Henri Barbusse's "Under Fire: The Story of a Squad" (in the original French "Le Feu: journal d'une escouade") was one of the first novels about World War I. Published at the end of 1916, it was based on Barbusse's experiences as a French soldier on the Western Front. The novel, written primarily as the episodic journal entries of an unknown narrator, follows a French squad in the brutal face of the German Invasion. Compared to the many war stories before it, "Under Fire" is marked by a gritty realism that squares firmly with the death and squalor of trench warfare.