“Live with the men, go everywhere they go. Make up your mind you will take their risks, and more, if you can do any good. the line is the key to the whole business. Work in the very front and they will listen to you; but if you stay behind you are wasting your time. Men will forgive you anything but lack of courage and devotion.”

The Reverend Studdart‐Kennedy, MC (1883 to 1929) quoted in Brigadier Sir John Smyth, Bt, VC, MC, Leadership in Battle 1914‐1918.

Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy was an English Anglican priest and poet. He was nicknamed Woodbine Willie during World War I for giving Woodbine cigarettes along with spiritual aid to injured and dying soldiers.

On the outbreak of World War I, Studdert Kennedy volunteered as a chaplain to the army on the Western Front, where he gained the nickname Woodbine Willie. In 1917, he was awarded the Military Cross at Messines Ridge after running into no man’s land to help the wounded during an attack on the German frontline.