Graham Steward
Men At Arms
The Guardsmen: Harold Macmillan, Four Friends and the World They Made
By Simon Ball
HarperCollins 480pp £25 order from our bookshop
So MANY EDWARDIAN biographies are brought to a close by death and severance on the Western Front that it is almost refreshing to find a book which takes the slaughter as its point of commencement. Instead of ending with the loss of life and the breaking of bonds, The Guardsmen emphasises the extent to which that war shaped the outlook of four Etonians and their subsequent careers in public life and the Conservative Party.It could hardly be said that the four all enjoyed a good war. Harold Macmillan was shot in the head, the face, the hand, the knee and the back. When the war ended, he still had half a bullet inside him, and decades of pain lay ahead. A shell-burst had
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