The uniform is 1916, which means the man wearing it may not have chosen to be there. Britain had fought the first eighteen months of the war on volunteers alone — Kitchener's poster brought in over a million men by January 1915, many of them into Pals battalions raised street by street and trade by trade. It was not enough. On 5 January 1916 Asquith put the first conscription bill in British history before the Commons; royal assent came on the 27th and the law took force on 2 March. Men from eighteen to forty-one were liable, with the exemptions listed: married men, ministers of religion, reserved occupations — and conscientious objection.

Eight figures: an officer with his revolver, a sergeant, six privates, every bayonet fixed and every man going forward. Stand them beside the British infantry of 1914 and the difference is the entire point of the set — those men were professionals who had joined the army years before anyone needed them, while these are what came after, and by the year on the box some of them were there because the law said so. In a diorama they belong at the Somme. The German infantry of 1916 are on the other side of it.

Tradition of London model 814. 54mm, white metal, hand-painted in gloss enamel. Eight-figure set — an officer, a sergeant and six privates, 1916. Supplied in the Tradition Classic Red Box. Allow 2–3 weeks delivery.