tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/world-war-i-poets-12081/articlesWorld War I poets – The Conversation2024-01-11T17:16:14Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2112872024-01-11T17:16:14Z2024-01-11T17:16:14ZHedd Wyn: how the life of one of Wales’ most promising poets was cut short by the first world war<p>The names Passchendaele, the Somme and Mametz Wood stand as grim sentinels, forever bound to the unimaginable carnage of the first world war. Almost 500,000 men were killed in three months at Passchendaele, the <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-third-battle-of-ypres-passchendaele#:%7E:text=Casualties%20were%20heavy&text=Casualties%20among%20German%20forces%20were,the%20Third%20Battle%20of%20Ypres.">third battle of Ypres</a>. On the first day of that battle, Wales lost one of its most talented poets. </p>
<p>Born on January 13 1887, Ellis Humphrey Evans was the eldest child of Mary and Evan Evans and one of 11 siblings. He became known by his bardic name, <a href="https://www.ylolfa.com/products/9781784610425/cofiant-hedd-wyn">Hedd Wyn</a> (Blessed Peace). The family lived and worked at a remote farm outside Trawsfynydd in north-west Wales, called <em>Yr Ysgwrn</em>.</p>
<p>Evan Evans bought his son a book on the rules of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-welsh-developed-their-own-form-of-poetry-73299">strict-metre Welsh verse</a> when Hedd Wyn was 11 years old. He read the book with passion and enthusiasm, and soon mastered the difficult and intricate rules of strict-metre verse, known as <em>cynghanedd</em>.</p>
<p>He wrote his first ever <em>englyn</em> (a short four-lined poem in strict-metre) before his 12th birthday. Soon after, he began competing at local <em>eisteddfodau</em>, Welsh cultural festivals which showcase literary and artistic endeavours.</p>
<p>Hedd Wyn spent most of his short life at home. He received little formal schooling. His education was spasmodic and he was frequently absent from school when the weather was bad, as there was a substantial distance between the school and his home.</p>
<p>Hedd Wyn was an inept farmer and shepherd, but he loved looking after the sheep out on the mountain pastures, though only because the solitude and silence gave him ample opportunity to meditate and to write poetry.</p>
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<img alt="An old black and white photo of a man wearing a suit." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567888/original/file-20240104-26-q5itn3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567888/original/file-20240104-26-q5itn3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567888/original/file-20240104-26-q5itn3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567888/original/file-20240104-26-q5itn3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567888/original/file-20240104-26-q5itn3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567888/original/file-20240104-26-q5itn3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567888/original/file-20240104-26-q5itn3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Hedd Wyn was 30 years old when he was killed.</span>
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<h2>Conscription</h2>
<p>And then came war. Hedd Wyn’s fate, along with thousands of others, was sealed when parliament passed the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1916/104/contents/enacted">Military Service Act</a> in 1916. This new legislation imposed conscription and was aimed at unmarried men or widowers. </p>
<p>Hedd Wyn had no choice but to enlist. He joined the 15th battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and by July 1917, he was stationed at Fléchin, a small village in northern France. </p>
<p>He and thousands of other soldiers were to participate in one of the major engagements of the war, the third battle of Ypres, otherwise known as the battle of Passchendaele. British troops were to occupy the village of Pilkem on Pilkem Ridge, and the marshlands to the east of Ypres before advancing towards Langemarck. Capturing the village of Pilkem and Pilkem Ridge, and holding both positions, was one of the main objectives of this enormous campaign. </p>
<p>It was during a period of intense fighting on Iron Cross Ridge on July 31 that Hedd Wyn was mortally wounded. </p>
<h2>The National Eisteddfod</h2>
<p>For a Welsh poet, winning the coveted chair at the <a href="https://eisteddfod.wales">National Eisteddfod</a>, an annual festival celebrating arts, language and culture, represents the <a href="https://blog.library.wales/the-chairing-of-the-bard-3/">pinnacle of achievement</a>. The chair is awarded to the winning entrant in the competition for the <em>awdl</em> – poetry written in strict-metre <em>cynghanedd</em> . A crown is awarded separately to those writing in free verse.</p>
<p>Chairing ceremonies are presided over by the archdruid, who reads the adjudicators’ comments before announcing the nom de plume of the winning bard. Nobody knows the true identity of the poet until the archdruid asks them to stand. </p>
<p>Before enlisting, Hedd Wyn had started working on an <em>awdl</em> for the chair at the 1917 National Eisteddfod. Due to the war, the Eisteddfod that year was held in England, in Birkenhead near Liverpool. Hedd Wyn had almost won the chair the previous year in Aberystwyth.</p>
<p>While stationed in France, he finally completed his <em>awdl</em> titled <em><a href="https://www.library.wales/discover-learn/digital-exhibitions/manuscripts/modern-period/yr-arwr-hedd-wyn">Yr Arwr</a></em> (The Hero) and posted it to Birkenhead under his nom de plume, <em>Fleur-de-lis</em>. He was working on the poem until the last possible minute.</p>
<p>A packed crowd was watching the chairing ceremony in Birkenhead in early September, and among them was the prime minister at the time, David Lloyd George, himself a Welsh speaker. Without knowing he had died of his wounds several weeks earlier, the adjudicators had unanimously awarded the chair to Hedd Wyn. </p>
<p>As is customary, the archdruid called out <em>Fleur-de-lis</em> three times. But nobody stood up. Then he solemnly announced that the poet had been killed in battle six weeks earlier. The empty chair was draped in black in front of an emotional crowd. The 1917 eisteddfod became known as <em>Eisteddfod y Gadair Ddu</em> (the Eisteddfod of the Black Chair). </p>
<h2>Hedd Wyn’s legacy</h2>
<p>A volume of Hedd Wyn’s poetry, entitled <em>Cerddi’r Bugail</em> (The Shepherd’s Verses), was published a year later. The first 1,000 copies were sold in five days. Eventually every copy of the 4,000 first edition was sold. </p>
<p>In 1923, a statue, depicting Hedd Wyn as a shepherd, the work of artist L. S. Merrifield, was unveiled by his mother in Trawsfynydd. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lAU8frR8GiA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Hedd Wyn was the first Welsh film to be nominated for best foreign language film at the Oscars in 1993.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On St David’s Day 2012, Wales’ then first minister, Carwyn Jones, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-17221011">announced</a> that Hedd Wyn’s home, <em>Yr Ysgwrn</em>, had been bought for the nation, to secure and safeguard the poet’s legacy. Two years later, it was renovated and turned into a <a href="https://yrysgwrn.com/en/">museum</a> by the Eryri (Snowdonia) National Park.</p>
<p>Hedd Wyn was a highly talented poet who wrote exquisite work. His <em>englyn</em> in memory of his friend, Lieutenant D. O. Evans of Blaenau Ffestiniog, for example, became an elegy for all the young men who had fallen on the killing fields of the Great War: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ei aberth nid â heibio – ei wyneb</p>
<p>Annwyl nid â'n ango</p>
<p>Er i'r Almaen ystaenio</p>
<p>Ei dwrn dur yn ei waed o.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It can be translated as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>His sacrifice was not in vain, his dear</p>
<p>Face will always remain,</p>
<p>Although he left a bloodstain</p>
<p>On Germany’s iron fist of pain.</p>
</blockquote>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Llwyd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bard Hedd Wyn was killed in action in France in 1917.Alan Llwyd, Professor of Welsh, Swansea UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/759492017-04-07T13:36:15Z2017-04-07T13:36:15ZCelebrated ‘English’ poet Edward Thomas was one of Wales’ finest writers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164477/original/image-20170407-29386-1hnancb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Edward Thomas used English to write about the spirit of Wales.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:For_remembrance,_soldier_poets_who_have_fallen_in_the_war,_Adcock,_1920_DJVU_pg_131.jpg">Arthur St John Adcock/Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Shortly after 7am on April 9 1917, 39-year-old writer Edward Thomas was killed by a shell <a href="http://ww1centenary.oucs.ox.ac.uk/unconventionalsoldiers/edward-thomas-the-journey-to-arras/">during the Battle of Arras</a> in northern France. He left a body of mostly unpublished work that has since cemented his place as one of <a href="http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/people/poets-of-the-first-world-war">Britain’s greatest poets</a>. </p>
<p>All of <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/2004/02/the-war-and-a-sprained-ankle/#">Thomas’s 144 poems</a> were written in the two and a half years leading up to his death. Almost immediately on its posthumous publication, his poetry came to speak for a rural England whose surviving people and culture had been decimated by four years of war. In a foreword <a href="https://archive.org/details/collectedpoemswi00thomuoft">to the 1920 Collected Poems</a>, Walter de la Mare described Thomas’s poetry as “a mirror of England”, suggesting that it offered readers a portrayal of a rural nation that had been “shattered” by the catastrophic experience of World War I.</p>
<p>Thomas has become one of the most widely read English language poets of the 20th century. His Collected Poems has gone through numerous editions, and poems such as “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/53744">Adlestrop</a>” and “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/57210">Old Man</a>” have been widely anthologised.</p>
<p>Thomas has a deserved reputation as a poet with an unparalleled eye for the details of the natural world, managing through these observations to make some profound reflections on the human and <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14688417.2016.1246974?journalCode=rgrl20">environmental cost</a> of war. His influence on subsequent generations of English poets is hard to overstate: former poet laureate Ted Hughes famously called Thomas “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tNymBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA243&lpg=PA243&dq=ted+hughes+edward+thomas+the+father+of+us+all&source=bl&ots=APKkUivaZR&sig=U5Ndi7YNcZtVc0Tq4xmcv5rNfE0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiDi-CnlpLTAhVoDcAKHRvoBHoQ6AEIUjAJ#v=onepage&q=ted%20hughes%20edward%20thomas%20the%20father%20of%20us%20all&f=false">the father of us all</a>”.</p>
<p>There has been plenty of discussion of Thomas’s work over the past few decades and yet there is one major aspect that has remained largely unexamined: his association with Wales.</p>
<h2>An English poet?</h2>
<p>Calling Thomas an English poet belies his own complex national identity. Born in London to Welsh parents in 1878, Thomas made frequent trips back to Swansea and the Carmarthenshire areas of south Wales to stay with relatives. He had strong friendships with Welsh-language poets <a href="http://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s-WILL-HEZ-1844.html">Watcyn Wyn</a> and <a href="http://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s-JENK-GWI-1872.html">John Jenkins (“Gwili”)</a>, and later attended Lincoln College, Oxford from 1897 to 1900, where he was tutored by <a href="http://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s-EDWA-MOR-1858.html">Owen M. Edwards</a>, one of the most significant figures in nonconformist Welsh culture. </p>
<p>Edwards awakened Thomas’s sense of Welsh national identity – after graduating he asked his former tutor “to suggest any kind of work … to help you and the Welsh cause”. Three years earlier, Edwards had called for “a literature that will be <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VFyuBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=%22a+literature+that+will+be+English+in+language+and+Welsh+in+spirit%22&source=bl&ots=zQgA98bqn3&sig=xEn5xO4RxWU20JqQhkCyC1n1LzA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiC5MLImJLTAhUrIMAKHQBpDcoQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22a%20literature%20that%20will%20be%20English%20in%20language%20and%20Welsh%20in%20spirit%22&f=false">English in language and Welsh in spirit</a>”, and it seems that Thomas took up his challenge, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=E0WxDlKNAKsC&pg=PR24&lpg=PR24&dq=%22in+English+I+might+do+something+by+writing+of+Wales%22&source=bl&ots=kKtP5iLxgR&sig=OoY-2lb2qH_CNz0EJbBphT2gm-g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjGmbfZmJLTAhWMJcAKHdLoAV4Q6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22in%20English%20I%20might%20do%20something%20by%20writing%20of%20Wales%22&f=false">declaring that:</a> “in English I might do something by writing of Wales”. </p>
<h2>Welsh in spirit</h2>
<p>The visits to Gwili and Watcyn Wyn became more frequent and both poets feature in Thomas’s 1905 travel book <a href="https://archive.org/details/beautifulwales00thomuoft">Beautiful Wales</a>. A description of Gwili fishing in a Carmarthenshire stream also features in one of three books of Wales-oriented sketches and short stories published by Thomas between 1902 and 1911: <a href="https://archive.org/details/horaesolitariae00thomrich">Horae Solitariae</a>, <a href="https://archive.org/details/restunrest00thomiala">Rest and Unrest</a>, and <a href="https://archive.org/details/lighttwilight00thomuoft">Light and Twilight</a>. These books are full of Welsh subject matter, including sketches, as well as adaptations of, and allusions to, Welsh folk material and literature. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164468/original/image-20170407-29410-d5rjg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164468/original/image-20170407-29410-d5rjg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164468/original/image-20170407-29410-d5rjg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164468/original/image-20170407-29410-d5rjg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164468/original/image-20170407-29410-d5rjg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164468/original/image-20170407-29410-d5rjg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164468/original/image-20170407-29410-d5rjg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edward Thomas in 1905.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thomasportrait.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In his review work for newspapers, Thomas lamented the lack of a widely circulated collection of Welsh folk tales, something that he himself put right in 1911 when he published <a href="https://archive.org/details/celticstories00thom">Celtic Stories</a>, an anthology of Welsh and Irish folk stories written “when Wales and Ireland were entirely independent of England”. </p>
<p>While Thomas’s reputation as a quintessentially English writer rests largely on his poetry, it is now clear that even this is not as English as we previously thought. Welsh subject matter clearly creeps into <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/feb/25/poem-of-the-week-edward-thomas">some of his poems</a>. The following verse from Words is a riddle-like reference to the tradition of Welsh bardic poetry:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Make me content<br>
With some sweetness<br>
From Wales<br>
Whose nightingales<br>
Have no wings…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The lines below from <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/57265">Roads</a> allude to Sarn Helen, the mythical Roman road linking fortresses in the north and south of Wales:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Helen of the roads,<br>
The mountain ways of Wales<br>
And the Mabinogion tales,<br>
Is one of the true gods</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Recently, however, <a href="http://www.uwp.co.uk/editions/9780708326220">we have realised</a> that Thomas’s knowledge of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-welsh-developed-their-own-form-of-poetry-73299">Welsh-language poetic metres</a> influenced his work too. Thomas’s poetry has long been regarded as innovative, but critics have tended to look for its origins in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jul/29/robert-frost-edward-thomas-poetry">his relationship with American poet Robert Frost</a>, the <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/brief-guide-imagism">Imagism movement</a>, or in the spoken voice. </p>
<p>What we have missed is the formal crossover between Welsh-language literary forms and Thomas’s use of intricate sound patterns. The opening lines of “<a href="https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/head-and-bottle/">Head and Bottle</a>”, for example, repeat the consonant sounds of “l”, “s” and “m” across the first line, and again in the second line. There is also the internal rhyme in “sun”, “sum” and “hum”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The downs will lose the sun, white alyssum<br>
Lose the bees’ hum</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a clear example of cynghanedd, the intricate system of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-welsh-developed-their-own-form-of-poetry-73299">consonantal repetition and internal rhyme</a> which is unique to Welsh-language poems. </p>
<p>Thomas certainly was one of the greatest English-language poets but, one hundred years on, it is becoming clear that he belongs just as much to an Anglophone Welsh literary tradition as he does to the literature of England.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75949/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Webb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Poet Edward Thomas took from the traditions of Wales, and the beauty of the land to describe the horrors of war.Andrew Webb, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/327732014-10-20T05:31:55Z2014-10-20T05:31:55ZCelebrate the truces – because World War I must not be an excuse for militarism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/62071/original/x39d7gf3-1413541492.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C800%2C553&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Quaker ambulance driver in Germany.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Red Cross</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The government is <a href="http://www.1914.org/news/communities-unveil-the-first-victoria-cross-commemorative-paving-stones/">unveiling commemorative paving stones</a> laid in the birth places of those members of the British Empire forces in World War I who received the Victoria Cross for their bravery. The government’s stated aims are to “provide a lasting legacy of local heroes” and “honour their bravery”. All 627 Victoria Cross recipients will be so honoured over the next four years, with the promise that “no hero will be forgotten”.</p>
<p>This represents the most radical remaking of Great War commemoration for decades. It turns the emphasis from grief at a costly tragedy to lionisation of the warrior. It is a move that has more to do with the contemporary politics of militarism than with any genuine attempt to honour the memory of those who lost their lives between 1914 and 1918. The prime minister, David Cameron, candidly revealed his politics when, in <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/speech-at-imperial-war-museum-on-first-world-war-centenary-plans">unveiling plans in 2012</a> for the centenary commemorations, he said he wanted: “A commemoration that captures our national spirit in every corner of the country … like the Diamond Jubilee”.</p>
<p>What, you may ask, is wrong with celebrating heroes in this way?</p>
<h2>War to end all wars</h2>
<p>It is an attempt to rewrite the history of the war as somehow glorious and necessary. The war was an ugly clash of imperial rivalries, marked by the unspeakable horrors of trench warfare. Far from proving “the war to end of all wars”, it scarred a nation whose sons would be sent to die against the same enemy within a generation.</p>
<p>Veterans also tend to baulk at their lauding as “heroes”, explaining themselves more humbly as men just doing their jobs and looking out for their comrades. Great War memorials rarely record either rank or medals, but are starkly simple alphabetical lists of all those who had their lives taken from them. By singling out only those men who received the top military award, the government is tearing up a century of practice.</p>
<p>Why has the government taken this radical departure? The answer is in part a reaction to the public scepticism about military operations that has become mainstream with the failures of the “War on Terror”. The <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/15/iraq-war-mass-protest">unprecedented anti-war demonstrations</a> against the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in the early 2000s may represent a sea-change in public attitudes to foreign wars. This has alarmed conservative politicians of all parties and the military top brass, who have been scrambling to regain ground ever since.</p>
<p>This began in earnest with then prime minister Gordon Brown’s <a href="http://www.ppu.org.uk/militarism/recognition_of_our_armed_forces.pdf">2008 report on the National Recognition of Our Armed Forces</a>. It identified a supposed lack of public understanding of the military due to decreased “familiarity”. The response to this perceived malady was to recommend a range of measures including celebratory home-coming parades, encouraging soldiers to wear uniforms in public and greater military presence in secondary schools and national sporting events. This was a grievous misdiagnosis: the real reason for the supposed disconnect was a reaction to the deceits and failures of Tony Blair’s Iraq invasion.</p>
<p>Cameron shared Brown’s concern about the increasing drift of British public opinion towards pacifism. The commemorative paving stones must be interpreted as a further attempt to rehabilitate the military. But Cameron has been cannier than Brown – whereas it was easy to decry the bogus logic in Brown’s initiative, it is hardly tasteful to protest at the unveiling of monument to a dead soldier.</p>
<h2>They also served …</h2>
<p>So how can we counter this shameless use of World War I to re-militarise the present? By celebrating and commemorating those who, in their foresight, opposed or questioned the industrial slaughter of World War I. These included women’s activists, Christians and political radicals who strove to recapture visions of a unified and pacific Europe – as well as the many workers who went on strike and soldiers who mutinied. These men and women exhibited great bravery, facing scorn, impoverishment, prison and death. Although widely reviled at the time, history has vindicated <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2005/aug/03/guardiansocietysupplement">their opposition</a> to a catastrophic conflict that decimated Europe and need never have been fought.</p>
<p>Of course, no British government will lavish funds on those types of commemorations. It falls to citizens and scholars to recover and retell these histories – as indeed they are doing up and down the country through books, talks, exhibitions, music, drama and art.</p>
<p>But these activities usually require substantial effort, particularly in researching their background. Here’s an easier suggestion: help your community celebrate the centenary of the <a href="http://www.christmastruce.co.uk/article.html">December 1914 Christmas truces</a>.</p>
<p>The truces commonly began with German soldiers putting up Christmas trees, shouting or writing Christmas greetings, and singing carols recognisable to their British counterparts. Troops met in no-man’s land to bury their dead, exchange gifts and souvenirs, share festive food and drink, sing and entertain each other, swap names and addresses, pose for photographs, conduct joint religious services, and play football. </p>
<p>These were not isolated incidents but were widespread right down the western front. Although the most famous, the 1914 Christmas truces weren’t one-off events. Throughout the entire war many combatants managed, through a “live-and-let-live” system, to reduce risk of discomfort and death by complicated local truces and tacit understandings that enraged the high commands of both sides and discredited the jingoistic propaganda that they pedalled.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/62073/original/skczhjbp-1413542804.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/62073/original/skczhjbp-1413542804.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/62073/original/skczhjbp-1413542804.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62073/original/skczhjbp-1413542804.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62073/original/skczhjbp-1413542804.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62073/original/skczhjbp-1413542804.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62073/original/skczhjbp-1413542804.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62073/original/skczhjbp-1413542804.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Appalled at the horror: Siegfried Sassoon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">George Charles Beresford</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The extraordinary events of 100 Christmases ago are easy to celebrate this year, as a variety of non-profit organisations have produced <a href="http://research.ncl.ac.uk/martinlutherking/activities/worldwaronechristmastrucecommemorations/">resources</a> to help schools, churches and civic institutions mark them – and, in so doing, critically reflect on both the legacy of World War I and the continuation of war in our world.</p>
<p>The tragedy of World War I needs remembering - but not in a way that reinforces militarism today. It is fitting to recall Siegfried Sassoon’s verdict on an earlier government’s attempt to memorialise the dead, the Menin Gate in Belgium. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Who will remember, passing through this Gate<br>
the unheroic dead who fed the guns?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The poet threw his Military Cross into the Mersey in 1917 as part of what he described as “an act of wilful defiance of military authority”. His sombre verdict on what the fallen may have thought of the Menin Gate’s “peace complacent stone” is worth recalling as the government of today lays paving stones around the country:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime<br>
Rise and deride this sepulchre of crime.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32773/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Megoran is Co-Convenor of the Northumbria and Newcastle Universities Martin Luther King Peace Committee </span></em></p>The government is unveiling commemorative paving stones laid in the birth places of those members of the British Empire forces in World War I who received the Victoria Cross for their bravery. The government’s…Nick Megoran, Lecturer in Political Geography, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/304432014-08-29T04:58:36Z2014-08-29T04:58:36Z‘Your country needs you’: why did so many volunteer in 1914?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57505/original/f9mvp656-1409130771.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">August 1914: London volunteers await their pay at St. Martin-in-the-Fields.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>On the first day of the war in 1914, British newspapers published appeals for young men to join the colours, and to fight against Germany. Following the advice of the new Secretary for War, Lord Kitchener, the government decided to raise a huge volunteer army, hoping that in two or three years, when the other combatants were exhausted, this would tip the scales in Britain’s favour. </p>
<p>Over the next few weeks, thousands of young men came forward. When the first grim news of casualties and of the retreat from <a href="http://www.1914-1918.net/bat1.htm">Mons</a> arrived in late August, more volunteered, and after the <a href="http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/antwerp.htm">fall of Antwerp</a> in early October, there was a renewed surge. On some days, more than 10,000 men enlisted. </p>
<p>By Christmas 1914, hundreds of thousands had come forward, and this continued well into 1915. Men from all social classes and all areas of Britain volunteered. Others who were overseas in August 1914 travelled thousands of miles to get back and enlist. Whole groups from individual companies, offices, and universities joined up together. There were far more volunteers than the government could arm or equip, and most had to spend months training in civilian clothes, without proper weapons.</p>
<h2>National consensus</h2>
<p>Why did so many volunteer? There was a huge recruiting campaign, led by newspaper advertisements, and supported by posters, including Reginald Leete’s famous image of a mustachioed Kitchener with pointing finger. Meetings were held in every town and village where politicians, priests, and local worthies exhorted men to do their patriotic duty. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57187/original/mpscn899-1408720196.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57187/original/mpscn899-1408720196.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=690&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57187/original/mpscn899-1408720196.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=690&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57187/original/mpscn899-1408720196.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=690&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57187/original/mpscn899-1408720196.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57187/original/mpscn899-1408720196.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57187/original/mpscn899-1408720196.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Who could say no?</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There was a broad national consensus that Britain was fighting a righteous war, and that volunteering was, put simply, the right moral choice. We should not underestimate the climate produced by years of pre-war public discourse, which had anticipated a war against Germany in which young men would be needed to reinforce Britain’s small professional army. Since the Boer War there had been calls for conscription. These had been supported by invasion scares, and by novels such as Erskine Childers’ <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jun/07/riddle-sands-erskine-childers">Riddle of the Sands</a>. Reprints of this book were prefaced by the author’s call for every British man to do national service, “with the rifle”, or at sea. Officer Training Corps had prepared middle and upper class schoolboys for leadership, and given them some rudimentary training.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57506/original/k7bkpw4w-1409131838.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57506/original/k7bkpw4w-1409131838.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57506/original/k7bkpw4w-1409131838.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57506/original/k7bkpw4w-1409131838.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57506/original/k7bkpw4w-1409131838.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1186&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57506/original/k7bkpw4w-1409131838.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1186&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57506/original/k7bkpw4w-1409131838.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1186&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The book that shaped a nation.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So strong was this mood that some volunteered even before the actual declaration of war. Siegfried Sassoon was one who enlisted, together with his horse, on reading in The Times that volunteers would be needed in the event of war. Rupert Brooke, who became the most widely read war poet, similarly recognised before the actual outbreak of hostilities, that he would affected: “It will be Hell to be in it, and Hell to be out of it,” he wrote. </p>
<h2>Peer pressure</h2>
<p>Undoubtedly the narrative of young men volunteering in a shared mood of patriotic enthusiasm has some strength. But others faced painful choices. For many men of military age the call to arms initiated a period of soul searching, often lasting for months. It was not a decision they made alone. </p>
<p>Some, like war chronicler <a href="http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/brittain">Vera Brittain</a>’s brother Edward, were pulled in different directions by friends and relatives. In his case, his sister urged him to volunteer, but his father refused to countenance the idea. Rupert Brooke did volunteer, after some weeks’ hesitation, but he faced bitter criticism from former Cambridge friends, many of them pacifists.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57502/original/z77x4x2n-1409130256.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57502/original/z77x4x2n-1409130256.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57502/original/z77x4x2n-1409130256.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57502/original/z77x4x2n-1409130256.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57502/original/z77x4x2n-1409130256.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57502/original/z77x4x2n-1409130256.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57502/original/z77x4x2n-1409130256.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rupert Brooke: Hell to be in, Hell to be out.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How many young men, now unknown to history, were pushed one way by friends and workmates, and pulled in another by anxious parents? Those who did not volunteer faced insults from the press, and were publicly ridiculed for their lack of “manliness”. Many were presented with white feathers by women, something which often left a lasting sense of shame. In the family, amongst friends in the pub, and in the workplace, they faced derision, contempt, and intimidation. </p>
<p>For some it took more courage <em>not</em> to volunteer than to yield to the pressure. Strikingly the only areas where volunteering fell below the high national average rate were in the countryside, where young men were exposed to less social pressure, and in places like rural Wales, where there was a <a href="http://www.llgc.org.uk/ymgyrchu/Heddwch/Heddychiaeth/index-e.htm">tradition of pacifism</a>. </p>
<p>It was indeed this growing social pressure which helped maintain the flow of volunteers well into 1915. The painter Stanley Spencer and the poet Edward Thomas, who both volunteered in July 1915 after months of indecision, are good examples. When, reluctantly, the government introduced conscription in March 1916, it found no great reservoir of manpower to tap. A high percentage of those conscripted appealed for exemption, and had to be coerced into service. </p>
<p>The narrative of voluntarism has given the British perception of World War I its particular poignancy. The soldiers who went over the top at the Somme were not conscripts, or pressed men. But we need, before succumbing to this mythology, to remember what the poet Charles Sorley pointed out after Rupert Brooke’s death: that it would have been more difficult for him not to have volunteered.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30443/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Toby Thacker is affiliated with the Labour Party</span></em></p>On the first day of the war in 1914, British newspapers published appeals for young men to join the colours, and to fight against Germany. Following the advice of the new Secretary for War, Lord Kitchener…Toby Thacker, Senior Lecturer in Modern European History, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.