With the outbreak of the World War in 1914 the manhood of the world was being rolled up into two opposing mighty war machines—preparing to annihilate each other. The catch-cry “to fight in defence of small nations” was broad-casted. Under this, and other specious pretexts, hundreds of Irishmen were induced to join up in England’s Imperial armies, and they endured the horrors of France, Flanders and the Dardanelles. While these newly-recruited Irish regiments were being drafted to the various war fronts in Europe, great minds were busy at home planning Ireland’s regeneration. For two years the Irish Volunteer movement, directed by Pearse, Connolly, Casement, Clarke and the other leaders, had been spreading like a prairie fire through the country! Alas! because they dared to put forth the claim of their own small nation to be master in its own house the firing squad and the scaffold extinguished the brave lives of sixteen noble Irish leaders. Dan Breen and his few comrades had definitely reached the conclusion that while a foreign flag floated over public buildings in Ireland, and while a foreign army was garrisoned in the land, there was one place—and one place only—for Irishmen to fight—and that place was Ireland. He did not wait for an army to grow up, or for some great captain to come from foreign lands to lead his countrymen to victory. As a matter of fact at one time our soldier-author was, with a few comrades, practically the only force in the field engaged in active hostilities against the enemy. Such a stirring drama has seldom if ever been acted on the stage of Irish life. It is doubtful if any other individual in Irish history received a like number of near-fatal wounds, fighting in defence of his country—and survived to tell the story of the engagements in which the wounds were inflicted. Fired with a burning love of country and a fixed determination to achieve her independence, Dan Breen with a handful of men declared war on England on their own account, convinced that their countrymen would follow their example. In this he was not disappointed. The engagements described follow each other in such quick succession, and are of such a thrilling character, that from the opening of the first chapter to the close of the last, the reader is in momentary expectation of the story ending with the dramatic death of the author. The author’s graphic descriptions of localities, his giving of accurate distances between one location and another, his recording of place-names and family names gives the story a distinct and particular historical value. Great as was the physical suffering he endured, having been literally riddled by bullets, it was as nothing compared to the mental torture he must have endured later on seeing his former comrades turn their arms against each other after the signing of the “Treaty” in 1921.