It was these men who were called upon to lead the Fusiliers at the Battle of Loos. In this way, hundreds of 'temporary gentlemen' were granted officer commissions that they had barely been trained for. Graves tells of the lack of officers available to train the new recruits, and to remedy this, Kitchener called in university graduates and promoted them to the Officer Training Corps, encouraging them to spot potential leaders in their new trainee soldiers, and promote them accordingly. Kitchener formed this 'new army' by conscripting five hundred thousand 'volunteers'. It also saw the first mass engagement of General Kitchener's Army, who were often disparagingly referred to as 'Kitchener's Mob'. This was the first battle in which the British army used deadly poison gas against the enemy. The Battle lasted just over a week, and took place on the Western Front of France. Graves describes trench warfare in detail, particularly recalling the ineptitude of the generals who strategized and planned the doomed Battle of Loos.

He serves alongside Siegfried Sassoon, another writer, who is outspoken and determined to return to the front every time he is injured and hospitalized. In World War One, Graves is serving as a lieutenant with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and is shortly promoted to Captain because his superior officers are killed in combat.

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Goodbye to all that by robert graves