This wasn't a novel so much as a series of sketches. It had a very unfinished feel about it, but was still a pretty good soldier's view of WWI if you can ignore some glaring errors.

The most glaring is the defense of the Maginot Line, which wasn't constructed until decades later & is one of the greatest examples of the generals fighting the previous war. The French wished they had the Maginot Line in WWI, but constructed it in the 30's, & the Germans simply skirted it in WWII, catching the French off guard.

A couple of passages about the crazy amount of shelling could have been cribbed from [a:Ernst Jünger|281443|Ernst Jünger|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1222085840p2/281443.jpg]'s [b:Storm of Steel|240485|Storm of Steel|Ernst Jünger|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348605815s/240485.jpg|232965], a far better book, but written from a German soldier's perspective of the war. (Careful of the edition & translation. There are a bunch & the tone varies from anti-war to pro-Nazi. My 5 star review of one edition is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/46536084 )

I've read that Saddler often used ghost writers & this is one of the last books published before his death. For more on the over all series, this Wikipedia entry is pretty good:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casca_(series)

I wouldn't spend much money on it, but I'm glad I read it. It was a quick & easy read, anyway.
( )

Most of Casca's books are readable for either the characters or for the historical accuracy. This has neither and frankly was written by somebody who knew nothing about World War I other than from the cinema screen, which, as we all know, is hardly an accurate medium. Apart from the first chapter or so which was interesting about street life in 1914's London, this book offered no historical accuracy or characters you could identify with. Once the book got into the war, it was never ending and became rather predictable. I would have liked to see more dialogue between the main characters and expressions on how they felt rather than read about one attack after another. Yes, this is a war novel but other Casca's were better balanced. The writer (a ghost writer, not Sadler) was wrong about the Battle of Verdun and Romania joining the war. Both happened in 1916 yet this book took place in 1914. A poor book not to be read unless you're a Casca book collector, and then only once. ( )