Description

The first novel in Evelyn Waugh’s brilliant Sword of Honor trilogy introduces a disillusioned English Catholic aristocrat as he eagerly joins the British Army at the start of World War II, only to encounter the confusion, bureaucracy, and anticlimax of military life.

“An eminently readable comedy of modern war” —New York Times

Guy Crouchback, determined to get into the war, takes a commission in the Royal Corps of Halberdiers. His spirits high, he sees all the trimmings but none of the action. And his first campaign, an abortive affair on the West African coastline, ends with an escapade that seriously blots his Halberdier copybook.

Men at Arms is the first novel in Waugh’s brilliant Sword of Honor trilogy recording the tumultuous wartime adventures of Guy Crouchback , which also comprises Officers and Gentlemen and Unconditional Surrender.

“the finest work of fiction in English to emerge from World War II” —Atlantic Monthly