Benjamin Clouting joined the British Cavalry in August 1913, one year before the outbreak of the First World War. As a pre-war regular Clouting accompanied the BEF to France in 1914, despite officially being too young for combat duties.
This memoir goes a long way towards dispelling the idea of the cavalry as sitting idly behind the lines for the entire war, waiting for the elusive breakthrough. He was present when the BEF fired its first shots of the entire war, and took part in the retreat from Mons, the battle of the Marne and the advance back to the Aisne. During this advance he was on detached duty with an intelligence officer, but the rest of his unit also played a major part in this last period of open warfare. For long periods after this he was an orderly, working directly for a senior officer, and was thus a little sheltered from the worst of the fighting, but he did spend some time in the front line trenches when the cavalry was pressed into service as reinforcements, and he was with his unit during the final victorious offensives.
