How did Rudyard Kipling portray British enlisted soldiers in Barrack-Room Ballads?

In Barrack-Room Ballads (1892), Rudyard Kipling portrays the British enlisted soldier as a vital defender of the British Empire who simultaneously faces social scorn due to his low birth.1

To capture the authentic voice and perspective of these men, Kipling frequently employed a Cockney dialect throughout the collection. The poems focus on the lives and experiences of these soldiers, highlighting the tension between their essential role in imperial service and the lack of status they were afforded by society at the time.1