Private William Wheeler was a soldier in the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. He served from 1809 until he was invalided out in 1828, then a sergeant. Living on his army pension, he turned his letters home into a journal, which was preserved by the family down the generations, until, in 1948, a visitor to the house saw it and thought it should be published. B H Liddell Hart was a British soldier, strategist and military historian. He wrote a series of acclaimed military history books including A HISTORY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR, A HISTORY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR and THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL.