吉米·普林斯迫不及待地加入了北斯塔福郡军团,他是一个年方十八、身材高大、体格健壮的小伙子。他喜欢踢足球,也把战争看成是一种体育运动。而在1914年,在比利时伊普瑞斯前线战壕中度过的第一天里,他才意识到,战争并非象踢足球一样,而是一种屠杀。当他把几块面包递给一个伙伴时,这个士兵直起身子来接,他的脑袋刚露在战壕的短垣外,一名德国狙击手的子弹立刻就飞过来结束了他的生命。那年秋天,在伊普瑞斯长达一个月的战斗中,大约死伤了二十五万协约国和德军士兵。来自前线的一名观察员写道:“在此以前,从未有过如此多的 Jimmy Springs can not wait to join the North Staffordshire Corps, he is a year-old, tall, sturdy young man. He likes to play football, but also the war as a sport. In 1914, on the first day spent in front of the Cypriot trench in Belgium, he realized that the war was not like football but a massacre. When he handed a few loaves of bread to a partner, the soldier straightened up to pick it up. His head was barely behind the trenches and a bullet from a German sniper flew over to finish his life. That fall, during the one-month long battle in Ypres, about 250,000 allies and German soldiers were killed and injured. An observer from the front wrote: "There has never been so much before that