In August 1914 Kipling's son John, not yet seventeen, volunteered for a commission in the Army, but was initially refused as under age and with poor sight. Kipling pulled some strings and his son was killed at the battle of Loos a short time after. Asked to write a regimental history by the Irish Guards HQ, five years later, this masterpiece appeared.

Said Kipling, 'This will be my great work ... It is done with agony and bloody sweat.' This edition in two volumes is complete with the orginal maps and appendices and a foreword by George Webb, Editor of The Kipling Journal.