Tommy Atkins

Tommy Atkins is the English soldier. The 'Tommy this, an' Tommy that', who singing marched with the Great Duke to the Danube, who joking broke the cavalry of France at Minden, who grumbling shattered Napoleon's dreams at Waterloo, who sweating in his red coat tramped back and forth across India, who kept up his six-rounds-to-the-minute at Mons, and who died in the mud at Passchendaele, the sands of the Western Desert, and the jungles of Burma. If his name has been eclipsed by his more illustrious commanders - Cromwell, Wellington, Allenby, Slim - they at least will accord him his rightful place beside them. Tommy Atkins is the story of this most versatile, most unmilitary soldier. It is an epic of incredible loyalty and devotion to duty; and of almost unbroken eventual success. Here lie some of the paradoxes of the English soldier. Successive Governments misused his talents and his loyalties, and he died without complaint to save them from their follies. His superiors often treated him with sickening brutality, and he repaid then with devotion, even affection. The public abused him spitefully, and selflessly he protected them. Often poorly fed and housed, woefully equipped, mercilessly worked, over-loaded and underpaid, this unique individualist continued to do his duty. And because he fought without bitterness, because in defeat he refused to be defeated and in conquering he had compassion, Tommy won the respect and friendship of his allies and foes the whole world over.