Friedrich "Fritz" Kreisler was an Austrian-American violinist and composer of great renown, often regarded as one of the finest violinists of all time. He was, however, for a brief time an officer of the Austrian army during the First World War; but unlike the voluminous literature of Gallipoli and the Western Front in English, his memoirs of the fighting on the Eastern Front provide a rare insight seldom seen. Although clearly not a full record of the time that he spent in the Austrian service, before being honourably discharged after being wounded, the events that he chronicled are of considerable detail, artistic merit and lasting interest.