Roughly half the American soldiers who died in Europe were killed by influenza rather than by Germans. The figures: 53,402 American combat deaths across the whole war, and about 45,000 dead of influenza and pneumonia by the end of 1918 alone. It moved through the training camps first — Camp Funston held over fifty thousand men, and they left it by the thousand for other camps and then for France, carrying it with them. The men in this set crossed the Atlantic in the same ships as the thing that killed nearly as many of them as the war did.

Eight figures: an officer with his automatic pistol, a sergeant, six privates, every bayonet fixed. The helmet is the M1917 — the same Brodie shell the British wore, pressed in American factories — and the webbing is the American pattern. In a diorama they stand with the Marines of 1917 from the same range: both halves of the AEF at the same scale. For comparison rather than a scene, the doughboy at rest is the same man in another maker's hands, and the German stormtrooper of 1918 is who they were walking towards.

Tradition of London model 815. 54mm, white metal, hand-painted in gloss enamel. Eight-figure set — an officer, a sergeant and six privates, 1918. Supplied in the Tradition Classic Red Box. Allow 2–3 weeks delivery.