What is also interesting is that Karkaria fought in the Great War not as part of the British-Indian Army but as part of the British Army. “Karkaria’s preference for a British regiment was rooted in how the Parsi elite constructed their self images,” writes Ranganathan while introducing the book. His preference for the British army was not without precedent. Even before him, Karesasp Naoroji, who also happens to be the grandson of the illustrious Dadabhai Naoroji, had managed to enlist himself with the 24th Middlesex Regiment. Karkaria joined the Middlesex Regiment as a private and was dispatched to the Western Front. It was at this front that Karkaria fought in the now iconic Battle of the Somme. One the deadliest battles of the First World War and fought in Northern France between the joint British and French forces against the Germans, the offensive at the Somme was intended to hasten a victory for the Allied Powers. While the result of the battle did not quite achieve that, it gave the Allied Powers or the Triple Entente the hope that they could win the war. The British Commander in Chief, General Sir Douglas Haig, in his report of the battle, wrote, “The enemy’s power has not yet been broken, nor is it yet possible to form an estimate of the time the war may last before the objects for which the Allies are fighting have been attained. But the Somme battle has placed beyond doubt the ability of the Allies to gain those objects.”