A War for King and Empire

Ypres, 1915. Malcolm MacPhail has enlisted expecting adventure but reaches the Western Front to find mud, shellfire and a defensive system in which survival depends on learning quickly. A troublesome acquaintance from home reappears within the army, giving Malcolm a personal problem at the same time that he is trying to prove himself as a soldier.

The German army is preparing a new attack on the Ypres Salient using poison gas on a scale the Allies have not yet experienced. Malcolm and the men around him are drawn into the Second Battle of Ypres, where improvised responses, broken lines and confusion test units that have had little time to adapt to industrial war.