BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THIS PARTICULAR BATTLEGROUND OF WW I
Map & Extract from "York Notes on Farewell to Arms" by Adele King - Longman Literature Guides (Longman York Press)
- When the United States entered the First World War in 1917, he (Ernest Hemingway) tried to enlist for active military service, but was turned down on medical grounds as his eyesight was poor. He enlisted as an ambulance driver with the Red Cross and was sent to Italy in April 1918. Initially going to war was, to him a game or adventure. Some years later he said: 'I was an awful dope when I went to the last war. I can remember thinking that we were the home team and the Austrians were the visiting team.' He had a simple desire to be close to the field of battle.
On 8 July 1918, carrying a supply of cigarettes, chocolates and postcards to the Italian soldiers at Fossalta di Piave, he was hit by an Austrian projectile which exploded close to him. In spite of intense pain in his legs he managed to carry a wounded soldier through machine-gun fire back to the command post before collapsing; for this action he was awarded a medal by the Italian government.
Hemingway was sent for convalescence to the newly opened American Red Cross Hospital in Milan. There he met an American nurse, Agnes von Kurowsky, with whom he fell in love, and to whom he proposed marriage. Seven years older than Hemingway, who was only nineteen at the time, Agnes eventually fell in love with someone else. -
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