Shoestring Soldiers incorporates a wealth of research material from official documents, soldiers' letters and diaries, and the battlefields themselves, surveyed extensively by the author. It marks an important contribution to the growing body of literature on Canada in the First World War.

Andrew Iarocci is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Western University and a former collections manager for transportation and artillery at the Canadian War Museum.

‘Shoestring Soldiers is a well-written account of the 1st Division at war, from its origins as the First Contingent to September 1915 when the Canadian Corps was formed with the addition of the 2nd Division. Andrew Iarocci strengthens our understanding of battlefield performance during the first year of the war, and provides an excellent assessment of the training in England, which is the single-best account of how the 1st Division prepared to fight. This book is a significant contribution to the field of Canadian military history, and one that historians will have to address when writing about Canada’s fighting forces in the first eighteen months of the Great War.’