Some Desperate Glory: The Diary of a Young Officer, 1917

Some Desperate Glory charts the progress of an enthusiastic and patriotic young officer who marched into battle with Palgraves Golden Treasury in his pack. Intensely honest and revealing his diary evokes the day-to-day minutiae of trench warfare: its constant dangers and mind-numbing routine interspersed with lyrical and sometimes comic interludes. Vividly capturing the spirit of the officers and men at the front the diary grows in horror and disillusionment as Vaughans company is drawn into the carnage of Passchendaele from which of his original happy little band of 90 men only 15 survived.