Voices of Silence

The Alternative Book of First World War Poetry

Vivien Noakes

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9780750945219
• eBook ISBN: 9780752496108
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War I
• Index: History

The poetry of the First World War has determined our perception of the war itself. This volume features poetry drawn from old newspapers and journals, trench and hospital magazines, individual volumes of verse, gift books, postcards, and a manuscript magazine put together by conscientious objectors.

ONE

The Outbreak of War

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

He said: ‘Thou petty people, let me pass!

What canst thou do but bow to me and kneel?’

But sudden a dry land caught fire like grass,

And answer hurtled but from shell and steel.

He looked for silence, but a thunder came;

Upon him from Liège a leaden hail.

All Belgium flew up at his throat in flame,

Till at her gates amazed his legions quail!

Take heed, for now on haunted ground thy tread;

There bowed a mightier War-Lord to his fall;

Fear! Lest that very grass again grow red

With blood of German now, as then of Gaul!

If him whom God destroys He maddens first,

Then thy destruction slake thy madman’s thirst!

Stephen Phillips

England to Belgium

Not lusting for a brief renown

Nor apt in any vain dispute

You throw the scythes of autumn down,

And leave your dues of autumn fruit

Unharvested, and dare the wrong

Of death’s immitigable wing,

And on your banners burn a song

That gods unrisen yet shall sing.

Because your Belgian fields are dear,

And now they suffer black despite,

Because your womanhood can hear

The menace on the lips of night,

Because you are a little clan

Of brothers, and because there comes

The thief among you, to a man

You take the challenge of your drums.

Not all our tears and wrath shall weigh

The utter bitterness that falls,

O Belgian hearts, on you this day,

The sorrow of your broken walls,

And desolated hearths, the crime

Of Prussian sword and Prussian flame,

But, brothers, with the world we chime

The story of your Belgian name.

We will be comrades at your side,

Your battle and our battle one

To turn again this monstrous pride

That veils but does not know the sun;

Our blood and thews with yours are set

Against this creed of bar and goad,

The Ironside is in us yet

As when the ranks of Cromwell rode.

For all things clean, for all things brave,

For peace, for spiritual light,

To keep love’s body whole, to save

The hills of intellectual sight,

Girt at your Belgian gate we stand,

Our trampled faith undaunted still,

With heart unseared and iron hand

And old indomitable will.

John Drinkwater

The Old Soldiers

We come from dock and shipyard, we come from car and train,

We come from foreign countries to slope our arms again

And, forming fours by numbers or turning to the right,

We’re learning all our drills again and ’tis a pretty sight.

Our names are all unspoken, our regiments forgotten,

For some of us were pretty bad and some of us were rotten,

And some will misremember what once they learnt with pain

And hit a bloody serjeant...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• How it Began
• 1. The Outbreak of War
• 2. Early Months
• 3. Autumn 1914 in England
• 4. The New Armies go to France
• 5. Out of the Line
• 6. Flanders, Gallipoli and the Mediterranean
• 7. Conscription, Protest and Prisoners
• 8. The Royal Navy
• 9. The Royal Flying Corps
• 10. Verdun, the Battle of the Somme Begins
• 11. Casualties of the Somme
• 12. The Wounded in England
• 13. Autumn and Winter 1916–1917
• 14. Leave
• 15. Spring and Early Summer 1917
• 16. Red Tape and Rivalry
• 17. Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele)
• 18. America Joins the War
• 19. The Final Year
• 20. Armistice and the Price of War
• 21. The Return to France
• 22. L’Envoi
• Notes
• Glossary
• List of Authors and Illustrators
• Bibliography