PoiluThe harrowing first person account of a French foot soldier who survived four years in the trenches of the First World War Along with millions of other Frenchmen, Louis Barthas, a thirty five year old barrelmaker from a small wine growing town, was conscripted to fight the Germans in the opening days of World War I. Corporal Barthas spent the next four years in near ceaseless combat, wherever the French army fought its fiercest battles: Artois,