Four Years On The Western Front

??the firm lost no time in assuring us that we were not indispensable and we therefore went round to the Headquarters of the L.R.B. and craved permission to enlist??

In November 1914 the London Rifle Brigade was among the first of the Territorial battalions to set foot in France; after completing his training, Aubrey Smith and the detachment from Q Company made their way to reinforce the battalion in the January of 1915.

Over the following years they were present at the Second Battle of Ypres, Gommecourt, the Somme, Arras, the Third Ypres and Cambrai, as well as facing the German offensive of 1918 and taking part in the final Allied advance.

Serving first in the trenches and then in the transport section, Smith?s wartime experiences offers readers a vivid insight into an oft overlooked yet crucial branch of the British Army and the daily perils they faced.

Originally published under the pseudonym of ?a Rifleman? in 1922, ?Four Years on the Western Front? is a classic private?s memoir from the First World War; conspicuously absent from Smith?s account however is his own awarding of the Military Medal in 1917, and subsequent Bar in 1918.