The two battles in which the "romantic young" author took part were the Somme and Ypres, which he somehow survived, and which he records with a special sense of humor and tragedy. He published his account in 1929 when it attracted immediate attention and went through three printings. His epilogue on militarism presents a moving retrospect, inquiring into why and how his generation fought and concluding "We must face the fact that death is inevitable and hate lamentably common."