Extracts from Behind the lines : one woman's war, the letters of Caroline Ethel Cooper, published Sydney, Collins, 1982. In her weekly letters to her sister Emmie back in Adelaide, she describes wartime conditions in Leipzig, Germany where she lived from July 1914 to December 1918.

Read a PDF of this publication:

Part 1, 31 July 1914 - 7 May 1916 (5.2MB)
Part 2, 20 May 1916 - 1 December 1918 (5.2MB)

Caroline Ethel Cooper was from a well to do Adelaide family and from age 26 began travelling the world. She was living in Leipzig and studying music when war was declared. Unlike most non-Germans she chose to stay 'so as to have a complete record of how one country has gone through it.'

Her letters to her sister could not be posted during the hostilities, although one batch was smuggled to Switzerland and posted in 1915. The remainder she kept hidden as they posed a threat to her safety and freedom during unexpected visits by police.

The State Library of South Australia holds Cooper's original letters, D 5761(L)