Tuesday 8 March 2022

BOOK REVIEW: GUN FODDER.

 THE DIARY OF FOUR YEARS OF WAR.



This book from my library recalls the First World War experiences of an Oxford educated man who joined up as a private in 1914 before becoming an officer in the Royal Artillery early in 1915. The battery he was assigned to was stationed in Ireland before being shipped to Salonika where they stayed until 1917 when they went to France. By the end of the War the author was a highly regarded battery commander.

Being an educated and intelligent man with experience of the ranks he was able to relate to the needs of his men in such a way that he was clearly a well respected officer. However his early enthusiasm soon evaporated during the long posting to Salonika where he witnessed serious administrative incompetence during an obviously pointless campaign. This was then further reinforced by the bloody battles he endured in France. 

By the end of the War he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and was thoroughly disheartened by man's inhumanity to his fellow man. Much of the final pages of the book are filled with obviously heartfelt but nonetheless idealistic discussion about the failures of politicians, generals, profit making industrialists and the overall weakness and failure of civilisation. He was clearly a very bitter man.

All that said the book does contain some very good details of life as a private, officer training, the Salonika campaign and life in a gun battery. It also demonstrates what war can do to a man's mind and in that matter alone it is well worth reading.


4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the review Tony. Books like this, first hand memoirs, give a great feel of what soldiers went through during the War. Robert Graves 'Goodbye To All That' I found to be an excellent read and very enlightening too.

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    1. Hi Steve....Yes I quite agree. I really like first hand memoirs too. I particularly relish the accounts of day to day life which add so much to the stories. Regards.

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  2. I'm inclined to think that the reason for the failure of Conan Doyle's 6-volume historiography of the 'British Campaign in France and Flanders' was due to their being accounts of battles, sanitised and desensitised, with little of the humanity and inhumanity of that war. Conan Doyle was proud of his work - and he did put a lot of time and effort researching it. But its lack of popularity was probably due to its quite missing the tone. Who were to be his readership? The veterans? The thing sold poorly (I have all but the last of the six, and you would wonder if this was the same war that was experienced by the likes of Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon and your gunner - themselves university educated, and others less so.

    You might be interested in a volume 'The Great War and Modern Memory' (Paul Fussell) - how the war is remembered, by Britons specifically, in literature - novels, biography and autobiography, and soldiers' letters. Here's a sense of the overall tone:

    Ballad of the Three Spectres

    As I went up by Ovillers,
    In mud and water cold to the knee,
    There went three jeering, fleering spectre
    That walked abreast and talked of me

    The first said, 'Here's a right brave soldier
    The walks the dark unfearingly;
    Soon he'll come back on a fine stretcher,
    And laughing for a nice Blighty.'

    The second, 'Read his face, old comrade,
    No kind of lucky chance I see;
    One day he'll freeze in mud to the marrow,
    Then look his last on Picardie.'

    Though bitter the word of these first twain,
    Curses the third spat venomously:
    'He'll stay untouched till the war's last dawning,
    Then live one hour of agony.'

    Liars the first two were... Behold me
    At sloping arms by one-two-three;
    Waiting the time I shall discover
    Whether the third spoke verity.

    (Ivor Gurney)

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    1. Hi Ion...You are quite right. "Official " histories are very basic and matter of fact. Fine if you are researching timelines etc but they totally fail to give a true sense of actual warfare. This applies to all wars of course. As I said to Steve above, first hand memoirs offer so much more especially with regard to the day to day life of these soldiers of yesterday which I find often more interesting than the descriptions of battles etc. I will have a look at Paul Fussell's book, it sounds interesting. The ballad certainly makes you think, thanks for that..Regards.

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