Perhaps the order of the chapters in the present book requires a word of explanation. They have a natural sequence as the confessions of an Irish man of letters as to why he felt called upon to offer up his life in the war for the freedom of the world. Kettle was one of the most brilliant figures both in the Young Ireland and Young Europe of his time. The opening chapters reveal him as a Nationalist concerned about the liberty not only of Ireland—though he never for a moment forgot that—but of every nation, small and great. He hoped to make these chapters part of a separate book, expounding the Irish attitude to the war; but unfortunately, as one must think, the War Office would not permit an Irish Officer to put his name to a work of the kind. After the chapters describing the inevitable sympathy of an Irishman with Serbia and Belgium—little nations attacked by two Imperial bullies—comes an account of the tragic scenes Kettle himself witnessed in Belgium, where he served as a war-correspondent in the early days of the war. "Silhouettes from the Front," which follow, describe what he saw and felt later on, when, having taken a commission in the Dublin Fusiliers, he accompanied his regiment to France in time to take part in the
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