Contained within is the Great War story of the 2nd Battalion, the Wiltshire Regiment. The 2nd Wiltshires served on the Western Front through virtually the entirety of the war, from the time it was first dispatched there in October, 1914, to the time that the armistice was at last signed in November, 1918; and they fought in all the major actions there. They were nearly wiped out twice, once in the Battles of Ypres, 1914 (“First Ypres”), and once in the First Battles of the Somme, 1918 (“Second Somme”). They incurred just over 1,300 fatalities over the course of or as a result of the war. The story is one of ordinary men, of diverse origins, living and dying in the midst of an extraordinary time in history. It features at least brief biographical sketches of over two hundred men. One half were from Wiltshire, while the other half were from all over the British Isles and Empire. Two thirds were career soldiers, who were already in the army at the outbreak of the war. Significant numbers were railway-workers or agricultural labourers. One of the men who served in the 2nd Wiltshires in the Great War was Stanley Stuart Taylor, who was Nick Edwards’s grandfather.