What isn't widely known is that Kipling was very pointedly referring to Members of Parliament who before the war had denied there was any need for greater defense appropriations or a better equipped British Army.

Kipling's son John was killed on his first day of action. Kipling, who was neither a fool nor a dupe nor a profiteer, continued to support the Allied war effort to the end.

According to Oxford historian Margaret MacMillan:

"The wartime generals were not all cowards and incompetents as Alan Clark argued in his infamous 'The Donkeys' (1961). ... And was the war just a dreadful mistake or was it about something? ... It is condescending and wrong to think they were hoodwinked. British soldiers felt they were fighting for their country and its values."