Voices of Silence (3 page)

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 convention 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.

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.

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

England to Belgium

The Old Soldiers

March up to the Colours

The Skunk