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Shell World War I Literature

Contents

Who’s for the game? Dulce et Decorum est. The Target The Home Front: Helen Thomas # 1 The Deserter Extract from All Quiet on the Western Front pages 148-155 The General The Hero Everyone Sang The Aftermath: Helen Thomas # 2 The Economic Aftermath and Further Reading

‘ Who ’ s for the Game? ’

Who’s for the game, the biggest that’s played, The red crashing game of a fight? Who’ll grip and tackle the job unafraid? And who thinks he’d rather sit tight? Who’ll toe the line for the signal to ‘Go!’? Who’ll give his country a hand? Who wants a turn to himself in the show? And who wants a seat in the stand? Who knows it won’t be a picnic – not much- Yet eagerly shoulders a gun? Who would much rather come back with a crutch Than lie low and be out of the fun? Come along, lads – But you’ll come on all right –

For there’s only one course to pursue, Your country is up to her neck in a fight, And she’s looking and calling for you.

Jesse Pope

(18 March 1868 - 14 December 1941)

Wilfred Owen Link: BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Wilfred Owen

‘Dulce et Decorum Est’

BY WILFRED OWEN

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

Notes: The Latin phrase is from the Roman poet Horace meaning : “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”

‘The Target’

Ivor Gurney

I shot him, and it had to be One of us "Twas him or me. 'Couldn’t be helped' and none can blame Me, for you would do the same. My mother, she can’t sleep for fear Of what might be a-happening here To me. Perhaps it might be best To die, and set her fears at rest. For worst is worst, and worry's done. Perhaps he was the only son. . . Yet God keeps still, and does not say A word of guidance anyway. Well, if they get me, first I'll find That boy, and tell him all my mind, And see who felt the bullet worst, And ask his pardon, if I durst. All's a tangle. Here's my job. A man might rave, or shout, or sob; And God He takes no sort of heed. This is a bloody mess indeed.

World War I Literature (Non-Fiction) Helen Thomas

Read the following extract carefully.

After soldiers had been back at home for a while, on leave or convalescing, partings were hard to bear. Helen Thomas, wife of the English poet Edward Thomas, describes their last moments together. He was killed in action in April 1917. ‘And here are my poems. I’ve copied them all out in this book for you, and the last of all is for you. I wrote it last night, but don’t read it now…. It’s still freezing. The ground is like iron, and more snow has fallen. The children will come to the station with me; and now I must be off.’ We were alone in my room. He took me in his arms, holding me tightly to him, his face white, his eyes full of a fear I had never seen before. My arms were around his neck. ‘Beloved, I love you,’ was all I could say. ‘Helen, Helen, Helen,’ he said, ‘remember that, whatever happens, all is well between us for ever and ever.’ And hand in hand we went downstairs and out to the children, who were playing in the snow. A thick mist hung everywhere, and there was no sound except, far away in the valley, a train shunting. I stood at the gate watching him go; he turned back to wave until the mist and the hill hid him. I heard his old call coming up to me: ‘Coo-ee!’ he called. ‘Coo-ee!’ I answered, keeping my voice strong to call again. Again through the muffled air came his ‘Coo-ee’. And again went my answer like an echo. ‘Coo ee’ came fainter next time with the hill between us, but my ‘Coo-ee’ went out of my lungs strong to pierce to him as he strode away from me. ‘Coo-ee!’ So faint now, it might be only my own call flung back from the thick air and muffling snow. I put my hands up to my mouth to make a trumpet, but no sound came. Panic seized me, and I ran though the mist and the snow to the top of the hill, and stood there a moment dumbly, with straining eyes and ears. There was nothing but the mist and the snow and the silence of death.

Then with leaden feet which stumbled in a sudden darkness that overwhelmed me I groped my way back to the empty house.

Task:

How does the writer present her thoughts and feelings about World War One? You should consider the writers’ choices of structure and language , as well as subject matter.

(Source: A Prose Anthology of the First World War.)

‘The Deserter’

Winifred Mary Letts (1882 – 1972)

There was a man, - don't mind his name,

Whom Fear had dogged by night and day.

He could not face the German guns

And so he turned and ran away.

Just that - he turned and ran away,

But who can judge him, you or I ?

God makes a man of flesh and blood

Who yearns to live and not to die.

And this man when he feared to die

Was scared as any frightened child,

His knees were shaking under him,

His breath came fast, his eyes were wild.

I've seen a hare with eyes as wild,

With throbbing heart and sobbing breath.

But oh! it shames one's soul to see

A man in abject fear of death,

But fear had gripped him, so had death;

His number had gone up that day,

They might not heed his frightened eyes,

They shot him when the dawn was grey.

Blindfolded, when the dawn was grey,

He stood there in a place apart,

The shots rang out and down he fell,

An English bullet in his heart.

An English bullet in his heart!

But here's the irony of life, -

His mother thinks he fought and fell

A hero, foremost in the strife.

So she goes proudly; to the strife

Her best, her hero son she gave.

O well for her she does not know

He lies in a deserter's grave.

Extract from ‘All Quiet in The Western Front’ by Erich Maria Remarque (1928).

22 June 1898 – 25 September 1970

Remarque’s book is not a memoir; it is a novel - although he drew on some of his own experiences in the war as a soldier in the Imperial German Army. The bulk of the novel is seen through the eyes of a sensitive nineteen-year-old: Paul B äu mer. ‘There are few military historical details, no heroics and the real enemy is death.’ (Brian Murdock, 1994).

*******

In this extract, Paul Bäumer has just taken part in an attack and been separated from his platoon. He takes refuge in a crater in the middle of No Man’s Land. A French soldier dives in to taker cover and they fight. B äu mer stabs the French soldier and mortally wounds him…

TASK: Read the extract and then answer the question below.

How does Remarque portray the horror of war in this extract?

➢ Try to make at least three interesting points about the Remarque’s writing and its

effect on the reader. ➢ Try to link your response to historical context – what you have learnt from History about World War I and how the war was conducted. ➢ Use the standard essay format: Thesis Statement / P.E.E. Paragraphs and a

Conclusion where you state your opinion.

Film Trailer (2022): All Quiet on the Western Front | Official Trailer | Netflix - YouTube

‘The General’ by Siegfried Sassoon

“Good-morning, good-morning!” the General said

When we met him last week on our way to the line.

Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead,

And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine.

“He's a cheery old card,” grunted Harry to Jack

As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

But he did for them both by his plan of attack.

What is Sassoon trying to say about the conduct of the war in this poem, and do you think it is effective?

‘The Hero’ by Siegfried Sassoon, 1917

'Jack fell as he'd have wished,' the mother said,

And folded up the letter that she'd read.

'The Colonel writes so nicely.' Something broke

In the tired voice that quavered to a choke.

She half looked up. 'We mothers are so proud

Of our dead soldiers.' Then her face was bowed.

Quietly the Brother Officer went out.

He'd told the poor old dear some gallant lies

That she would nourish all her days, no doubt

For while he coughed and mumbled, her weak eyes

Had shone with gentle triumph, brimmed with joy,

Because he'd been so brave, her glorious boy.

He thought how 'Jack', cold-footed, useless swine,

Had panicked down the trench that night the mine

Went up at Wicked Corner; how he'd tried

To get sent home, and how, at last, he died,

Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care

Except that lonely woman with white hair.

‘Everyone Sang’

BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON

( 08 Sep 1886 - 01 Sep 1967)

Everyone suddenly burst out singing; And I was filled with such delight As prisoned birds must find in freedom, Winging wildly across the white Orchards and dark-green fields; on - on - and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted; And beauty came like the setting sun: My heart was shaken with tears; and horror Drifted away ... O, but Everyone Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

Consider:

How does Sassoon capture the sense of euphoria in this poem?

It may help to think about:

➢ The poet’s use of structure, e.g. the first and final lines. ➢ The poet’s use of FORM, e.g. Sassoon’s use of caesura (s) ➢ The poet’s use of language – which words stand out to you?

Everyone Sang by Siegfried Sassoon | Poetry Foundation

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Siegfried Sassoon

WW I Literature:

The Aftermath : Helen Thomas

Extract from ‘Time and Again’, Memoirs and Letters By Helen Thomas, wife of Edward Thomas.

Helen Thomas recalls her visits to the poet Ivor Gurney.

IVOR GURNEY

I think it was about 1932 that I had a letter from a woman whose name was strange to me. She was

Marion Scott, but as I did not move in musical circles I did not know that she was distinguished in that

world. The subject of her letter was strange to me for the same reason. I was therefore filled with surprise

and pity when she told me that she was the champion and friend of a young musical genius named Ivor

Gurney. This young man had lost his reason in the war and was in a lunatic asylum. He passionately loved

my husband’s work and was deeply interested in anything to do with him. Indeed Edward Thomas’s name

– for Ivor Gurney had never met him though they had been near each other at the front in France – evoked

in him what one can only call love. She wrote saying that if I could face the ordeal of visiting him, she felt

such indirect contact with Edward would mean more to him than we could imagine. So it was arranged that

I should go. I met Miss Scott at Victoria Station and I had my hands full of flowers.

On the journey to Dartford she told me about him, how he came of a very humble Gloucestershire family,

how he had always been highly sensitive and eccentric and that those fit to judge thought him a musical

genius. How his mind – always on the borderline – had quite given way at the front and how he had tried

more than once to take his own life.

We arrived at Dartford Asylum which looked like – as indeed it was – a prison. A warder let us in after

unlocking a door, and doors were opened and locked behind us as we were ushered into the building. We

were walking along a bare corridor when we were met by a tall gaunt dishevelled man clad in pyjamas and

dressing gown, to whom Miss Scott introduced me. He gazed with an intense stare into my face and took

me silently by the hand. Then I gave him the flowers which he took with the same deeply moving intensity

and silence. He then said, ‘You are Helen, Edward’s wife and Edward is dead.’ And I said, ‘Yes, let us talk

of him.’

So we went into a little cell-like bedroom where the only furniture was a bed and a chair. The window was

high and barred and the walls bare and drab. He put the flowers on the bed for there was no vessel to put

them in, there was nothing in the room that could in any way be used to do damage with – no pottery or jars

or pictures whose broken edge cold be used as a weapon.

He remarked on my pretty hat, for it was summer and I had purposely put on my brightest clothes. The gay

colours gave him great pleasure. I sat by him on the bed and we talked of Edward and of himself. But I

cannot now remember the conversation. But I do remember that though his talk was generally quite sane

and lucid, he said suddenly, ‘It was wireless that killed Edward’, and this idea of the danger of wireless and

his fear of it constantly occurred in his talk. ‘They are getting at me through wireless.’ We spoke of country

that he knew and which Edward knew too and he evidently identified Edward with the English countryside,

especially that of Gloucestershire.

I learned from the warder that Ivor Gurney refused to go into the grounds of the asylum. It was not his idea

of the country at all – the fields, woods, water-meadows and footpaths he loved so well – and he would

have nothing to do with that travesty of something sacred to him.

Before we left he took us into a large room in which was a piano and on this he played to us and to the

tragic circle of men who sat on hard benches built into the walls of the room. Hopeless and aimless faces

gazed vacantly and restless hands fumbled or hung down lifelessly. They gave no sign or sound that they

heard the music. The room was quite bare and there was not one beautiful thing for the patients to look at.

We left and I promised to come again.

Ivor Gurney longed more than anything else to go back to his native Gloucestershire, but his was not

allowed for fear he should again try to take his own life. I said, ‘But surely it would be more humane to let

him go there even if it meant no more than one hour of happiness before he killed himself.’ But the

authorities could not look at it in that way.

The next time I went with Miss Scott I took with me Edward’s own well-used ordnance maps of

Gloucestershire where he had often walked. This proved to have been a sort of inspiration for Ivor Gurney

at once spread them out on his bed and he and I spent the whole time I was there tracing with our fingers

the lanes and byways and villages of which Ivor Gurney knew every step and over which Edward had also

walked. He spent that hour in revisiting his home, in spotting a village or a track, a hill or a wood and

seeing it all in his mind’s eye, with flowers and trees, stiles and hedges a mental vision sharper and more

actual for his heightened intensity. He trod, in a way we who were sane could not emulate, the lands and

fields he knows and loved so well, his guide being his finger tracing the way on the map. It was most

deeply moving, and I knew that I had hit on an idea that gave him more pleasure than anything else I could

have thought of. For he had Edward as companion in this strange perambulation and he was utterly happy,

without being over-excited.

This way of using my visits was repeated several times and I became for a while not a visitor from the

outside world of war and wireless but the element which brought Edward back to life for him and the

country where they two could wander together.

Task:

How does the writer present her thoughts and feelings about World War One?

You should consider the writers’ choices of structure and language , as well as subject matter.

(Source: A Prose Anthology of the First World War.)

The Economic Aftermath

It could be argued that the treaty at the end of World War I caused World War II.

Listen to the following podcast and decide for yourself…

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, The Economic Consequences of the Peace