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Memoirs, Diaries and Poems of World War One

In 1939, the writer Robert Graves was asked to write an article for the BBC’s Listener magazine, explaining ‘as a war poet of the last war, why so little poetry has so far been produced by this one.’ From the very first weeks of fighting, the First World War inspired enormous amounts of poetry, factual analysis, autobiography and fiction - from all countries involved in the conflict. 2,225 English war poets have been counted, of whom 1808 were civilians. The ‘total’ nature of this war perhaps goes someway to explaining its enormous impact on the popular imagination. Even today, commemorations and the effects of a ‘lost generation’ are still being witnessed. It was a war fought for traditional, nationalistic values of the nineteenth century, propagated using twentieth century technological and industrial methods of killing. Memoirs, diaries and poems provide extraordinary insight into how the common soldier experienced everyday life in the trenches, and how the civilian population dealt with this loss.

Over two thousand published poets wrote about the war, yet only a small fraction are still known today. Many that were popular with contemporary readers are now obscure. The selection, which emerged as orthodox during the 1960s, tends to (understandably) emphasise the horror of war, suffering, tragedy and anger against those that wage war. This was not entirely the case however, as demonstrated in the early weeks of the war. British poets responded with an outpouring of patriotic literary production. Robert Bridges, Poet Laureate, contributed a poem Wake Up England! calling for ‘Thou careless, awake! Thou peacemaker, fight! Stand, England, for honour, And God guard the Right!’ He later wished the work to be suppressed though. Rudyard Kipling’s For All We Have and Are, aroused the most comment however, with its references to the ‘Hun at the gate... the crazed and driven foe.’

From Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, to Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, to the poetry of Sassoon, Graves, and Brooke, there are numerous examples of acclaimed writing inspired by the Great War. One of the best known war poets is perhaps Wilfred Owen, killed in battle at the age of twenty-five. His poems written at the front achieved popular attention soon after the war’s end, most famously including Dulce Et Decorum Est, Anthem for Doomed Youth, and Strange Meeting. In preparing for the publication of his collected poems, Owen explained ‘This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.’

Dulce et Decorum Est, one of Owen’s most famous poems, scathingly takes Horace’s statement, ‘Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori’, meaning ‘It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country’ as its title. It chiefly describes the death of an anonymous soldier due to poison gas, vividly describing the suffering of the man, ending with a bitter attack on those who see glory in the death of others. Such themes were also widely utilised by authors unaccustomed with the literary canon - the common soldier noting down their experiences for their loved ones, and for posterity. Each unit in World War One was in fact required to keep a diary of its day-to-day activities, many portraying the anxiety and terror of the opening days of the war. Diaries from soldiers in the First Battalion South Wales Borderers (among others, recently released at the British National Archives) described the battles of the Marne and the Aisne, with one captain who said the scenes he witnesses were ‘beyond description... poor fellows shot dead are lying in all directions... everywhere the same hard, grim pitiless sign of battle and war. I have had a belly full of it.’

Other, lighter aspects of everyday life including tugs of war, rugby matches and farewell dinners to mark the end of the fighting have also been documented, giving us a rare insight into what the First World War was like for the men on the front line. Letters were an incredibly important part of life as a soldier. Receiving and writing them helped keep them sane, and could take them away from the realities of trench life. Every week, an average of 12.5 million letters were sent to soldiers by family, friends, and partners. More formalised memoirs have also become a key way of understanding the conflict, from gas attacks, the fear of going over the top, methods of coping with death - as well as the jovial camaraderie which often grew up between the men. The first memoirs of combatants were published in 1922, not long after the armistice: A Tank Driver’s Experiences by Arthur Jenkins and Disenchantment by Charles Edward Montague. These were shortly joined with Good-Bye to All That (1929) by Robert Graves, A Subaltern’s War (1929) by Charles Edmund Carrington, and Blasting and Bombardiering (1937) byPercy Wyndham Lewis. Nurses also published memoirs of their wartime experiences, such as A Diary without Dates (1918) by Enid Bagnold, and Forbidden Zone (1929) by Mary Borden. Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth (first published 1933) has been acclaimed as a classic for its description of the impact of the war on the lives of women and the civilian population - extending into the post-war years.

Storm of Steel, written by Ernst Jünger, published in 1920 was one of the first personal accounts to be published - a graphic account of trench warfare, unusually glorifying the sacrifice encountered. The book has consequently been criticised for lionizing war, especially when compared with works such as Remarque’s (albeit fictional) All Quiet on the Western Front. In the preface to the 1929 English edition, Jünger stated that; ‘Time only strengthens my conviction that it was a good and strenuous life, and that the war, for all its destructiveness, was an incomparable schooling of the heart.’ As is evident from this short introduction to the memoirs, diaries, letters and poems of the first world war - it is an intensely complex field. Dependent on military rank, geographic position and placement, nationality and subjective experience and character, they take on a wide variety of forms and focuses. Such works give an amazing insight into the experiences of combatants and it is hoped the current reader is encouraged to find out more about this thoroughly worthwhile topic.

This book is part of the World War One Centenary series; creating, collating and reprinting new and old works of poetry, fiction, autobiography and analysis. The series forms a commemorative tribute to mark the passing of one of the world’s bloodiest wars, offering new perspectives on this tragic yet fascinating period of human history.

Amelia Carruthers