Ian Hay (Major John Hay Beith, MC, CBE) was a novelist and playwright with a humourous and eccentric outlook. He was a friend and collaborator of P G Woodhouse.
During WW1 he served with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, going to France in 1915 as part of Kitchener's New Army - the First Hundred Thousand.
His eponymous book was based on his experiences at that period. Whilst undoubtedly a piece of propaganda, it bears his trademark humour and wry observation, as such it goes beyond mere propaganda. Published in English, American and Canadian editions in several printings, it was a tremendous success.
The author writes from first hand experience and captures the mood and humour of the times - the latter being a much needed defence mechanism required to survive in the horror of the trenches. It is worth revisiting in today's cynical age for the view it provides of how the war was seen by its willing (they were all volunteers at that stage) participants. But it is also a damned good read. ( )

It's hard not to feel this was a nice piece of propaganda, given that it was published in 1916 and is essentially about what marvellous chaps the men who volunteered in 1914 were. I'm not sure that, that was its original intent, although the author went on to become a general, at the time he wrote the novel he was a captain. ( )