Editing Harold Macmillan (section)

===War service===
Volunteering as soon as war was declared, Macmillan was commissioned as a temporary [[second lieutenant]] in the [[King's Royal Rifle Corps]] on 19 November 1914.<ref>Thorpe 2011, pp. 47–48</ref><ref>{{London Gazette |issue=28979 |supp=y |page=9505 |date=17 November 1914}}</ref> Promoted to lieutenant on 30 January 1915,<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=29500 |supp=y |page=2533 |date=7 March 1916}}</ref> he soon transferred to the [[Grenadier Guards]].<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=29376 |supp=y |page=11582 |date=19 November 1915}}</ref> He fought on the front lines in [[Western Front (World War I)|France]], where the casualty rate was high, including the probability of an "early violent death".<ref>Thorpe 2010, p. 49</ref> He served with distinction and was wounded on three occasions. Shot in the right hand and receiving a glancing bullet wound to the head in the [[Battle of Loos]] in September 1915, Macmillan was sent to Lennox Gardens in [[Chelsea, London|Chelsea]] for hospital treatment, then joined a reserve battalion at [[Chelsea Barracks]] from January to March 1916, until his hand had healed. He then returned to the front lines in France. Leading an advance platoon in the [[Battle of Flers–Courcelette]] (part of the [[Battle of the Somme]]) in September 1916, he was severely wounded, and lay for over twelve hours in a shell hole, sometimes feigning death when Germans passed, and reading [[Aeschylus]] in the original [[Ancient Greek|Greek]].<ref>MacMillan 2010, p. 89</ref> [[Raymond Asquith]], eldest son of the prime minister, was a brother officer in Macmillan's regiment and was killed that month.<ref>{{citation|last=Lawton|first=John|year=1992|title=1963: Five Hundred Days|publisher=Hodder and Stoughton|location=Sevenoaks, UK|isbn=0-340-50846-9}}</ref>

Macmillan spent the final two years of the war in [[King Edward VII's Hospital]] in Grosvenor Gardens undergoing a series of operations.<ref>Ball ''Guardsmen'', p. 64.</ref> He was still on crutches at the [[Armistice of 11 November 1918]].<ref>Thorpe 2010, p. 58</ref> His hip wound took four years to heal completely, and he was left with a slight shuffle to his walk and a limp grip in his right hand from his previous wound, which affected his handwriting.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://spartacus-educational.com/PRmacmillan.htm |title=Harold Macmillan |access-date=13 June 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150321185432/http://spartacus-educational.com/PRmacmillan.htm |archive-date=21 March 2015}} Spartacus Educational website biography.</ref>

Macmillan saw himself as both a "gownsman" and a "swordsman" and would later display open contempt for other politicians (e.g. [[Rab Butler]], [[Hugh Gaitskell]], [[Harold Wilson]]) who had not seen military service in either World War.{{sfn|Campbell|2010|p=246–247}}