Introduction

This final page on the feelings of men on the Western Front offers you a wide range of different sources illustrating the different experiences and feelings of different soldiers on the Western Front during the First World War.

After you have studied this webpage, answer the question sheet by clicking on the 'Time to Work' icon at the top of the page

1.  Julian Grenfell

Grenfell was the son of an aristocratic family, who went to Eton and Oxford and joined the army in 1910.  In May 1915, as he wrote to his mother, he "stopped a Jack Johnson with [his] head", and died a fortnight later aged 27.  Source 1 is from a letter he wrote in October 1914.

I adore war.  It's like a big picnic... I've never been so well or more happy.  No one grumbles at one for being dirty.  I have only had my boots off once in the last ten days and only washed twice...  The fighting-excitement vitalizes everything, every sight and action.

Interrogating the sources:

For ALL these sources, looking at all the details of its provenance, how true do you think this account is likely to be? 

2.  Lieutenant J Annan

A soldier in the Royal Scots Regiment, remembering to the historian Lynn Macdonald in 1978.

Uncomfortable, I should say it was.  Our kilts were soaking, and when you sit in the freezing cold with a wet kilt between your legs it's beyond description.

There was a lull in the shelling, and we heard this terrible kind of gurgling noise.  It was the wounded, lying there sinking, and this liquid mud burying them alive, running over their faces into their mouth and nose...  We couldn't understand why, in the name of God, anyone had ordered an attack like that over terrain like that It was impossible.

Physical feelings:

Until now we have been assuming that 'feelings' meant 'emotional feelings'. How relatively impoetant, do you think, were the soldiers' 'physicial feelings' in their experience of the war?

3.  Rifleman E Chapman, London Irish Rifles

Here he remembers the German offensive of 1918 to the historian Martin Middlebrook in 1978.

The bombardment was sheer hell – shells, trench mortars, the lot...  At that time there were only about three or four of us alive but no order was given to draw back or pull out.

While we were discussing what to do – there being nobody in charge – my pal was hit with a piece of shell which sliced his head completely off.  You can imagine how I felt...  Giving up all hope of survival and feeling hopping mad, I waited with my Lewis gun for the enemy to come over the top.

4.  Colonel Graham Seton Hutchinson

Seton Hutchinson joined the army in 1909, serving in colonial Africa; in 1917 he formed and took command of the 33rd Division Machine Gun Corps.  He wrote spy and war novels and his memoirs, from which this source is taken, "almost read like a novel".  Here, he describes an event from the Battle of the Somme in 1916:

To the south of the wood Germans could be seen, silhouetted against the sky-line, moving forward I fired at them and watched them fall, chuckling with joy at the technical efficiency of the machine-gun...  Anger, and the intensity of the fire, consumed my spirit and not caring for the consequences, I rose and turned my machine gun upon them, laughing loudly as I saw them fall.

Graham Seton Hutchinson:

Seton Hutchinson did not believe in retreat and wrote proudly of how he once forced a group of 40 drunk soldiers to advance to their deaths.  In 1921 a marching tune was written in his honour, called The Mad Major.

After the war Seton Hutchinson helped form the British Legion, and in the 1930s joined the British Fascists. 

5.  Private W Smith, 2nd New Zealand Gun Co.

Remembering the Battle of Passchendaele to the historian Lynn Macdonald in 1978.

Everyone was either scattered, wounded or dead...  Eventually, Joe Hammersley and myself crawled across the road and set off crawling in the direction of Passchendaele...  Suddenly Joe dropped with a clang.  He lay quite still and I crawled on to the shelter of a shell-hole and lay low.  Lo and behold, a few minutes later who should slither into the shell-hole alongside me but Joel.  The bullet had hit [the front of his helmet] and gone out through the top of his head, only grazing him.  While we were examining the hole in his tin hat and marvelling at his miraculous escape there was a violent explosion and one of our own shells blew us right out of the hole.  Poor old Joel  His arm was shattered by a splinter from the shell.  When he pulled himself together he said, "My God, Smithy, I'm getting out of here.  Both lots of the blighters are after me now, ours and theirs!"

Humour:

This source contains humour, but would it have been funny at the time?  Or is the humour a coping mechanism imposed by W Smith after 60 years of trying to come to terms with his experience?

Digging:

Does it affect your understanding of soldiers' experiences on the Western Front to realise that Pte. Smith spent most of his war digging, not fighting?

6.  'Horden', a soldier of the Queen's Westminster Rifles

This quote is attributed to 'Daniel George' who fought in the Queen's Westminser Rifles and wrote a description of the Battle of Gommecourt; in this source he describes the first day of the Battle of the Somme. It is not known to what extent 'Horden' is the author writing autobiographically.

Horden stumbled blindly forwards across no man's land.  It seemed to him that he was alone in a pelting storm of machine gun bullets, shell fragments and clods of earth.  Alone, because the other men were like figures on a cinema screen – an old film which flickered violently – everybody in a desperate hurry – the air full of black rain.  He could recognise some of the figures in an uninterested way.  Some of them stopped and fell down slowly.  The fact that they had been killed did not penetrate his intelligence...  They were unreal to him.  His mind was numbed by the noise, the smoke, the dust.

Horden:

Asumming that 'Horden' is in fact the author 'Daniel George', suggest reasons why he wrote his experiences in the third person.

7.  Private WG Bell, 9th Battalion Army Cyclist Corps.

Remembering the Battle of Passchendaele to the historian Lynn Macdonald in 1978.

You say, 'What did you do in the Cyclist Corps?"  "We dug up half of France", I always say.  We used to cycle up as near to the front line as we could and dump our bikes, 300 of us there was...  You could see the fellow in front of you and you followed him – falling down holes and cursing and swearing.  The officer would say, "You 'ere.  Step out, one, two.  You 'ere.  Stick your spade in.  Now go on.  Get down.  Six feet deep."  And you wouldn't half dig,  You'd dig like fury.  And of course, if your spade hit a stone out in the fields at night, it didn't half sound.  Directly old Jerry heard it, up go the Verrey lights and it was like daylight, and round you would come his machine-guns, raking along the line.  When he passed over, you were up again, digging like fury...

Well, we got artful.  It was supposed to be six feet down.  What we did, we got about four feet down and then we'd dig one big hole – a bit deeper than the trench we'd dug, you see.  Then we used to sit at the bottom of the trench but we were only down about four feet.  In the end, we were rumbled.

8.  A German soldier

This is an extract from his Diary of 13 August 1916.

Heavy artillery fire continued through the night, and the list of wounded grows ever bigger.  Bad drinking water, dirty-looking and chalky.  I have got stomach pains and diarrhoea.  It is torture.  Yesterday a battalion of the 68th made an attack and suffered heavy losses from the English counter-attack.  Everybody is asking when we are to be relieved.  Among other things, in this awful artillery fire one can hardly hear a word.  It is one continuous whistle and scream through the air.  We each lie in our little hole in the ground.

9.  A dying soldier

In this heartbreaking source, Rev. J M S Walker describes the death of a soldier in a letter dated 25 August 1916.

An army chaplain gave communion to a dying man at the battle of the Somme.  After the blessing his hands went together, eyes closed and he said, "Gentle Jesus meek and mild, look upon a little child etc." – God bless father, mother, grandfather, and make me a good boy – then the Lord's Prayer.

'Heartbreaking':

Explain all the reasons why this source is so heartbreakingly sad.

Introduction (continued)

Few of the men's letters home described the war in any detail.  On the contrary, many wrote cheerful letters. 

"Dear Mum and Dad and loving sisters," ran a typical letter, "the boys are in the pink.  Not 'arf.  Dear Loving sisters Rosie, Letty and Gladys, keep merry and bright.  Not 'arf."

10.  Arthur Borton

Borton was the son of a British Army officer.  Educated at Eton, he served in the army 1902-08.  In 1914, he rejoined the King's Royal Rifles and went, aged 31, to serve in France.  On 4 July 1916, he wrote home to his father:

My dear Daddie,

I haven't had much time to write as have been pretty busy.  We have been UP IN THE LINE now for 3 days.  There has been a lot of SCRAPPING all around us.  I wonder if you've been able to hear the row we've been making at [home]?  We have remained so far in a kind of BACK-WATER but don't suppose it will last.

Am in a very comfortable DUG-OUT with heaps of Head cover.  But the mud is awful. Have had two days of rain which has flooded everything.  And the RATS ARE A CAUTION...  In fact I'm fed up with the war.  French life is not what it is cracked up to be.

On the same day, Borton wrote to his wife:

Am very comfortable in my present quarters.  We are living in a HOLE IN THE GROUND formerly occupied by a FRENCH GENERAL, and IT'S SOME HOLE!  8 stairs down, 3 Large Rooms – Glass windows, wooden flooring, tables chairs and bed-steads etc.

Arthur Drummond Borton:

Rising to the position of Liuet-Colonel, Borton won the Vitoria Cross in Palestine in 1917 for his 'fearless leadership' under 'withering fire'.. 

Suggest reasons why Borton wrote to his wife differently from the way he wrote to his father.

11.  Private Michael Riley, of the 1st Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers

Private Riley sent this poem – a parody of a famous poem of the time – in a letter to his uncle in Gateshead.

I've a little wet home in a trench,
Where the rainstorms continually drench,
There's the sky overhead,
Clay or mud for a bed,
And a stone that we use for a bench.

Bully beef and hard biscuits we chew,
It seems years since we tasted a stew.
Shells crackle and scare,
Yet no place can compare,
With my Little Wet Home in the Trench.

Our friends in the trench o'er the way,
Seem to know that we've come here to stay.
They shoot and they shout,
But they can't get us out,
Though there's no dirty trick they won't play.

They rushed us a few nights ago
But we don't like intruders, and so,
Some departed quite sore,
Others left evermore
Near my Little Wet Home in the Trench.

So Hurrah for the mud and the clay,
Which leads to Der Tag, that's The Day
When we enter Berlin,
That City of Sin,
And make the fat Berliner pay

Yes, we'll think of the cold, slush and stench,
As we lay with the Belgian and French.
There'll be shed then, I fear,
Redder stuff than a tear,
For my Little Wet Home in the Trench.

Banalities:

Suggest reasons why most soldiers wrote home in trite clichs and cheerful optimism. The historian John Ellis suggested that it was a psychological attempt to come to terms with the horror of war by reducing it to familiar banalities - do you agree, or can you see other reasons?