The still photograph which appears when Private Arthur James Hamp (Tom Courtenay) says the words "King and Country" shows King George V riding with his cousin Kaiser Wilhelm II on May 24, 1913.
The film was made in just eighteen days and for less than £100,000. However, despite winning awards and rave reviews, it has never made its money back.
The film frequently shows photographs of war dead. These are genuine and came from the archives at London's Imperial War Museum.
The poem, "There's a porpoise close behind me and he's treading on my tail", that Captain Hargreaves (Dirk Bogarde) quotes is from "The Lobster Quadrille" by Lewis Carroll. The Colonel (Peter Copley) replies with the opening lines of the poem "Biography" by John Masefield.