Trench Fever - A Great War Obsession

For Chris Moore, World War I has developed from a childhood fascination to a full-blown obsession, both for the actuality of the war?its archives and its archaeology?as well as its abiding influence on English language, manners, and customs. Exasperated with the emphasis most war literature places on the officers, generals, and political leaders, Chris Moore decided to trace the war-time experiences of one man, one personal history among the six million voiceless ranks of Britons in uniform. He chose Private Walter Butterworth, Fifth Battalion, the Leicestershire Regiment, an obscure infantryman in a disparaged outfit of amateurs that somehow managed to win one of the greatest battles of history?who also happened to be Chris Moore's grandfather. In Trench Fever, Chris Moore retrieves his grandfather's war-song by following (with reluctant family in tow) the three year march of the Fifth Leicesters through France and Flanders.