 100 survived. Afterwards he was posted to Egypt and Mesopotamia and Persia with Dunsterforce, all postings where a number of his patients were suffering from the effects of diseases more commonly found in warm climates such as cholera, malaria, dysentery and typhus. During his service in Mesopotamia he served with another RAMC officer and fellow Scot Osborne Mavor who later became a writer and playwright using the pseudonym of Jack Bridie, so there are several anecdotes about him. Alec Glen also met General Stanley Maude when their paths crossed quite a number of times and he obviously thought very highly of the General crediting him with 'a great many of these improvements in the medical services ' General Maude also made a point of visiting the hospital patients once a week.

Alec Glen was posted to Russia after that and then finally ending his wartime service in Salonika in 1919 where he served in the only military hospital left in Salonika. A large number of his patients were malaria cases, many of whom, in his opinion were being returned to duty when they should have been sent home and largely because too many men had already been demobilised and transport services were short of staff and according to the book he did succeed in improving matters for his patients in that respect and have many of them invalided home.

The book ends with Alec Glen working in another front line in post-war Govan as a GP with a maternity practice coping with extremes of poverty and suffering.

An article published in the Independent citing the book as 'Further proof of Turkey's genocide'

*Warning graphic image

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/further-proof-emerges-of-turkeys-genocide-8877411.html