A STUDY GUIDE TO THE IRISH GUARDS IN THE GREAT WAR

BACKGROUND

It's important to understand Kipling's motives for writing the history and the ways in which he approached the task.

The Colonel of the Irish Guards contacted Rudyard Kipling in 1917 to ask if he would write the regimental history of the Great War. The invitation to write the history was couched in terms of creating a ‘memento’ of his son’s service.  John Kipling's fate is briefly summed up in the second volume. On the 27th September 1915 in the attack around Chalk Pit Wood, ‘second Lieutenant Kipling was wounded and missing.’ John, only eighteen and six weeks old, was not found. His name was eventually recorded on a panel on the Loos Memorial.

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Over the period of research and writing, Battalion diaries and maps, along with other official records and private correspondence, were delivered to Bateman’s, Kipling's home in Sussex. Many of those who fought visited the house and told their stories.

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This BBC Timeline illustrates the key events against which the history is set.