War and the Future is divided into four parts.
In the first part, entitled "The Passing of the Effigy", Wells argues that "the great man of this war is the common man", and sketches a portrait of General Joffre as "a single figure to stand for the finest quality of the Allies' war", on account of his "leadership without vulgar ambition...He is as it were the ordinary commonsense of men, incarnate." In an account of a visit with the King of Italy, "the first king I had ever met", Wells is struck by the monarch's lack of pomp and, indeed, regality.
The second part, titled "The War in Italy" (August 1916), describes the city of Udine and the mountain warfare of the Isonzo front as well as visits to Verona, Venice, and Milan.