images of the great war

8/9/2019 Images of the Great War

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James Francis Hurley O.B.E. ........................................................................................................... 186

Olive Edis ........................................................................................................................................ 194

Dulce Et Decorum Est – Wilfred Owen .......................................................................................... 197

Eric Henri Kennington ..................................................................................................................... 198

What Reward ? – Winifred Mary Letts ........................................................................................... 203

George Clausen ................................................................................................................................ 204„Since They Have Died‟ – May Wedderburn Cannan ..................................................................... 207

Sir John Lavery ................................................................................................................................ 208

Anthem for Doomed Youth – Wilfred Owen .................................................................................. 214

Austin Osman Spare ........................................................................................................................ 215

Reported Missing – Anna Gordon Keown ...................................................................................... 219

Gilbert Rogers MBE ........................................................................................................................ 220

Strange Meeting – Wilfred Owen .................................................................................................... 225

Adrian Keith Graham Hill ............................................................................................................... 227

Roundel – Vera Brittain ................................................................................................................... 231

Sir Jacob Epstein .............................................................................................................................. 232

„Lord, I Owe The a Death‟ – Alice Meynell.................................................................................... 235

Mark Gertler .................................................................................................................................... 236

A Girl‟s Song – Katharine Tynan .................................................................................................... 239

Joyce Dennys ................................................................................................................................... 240

Dulce Et Decorum? – Elinor Jenkins ............................................................................................... 246

Olive Mudie – Cooke ......................................................................................................................... 247

The Battle of the Swamps – Muriel Elsie Graham .......................................................................... 250

Flora Lion ........................................................................................................................................ 251

Vlamertinghe – Edmund Charles Blunden ...................................................................................... 253Anna Airy ........................................................................................................................................ 254

To My Brother – Vera Brittain ........................................................................................................ 258

Lucy Elizabeth Kemp-Welch........................................................................................................... 259

„Nothing to Report‟ – May Herschel-Clarke ................................................................................... 267

Norah Neilson - Gray ....................................................................................................................... 268

Reconciliation – Siegfried Sassoon ................................................................................................. 272

Clare Atwood ................................................................................................................................... 273

An Incident – Mary H. J. Henderson ............................................................................................... 277

Dorothy Josephine Coke .................................................................................................................. 278

Last Leave – Eileen Newton ............................................................................................................ 280

Frederick Horseman Varley ............................................................................................................. 282

A Recruit from The Slums – Emily Orr .......................................................................................... 285

Stanley Spencer................................................................................................................................ 286

Remembrance Day in The Dales – Dorothy Ratcliffe ..................................................................... 293

David Michael Jones ........................................................................................................................ 294

No one cares less Than I – Phillip Edward Thomas ........................................................................ 300

Robert Douglas Strachan ................................................................................................................. 301

Aftermath – Siegfried Sassoon ........................................................................................................ 307

Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 308

Last Post – Carol Ann Duffy ........................................................................................................... 311

Bibliography .................................................................................................................................... 313


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PREFACE

Although I grew up during the Korean War, and my parent‟s generation had lived and fought through the

Second World War, when I asked my family and relatives about that war, they would always remark how

the First World War, or the Great War as they called it, was far worse. In the close knit community where I

was brought up, many a house would have in pride of place, on, or above the mantelpiece an old sepia

photograph of a soldier of the Great War, who had not returned home. (ill 2)

At Remembrance Sunday ceremonies in the village each year, it was not the young men who had just

returned from the Korean War who were the venerated heroes, but the few remaining veterans of the GreatWar. They took pride of place, both at the village war memorial, and at the head of the procession to the

village church for the service, and their silent pride and emotion was almost tangible. By the look in their

eyes, they were elsewhere. The war memorial itself had many more names from the Great War, 329

compared to 77 from the Second World War.

This book is my tribute to all those men and women who fought in that „war to end wars‟, but most of all it

is about the war, as seen through the eyes of the artists who created the images. Several of these artists had

been soldiers themselves, and were influenced by what they saw and experienced during that war, not by

the art establishment, by politicians or by generals.

Of the 65 million men who fought on both sides in the Great War, nearly 9 million were killed, three-

quarters of a million from the British Isles, and 21 million were wounded or crippled for life, in vain

attempts to gain a few yards of shell-torn land. On the last day of the war, that eleventh hour, of the

eleventh day, of the eleventh month of 1918, over 10,000 men were killed or wounded, far more than on D-

Day 1944. Millions more died from their wounds, or committed suicide within a few years of the signing

of the Treaty of Versailles.


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By 1929 the British Government had paid disability awards to 2.4 million men. When the Second World

War began in 1939, 204,200 British men were still receiving disability pensions from the government for

the following reasons:

Still suffering from shell shock: 25,000 Withered or useless limb: 90,000

Head injuries, unable to work: 15,000 Amputation of one or both arms: 3,600

Permanent deafness: 11,000 One or both legs amputated: 8,000

Partial blindness: 8,000 Disability from frostbite: 2,200

Total blindness: 2,000 Effects of gassing: 40,000

Courtesy David Roberts


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INTRODUCTION

3. Britons Your Country Needs You

1914, by Alfred Leete, photo-lithograph and letterpress, 75 x 50 cm.

© Imperial War Museum IWM PST2734

Above is the second of several versions of this most famous of all army recruiting posters, first issued in

September 1914. The design started life on the cover of the weekly magazine the London Opinion on 5th

September 1914. The Parliamentary Recruiting Committee immediately adopted this poster for

Kitchener‟s call for a new army of 100,000 volunteers.

Three days after the declaration of war on Germany at 11 pm on 4th August, Kitchener‟s appeal for a New

Army of 100,000 men was achieved within seventeen days. The patriotic rush to join the colours was such

that by the autumn the new army had increased to three new armies, called K1, K2 and K3; and by early

1915 had expanded into six, with the addition of K4, K5, and K6.


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4. Our „Little Contemptibles‟1914

William Barns Wollen, c.1918, oil, 76.2 x 142.5 cm.

National Army Museum

Wollen was an illustrator for the Sphere, where this picture was first published. It shows pre-trench, open warfare at the beginning of the FirstBattle of Ypres, October 1914. The soldiers using whatever little cover they could find.

Of all the events of the 20th century, the Great War of 1914-18, or the First World War, as it became

known in 1939, is the one most commemorated and analysed more than any other, in the form of novels,

plays, films, poems, music and paintings. Every battle had its horrific death toll, the worst being the first

day of the Battle of the Somme, the blackest day in the history of the British Army. One hundred and tenthousand British soldiers attacked the German lines that day, and the British Army suffered 60,000

casualties, 20,000 killed, and the remainder wounded or missing. In the second week of the battle, the

British Army lost another ten thousand men every day. Millions more suffered for the rest of their lives

from what was then known as „shell shock,‟ which to-day we know as „post-traumatic stress disorder‟.

The Western Front was a system of trench and barbed wire fortifications, which faced each other. It

stretched from Nieuport on the coast of Flanders, south and east for four hundred and sixty miles to the

Swiss border. The land between these two sets of trenches was known as „No-man‟s-land‟, and it was here,

in that pock marked landscape of „ No-man‟s-land‟ where most of the killing took place. That is the reason

why, with just three exceptions, I have concentrated on the work of those artists who experienced or

recorded the war on the Western Front. The poet Robert Graves, who fought in the war, wrote:

―The Western Front was known as the sausage machine, because it was fed with live men at one end,

and churned out corpses at the other end and remained firmly screwed in place‖.


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When Britain entered the war on 4th August 1914, in England this was considered the nearest thing to a

Holy War since the Crusades of the Middle Ages. Its purpose to avenge the violation of Belgium‟s

neutrality by the cruel, barbaric Hun. It was also believed that this war would be a glorious, short,

successful war that would be “all over by Christmas”. As the regulars marched off to war, the special

reservists hurried to their depots to bring the battalions up to full strength. The daily rate of pay for an

infantry private was 1 old shilling, and 1 shilling and 2 pence for a private in the cavalry, which was lower

than any civilian earned, with the exception of a girl under eighteen years of age. The wages of private

soldiers was so low, that they were exempt from paying income tax.

It should also be remembered that most British soldiers who fought and died in the Great War did not have

the right of voting into office, those who sent them out to die, yet those same people told them in no

uncertain terms that it was their patriotic duty „to die for King and Country‟.

The Territorial Force (to-day‟s T.A.) although for home defence, voted en masse to fight overseas. The

greatest worry most Englishmen had at the time was that it would all be over, before they had a chance to

have a go at the „Hun‟. An example of this mood was a student-soldier writing to his mother that August.

―Be proud that you live in such times and in such a nation, and you have the privilege of sending

several of those you love into this glorious struggle‖.

The young man who wrote this was killed in the second month of the war. The poets Rupert Brook, BeatrixBrice Miller, and Jessie Pope echoed the mood of those early days, in their poems The Soldier, To the

Vanguard, and Who‟s for the Game? The old world order ended as the four horsemen of the Apocalypse

rode across Europe, staining its fields red with the blood of the flower of Europe‟s youth, who were killed

in their millions. In the four years of war, the new mass-produced machines of war, so praised by the

Futurists, caused such slaughter that this war became known as The Great War, and The War to End Wars.

Parts of Europe were devastated by the war, and by its end, four empires had ceased to exist, and a fifth,

the British Empire was in decline. All this because of the greed and fear of the leaders of those empires.


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On 4th August 1914 the world went mad and the Great War broke out, and along with thousands of others,

many artists „joined the colours‟; one London regiment was called The Artists‟ Rifles, which won eight

V.Cs. (ill.1).

Many artists, like the brothers John and Paul Nash, John Lavery and Charles Jagger joined this regiment.

Others like Stanley Spencer and Gilbert Rogers enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Wyndham

Lewis, William Roberts, Colin Gill and Adrian Hill joined artillery regiments, and David Bomberg enlisted

in the Royal Engineers, and from 1915 a small number of artists worked on camouflage. Of all the major

nations in this war Britain had by far the greatest number of Official War Artists.

Before researching this book I was aware of only two female war artists of this period, neither of whom is

to be found in British art history books; and discovered just nine others during subsequent research, all had

been written out of British art history. A full history of British artists of the Great War should include the

work of women artists, and the effect that war had on those left at home. The question has to be asked why

did the influential art critics and historians of the first half of the twentieth century allow this to happen?

In this personal study I will concentrate on the work of twenty-one war artists, with a cursory glimpse at

twenty others; and with only one exception I have concentrated on those artists whose work is about the

Western Front and the Home Front. I have also included a small number of photographs, and thirty-eight

poems of that war.

The book starts with a study of a most remarkable, and unconventional war artist, whose war paintings

bridge the gap between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Lady Butler was the first British woman

to become famous for painting battle scenes, the first British woman to paint scenes of the Great War, and

the only war artist to have two sons fighting in that war. Her reputation as a war artist was well established

by the 1890‟s. She is followed by the wor k of the first three official war artists, Bone, Dodd and Orpen.

Then the sculptures of Jagger, followed by the two greatest British painters of that war, Christopher

Nevinson and Paul Nash. The study concludes with the work of the stained glass artist, Robert Strachan.

Lawrence John Dunn


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BE F GHQ

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TIMELINE OF SIGNIFICANT EVENTS OF

THE GREAT WAR

1914 28 July Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia

4 August German troops invaded Belgium

4 August Britain declared war on Germany

7-16 August British Expeditionary Force landed in France

23 August Battle of Mons

26 - 30 August Battle of Tannenberg

18 October} First Battle of Ypres and beginning of trench warfare

11 November

29 October Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers

1915 January British advance in Mesopotamia began

19/20 January At night, first Zeppelin raids on England

19 February Allied naval bombardment of Dardanelles began

1 March Britain started blockade of Germany

10-12 March Battle of Neuve Chapelle

22 April-25 May Second Battle of Ypres

25 April Allies invaded Gallipoli

7 May The liner Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat off the Irish coast

31 May/1 June First night Zeppelin raid on London

25 September Battle of Loos

12 October Execution of Nurse Edith Cavell

1916 8/9 January Final allied evacuation from Gallipoli

9 February Conscription started in Britain, with the exception of Ireland

21 February} Battle of Verdun

16 December

31 May Battle of Jutland

7 June Beginning of Arab revolt against Turks

1 July} Battle of the Somme

18 November

1917 1 February Germany began unrestricted U-boat warfare

12 March Russian Revolution began

6 April U.S.A. declared war on Germany

9 April-27 May Battle of Arras

16 April-8 May Second Battle of Aisne

17 April-30 June French Army Mutinies

7 June Battle of Wytschaete / Messines Ridge

31 July} Battle of Passchendaele (Third Ypres)

10 November

20-29 November Battle of Cambrai17 December Armistice between Russian Soviets and Central Powers


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1918 3 March Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Central Powers and Russia

21 March Start of last German offensive on the Western Front

8 August Final Allied advance on the Western Front began, known also as the Black Day

of the German Army

30 October Armistice of Mudros ended the war in the Middle East

3 November Austria-Hungary signed a general armistice 8 November German Revolution began

9 November Kaiser abdicated and fled to Holland

11 November Armistice between Allies and Germany began 11 a.m.

1919 28 June Peace Treaty between France and Germany signed at Versailles.


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ILLUSTRATORS

At first the only artists to be employed in the war effort were used for the purposes of propaganda, to

recruit men for the army, raise funds for the war and to sustain public support for it. Illustrators created

recruiting posters, (ill.3, 15, & 230) and illustrations for newspapers and magazines such as The Illustrated

London News, (ill. 10) The Graphic and the Sphere (ill. 9) these included The Old Contemptibles by

Wollen (ill.4), and The Manchester Regiment captures Givenchy (ill.16). On 12th August, 1914 The

London Illustrated News published the first of its illustrated weekly war magazine, called The Illustrated

War News, (ill. 5 & 6) which was a mixture of photographs and idealised (Boy‟s Own) illustrations. Soon,

there was a proliferation of several similar periodicals, e.g. The Great War, The Standard History of the

All-European Conflict.

The text underneath the double spread

of pages 24 & 25 reads:

―We have here the scene on the

battlefield of Mons at the critical

moment on Monday, August 24,

during the opening battle on the

frontier where the first Germans

encountered the British army.

5. Above: Front cover for

week five of The Illustrated

War News

9th

September 1914

Author‟s Collection


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7. Her Cross

Lawson Wood, first published in „Lady‟s Pictorial‟ 20-11-1915

© The Mary Evans Picture Library

Owing to the falling back of the French line further to the east, the British had to hastily change front

under heavy fire and withdraw. Until then, throughout the fierce fighting the previous day and night, we

had more than held our own, repelling, it is stated, six massed attacks with terrific losses to the enemy.

Note the dark, dense heaps of fallen Germans to the right of the illustration; the masses of dead extend

beyond the ridge to the right. To the left we see the general wheel-back in progress, regiments retiring

in unbroken order, flanked by other infantry firing from shelter trenches in the foreground. The British

artillery (seen on the ridge to the left-centre) are covering the move. Two German aeroplanes are

visible in the distance, hovering to direct the German guns by raising and lowering discs. -‖

[Drawn by R. Caton Woodville from a sketch by Frederic Viliers.]


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Under the Official War Artists scheme nearly 100 artists visited the various war zones, mainly on the

Western Front. Throughout the war there were many tear-jerker's, the two best known were „Her Cross‟

which showed the effect of the war on the women left at home, (ill.7) and „Good- bye My Old Friend‟,

(ill.14) which indulged animal lovers. These two images were both melodramatic and sentimental.

8. The Stirrup-Charge of the Scots Gr ey‟s and Highlanders at St. Quinton,

26 August 1914, one of the rear guard actions in the retreat from Mons.

Page 195 of Guerre 1914-1919, Publication Mensuelle Illustrée.

Author‟s Collection

In the popular postcard of the time „Her Cross‟, we see a bereav ed woman weeping over the contents of a

letter. From the setting and her clothes we can see that she is from the middle or upper class, but we canonly guess her relationship with the dead soldier. Is she his mother, wife, lover or sister? The painting does

not tell us, but the war widows pension records do tell us that one in every eight widows died within one

year of having been notified of their husband‟s death.

Here the link between the loss on the battlefield and her loss at home is firmly emphasised by that ultimate

symbol of heroism, the Victoria Cross, awarded “for bravery in the face of the enemy”. The cross the

woman has to bear is the loss of her loved one. His cross, the Victoria Cross, enclosed with the letter that

announces the death of her hero, is no substitute for her lost love.


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The message is reinforced by the dead officer‟s sword and soft

cap on the polished table being touched by her outstretched right

hand.

During the war the Italian graphic artist Fortunino Matania (1881-

1963) worked as an illustrator for the London Illustrated News,

The Sphere, and the French L‟Illustration. Although Matania and

Wollen were granted access to the Western Front several times,

they never saw battles or their immediate aftermath. Therefore

their war images cannot be called eye-witness accounts, of „tell it

as it was‟ and they were never Official War Artists. Nevertheless

they are probably the best-known examples of unofficial war

illustrators.

The war might well have been „over by Christmas‟ if a remarkable and spontaneous three day Christmas

truce in 1914, in parts of Flanders, had spread and remained permanent, but the British High Command

was furious that it was happening, and ordered the British artillery to open fire on „ No-man‟s-land‟, where

the fraternisation was taking place, forcing the men to run back to their own trenches for cover.

Fraternisation took place between the opposing armies. It began on Christmas Eve with the German

soldiers singing the Christmas carol „Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht‟ (Silent Night Holy Night), and the British

troops replied with an English carol. Then there were shouts from the Germans of “Come over here” and

later of “You come half -way – I come half-way.” At first there was understandable suspicion that it was atrick, but eventually the Germans climbed out of their trenches, unarmed and walked into no-man‟s land,

the British soldiers then did the same. There was hand shaking and talking, (many Germans spoke

English), then they buried their dead.

9. Cover of a special issue of

The Graphic, 1914

© Mary Evans Picture Library


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Afterwards they exchanged gifts, shared food, photographs were taken, more carol singing, and a football

match was played. The truce spread approximately 15 kilometres north of Armentières, and 20 kilometres

south of that town. News of the truce first broke in America, for the English press boycotted the event.

Then it was front page news in England too, first in the Daily Sketch on 6 January 1915, then in several

other British papers two days later. Some British officers were disciplined for taking part in the Christmas

Truce. This celebration of the human spirit, and the hopes it manifested that day was recorded in the final

verse of „A Carol from Flanders‟ by the Scottish war poet, Frederick Niven.

―O ye who read this truthful rime

From Flanders, kneel and say:

God speed the time when every day

Shall be as Christmas Day.‖

10. „The Light of Peace in the Trenches on Christmas

Eve‟ A German soldier opens the spontaneous truce by approachingthe British lines with a small Christmas tree.‟ (original caption)

9-1-1915

©. Mary Evans Picture Library

11. A Memory of a Christmas 1914“Look at this bloke‟s buttons, „arry, I should recon‟e „as a

maid to dress „em.” from Bullet and Billets, B. Bairnsfather.1916

Author‟s collection


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12. From the London Illustrated News 9th January 1915. Drawing by A. C. Michael.

The caption reads: British and German soldiers arm-in-arm and exchanging headgear: A Christmas Truce between opposing trenches. Saxons and

Anglo-Saxons fraternising on the field of battle at the season of peace and goodwill. Officers and men from the German and British trenches meet and

greet one another - one German officer photographing a group of foes and friends together.

©. Mary Evans Picture Library

The Official War Diaries of the 1st Battalion the Worcestershire Regiment recorded:

―Dec 25th (Christmas day) Marched back to B lines trench about 5 pm No firing during relief

at all. The 2nd Northamptonshire‘s had arranged an unofficial armistice with the Germans

till 12 midnight, which we also kept. There was a certain amount of shouting remarks between

the Germans and ourselves, and the Germans sang English and German songs most of the

night which were applauded by our men. In spite of the armistice our sentries were kept on

alert as much as usual. Dec 26th Practically no firing on either side all day. Our artillery

fired a few rounds during the morning‖.

Unit War Diaries 1914-1922 W0 95/1723/1, © The National Archives, Kew Surrey.

“Good- bye My Old Friend” was the original title of what became known as “Good- bye old Man”,

(ill. 14) and was one of a series of „man‟s best friend‟ war pictures, which became one of the most

popular images of the war. I was fascinated by this picture, when, as a teenager, I first saw a

monochrome print of it in the Railway Inn public house, Station Road in my village.


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14. “Goodbye My Old Friend” by Fortunino Matania,

Although this picture started life as an illustration for The Tatler and Sphere, on 24-6-1916, it was alsoused in a poster for an American charity, and became known as “ Good- bye, Old Man”

© Mary Evans Picture Library

Charles Masterman was appointed Director of Propaganda, with a brief to supply war propaganda

for both home and abroad. The idea of employing trained artists as official war artists originated

with Masterman. By1916 it was felt that pictures were needed to enliven the propaganda text, and

to create memorable images.

The use of cartoonists and illustrators was mooted, and Bruce Bairnsfather‟s immortal cartoon

character „Old Bill‟ was by then well known and loved. (ills. 92 to 101). However, Masterman was

determined that trained artists should be used. So the idea of the Official War Artists scheme

eventually came into operation in 1916, and from February 1917 they came under the control of the

Department of Information, with John Buchan at its head. Buchan made no claims to be

knowledgeable about art, but supported all of Masterman‟s proposals.


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15. At Neuve Chapelle Your Friends Need You Be a Man.

Frank Brangwyn 1915 Auto-Lithograph, 101 x 63 cm.

Recruiting poster.

By kind permission of David Brangwyn

There were ninety-one official war artists in total, and in July 1916 Muirhead Bone became the first,

with the honorary rank of Second Lieutenant in the army. Not all official war artists were given

honorary commissions, but most were eyewitnesses to battles or their immediate aftermath. There

were also soldier artists whose work was bought by various government departments. Of all the war

artists, official or otherwise, it was those who had taken part in the fighting in the trenches on the

Western Front, or were eye witnesses to the fighting, who produced the most powerful images of

the slaughter and destruction of that war.

images of the great war

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