Soldiering On: British Tommies After the First World War

by Adam Powell

Overview

A month after the Armistice, Prime Minister David Lloyd George promised to make Britain a 'land fi t for heroes'. At the time, it was widely believed. Returning soldiers expected decent treatment and recognition for what they had done, yet the fi ne words of 1918 were not matched by actions. The following years saw little change, as a lack of political will watered down any reform. Beggars in trench coats became a common sight in British cities. Soldiering On examines how the Lost Generation adjusted to civilian life; how they coped with physical and mental disabilities and struggled to find jobs or even communicate with their family. This is the story of men who survived the trenches only to be ignored when they came home. Using first-hand accounts, Adam Powell traces the lives of veterans from the first day of peace to the start of the Second World War, looking at the many injustices ex-servicemen bore, while celebrating the heroism they showed in the face of a world too quick to forget.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780750992725
Publisher:	The History Press
Publication date:	08/01/2019
Sold by:	INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

ADAM POWELL has taught British and European History for over twenty-five years, and has been interested in the First World War since he was a student. He is also a tour guide on the Western Front. Growing up near an impoverished First World War veteran gave him the inspiration for Soldiering On, his first book for The History Press.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

'THE DEAFENING SILENCE': THE ARMISTICE AT THE FRONT

'Only those men who actually marched back from the battle line on 11th November, 1918, can ever know or realise the mixed feelings then in the hearts of combatants.'

Frank Crozier

November 11, 1918. It was a grey, miserable day when Bugler Corporal Sellier sounded the end of the First World War. At least 16 million people had died and another 20 million wounded; the British losses alone totalled 722,785 servicemen. Yet the reaction to the Armistice was often more subdued at the Front than in Britain. Lieutenant Colonel Roberts noted this contrast: 'One cannot but remark on the absolute apathy with which the end was received over here. England seems to have had a jollification, but here one saw nothing but a disinterested interest in passing events.' It seems surprising that soldiers were less enthusiastic than those out of danger. Brigade Major Oliver Lyttelton thought the feeling of anti-climax was widespread: 'We rode round the troops; everywhere the reaction was the same, flat dullness and depression ... This readjustment to peace-time anxieties is depressing, and we all felt flat and dispirited.' At Le Cateau, W.F. Browning 'joined the queue and went up to the board, in silence like the rest and read the stupendous words "An armistice will be signed and fighting on the Western Front will cease today, November 11 1918 at 11 a.m." Not a word was spoken' Deneys Reitz of the Royal Scots Fusiliers later commented, 'A few cheers were raised, and there was a solemn handshaking and slapping of backs, but otherwise they received the great event with calm.' Colonel W.N. Nicholson wrote: 'on our side there were only a few shouts. I had heard more for a rum ration.' Partly this was because men of that generation were not encouraged to show their emotions. They thought self-control a stoical response to life's vicissitudes. It helped many cope with conditions in the trenches.

Soldiers also had to contend with a different range of emotions to civilians. Troops had been killed on the last day, and the sadness and anger were still palpable. There was confusion about what an armistice exactly was – a surrender or a temporary truce? The agreement stated that the Armistice was initially to last only thirty-six days and either side could renew hostilities if the terms were not carried out. This helps explain the decision by some senior officers to gain as much ground as was possible on the last day, as many didn't trust the German High Command. These suspicions continued for weeks. When Brigadier General Hubert Rees returned from a prisoner of war (POW) camp in December he met people at the British Embassy in The Hague who firmly believed General Hindenburg, Germany's Chief of the General Staff, 'was collecting a great army near Hanover to renew the war'. But the price paid for fighting until the end was a heavy one. There were almost 11,000 casualties on the last day of the war, a higher rate than D-Day. Officially, the last British soldier killed was Private George Ellison. He'd been a pre-war regular and served since 1914, only to die at 9.30 a.m. on the day of the Armistice. Some British soldiers were killed even after the Armistice. In the Middle East and Africa, news of the war's end sometimes took several days to reach the troops, enough time for a few more telegrams home.

Another reason for the ambiguous mood was that this wasn't the decisive victory soldiers had hoped for. The Allies were pushing back the Germans, but the task remained unfinished. There was no equivalent of Waterloo. The Germans were still on foreign soil so the sudden ending frustrated some. One soldier complained, 'Why the bloody hell couldn't we have chased him right through Berlin while we had a chance ...?' Others thought the Germans would not accept they had lost – and would be more willing to fight again. Hubert Essame, a battalion adjutant, 'had an uncomfortable feeling that it would all have to be done over again'. Joe Cottrill, Siegfried Sassoon's friend and a battalion quartermaster, presciently realised the dangers of an early peace even before the war had finished: 'it must go on – in the interests of our own preservation – till we are in a position to make a peace which will give us a certainty of the war not being resumed as soon as Germany thinks she is strong enough.'

'Armistice? Armistake,' was a joke doing the rounds.

Some soldiers remembered comrades who hadn't made it, their sadness tinged with survivor's guilt. Lieutenant Patrick Campbell recalled all the dead he had served with who he would soon be leaving: 'we should become aware of their loss, we had hardly done so until now, we had still been with them, in the same country, close to them, close to death ourselves ... they would stay behind, their home was in the lonely desolation of the battlefield.' These feelings explain why many veterans would return to the Front after the war. Sergeant Cude's thoughts were with 'the good chaps who were with us but have now departed for all time'. He added, 'I have a keen sense of loneliness come over me, for in my four years out here almost, I have missed hundreds of the very best chaps that have ever breathed.'

Others were so tired they couldn't register much at all. Stuart Dolden wrote, 'Frankly I had had enough, and felt thoroughly weary and in that respect I was not alone.' Gunner Pankhurst recalled: 'We were so war weary that we were just ready to accept whatever came. When I read of the dancing in the fountains in Trafalgar Square ... my mind always goes back to us few men and the quiet way we took the news.' Soldiers, often in the middle of their regular duties, like transportation or trench repair, had little time for contemplation. The enormity of what had happened would sink in later.

The sudden peace was strange. Soldiers had to adjust to walking upright along the front line, many still continued to lower their heads to avoid bullets hours after the fighting had ceased. When the guns stopped, the silence seemed overwhelming to those used to the sound of shot and shell; soldiers described it as 'deafening', 'uncanny' even 'oppressive'. This was in contrast to the final barrage before 11 a.m. as the artillery let off unused ammunition. 'It was the appalling new silence of things that soothed and unsettled them in turn,' wrote Kipling in his history of the Irish Guards. 'They did not realise till all sounds of their trade ceased, and the stillness stung in their ears as soda-water stings on the palate, how entirely these had been part of their strained bodies and souls.'

Some were genuinely sorry the war was over. They would miss the intense bonds of friendship that cut across class barriers, which they would probably never experience again. Captain Herbert Read later wrote that it was only the 'public-school snob' or the 'worse snob ... from the fringes of the working-classes' who could not 'develop a relationship of trust and even ... intimacy with his men'. Read described the unity in his company as 'compact, unanimous' forged in the 'heat of combat'. The belief that it was a war worth fighting gave them a shared purpose. Sapper Arthur Halestrap spoke for many when he said, 'Straightaway we felt we had nothing to live for. There was nothing in front of us, no objective. Everything you had been working for, for years, had suddenly disappeared. What am I going to do next? What is my future?' Fighter Pilot Cecil Lewis confessed 'to a feeling of anti-climax, even to a momentary sense of regret ... when you have been living a certain kind of life for four years, living as part of a single-minded effort, its sudden cessation leaves your roots in the air, baffled and, for a moment, disgruntled'. 'What are we going to do now?' was a common reaction. 'It was like being made redundant,' recalled one ex-serviceman, another felt like 'we'd been kicked out of a job'.

However, it would be wrong to run away with the idea that the end was greeted with universal disappointment. There were over 3 million men still in the British Army when the fighting stopped, so any generalisation is dangerous. Many soldiers later testified to the joy they felt at the end of the war. 'This is probably the best letter you have received in a long while! No more war! For the present at any rate.' C.P. Blacker, near Mauberge, wrote of 'Faces radiating with joy emerged from blankets and everyone struggled to their feet. Pandemonium!' Lieutenant A.S. Gregory wrote to his mother on the last day stating, 'Never again, I hope, shall I wear tin hat and box respirator.'

Many were relieved to have survived the conflict; the British Army had been experiencing huge losses in the last 100 days. Frederick Hodges' first thought was, 'I'm going to live. I was stunned, total disbelief, and at the same time a secret and selfish joy that I was going to have a life.' Soldiers could start to contemplate what many had not thought possible – a life outside the trenches. 'Each man had but one thought in those miraculous first hours: "I – even I myself, here – have come through the war!" ... So mad with joy we don't feel yet what it all means.' Very lights were set off and alcohol was issued. Drink played a part in how great the celebrations were. Some regiments offered a double rum ration, though enough alcohol for a booze-up could be hard to obtain. If a British soldier had more than his share he might have to contribute it to the general fund. Captain G.B. Jameson remembered how the veterinary officer's case of whiskey was broken into, he got drunk and went to sleep on a stretcher. But others could find nothing. Cecil Lewis was cut off in a remote village and had to settle for a bonfire of some old German Very lights, though some locals had saved a bottle or two for this occasion, often hidden for years from the Germans. There was music, flowers and dancing; sedate, respectable old women would hug and kiss British soldiers. George Littlefair remembered locals 'coming out shoving drinks on to us, you know, happy that the war was over'. Private Doug Roberts was going to fetch a deserter from Dieppe with a sergeant, but knew the war was over when a Frenchman smashed the train window and threw in two bottles of wine. They never bothered about Dieppe or the deserter. When he went back to camp 'everyone was getting drunk.' The luckiest were those on leave in Paris. The celebrations became legendary. As one journalist for The Times wrote, Paris 'went charmingly off her head'. Tommies were welcomed by Parisiennes for their contribution to victory and British troops never went short of a free drink or a kiss. 'Vive les Anglais!' was yelled throughout the night, not a cry often heard in that city today.

But for some, alcohol couldn't help lift their spirits. J.B. Priestley wrote thoughtfully, 'I can remember trying to work myself up into the right Bacchanalian mood, trying to ignore the creeping shadows, the mysterious rising tide of regret and sadness, which I think all but the simplest men suffer on these occasions.'

CHAPTER 2

'A BIT OF SHOUTING': THE ARMISTICE IN BRITAIN

'We have won a great victory and we are entitled to a bit of shouting.'

Prime Minister David Lloyd George, five minutes before the Armistice began

The Daily Mirror reported that there had been quite a lot of shouting: 'London went wild with delight when the great news came through yesterday. Bells burst forth into joyful chimes, maroons were exploded, bands paraded the streets followed by cheering crowds of soldiers and civilians and London generally gave itself up wholeheartedly to rejoicing.' It was understandable. Civilians were no less nationalistic than in August 1914 when crowds gathered in front of Downing Street to urge their leaders to declare war. And now the Allies had won, when for so long it seemed the Germans had the upper hand.

The British abandoned their customary restraint. Respectable businessmen banged on the side of buses with their shoes. Students burnt the Kaiser in effigy. American newspaperman, Edgar Bramwell Piper, saw revellers commandeer taxis and 'pile in and on anywhere, preferably on top. One car, with a prescribed capacity for four, had exactly twenty-seven persons sardined in its not-too-ample proportions.' Crowds sang old favourites like 'It's a Long Way to Tipperary' or new ones like 'Good-bye-ee'. War worker Alice Kedge ran into the street after hearing the maroons and saw:

people everywhere, stopping the traffic, clambering over the trams, hanging out of windows, waving flags. I remember seeing the French tricolour and the American 'Stars and Stripes' as well as Union Jacks. We 'choir' girls linked arms and started singing at the tops of our voices. I can't remember what we sang but we were soon leading a procession all the way down the Gray's Inn Road towards Holborn.

The epicentre was around Piccadilly and Trafalgar Square. There was a food fight involving Canadian troops. Someone lit a fire that scarred the base of Nelson's Column. Young women were liable to be grabbed, kissed and even tossed in the air. Strangers embraced and, according to legend, openly had sex in the streets. It took four days for the Armistice celebrations to end. The police eventually had to clear out the hard-core revellers.

There was plenty of drink of course. Pubs ignored wartime restrictions and stayed open all night. Bramwell Piper thought that there were few displays of drunkenness on the street, though there was a lot in the city hotels and restaurants. Others remember plenty of windows broken and public vomiting. A parrot called Polly in Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub became a celebrity for her ability to imitate the sound of popping champagne corks. She reportedly did this 400 times before passing out with exhaustion. When she died in 1926, 200 newspapers gave Polly an obituary.

Despite London's wartime restrictions on lights, many shops and restaurants 'did not trouble to draw blinds and curtains' reported the Daily Mirror but the coal shortage meant only half the lights could be turned on. The odd firework was let off but they were mostly confined to officially sanctioned displays, another of the many wartime regulations.

For the religious-minded, churches were packed for thanksgiving services. St Paul's, despite its size, had to hold two. Lloyd George was mobbed and carried shoulder high as 'the man who won the war'. The King and Queen received an even greater reaction. Crowds descended on Buckingham Palace chanting, 'We want the king' and singing the national anthem. George V had to make numerous appearances from the balcony, though no one in the noisy crowd could hear what he said. The royal couple was driven around London in an open carriage, cheered wherever they went. The King was genuinely moved. He had been an exemplary head of state and deserved the accolades. French Premier Clemenceau later said to Lloyd George that he envied him George V compared to President Raymond Poincare.

Not everyone was in a celebratory mood. Mourners could be seen in the crowd. Arthur Conan Doyle had just lost his son Kingsley and was disgusted when he saw a 'civilian hack at the neck of a whiskey bottle and drink it raw. I wish the crowd had lynched him. It was the moment for prayer, and this beast was a blot on the landscape.' Sir Henry Wilson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, tried to comfort a sobbing woman. When he asked if there was anything he could do, she replied, 'No. I am crying, but I am so happy, for now I know that all my three sons who have been killed in the war have not died in vain.' Many compared the celebrations to Mafeking Night in 1900, when its relief during the Boer War brought a sense of jubilation out of all proportion to its military importance. Winston Churchill thought the Armistice night celebrations were more muted:

Then the crowds were untouched by the ravages of war. They rejoiced with the lighthearted frenzy of the spectators of a great sporting event. In 1918 thankfulness and a sense of deliverance overpowered exultation. All bore in their hearts the marks of what they had gone through. There were too many ghosts about the streets after Armageddon.

For soldiers in Britain, the reaction was mixed like at the Front. Plenty of Tommies were in the thick of the revelling, but some were in a more sombre mood. Lieutenant Ernest Parker wrote that:

Alas, I could not share their high spirits, for the new life which was now beckoning had involved an enormous sacrifice, and would be yet another challenge for those like myself who had the good fortune to survive the perils of the long war. Surrounded by people whose experiences had been so different, I felt myself a stranger and I was lost in thoughts they could not possible share.

Siegfried Sassoon, embittered about the war, described the crowds as 'all waving flags and making fools of themselves ... a loathsome ending to the loathsome tragedy of the last four years.' Oswald Mosley, a wounded officer now working for the Ministry of Munitions, was appalled at the partygoers: 'smooth, smug people who had never fought or suffered ... laughing on the graves of our companions. I stood aside from the delirious throng, silent and alone, ravaged by memory. Driving purpose had begun; there must be no more war. I declared myself to politics.'

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Soldiering On"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Adam Powell.
Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents

Prologue,
Introduction: 'Gentlemen' and 'Players': Britain on the Eve of War,
PART I: COMING HOME,
1 'The Deafening Silence': The Armistice at the Front,
2 'A Bit of Shouting': The Armistice in Britain,
3 'We Want Our Civvie Suits': Demobilisation,
4 Arrivals,
PART II: UNFINISHED BUSINESS,
5 'Out of Ireland',
6 The Russian Expedition,
7 The Swollen Empire,
8 'The Watch at the Rhine': The Occupation of the Rhineland,
PART III: ADJUSTMENTS,
9 'The Chasm': Coping with Civilian Life,
10 'You Had a Good Job When You Left': Veterans' Employment,
11 Sex, Morality and Marriage,
12 Disabled Veterans,
13 'The Cruelly Injured Mind': Shell Shock,
14 Pensions,
15 'Homes for Heroes': Veterans' Housing,
16 Back to the Land: Resettling Ex-Servicemen,
17 'Silence and Thistles': Returning to the Western Front,
PART IV: LEGACIES,
18 Radicals and Reactionaries: The Politics of the Soldiers,
19 Speaking Up: Veterans' Organisations After the War,
20 Artists' Rifles: The War and Culture,
21 The Political Scene,
22 To End All Wars: The Search for Peace,
23 'Lest We Forget': Reflections of Ex-Servicemen,
Notes,
Bibliography,