Ian Isherwood’s The Battalion tells the story of the 8th Battalion, The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey) Regiment, a K3 Kitchener battalion that fought on the Western Front with the 24th Division during the Great War. Using personal letters, memoirs, and diaries from the battalion, especially those of one commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh John Chevallier ‘Jack’ Peirs, the book seeks to explore how ordinary citizens became soldiers and coped with the harsh realities of war.

The project originated when Peirs’ correspondence, held at Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania, in the United States, sparked interest among American academics. This is unusual, as the history of the Great War in the USA is largely unknown, let alone the activity of the British Army. Peirs’ letters formed the foundation for a digital history project (www.jackpeirs.org), and Isherwood’s book developed from this work, focusing on the battalion’s experiences in major battles like Loos, the Somme, Passchendaele, and during the German Spring Offensive, where the battalion suffered major casualties during fighting at Le Verguier.

Isherwood provides a detailed account of how these men, many without prior military experience, adapted to the demands of combat. He highlights their resilience and pride in service, contrasting this with common perceptions of disillusionment about the Great War. The battalion took heavy losses, yet those who survived maintained a strong esprit de corps and sense of purpose.

One of the book’s strengths is its accessibility. Isherwood uses secondary literature to contextualise the battalion’s actions, making the book approachable for readers less familiar with the intricacies of the Western Front. By centring the narrative on Peirs’ letters, he offers a personal and vivid account of the war, showing the emotional resilience of the men involved. It is also useful, as it tells the 8th Battalion’s history for the first time; no post-war battalion account of its service was published after the Great War.

However, the book’s focus on officers like Peirs, who came from upper-middle-class backgrounds, limits its perspective. While it promises to examine how ordinary citizens became soldiers, it mainly represents the experiences of officers, leaving the stories of working-class men underexplored. This top-down view means the book lacks a broader analysis of the social and economic backgrounds of the recruits and how these might have shifted as the war progressed.

Another weakness is the difficulty of proving that the battalion became ‘better’ soldiers over time. Isherwood argues that the men learned and adapted, but it is challenging to measure improvement in the context of a single battalion study.
Despite these limitations, The Battalion is an engaging, scholarly, and well-researched work. It successfully conveys the emotional and personal experiences of many of the men in the 8th Battalion, offering a valuable snapshot of one unit’s journey through the war.

The Western Front Association