Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. List of Main Characters ix
4. Illustrations and Maps x
5. Preface and Acknowledgements xiii
6. Prologue 1
7. PART I. GOING TO WAR
8. CHAPTER 1. ‘Quiet Earnest Faces’ The National Cause 9
9. CHAPTER 2. ‘Glad to Go’ Patriotic Idealism 28
10. CHAPTER 3. ‘Ready to Go’ Training 52
11. PART II . AT THE FRONT
12. CHAPTER 4. ‘Write as Often as You Can’ Letters and Parcels 75
13. CHAPTER 5. ‘Sticking it Out’ Fear and Shell Shock 98
14. CHAPTER 6. ‘A Certain Sense of Safety with Him’ Leadership 119
15. CHAPTER 7. ‘Such a Helpless Lot of Babes’ Care for the Men 143
16. CHAPTER 8. ‘Drops of his Blood on my Hand’ Horror and Endurance 163
17. CHAPTER 9. ‘I Merely Did my Duty’ Discipline and Morale 176
18. CHAPTER 10. ‘Very Gallant in Every Way’ Early Losses 193
19. CHAPTER 11. ‘Blighty, oh Blighty in about a Week’ Leave 198
20. CHAPTER 12. ‘I Am Serene, Unafraid’ The Somme 211
21. CHAPTER 13. ‘Capable of Finishing the Job’ Battles of 1917–1918 225
22. CHAPTER 14. ‘The Men Cannot Grasp It’ Armistice 235
23. CHAPTER 15. ‘We Will Remember Them’ Remembrance and Commemoration 251
24. CHAPTER 16. ‘All the Best and Choicest and Unblemished’ War Heroes 262
25. CHAPTER 17. ‘Among the Happiest Years I Have Ever Spent’ Survivors 277
26. Epilogue The Great War in Perspective 287
27. Notes 294
28. Bibliography 315
29. Index 319