Western Front Inset: Amiens (Location Key)

Amiens is a city in northern France that has a long history of military conflict and occupation. During World War I, it was a key location on the Western Front: the offensive against Germany that the Allies launched there, which featured the first use of armored vehicles in combat, ultimately resulted in the Armistice. Faulkner uses Amiens as the main setting for his two short stories set in the war, "Ad Astra" and "All the Dead Pilots." In the second story German shells fall on the city. However, his Amiens is defined by the nightclubs, bistros and even a brothel in which aviators 'fight' each other over a woman ("Ad Astra") or drunkenly try to make peace with each other and themselves after the war ends ("Pilots").