It consists of six loosely connected stories based on Drieu La Rochelle's experiences as a soldier during World War I.

Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, a 21-year-old, inexperienced French officer, was at first exhilarated, a fighting man at last, and then chastened by a shrapnel wound.

After recovering from that he and other French soldiers joined the British in the Dardanelles, from which he was evacuated with amoebic dysentery.

Recovered from that he joined a regiment at the Battle of Verdun to be so seriously wounded he was removed from active service.

This slender volume (212 p) of short-story/memoirs is his looking back at some of the events, the men he knew, the ideas and emotions that swept through him.