Voices of Silence Page 2

  In selecting the poems, I have searched through trench newspapers and hospital gazettes, private scrapbooks and autograph albums, old newspapers, magazines and journals, gift books and collections of poems published in aid of a particular cause, and many slim volumes of single poets’ work that were published during or shortly after the war. I have looked at advertisements, at postcards that were sold on the streets by unemployed ex-servicemen, at In Memoriam notices in local newspapers and at the headstones of war graves. It was my privilege to handle an illicit, handwritten magazine literally sewn together before being passed from cell to cell by jailed conscientious objectors. In the decades since the war, most of these works have been unavailable to the general reader, out of print and accessible only in specialist libraries, museums or newspaper archives.

  With a handful of exceptions, I have not knowingly selected any work that describes an event not witnessed or experienced by the writer, give or take the considerations of fantasy and humour – I doubt if anyone ever actually saw a Sentry-pede, and I do not think that Harold met his maker because of the abundance of souvenirs he brought home with him. Gilbert Frankau’s ‘Eyes in the Air’ is a first-person account of aerial combat over the line; Frankau was not in the Royal Flying Corps, but from the trenches he was able to watch dog-fights at first hand. Wilfrid Gibson served in the army in England but did not go overseas; despite this, his response to the accounts of front-line experience that he heard from his fellow-soldiers is so acute that he is thought to be one of the most significant poets of the war. A.A. Milne was not wounded at Loos but he saw active service with those who were – whether or not they were greengrocers from Fulham is open to speculation. C. Fox-Smith’s ‘The Call’ is written by a woman, but accurately expresses the thoughts of many of the men as the end of the war approached. Readers must make up their own minds about the chapter entitled ‘L’Envoi’.

  There are poems by writers whom we do not usually associate with war poetry – Gordon Bottomley, John Drinkwater and J.B. Priestley, for example. Sometimes the poet may be well known, but the poem I have chosen is not: Alan Seeger’s ‘I have a Rendezvous with Death’ is found in most anthologies but his ‘On Returning to the Front after Leave’ is not, nor is Geoffrey Dearmer’s fine poem ‘Gommecourt’. There is a single poem, ‘Noon’, by Robert Nichols, a poem I have not found in any other anthology.

  The use of Robert Nichols’s poem leads me on to an explanation of the general arrangement of the work. As I began to sort and order the poems I had chosen, it became clear that the most sensible way to assemble them would be to follow a broadly chronological pattern built round times and battles or particular themes: it is within the description of daily life in the trenches that ‘Noon’ finds its place. Gradually the material evolved into the story of the experience of the Great War told in verse by those who were there. Although, as an anthology, it lends itself to dipping, it has been designed as a whole. A few rather better-known poems, like ‘Beaucourt Revisited’ and ‘The General’, have been included for narrative reasons within this design, and a handful of works of a less obvious poetical standard than the rest, such as the text of postcards, are included because they speak powerfully of their time.

  One of the richest, and certainly the most fascinating, sources was trench newspapers. We cannot now know how many of these ephemeral publications there were, but most units produced something that was written, sometimes illustrated, and then assembled by their men, often in the most impossible conditions. Fortunately, a number have survived, in the British Library, in regimental museums or in private ownership, but many more must have been lost.

  One of the earliest of these was the remarkable Fifth Gloucester Gazette, published between 1915 and 1919. As with other notably successful trench publications, a single poet contributed work of remarkable quality – in this case, F.W. Harvey. But the most famous, and most lasting, of these publications was the Wipers Times and the newspapers – such as the Somme-Times and the ‘Better Times’ – that were its sequels, published between February 1916 and December 1918. A facsimile edition first appeared in 1930 and has been followed by others since. Here, it is Gilbert Frankau who has made the most enduring contribution.

  Compared to others, the Wipers Times was a relatively sophisticated production. In his Preface to the 1930 facsimile, written in the spring of 1918, the editor tells us that the first number was produced in a wrecked printing house near to the Cloth Hall in Ypres – pronounced Wipers by the British soldiers – which had been discovered by a sergeant who had been a printer in civilian life. ‘There were parts of the building remaining, the rest was on top of the press. The type was all over the country-side. [. . .] Paper was there, ink in plenty, everything in fact except “copy” ’, which the men then set about providing. The editorial ‘den’ was in a rat-infested, water-logged cellar in the old Ypres ramparts. The twelve pages had to be printed one by one, as there were not enough ‘y’s’ and ‘e’s’ to do more than a page at a time. When this original press was shattered by a 5.9 shell, a replacement, ‘a lovely little hand-jigger and a lot more type’, were found near Hell-fire Corner (of all places) and brought back into Ypres so that production could continue. This new, lighter press moved with them wherever they went, the newspaper changing its name as they moved. All but the final number were printed close to the front, on one occasion above ground within 700 yards of the line. ‘Have you ever sat in a trench in the middle of a battle and corrected proofs?’ asked Roberts. ‘Try it.’7 Only the edition that was in production at the opening of the March offensive of 1918 had to be abandoned, because of thoughtless enemy activity.

  Other trench newspapers were more primitive – often no more than a single folded sheet. The Spud was typed and then duplicated, as was Depot Review, which was entirely the work of private soldiers. The altogether more ambitious compilation, The Anzac Book, was written and drawn, again largely by private soldiers, during the closing weeks of the Gallipoli campaign of 1915. Unusually, the idea for this publication had come from a member of the Staff who set up a production committee on the peninsular and then asked for contributions. It was also unusual in being intended for a broader readership – not only the men in the trenches but also those at home. The editor was Australia’s official war correspondent, the noted C.E.W. Bean of the Sydney Morning Herald. What was grandly described as his editorial office was situated in a dug-out overlooking Anzac cove.

  The very nature of this war means that most of the poems are written by men, but there were also women at the front, notably the remarkable Mary Borden, who served in French military hospitals, often close to the line. Both in England and abroad, women worked as VAD nurses, in the auxiliary forces or in factories. Others – the wives, and the mothers of small children or of men at the front – waited and all too often mourned. Their writings are vivid testimony to the tragedy of anxiety and loss.

  Given their variety and richness, and their importance as social and historical testaments, it is inevitable that the poems in this book would have been rediscovered sooner or later. Some may surprise and others discomfort. Together they broaden and enrich our understanding of an event that has had such a profound effect on our national history and consciousness.

  A few words about editorial decisions are necessary. In this collection we have followed, wherever possible, the conventions of presentation of the original poems. All poems are complete – a group of dots in the text is a group of dots in the original poem and does not indicate excision. Asterisks indicate a break in a sequence of sonnets. Editorial intrusion has been restricted to the tacit correction of obvious mistakes – generally the result of the makeshift conditions of publication – and to the occasional removal of such incidental things as unnecessary inverted commas round titles. Where a poem appeared for the first time during the war and was later tidied up and reissued in a post-war edition of the poet’s work, the earlier version has been chosen. Within the text of poems, the early twentieth-century conve
ntion of full stops within acronyms has been retained; in editorial comment the modern convention of dropping these has been followed.

  Notes

  1. Captain Eric Gore-Booth, quoted in Malcolm Brown, The Imperial War Museum Book of the Western Front, p. 104.

  2. Undertones of War, Penguin edn (1937), p. 168.

  3. Quoted in Malcolm Brown, Tommy Goes to War, p. 40.

  4. Preface to The Poets in Picardy, and Other Poems, p. 11.

  5. Preface, ‘How it Happened’, to the collected edition of the Wipers Times, ed. F.J. Roberts, Eveleigh Nash and Grayson, 1930, p. vii.

  6. For a contemporary poem about Siegfried Sassoon and his protest, see ‘Lieutenant Tattoon, M.C.’, p. 143.

  7. Preface, ‘How it Happened’, pp. v–vii.

  How it Began

  In 1815 the armies of France, Britain and Prussia came face to face on Belgian soil at the battle of Waterloo. In the aftermath of the Napoleon wars, a treaty was drawn up at the London Conference of 1838–9 which guaranteed that this small country, so often the cockpit of Europe, would henceforth be a perpetually neutral state. The treaty was signed by Britain, France, Prussia, Austria and Russia.

  On the other side of Europe, the Ottoman Empire was breaking up. The Greeks had launched their war for independence in 1821, and as the century progressed more countries struggled to be free. But Turkish domination was replaced by rival bids for territorial rights, and the opening years of the twentieth century found the Balkans in turmoil. In 1908 the Austro-Hungarian Empire annexed the Balkan state of Bosnia-Hercegovina, a land populated by Slavs. In the years that followed, its neighbour Serbia emerged as the leader of the Slavic people, determined to oust the Austro-Hungarian overlords. It was a cause that Russia championed. Austria, angered by the threat this posed, awaited an opportunity to overthrow Serbia.

  Meanwhile, a growing rivalry between France and Prussia for European mastery was reaching a climax. In 1870 the Prussians nominated a Hohenzollern prince as a candidate for the Spanish throne. Bismark’s wilful distortion of the facts of diplomatic intervention led on both sides to cries for war. In July 1870 France declared war on Germany. But France was ill prepared. Early in 1871, after a siege of four-and-a-half months, Paris fell and France surrendered. By the terms of the peace, it relinquished to Germany its eastern state of Alsace and much of Lorraine. An indemnity was demanded and a German army of occupation installed until the payment was complete. In a France determined to make good its inglorious defeat, la revanche was born.

  In the summer of 1914, against a background of territorial ambition, increasing armaments and growing tension and fear, there existed in Europe two opposing camps. The Triple Alliance, pledging military support under certain circumstances, was made up of Germany, Austria and Italy; the Triple Entente, a collaboration that grew from the settlement of long-standing differences rather than from promises of military alliance, comprised Russia, France and Britain. Between Russia and France there existed also a military alliance in which Britain had no part. The newly united state of Germany, ruled by Prussians with expansionist, imperialist dreams, felt itself encircled by enemies. In particular it feared Russia’s rapidly increasing industrial and military strength.

  On Sunday 28 June 1914, a young Slavic nationalist, Gavrilo Princep, assassinated the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, who were visiting the Bosnian town of Sarajevo. Austria, realising that this was the opportunity it needed to confront and crush Serbia, accused it of complicity in the murder. On 5 July the Kaiser assured his Austrian ally that Germany would stand by Austria, even if an Austrian march into Serbia should unleash a great war. Indeed, Germany had long been preparing for such a war that would sweep away its rivals and secure European domination. Its plans were well laid and its preparations complete.

  On 23 July the Austro-Hungarian government issued an ultimatum to Serbia, demanding that it put an end to intrigues whose purpose was to take from Austro-Hungary territories that it claimed were rightfully its own. The ultimatum included a number of impossible demands.

  On 25 July the Serbian government conceded most of the points and suggested that the others should be subject to international arbitration. Austria would agree to no such compromise and on 28 July declared war on Serbia. As a precaution against possible Russian support of Serbia, Austria mobilised its forces along its Russian border.

  The next day Russia responded by ordering partial mobilisation; two days later this mobilisation was complete. On that day, Friday 31 July, Germany sent a note to Russia demanding that it should halt all military preparations within twelve hours. Its own troops were already mobilised. France, meanwhile, waited anxiously to see what happened next.

  On 1 August, Germany declared war on Russia. The next day German troops entered Poland and Luxembourg, and patrols crossed the borders into France. On the same day it declared war on France, and delivered an ultimatum to Belgium demanding free passage across its country. No agreement was given, and on 3 August, following its plan to invade France from the north rather than across the heavily defended land of Alsace-Lorraine, Germany crossed into neutral Belgium. On Tuesday 4 August Britain delivered an ultimatum to Germany stating that, unless it withdrew its forces from Belgium, a state of war would be declared. No reply was received, and at midnight German time – 11 p.m. in London – Britain declared war on Germany.

  ONE

  The Outbreak of War

  Belgium and the Kaiser, ‘Call to Arms’, early training, the BEF leaves for France

  Unlike other countries that came into the war in the summer of 1914, Britain had no compulsory military service. Her regular army was small and much of it was posted overseas, particularly in India. There were reservists, who were immediately recalled to the colours, and Territorials whose purpose was to protect their homeland rather than to serve overseas, though this was soon to change. It would take time to create an army large enough to fight a major European war.

  Despite the situation, conscription was not introduced. Instead, an immediate appeal was made for 100,000 volunteers – fit, unmarried men between the ages of 19 and 35. Lord Kitchener was put in charge of recruitment, and posters which showed him proclaiming ‘YOUR KING AND COUNTRY NEED YOU’ were displayed countrywide. Moral blackmail was also used. ‘What did you do in the Great War Daddy?’ was a question and a poster designed to shame those who held back from enlisting, as was the practice of handing out white feathers to young men not in uniform. Those who failed to ‘take the King’s shilling’ were despised as shirkers. In fact, the response was so immediate and so overwhelming that many recruits had to begin training without uniforms or weapons.

  There was much local pride in the number of volunteers that came forward, and in some towns friends from the same streets and workplaces were encouraged to join up together, forming what were known as Pals’ Brigades. One such town was Accrington in Lancashire, where 1,100 men enlisted inside ten days, with a further 400 being turned away. In theory such mutual support and comradeship was an excellent idea, but later in the war – particularly during the Battle of the Somme in 1916, when single units suffered appalling casualties – it meant that whole communities of young men were almost wiped out. At the beginning, though, many people thought that Kitchener’s New Armies, as they were called, would never be called upon to fight, for the war would be over by Christmas.

  Meanwhile, the battles of 1914 were fought by regular soldiers. The first members of the British Expeditionary Force – the BEF – under the command of Sir John French, crossed to France on 9 August.

  The Kaiser and Belgium

  He said: ‘Thou petty people, let me pass!

  What canst thou do but bow to me and kneel?’

  But sudden a dry land caught fire like grass,

  And answer hurtled but from shell and steel.

  He looked for silence, but a thunder came;

  Upon him from Liège a leaden hail.

  All Belgium flew up at his throat in flame,


  Till at her gates amazed his legions quail!

  Take heed, for now on haunted ground thy tread;

  There bowed a mightier War-Lord to his fall;

  Fear! Lest that very grass again grow red

  With blood of German now, as then of Gaul!

  If him whom God destroys He maddens first,

  Then thy destruction slake thy madman’s thirst!

  Stephen Phillips

  England to Belgium

  Not lusting for a brief renown

  Nor apt in any vain dispute

  You throw the scythes of autumn down,

  And leave your dues of autumn fruit

  Unharvested, and dare the wrong

  Of death’s immitigable wing,

  And on your banners burn a song

  That gods unrisen yet shall sing.

  Because your Belgian fields are dear,

  And now they suffer black despite,

  Because your womanhood can hear

  The menace on the lips of night,

  Because you are a little clan

  Of brothers, and because there comes

  The thief among you, to a man

  You take the challenge of your drums.

  Not all our tears and wrath shall weigh

  The utter bitterness that falls,

  O Belgian hearts, on you this day,

  The sorrow of your broken walls,

  And desolated hearths, the crime

  Of Prussian sword and Prussian flame,

  But, brothers, with the world we chime

  The story of your Belgian name.

  We will be comrades at your side,

  Your battle and our battle one

  To turn again this monstrous pride

  That veils but does not know the sun;

  Our blood and thews with yours are set