MUNITIONS WORKS
(An Uncensored Letter)
I cannot sleep at night, my lad,
I’m easier waking too,
While you are fighting far away
There’s work for wives to do.
And oh! If all the shells were filled
And every job well done,
If men and guns could all be served
Till every trench was won.
If Victory came in sight at last –
With peace an afterthought –
And reckoning could be made in Hell
For all the havoc wrought;
If through the tranquil future years
The night brought sleep to me,
If darkness held no hidden fears
And our child played at your knee;
I wonder- could our fire of love
Burn with a clearer light,
Than it burns with you at the guns, my lad
And with me at the works tonight.
Theodora Corrin
One aspect of women’s munitions work that does not appear in their poetry is the number of women who were killed or severely injured in accidents and disasters in factories. There are only two poetic hints of such disasters: one is the line in ‘Munitions Wages’ about being blown to the sky; two of the ten verses in ‘Ten Little Dornock Girls’, published in Dornock Souvenir Magazine 1919, also hint at calamities while the other eight verses allude more to factory tensions.
‘Seven little Dornock girls did some N/G mix
One was overcome with fumes,
And then there were six.
…
Three little Dornock girls went to work quite new
The Acid fumes did smother one,
And then there were two.’
Editor’s Note: N/G nitro-glycerine a heavy, colourless, oily, explosive liquid used as an active ingredient in the manufacture of explosives.
The precise numbers of fatalities among female munitions workers are shrouded in mystery. As recorded in Hansard, in February 1919, John Davison MP for Smethwick asked James Hope MP, Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions, about the ‘number of employees in His Majesty’s munitions factories killed, and the number injured since August, 1914, what number of each section were men and what number women.’ The Honourable Gentleman confessed that he did not know. A very conservative estimate would suggest that fatalities alone run into the many hundreds and the numbers of those who suffered life-changing injuries, or even Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, following horrific explosions are equally shrouded in mystery.
Conclusion: ‘What of Pierrette?’
The Great War is often considered to have been the first Total War. According to the Oxford Dictionary the term ‘Home Front’ was coined during the conflict and it was here that the majority of women remained. Although they never left the comparative safety of their own shores, their poetry reveals how the War informed every aspect of their lives. From the moment they bade a heartbreaking farewell to their beloved serviceman, either at the station or, as some preferred, in the privacy of their own home, he was constantly in their thoughts.
An intimate way of showing love to one’s own or indeed another woman’s beloved was to knit. By knitting one could weave love and luck into every stitch. Knitting created a community and it could also keep unbearable thoughts at bay. Yet, knitting was also part of the war effort. Peacetime uniform suppliers simply could not keep up with the armies’ insatiable need for socks and battalions of knitters were mobilised. This was unglamorous work but above all essential and knitters knew that without their efforts the sufferings of the men in trenches and in tented hospitals would have been even greater. The thousands of knitting poems bear witness to the value that both the women and the army placed upon their work.
If knitting was quintessentially feminine, so too was placing food on the table. Queuing for food, battles with shopkeepers, railing against governmental edicts and finding ways of supplementing provisions by growing one’s own, became an integral part of women’s wartime experiences. This part, almost unmentioned in the historiography of the First World War, like every aspect of women’s lives, also found its way into verse.
By 1915, ammunition was running dangerously low. A new army of women was needed and a fresh call went out. But this one was more controversial. If knitting and putting food on the table were essentially feminine activities, manufacturing the weapons of destruction seemed to fly in the face of accepted womanly behaviour. To compound the controversy, some even dared to admit that factory work was an improvement on skivvying. Other poets take a more fatalistic attitude. Munitions poems show women’s acceptance that life in the factory could be short; like soldiers, factory workers were mere cogs in the machinery of this Great European War for Civilisation. Yet, irrespective of the controversies surrounding women’s munitions work, she ‘at her lathe’, just like ‘he at the front’, made possible the Allied Victory in 1918.
Munitions poetry, knitting poems and those relating to bidding farewell give an insight into lives irrevocably changed by the fateful shot that rang out in a distant Bosnian town on 28 June 1914.
Chapter 2
The Power of the Cross:
Religion in Women’s Poetry
In 1914, the majority of Britons were, at least nominally, Christian: about 30 million citizens considered themselves Anglican, with significant numbers also adhering to Roman Catholic or Non-Conformist Christian doctrines. Widespread attendance at church or Sunday school, hymn-singing in school assemblies, daily prayers and readings from religious texts meant almost everyone had some knowledge of the Bible. The church’s annual festivals punctuated the year and biblical references and allusions were widely understood, offering comfort in times of personal and national stress.
For those subscribing to the Anglican doctrine, one of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England enshrined during the reign of Elizabeth I, confirmed that, despite being founded by the Prince of Peace, ‘it is lawful for Christian men at the commandment of the magistrate to wear weapons and serve in the wars.’ Although Christ is often referred to as ‘The Prince of Peace’, military service has been considered a legitimate Christian activity since the fourth century of the Christian Era, when the Roman Emperor Constantine had a vision of the Cross inscribed with the words ‘By this symbol you will conquer’.
After the mid-nineteenth century Crimean War, hymns using military language – even if they spoke of a battle between Good and Evil as opposed to armies, had gained in popularity, culminating in 1865 with ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ (originally written to be sung by children). Yet, despite these religious undertones, early twentieth century life had become increasingly secularised; amongst the poorer classes, disenchantment with religion had set in and even the ostensibly faithful had relatively little time for religion.
Immediately following the declaration of war, the highest ecclesiastic authorities reassured the faithful that this was a Holy War waged against the forces of evil. In the pre-war years, churchmen had denounced the nation as indolent, oblivious to the teachings of Jesus Christ. Now, through the actions of her sons who would march to war under the banner of the Church Militant, and the selflessness of her daughters, who could show their love and compassion for suffering humanity by offering their services to the Red Cross, national redemption was at hand. Thousands of laypeople and clerics hoped that some form of religious revival would sweep across a newly purified Britain which, by the end of the War, would be a truly Christian land.
The ‘religious revival’ in women’s war poetry
From August 1914, church attendance rose amongst all denominations, with churchgoers seeking both solace and reassurance from religious leaders that the nation’s cause was just and God was on their side. Ideas of former indifference and a wartime return to religion are summed up in what became the War’s most widely anthologised poem.
CHRIST IN FLANDERS
; We had forgotten You, or very nearly —
You did not seem to touch us very nearly—
Of course we thought about You now and then;
Especially in any time of trouble —
We knew that You were good in time of trouble –
But we are very ordinary men.
And there were always other things to think of —
There’s lots of things a man has got to think of—
His work, his home, his pleasure, and his wife;
And so we only thought of You on Sunday —
Sometimes, perhaps, not even on a Sunday —
Because there’s always lots to fill one’s life.
And, all the while, in street or lane or byway
In country lane, in city street, or byway —
You walked among us, and we did not see.
Your feet were bleeding as You walked our pavements —
How did we miss Your footprints on our pavements? —
Can there be other folk as blind as we?
Now we remember; over here in Flanders —
(It isn’t strange to think of You in Flanders) —
This hideous warfare seems to make things clear.
We never thought about You much in England —
But now that we are far away from England,
We have no doubts, we know that You are here.
You helped us pass the jest along the trenches —
Where, in cold blood, we waited in the trenches —
You touched its ribaldry and made it fine.
You stood beside us in our pain and weakness —
We’re glad to think You understand our weakness —
Somehow it seems to help us not to whine.
We think about You kneeling in the Garden —
Ah! God! the agony of that dread Garden —
We know You prayed for us upon the cross.
If anything could make us glad to bear it —
‘Twould be the knowledge that You willed to bear it —
Pain — death — the uttermost of human loss.
Though we forgot You — You will not forget us —
We feel so sure that You will not forget us —
But stay with us until this dream is past.
And so we ask for courage, strength, and pardon —
Especially, I think, we ask for pardon —
And that You’ll stand beside us to the last.
L W [Lucy Whitmell]
Inspired partly by the well-established female tradition of hymn-writing, many women wrote and published poems that either resemble or were composed as hymns. The Saturday Westminster Gazette frequently proposed poetry competitions to its readers. One category which attracted many entries requested ‘suitable hymnodic poems for this time of conflict’. A number of the entries were highly bellicose. However, the joint winner was:
AN EVENING HYMN IN TIME OF WAR
In this sad-time when war clouds skim our sky,
Sun, moon and stars no light of hope afford;
From out the gloom we raise to Thee our cry,
Lighten our darkness we beseech Thee, Lord.
To all who nobly perish in the fight,
Grant thine eternal peace, their soul’s reward,
For those who sacrifice health, limbs or sight,
Lighten their darkness, we beseech Thee Lord.
Protect all helpless victims of the strife,
Comfort the hearts bereaved by fire and sword,
And make us brave in facing death or Life
Lighten our darkness we beseech thee Lord.
Mrs Hamilton-Fellowes
From the day hostilities were declared, a number of women had been unashamedly anti-war. Unsurprisingly, overtly pacifist women poets also discovered in Christianity a suitable theme for their despair – and they found publishers willing to publish their work.
WAR BETWEEN CHRISTIANS
The seamless robe of Christ is rent asunder
Once more; the guns His thrice-reiterant prayer
(“That they may all be one”*) mock everywhere;
The Cross stands shamed; the very heathen wonder.
Great is our land indeed, our cause yet greater.
But Law, not War, should right the Christian’s wrong!
Did we but feign to echo Bethlehem’s song.
Or yields the early Gospel to a later?
Is it His own who compass His dethroning?
To that sharp crown of Christ so meekly worn
Add we, called Christians, yet another thorn?
Was then for this, but this, His blood atoning?
O Teuton! hating so thy brother Briton,
O Briton! hating him, unto the death.
Forbear! for ye are both of Nazareth;
For both, Love’s law was sealed and signed and written.
A great Light bear we to the lands yet darkened:
Through us, the bearers, shall it flicker and fall
“Of one blood have I made the nations all” —
O Lord! the word is Thine, but who hath hearkened?
[Editor: See John xvii. 11, 21 and 22]
S Gertrude Ford
‘She wears no weapon of attack’: Nurses and poetry
From the very beginning, nurses, be they professionals or volunteers, saw at first-hand the result of this ‘war between Christians’. Some accepted that it was Holy, others vehemently denied this construction. Professional army nurses left for the Front within days of war being declared. Members of the Voluntary Aid Detachments (VAD) and those who held Red Cross Nursing Certificates were quick to offer their services, initially for home duties. A relatively small number eventually served in Base or General Hospitals overseas, although never in Casualty Clearing Stations.
Belief in the nobility and sanctity of nursing service was widespread and reinforced by the religious emblem emblazoned on the aprons of those working under the aegis of the British Red Cross. VAD leaders were keen to remind women of their high calling. On her departure from England, every volunteer was given a copy of a prayer written by Rachel Crowdy, the VAD Commandant in France and Belgium, which overtly connected the Cross borne by Christ with the Red Cross on the volunteers’ aprons. Another early VAD leader, Margaret Ampthill, reminded women, ‘Every VAD member wears on her uniform a cross which for 1900 years has been the emblem of an ideal life; and you have therefore to uphold that standard.’ Though a few were cynical, one going so far as to pen, ‘Fat Chance!’ in the margin of her copy, many took the admonition to heart.
Yet, the realities of military nursing were more complex than simply living an ideal life. The primary aim of military medical services is to patch a man up so that he can return to active service. American Nurse Margaret Helen Florine RN from San Francisco is one of a very small number of poets who may be questioning this aspect of a nurse’s role, asking whether the successful fulfilment of her duty simply meant that a man was given another chance to kill or be killed.
TO A RED CROSS NURSE
You’re as great as any hero,
In the bloody strife,
He can give unto his country
But one sacred life.
You, if faithful to your trust,
Send back to satisfy the lust,
A hundred who, when cause is just
Will follow drum and fife!
The hundred you return to fight
Have suffered, bled, faced death and when
They know that they are in the right
Are worth two hundred men.
Margaret Helen Florine RN
Perhaps because confronting the part they are playing in returning a man to fight poses uncomfortable questions, most nurses prefer to praise their patients’ steadfastness. Although VAD Eva Dobell edges towards questioning the part she and her colleagues are playing, nevertheless she pulls back from pushing the thought to its final, logical conclusion.
PLUCK
Crippled for life at sevente
en,
His great eyes seems to question why:
With both legs smashed it might have been
Better in that grim trench to die
Than drag maimed years out helplessly.
A child – so wasted and so white,
He told a lie to get his way,
To march, a man with men, and fight
While other boys are still at play.
A gallant lie your heart will say.
So broke with pain, he shrinks in dread
To see the ‘dresser’ drawing near;
And winds the clothes about his head
That none may see his heart-sick fear.
His shaking, strangled sobs you hear.
But when the dreaded moment’s there
He’ll face us all, a soldier yet,
Watch his bared wounds with unmoved air,
(Though tell-tale lashes still are wet),
And smoke his Woodbine cigarette.
Eva Dobell
[Editor: ‘Dressings’ were the most dreaded part of the day for patients and nursing personnel. In this pre-antibiotics era, in an attempt to avoid gas gangrene, wounds had to be disinfected, often twice daily, with powerful antiseptics such as iodine and carbolic, a frequently agonising procedure which both parties knew would have to be repeated in a few short hours. Often seen as ‘nerve-soothers’, cigarettes were frequently given to wounded soldiers and smoking in the wards and during dressings was commonplace.]
The First Geneva Convention of 1864 stated that, regardless of which side he had fought on: ‘if a member of the armed forces is wounded or sick, and therefore in no condition to take an active part in the hostilities, he is no longer part of the fighting force and becomes a vulnerable person in need of protection and care.’ Furthermore, irrespective of their status, all medical personnel, hospitals and ambulances were neutral. In this poem, found in a Scrapbook of Poems on the Great European War, the neutrality of nurses is singled out for praise in pseudo-religious language.
THE RED CROSS NURSE
She is in the foremost battle she is in the rearmost tent,
She wears no weapon of attack no armour of defence,
She is braver than the bravest, she is truer than the true,
She asks not if the soldier struck for red and white and blue,
She asks not if he fell beneath the yellow and the red;
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