A Broken World: Letters, Diaries and Memories of the Great War

by Sebastian Faulks

  Ox’s Cross,

  BRAUNTON,

  N. DEVON

  Dear Watkins

  The fact is, I lived, and smouldered, to write my 1914–18 world since 1919: planned to start in 1929; found myself encumbered; went to settle family cars etc on a farm in 1937, still horribly frustrated; saw it all come again & finally broke down (1945) – to retire here to this hut with its flaming open hearth and find myself lonely & ‘finished’. By 1949 life had changed and thenceforward it was all write write write, seven days a week and often all Xmas Day – for 13 years on end, when my mainstay, the bride of 1949, broke & left & all was to do again with little or nothing left to do. And in the period of 13 years I ‘held the Great War in the hollow of (my) hand’, as George D. Painter wrote to me – and then it was over & done with. Gone back into limbo. So I have really nothing left to say – like (one supposes) Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, and others of the hosts of the (articulate) soldiers of that time when the lyric perished on the Somme, leaving a waste land to the scholars who never knew the Western front, that great lurid wound stretching from the sands of Belgium’s coast to the Alps – never ceasing to weep from gangrenous dawn to those sunsets of the Salient with the [the next word is unclear] of pus and blood.

  I am past it – all lies within covers of the five novels – there ain’t no more left to say – but the happy release of Xmas Day 1914 might just be possible – & the little-known details –

  From, Henry Williamson.

  I shall be up on 1 Nov for a 1914 Old Comrades dinner – the few survivors of the London battalion I served with as a rifleman in the autumn of that year, in the 4th Division. HW

  A. A. LONG was a sergeant in the Royal Engineers. Below is an excerpt from a long letter he wrote to his wife on 3 March 1919 while on active service, in which he describes an automobile tour he took of the battlefields in Belgium and Northern France.

  We decided to push on to the region occupied by the Germans in their attacks on Ypres, and made for the Zonnebeke road. Never shall I forget the sight on getting well clear of Ypres. As mentioned before, the country here was quite flat & typical of this part of Flanders. A wide belt of land stretched for miles north & south with not a single whole tree left standing, not a building to be seen – desolation & barrenness on every hand – yet with every evidence of the awful struggles which must have taken place. We halted about half way between Ypres & Zonnebeke & walked over some of the ground where desperate fights had gone on. Judging from the appearance of the place it is inconceivable that any man could possibly have come through alive. Evidently this particular spot had been occupied at different times by both British & German troops – the way the defences faced showed this. Barbed wire entanglements, twisted cut about by shrapnel, are still there, whilst one comes across more or less wrecked German ‘pill-boxes’ showing that our gunners had done their work well. Smashed dug-outs (filthsome holes) in plenty, and destroyed trenches are, of course, to [be] seen all round. We have heard repeatedly of the mud of low-lying Flanders. It must be seen for one to realise fully what it is like. Even now, long after the churning of it has ceased, one has to pick one’s way very carefully to avoid sinking to the tops of one’s boots in the greasy stuff. It is impossible to conceive how men managed to exist in the waterlogged trenches and the muddy reeking dug-outs, under fire all the while. Three bent & battered tanks were lying derelict nearby & I climbed into one which had had half one side blown off. The steel is twisted all shapes, but of course it must have been subjected to shelling for a long time after being disabled. The litter of a modern battlefield is lying all about – broken rifles, bayonets, hand-grenades – still dangerous, stick-bombs, shell cases, unexploded (‘dud’, as they are called) shells – those I saw being mostly German & all pointing towards Ypres – helmets, boots, equipment, &c. &c. everywhere, the latter suggestive of some tragic happening to the owner. In one place a complete soldier’s pack left behind told its own story. Human bones were lying about the shell holes. Protruding from the side of one shell hole the rims of two steel German helmets were visible. One of our fellows pulled one helmet out & that had a story of its own. The crown had a long deep dent evidently caused by a piece of shell which had penetrated the steel & must have killed the wearer instantly. What struck the onlooker most I think was the manner in which the ground has been cut up by the shells. The shell holes just here were literally edge to edge, & one had to make one’s way along the ‘rims’. Ordered trenches & pathways were completely obliterated, whilst further afield were tremendous holes (now filled with water, making sizeable ponds) suggestive of mine craters. And amongst all this confusion I came across one of the first signs of spring – a piece of henbit in blossom & this made me think of you & home in our beautiful Bassett, & Lord’s Wood.

  We did not need to stop here long, for what we saw in a limited area was typical of the rest of the open battlefields. We returned to the car & had lunch which we had brought with us, afterwards continuing our journey through the old lines occupied by the enemy. We soon reached the spot where the village of Zonnebeke once stood – now a heap of rubble. Thence we went on a road along part of the famous Passchendaele Ridge and leading (as the map indicated) to Becalaere. This place was distinguished by the name on a board, all other evidence of a village having stood there being completely absent! We were now well in the German area & signs of Fritz’s hasty retirement began to appear everywhere. Stacks of unused shells, rifle & machine gun ammunition, were left on the road sides, heaps of war material of all sorts laid about – while here & there stood a smashed gun – & in one case he had abandoned a steam road roller – this last being unable to travel fast enough!

  Saddest of all were the crosses we passed which were scattered about the fields in ones & twos &, occasionally, a small group of four or more in an out-of-the-way corner. All signified hasty burial, some our own men, others German soldiers. On one cross was scrawled ‘2 unknown soldiers’! Several crosses were lying about anyhow – these, if originally marking graves, had been blown from the spot they were intended to mark. I only noticed one cemetery which had been knocked about by shells & this one had suffered badly, the headstones &c. being scattered about the place.

  Parties of Chinese & German Prisoners were met now & again, these, although not working at the time, being engaged on clearing the battlefields. This will be a slow process & will take years to complete – the whole area being so huge & the work involved enormous.

  […]

  I cannot say I enjoyed the trip, for the sights, to me, were too fraught with tragedy. I could not look upon the devastation & chaotic condition of the countryside without thinking of all the slaughter & bitter suffering resulting from the awful events which had occurred in the area visited. And one is forced to reflect that man has indeed sunk very low to use his superior intellect in fashioning means of dealing death and destruction all round. All this in an enlightened age – and to what purpose? Man is indeed a refined savage, and war is a hideous spectre born of the devil. If this war is the last and the world becomes the better for it – well and good; if not, God help the world!

  KURT TUCHOLSKY (1890–1935) was a journalist, satirist and social critic, born in Berlin. He studied law at university, and was conscripted into the German army in 1915. He served on the Eastern Front and by the end of the war had become a pacifist. ‘The White Spots’ (‘Die Flecke’), reprinted in full below, was published in 1919. In 1933 his books were amongst those burnt by the National Socialist Party in front of Berlin University. He emigrated to Sweden in 1929, where, entering a profound depression and suffering from ill-health, he committed suicide on 21 December 1935.

  In the Dorotheenstrasse in Berlin stands a building that was formerly the Military Academy. At a man’s height there is a granite border that runs around the house, slab after slab.

  These slabs look peculiar: they have white spots; the brown granite is light in many places – what can it be?

  White spots, is that
what they are? They ought to be reddish ones. This is where the German casualty lists were posted in the ‘great’ years.

  This is where those terrible sheets of paper were posted, new ones almost everyday, those endless lists with names, names, names… I own a copy of Number One of these documents; on it the military units are still carefully noted, there are a few dead on this first list; Number One was very brief. I don’t know how many more appeared after it – but there were well over a thousand. Name after name – and each time it meant that a human life had been snuffed out or that a human being was ‘missing’, crossed out for the time being, or wounded, or maimed.

  That’s where they were posted, where these white spots are now. Hundreds of silent people crowded around them, people who had their dearest ones out there and who were trembling that they might read one name among all the thousands. What did they care about all the Müllers and Schulzes and Lehmanns who appeared on these lists! Let thousands upon thousands perish – as long as he wasn’t among them. And it was on this mentality that the war battened. And it was because of this mentality that it could go on like this for four long years. Had we all risen – all as one man – who knows how long it would have lasted.

  People have said that I don’t know the way a German can die; I know it well enough. But I also know how a German woman can weep – and I know how she weeps today, now that she slowly, excruciatingly slowly, realises what her man has died for. What he has died for…

  Am I rubbing salt on wounds? I should like to burn the celestial fire into wounds. I should like to cry out to the mourners: He died for nothing, for a madness, for nothing, nothing, nothing!

  In the course of the years these white spots will gradually be washed away by the rain and disappear. But those other spots cannot be effaced. There are traces engraved on our hearts that will not go away. And each time I pass the Military Academy, with its brown granite and white spots, I silently say to myself: Promise it to yourself. Make a vow. Be active. Work. Tell the people. Liberate them from national madness, you, with your small power. You owe it to the dead. The white spots cry out. Do you hear them? They cry: No more wars!

  C. BRUCE TABERNER served as a corporal on the Ypres Front in 1917. On 15 October 1963 he replied to the BBC’s call for memories of the First World War. Taberner sent an anecdote, entitled ‘The Fir Cone’.

  Shelled shocked on the Ypres front in August 1917 – and spending some time in the hospital at Etaples – in the same ward was an Australian who had lost his memory due to shell shock and his speech was affected. One day the sister asked me would I care to take this Australian for a stroll in the grounds. I did – and he took my hand like a child of three – it was pitiable to see him – a big six foot of a man. As we strolled along the path he suddenly stopped – looked down and picked up a large fir cone. He handled it carefully – and I’m sure he was reminded of a hand grenade because he threw it overarm like a bowler – and then he ducked. I retrieved the cone and put it in my pocket – and still holding my hand we returned to the hospital. Later he was specially interviewed by doctors – along with others – but what happened I never knew – all I do know is that when he returned to the ward he was a new man – lively – jolly with his memory restored. I still have that fir cone – mounted at home – and although this is a vivid memory after 46 years it was an experience that touched me with compassion at the time. And I sometimes wonder if that fir cone had a bearing in bringing back his memory – who knows.

  G. C. CLENCH served in the Navy as an Engine Room Artificer. In response to the BBC’s call for memories from the war, he sent the following letter and an account of another disaster he witnessed in Scapa Flow that was printed in the Daily Herald thirty years earlier, as part of the series ‘The War Story I Shall Tell My Son’.

  G. C. CLENCH H.M. NAVY

  ENGINE ROOM ARTIFICER (M1558)

  NORTH SEA MAINLY

  BATTLE SHIP H.M.S. CONQUEROR

  AUG 4th – NOV 11th 1918

  Usk

  Mon.

  8th Aug 1963

  Dear Sirs,

  Ten years from now I am making probably my last trip to North Scotland for a fortnight, to see if any vestige is left of the ill fated H.M.S. ‘Natal’ at Invergordon, sunk by internal explosion at Nigg Bay, nr. Invergordon, during Christmas week in 1915.

  I date this event by the fact that vivid memories of my being there and witnessing this event were caused by near tragedy to my own ship a few weeks earlier on a vile black night at sea in the Pentland Firth. The Grand Fleet were returning from North Sea patrol to base at Scapa, during the night, in frightful weather and my ship collided with the stern of the next ahead, tearing a hole 90 ft long & 11 ft wide, back from our starboard bow under the water line and another hole of similar dimensions above the water line. We were very much down in the bows and a very lame duck when we finally dropped anchor in Scapa.

  Temporary repairs at Scapa, then the 90 odd miles to Invergordon, where we were hoisted by the floating dock before proceeding a few weeks later to Birkenhead for the major repair work.

  While undergoing emergency repairs in the floating dock at Invergordon one afternoon, perambulating the deck high above water level with clear vision down Cromarty Firth towards the North Sea. At approx 3.30 p.m. I saw a great sheet of flame blast from the side of H.M.S. ‘Natal’ – the masts canted over as the stricken cruiser heeled over and sank, leaving but a small portion of the hull just visible. Later a steel superstructure, sufficient to carry a beacon warning light was fitted, as if to remind us of what could happen to us at any time, a constant reminder each time we entered or left Cromarty Firth.

  The ‘Natal’ blazed out at 3.30 p.m. If memory gives my facts aright – at 3 p.m. a large party of children left that ship after having a Xmas party aboard. It was also said at the time that six women, still aboard, perished in the disaster. Facts I cannot substantiate but records surely could.

  In conclusion. I am hoping for a clear day at Scrabster or John-o-Groats to view the Pentland Firth, the Orkneys, where there is no trace of H.M.S. ‘Vanguard’ – no marker buoy exists of the second and greater disaster that occurred – that I too was forced to see. A last visit to the Pier (if still there) at Invergordon, where in 1916, I last shook hands with my brother, before each of us left for our respective ships two days before Jutland – he to his death on H.M.S. ‘Defence’ – myself to survival for, to date, another 47 years. Why? Perhaps partly for this. To jog some people’s memories of little known events of the Great War and the untimely end of those who were uselessly blasted to eternity on:-

  H. M. Ships ‘Bulwark’ at Chatham

  ‘Natal’ at Invergordon

  ‘Vanguard’ Scapa Flow

  Yours Faithfully

  G. C. Clench

  P. S. I enclose first account published in 1933 as published by ‘Daily Herald’, of the end of ‘H. M. Vanguard’ which may or may not interest your department. I wish no monetary gain from what I have been able to say, contending that it is a ‘must’ as far as I am concerned and if details are lacking – I have been as brief as possible, for I am still a busy and active man at 69.

  No acknowledgement is called for or required.

  G C

  WEDNESDAY, DAILY HERALD

  NOVEMBER 8, 1933

  THE WAR STORY I SHALL TELL MY SON

  Blown Up – With a Thousand Men Aboard

  Our readers’ war memories are bringing to light some of the little known, or totally suppressed, episodes of the war.

  To-day’s £1 prize winner is one of them. It is from G. C. C., of Usk, Monmouth, and is as follows: –

  A glorious summer’s night, completing the day’s regatta of a battle squadron, the water calm and placid, the Grand Fleet lying grim – at anchor in Scapa Flow.

  Coming on deck for a breather before retiring below, I was struck with the peace of it all – yet we were at war.

  Turning down the after gangway, I had reached the bottom step, when
the air was torn asunder by a terrific explosion, and our ship seemed to be heeling over.

  Gathering my scattered senses, I turned and ran on deck, endeavouring to find out what happened.

  A few cables’ length away the air and sea were aflame, and what a second before had been the proud battleship Vanguard was nowhere to be seen.

  Flaming cordite was dropping through the sky, crackling and hissing like giant fireworks as it struck the water and fizzled out. On the water where she should have been, burning oil fuel and wreckage added further to this indescribable scene of horror.

  That night of war in Scapa claimed nearly a thousand men and two million pounds’ worth of man’s labour in one second on its rapacious altar.

  Are the nation’s magazines going to blow up again with the same senseless futility as those of H.M.S. Vanguard?

  BOND OF SACRIFICE In 1917 the National War Museum (now the Imperial War Museum) released an invitation for relatives of officers who had fallen in the war to send a photograph and biographical details relevant to their military service. These would be printed in a publication entitled ‘Bond of Sacrifice’. The Museum also organised a much broader and longer-lasting initiative, under the same title, which sought to collect photographs of other ranks and women. Below are some responses to both requests.

  24 July 1917

  ‘WE WANT YOUR PHOTOGRAPH.’

  The National War Museum having been established by order of the Cabinet, the Committee are most anxious to collect Portraits of Officers and will be very grateful if these may be sent unmounted with a short note giving name, Rank, date of Commission, Decorations and other details of interest.

  Photographs should be sent to the Secretary, National War Museum, H.M. Office of Works, S.W. 1.

  1st August, 1918

  Dear Madam,

  I am directed by the Committee of the Imperial War Museum to thank you very heartily for sending to us the photograph of your son, 2nd Lieut. E. R. Leary, together with the short typed memoir.