It is to-day a favourite pretension that the war was as uninteresting as it was terrible: a vast error, based upon a temporary reaction, when not upon a pose. I made recently the discovery that between 1906 and 1921 there were published over one hundred books on the Napoleonic Wars. The number would have been far greater but for the fall in the publication of all books between 1914 and 1919. So, a hundred years hence, men will be delving into our records of the late war. Soldiers will be studying the lessons of its battles. But a yet greater number of seekers will be demanding with curiosity how men lived in such circumstances, how they reacted to the strain of war, what compensations they found. It behoves those who were eye-witnesses to depict it in all its aspects, not to shrink from discovering its horror, indeed, but also not to pretend that it had not a better side. The picture now so often painted, representing the war as a single scene in a torture chamber, whence men emerged physical or mental wrecks, may be good anti-militarist propaganda, but it is false, because incomplete. From those experiences many men have emerged happy and strong. Many knew how to snatch some happiness even from their midst. A far greater number can see, in retrospect, that they played a part in one of the most dramatic, as well as one of the most terrible, tragedies in history. That stands for something of good, amid all its evil, in any man's life. The comradeship of war's days is a memory not less happy. It is not alone because the story of the Ulster Division is a record of courage and fortitude, in which men who are my friends had part, but because it represents in a microcosm man in one of the greatest and most curious catastrophes the world has known, that I have had, however unworthy of the task, a pleasure so intense in writing this book. C. F. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I THE RAISING AND TRAINING OF THE DIVISION: SEPTEMBER 1914 TO SEPTEMBER 1915 1 Lord Kitchener and Sir Edward Carson--Sir Edward Carson's Appeal--Formation of the Division--A Commander appointed--Training begins--The Clan Spirit--Realities of War--The Move to England--Lord Kitchener's Tribute--His Majesty's Review. II THE DIVISION IN FRANCE: OCTOBER 1915 TO JUNE 1916 22 First Experiences--Picardy--107th Brigade in Line--The Division enters Line--Holding a Quiet Front--Rations--The Brighter Side--Preparation for Offensive--Reorganization of Artillery. III THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME: JULY 1ST, 1916 41 New Aspect of Warfare--Plans for the Attack--Artillery Programme--A Successful Raid--Anniversary of the Boyne--Attack North of Ancre--Advance of 107th Brigade--A Desperate Situation--July 2nd--Causes of Failure--Move to Flanders.