William Heath Robinson argued that humour was an important weapon against despair; perhaps the reason he published such important works during both of the world wars that devastated the 20th century. This book, in a beautiful first edition, clearly demonstrates his ability to combat, through satire and absurdity, both the pompous propaganda and the fear and horrors of war. Such is the complexity endowed to his drawings that, from the 1910s onwards, he merited an entry in the dictionary: "Heath Robinson: used to describe a machine that is very cleverly made and is complicated in a silly or humorous way [...]".