CANNON FODDER - An Infantryman's Life on the Western Front, 1914-18 by Dolden, A Stuart

Poole 1980, Blandford, first UK edition, hard bound in dust jacket, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2, VG/VG condition, 185 pages, illustrated, index..............................................................................War is a ghastly business and few more so than World War I. The lot of the Infantry in that War, and the manner in which they were used by High Command, quickly earned them the unenviable title "Cannon Fodder". Yet, despite the black awfulness of the trenches, life on the Western Front occasionally had its lighter side. All the features of World War I that made up the ordinary soldiers' lot are in this book. .......................................................................It is the story of A. Stuart Dolden, who served in the ranks of the 1st Battalion London Scottish Regiment -- the first British Territorial troops to go into battle in World War I and this book is based on a day-to-day diary kept by the author from his enlistment in 1914 to demobilisation in 1919. All the incidents -- humour and horrific, in the trenches, behind the lines, in the field kitchens -- were recorded in those diaries at the time or immediately afterwards, and nothing has been left to the imagination. The keeping of a dairy by a private soldier was generally regarded as being against King's Regulations. Consequently, the author was only able to use small notebooks and very often just sheets of paper that could be carried in the breast pocket of his tunic.~