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This book, originally published in 1976, is an account of the first five months of the First World War, as seen by members of a battalion of the Grenadier Guards and told in their own words and a classic of military writing. Contrary to the popular view of that war, this was a period of movement as the Allies sought first to block the German's apparently irresistible march on Paris, then to push them back to the Belgian border until finally both sides engaged in the 'Race for the Sea' in an attempt to find and exploit the open flank. It was a phase that included the retreat from Mons, the Battles of the Marne and the Aisne and finally and most devastatingly the First Battle of Ypres.

The book is based on the diary that was kept by the Battalion Second in Command, Major George (subsequently General the Lord) Jeffreys, known to everyone as 'Ma'. Described by Harold Macmillan as one of the greatest of commanding officers, he was one of only three officers who went to war with the Battalion in August 1914 who survived with it to the end of the year. Supplemented on occasion by the letters and diaries of his brother officers and others, it provides a very complete picture of those turbulent days.