WAR BOOKS

Otago Witness, Issue 3996, 14 October 1930, Page 9

WAR BOOKS

By Lieut'-col. G. S. Hutchison, D. 5.0., M.C.

("'Graham Seton,” author of “The W Plan.”)

Before any writer dares to write, he should remember that human nature at all its points is frail. Men who have suffered the anguish of wounds, the torments of thirst and privation, the horror of bombardment, the bitterness of imprisonment, the gall of disease, the dread of the unknown, who have suffered the shock of being uprooted from the English countryside and have incurred all the anxiety of domestic distu are ill equipped to come under a censorship, nor will they be tolerant of those whose perception cannot pierce the dirt and vulgarity with which war camouflages the abstract virtues, the sum total of which is British character.

I write with some authority as a soldier, for I served with the infantry from 1914 till the Armistice. I have lived with Germans both before and since the war, and was always more interested in my profession than in “ poodle-faking,” and in the amusements of private soldiers than in pirouetting before ladies, with blushing boots and shining spurs, at any of those clubs which are a distinctive feature of official life abroad.

No true perspective of the Great War, in itself so vast and varied, can be obtained within a narrow field of reading. In what lies truth; in what mere sensationalism; what to choose; where to begin—these problems must indeed be perplexing. I possess a library of nearly every book published concerning the Western Front. I say with all the emphasis at my command that most of them contain glaring inaccuracies and are grossly misleading. Some, obviously pandering to sensationalism, have sought to secure for their authors the rich royalties of a best seller; others are the neurotic outpourings of people who seem to be at war with themselves and to be offering am apologia in remorse for four years of an ill-spent life.

•' War is not a clean business, nor can you make it so by camouflaging it with a literary gloss. It is better otherwise. Nor do I think that, however gruesome may be the tales, war novels will deter men from taking up arms in defence of a threat to exterminate their cultural institutions. Men whose belief travel beyond the finality of life on this planet will fight on behalf of those institutions, so that, as propaganda, war novels fail.

Kipling, abused by some pacifists, succeeded in imbuing me as a youngster in India with a frank admiration for the Afghani—his magnificent physique, courage, resource, and gay humour —and when I hunted with him in his hills, that admiration became affection.

War literature can be more.or less divided into three categories: first, pure fiction, like “ Bretherton,” or that parody of modern war, Montague’s “ Right Off the Map,” both thrilling stories. Second, history and sheer reporting. There are an immense number of these, including regimental and divisional histories, some of which, published privately for subscribers, excel all other works in the simplicity of their narrative, the fidelity of their descriptionwhile, throughout, their reading is proof that British racial character, whether of the town or of the countryside, nobly upheld the traditions of our race. In this category I will select several of those which have been prominently before the public. In “ Good-bye to All That,” Robert Graves paints a picture which in its war chapters is as truthful and vivid as anything written. Let me commend “ Storm of Steel,” by Ernst Junger, a young German officer who fought on the British front: this is sheer reporting and it gripped me as no other German war story has done. In “ It’s a Great War ” Mary Lee is in reminiscent mood, but how I struggled through 690 pages of such deadly drivel I do not know. I suppose the author gave them their money's worth in quantity, for the book shared a £5OOO prize. Benstead’s “ Retreat,” a sketch, seems true —I wish it were not —and the author breathes his sincerity through every page: although a work of fiction I decline to believe that it is not also reporting. Under the cowardly title, “ God Have Mercy on Us,” one Scanlon apparently shares the prize with Mary Lee, but, thank heaven, he confines himself to 300 pages.

Not long ago, having lived a full century of an active military life, a man who was a general died in bed, both honoured and loved. Mr C. Y. Harrison would have us believe that the vigorous young men who. commanded brigades in France died in the same place. Though honoured by many, trusted by more, and loved by few, a high proportion of British generals were killed on the»bat tiefield. For the rest his story is an exaggeration of a minor scandal at Arras. “ Generals Die in Bed ” is sensational nonsense. Williamson’s “ Patriot’s Progress ” is worth looking at especially for its lino-cuts, quite extraordinarily descriptive and beautiful. Supreme above all books written is Edmund Blunden’s “ Undertones of War,” an epic which I predict will outlive every other book in the English, language concerning the period 1914-1918. The poem “ Third Ypres ” is perhaps the

most moving,, the most dramatic, the most atmospheric thing ever written about war in any age. “ The Red Knight of Germany ” is a vivid story of a unique character. In days when aviation is uppermost in the public mind, and haring regard to the fact that if there is another war it will certainly be fought largely in the air, this story of the world’s master aviator should be in. everyone’s library list. It is tremendously exciting. What possible service General Crozier imagines he is rendering to his fellowmen or to posterity, or to his late comrades, if they would call him so, by his publication, “ A Brass Hat In No-Man’s Land,” passes my comprehension. The bombast of this author, who illustrates his work with photographs of himself, disgusts me even more than the telling of rechauffe trench stories with all the authority of a first witness. I deny absolutely his contention that we fought the war on “ booze,” and that our soldiers and girls who undertook military service spent their time and expended their virtue in sensual practices.

In the division in which I served, drink except for rare medicinal purposes was--made taboo. “ A Subaltern’s War,” by Charles Edmonds, is not only brilliant, concise reporting, but this lad, with clear eyes, saw what a Brass Hat could not.

Among all these books, I choose also for comment Conan Doyle’s “ British Campaigns in Europe, 1914-18.” It is a very faithful picture of the last war depicted on a wide canvas, yet embodying thousands of cameos of detailed descriptions of-gallant actions, told with all the graphic power of this master writer.

And third on our list comes that almost innumerable and very diverse collection of works which, written as fiction, purport to be- a psychological examination of the soldier’s mind in Flanders. It is a popular pastime to abuse the staff. I never witnesed a champagne party or a picnic. Aly gen erals were -insatiably curious, almost greedy also of their share of danger. They were badgered incessantly by poll ticians desirous of diversions and of victories; but even the politicians, with but a hazy idea of world geography and racial customs, feared fresh alliances and moves in the world battle, so the Western Front became their whippingboy; and the P. 8.1. felt the lash all the time. I readily concede that to the staff and to the politicians.

I was never a staff officer and hold no brief for those in funk-holes at the, base who filched the medals from the fighting forces; but many writers have most unfairly chosen the staff upon which to vent their spleen. Men in Battle,” by an Austrian, Latzko, with its stupendous European circulation, is an example. The work is filled with crass sentiment, but the author has a gift of description and a translator almost unequalled. “ Sergeant Grischa ” is an attack upon the imbecility of the staff. It is a pity that a story so finely told —its last chapter can only be described as tremendous—should have as its theme a tilt at military bureaucracy. I knowmany German officers. And, for ex-: ample, General Von Seeckt, himself an author and philosopher of high reputation, would deny that this book is any true reflection of conditions prevailing

in the German army. And this is true, too, of “ All Quiet on the Western Front.” I think the book both vile and degrading, certain of its more suggestive

tales being manufactured in the interest of sensationalism, and this is a view shared by every German officer and soldier with whom I have discussed it.

“ Zero Hour,” by Grabenhorst, possesses much merit from a psychological standpoint, but its author perpetually irritates me. “ What a fine fellow am I,” says he, and then delivers himself as a. Pharisee did in regard to a publican. C. E. Montague, especially in his “ Fiery Particles,” with a rare and delightful pen has contributed some of the best war sketches. “Rough Justice” shows a keen insight, and in the dexterity of his “ Particles ” the author fully succeeds in making the reader experience again fear of the unknown and the atmosphere of wet Flanders fields.

A recent publication is called “Not So Quiet.” There is a film of the same name, whose promoters had the ill taste to flood the streets with sandwichmen dressed in the khaki of the war. The police intervened, and I wish they had powers to detain the author of this maudlin hysterical nonsense. “ WAAC,” whose author apparently wants the royalties without incurring the censorship of publicity and veils her name behind’ anonymity, is only fit for the sewage of literature and is not sufficiently inviting to commend itself even to the prurient. No. woman has yet given us a war book worthy of the service of her sex.

“ Journey’s End,”' within the obvious limitations of the stage, is a perfect picture of an hour or more somewhere on the Western Front, though within my experience the chief character is much overdrawn. The beauty of this play lies in the portrayal of Raleigh and Osborne, faithful reproductions from any battai-, ion on any part of the British front.’ After the play, the novel disappointed me. Philip Gibbs, now years ago,, in his “ Reality of War ” gave us a book which,>, though equalled, has not been excelled. And I turn from Philip Gibbs to the military impossibility of “Suspense,” with its overdrawn characters purporting

to be the truth, but in fact wild fiction. At the theatre I wanted to stand up and shout, “ Make a raid instead of swilling rum! . . . Countermine! ” But these

puppets played funk, mitigated by rum, for hours in a situation where British soldiers would have followed the suggestion which an appreciation of fine acting prevented me from shouting from my stall.

Richard Aldington’s “Death of a Hero ” is magnificent in some of its passages, and I like “War is War” because there is a whimsicality in its pages. “ Her Privates We ” tells of war in all its stark realism. If I have any criticism to offer of “ Undertones of War ” it is that in the very virtue of his prose, Blunden loses perhaps a little of Ins atmosphere, but in “ Her Privates We ” Frederick Maiming has conceded nothing to fine phrases or to the dexterous craftsmanship of poetry and prose, of both of which he is a master.

From America I have seen nothing except Hemingway’s book of the Italian Frontier, which is worthy of the part, though small, played by the American soldier. I served for some mouths with an American division, and I say frankly that the American effort has not been served well by its writers. From France, on the other hand, there are two superb books: Barbusse’s “Le Feu” and “Les Croix de Bois,” by Dorgeles.

I must not forget Tomlinson’s “ Ail Our Yesterdays,” though, like “ Grey Dawn, Red Night,” its ambit gives little of battle, murder, and sudden death; and I would think they are largely biographical and therefore reporting. There is also “ Peter Jackson,” a bookfilled with quality, tenderness, and fine writing, the best thing which Gilbert Frankau has ever done.

War may be degrading, but it did not degrader I knew generals whom no chateau could tempt, no security decoy, who could win a battle in the morning and help Belgian farmers stack their corn at eventide; and I knew thousands of .privates who, whether formerly miners,, clerks, labourers, or shop assistants, rose above dirt indescribable, and showed themselves to be filled with the high qualities of self-sacrifice, which essential virtue is the very foundation of the Christian faith.

The human mind does not change with its outer covering; and you may find a N.C.O. as a gaffer in a mine or as works foreman, and a general as a managing director, mostly good, some bad. Most men who served could recollect a case of rape, one of cowardice, another of shooting for desertion in the face of the enemy, a memory of a brutal N.C.0., of an unpleasant general, and of a politician and a profiteer who preferred the debauch of a night club to- the quiet dignity of English public life. Such recollections, penned by anyone with an elementary flair for language, would make a book of character and importance equal to many which have been published. But a. truthful picture of the war for posterity can lie found —British soldiers in sodden Flanders-fields beneath the scourge of “ trommel feuer ”; horse men riding shoulder to shoulder at dawn at Bazentine; Australians in the frozen slime of Ypres; South Africans in the carnage of Delville Wood; Canadians breasting the ridge at Vimy; men from the-blue haze of an English countryside wrestling with death in the Hindenburg Line; bare-legged boys from shingled coves playing in the pools of Somme; town Lads strutting the streets of Amiens; old soldiers, Contemptibles, with insatiable good humour ; and men who as youths knew only Haig’s final drive; those who gripped hands at Zero hour and those who fell in the mud and dust and rose no more; these are the true heroes of war stories, and you will find them living well, noble in death, in the fiction which I have dared to recommend.

If I had to choose seven books which, ail of them, are different in atmosphere, in viewpoint, which treat of various subjects and both in characterisation and in literary style possess little in common with each other, I would select seven ;

incomparably better than the rest. I have chosen these carefully so that in the fullness of time my child may judge for himself at least how his father weathered the European storm. Here are the titles: “Undertones of War,” “Good-bye to All That,” “Her Privates We,” “The Storm of Steel,” “British Campaigns in Europe IIH4-1918,” “Realities of War,” and “ Sixty four Ninety four.” This latter, part of the “ Spanish Farm Trilogy,” by Mottram, I find it difficult. to place, either as bio-

graphy, reporting, or pure fiction, but certainly 1 place it among the first seven. But I would also like my boy to read two collections of letters: first those of a hoy killed in 1915, Gillespie’s “ Letters from Flanders,” and thereafter Colonel Fielding’s “ Letters to his Wife.” There were many such commanding officers as was this pattern of a cultured Englishman. I cannot imagine who were the drunken brutes at whose hands men like Sir John Ervine and other writers of eminence suffered, and I can only suppose that in their service they ' were singularly unfortunate. I know of many commanding officers, and this is my war experience that all their devotion, their zeal, their physical and mental resources were surrendered to those whom they were privileged to command; they emptied their purses to help a widow

or to reinforce a lad going on leave, and, cheerfully, too, threw away their lives in some hopeless cause as at Passchendaele, fruitlessly, as an example of the quality of leadership and of the essential quality of sacrifice. An author owes something to posterity, and this especially so when he writes of a whole generation, largely lost—--1,089,919 of them—who now possess no support or defence other than the shrines and memorials which stand in our cities and villages as an inspiration to those who were not called upon to suffer the supreme sacrifice.

“They were a wall unto us by night and day.”—John o’ London’s Weekly.