The Missing of the Somme
Page 15
Stallworthy, Jon, Wilfred Owen, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1974.
Symons, Julian (ed.), The Essential Wyndham Lewis, André Deutsch, 1989.
Taylor, A. J. P., The First World War, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1966.
Terraine, John, The First World War 1914–18, Macmillan, 1984.
Viney, Nigel, Images of Wartime, David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1991.
Virilio, Paul, War and Cinema, trans. Patrick Camiller, Verso, 1989.
Warner, Philip, Field Marshal Earl Haig, Bodley Head, 1991.
Whelan, Richard, Robert Capa: A Biography, Faber, 1985.
Williamson, Henry, Wet Flanders Plain, Gliddon, Norwich, 1989.
Wilson, Trevor, The Myriad Faces of War, Polity, Cambridge, 1986.
Winter, Denis, Death’s Men, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1979.
Winter, Denis, Haig’s Command, Viking, 1991.
Wolff, Leon, In Flanders Fields, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1979.
Young, James E., The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1993.
ANTHOLOGIES
Fussell, Paul, The Bloody Game, Scribners, 1991.
Gardner, Brian, Up the Line to Death, revised edn, Methuen, 1976.
Glover, Jon, and Silkin, Jon, The Penguin Book of First World War Prose, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1989.
Macdonald, Lyn, 1914–1918: Voices and Images from the Great War, Michael Joseph, 1988.
Silkin, Jon, The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry, 2nd edn, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1981.
Stallworthy, Jon, The Oxford Book of War Poetry, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988.
Vansittart, Peter, Voices from the Great War, Cape, 1981.
* * *
UPDATE TO THE BIBLIOGRAPHY
There has been a resurgence of interest in the First World War since The Missing of the Somme came out in 1994. I have read only a fraction of the many books published since then, but recommend the following.
Arthur, Max (ed.), Forgotten Voices of the Great War, Ebury Press, London, 2002.
Bourke, Joanna, Dismembering the Male: Men’s Bodies, Britain and the Great War, Reaktion, London, 1996.
Davis, Wade, Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest, Bodley Head, London, 2011.
Englund, Peter, The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War, Profile, London, 2011.
Fergusson, Niall, The Pity of War, Allen Lane, London, 1998.
Hochschild, Adam, To End All Wars: How the First World War Divided Britain, Macmillan, London, 2011.
Keegan, John, The First World War, Hutchinson, London, 1998.
Stamp, Gavin, The Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, Profile, London, 2006.
Stevenson, David, 1914-1918: The History of the First World War, Allen Lane, London, 2004.
Stone, Norman, WW1: A Short History, Allen Lane, London, 2007.
Winter, Jay, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my friends Paul Bonaventura, Chris Mitchell and Mark Hayhurst for reading an early draft of the manuscript and making many useful suggestions. (I am especially indebted to Mark whose quick reactions prevented us from getting killed – thanks to Paul’s reckless driving – in Flanders.)
I am grateful to the editors of Esquire, the Independent, the Observer and New Statesman & Society for giving me space to try out draft versions of some of these pages; also to Patrick Early for the opportunity to lecture (in Belgrade of all places) on Wilfred Owen – and to David Punter for his helpful response to that lecture.
Thanks also to Ian Watson in Paris for encouragment and provocative suggestions, to Jeremy Young for his photographs, to Jane Pugh for the loan of an album of pictures, and to Xandra Hardie, Charles Drazin and Alexandra Pringle.
An award from the Kay Blundell Trust enabled me to complete the manuscript.
My ongoing debt to John Berger is too extensive to be adequately acknowledged here.
INDEX
Adair, Gilbert ref1, ref2
Adorno, Theodor ref1
Minima Moralia ref1
Aldington, Richard
Death of a Hero ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4n, ref5
Allward, Walter
Vimy Ridge Memorial ref1, ref2
Amundsen, Roald ref1
Anderson, Benedict ref1, ref2
Angel, John
Exeter Memorial ref1
Armistice Day (anniversaries) ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6
Asquith, Cynthia ref1
Attenborough, Richard ref1
Auden, W.H. ref1, ref2
‘Spain’ ref1
Baker, Herbert ref1
Barbusse, Henri ref1
Under Fire ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5
War Diary ref1
Barker, Pat
The Eye in the Door ref1
Regeneration ref1
Barlach, Ernst ref1
Barthes, Roland ref1
Battle of the Somme, The (film) ref1, ref2
Bean, Charles, ref1
Berger, John ref1, ref2, ref3
Binyon, Laurence ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
‘For the Fallen’ ref1
Blomfield, Reginald ref1
Menin Gate Memorial ref1
Blunden, Edmund ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7
‘1916 seen from 1921’ ref1
Undertones of War ref1n
Blythe, Ronald ref1
Bowers, Henry ref1
British Legion, The ref1, ref2
Brittain, Vera ref1
Brodsky, Joseph ref1, ref2, ref3
Brooke, Rupert ref1
Brueghel, Pieter
The Parable of the Blind ref1
Bryant, Arthur ref1
Camus, Albert ref1, ref2
Capa, Robert ref1
Carrington, Charles ref1
cemeteries ref1, ref2
Bailleulmont ref1
Blighty Valley ref1
Caterpillar Valley ref1
Connaught ref1
Crucifix Corner ref1, ref2
Langemark ref1
Notre Dame de Lorette ref1
Owl Trench ref1
Railway Hollow ref1
Redan Ridge ref1, ref2
Thiepval ref1, ref2
Tyne Cot ref1, ref2
Cenotaph (Lutyens) ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8n, ref9
Chapman, Guy
A Passionate Prodigality ref1
Church Crafts League ref1n
Clark, Philip Lindsey
Southwark Memorial ref1
Clemesha, Frederick Chapman
Canadian Memorial at St Julien ref1
Constantine, David ref1
Cornhill Magazine ref1
Cummings, E.E. ref1n
Dorgeles, Raymond
Wooden Crosses ref1
Eliot, T.S ref1, ref2
The Waste Land ref1
Faulkner, William ref1
Faulks, Sebastian
Birdsong ref1, ref2
Findley, Timothy ref1
The Wars ref1, ref2
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Tender is the Night ref1
Foot, Michael ref1n
French, John ref1
Friedrich, Caspar David
Abbey Under Oak Trees ref1
The Monk by the Sea ref1
Fussell, Paul ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7
The Bloody Game ref1
The Great War and Modern Memory ref1, ref2
Gauquié, H. (Chipilly Memorial) ref1
Graham, Stephen ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
The Challenge of the Dead ref1, ref2
Graves, Robert ref1, ref2
Goodbye to All That ref1n, ref2
Griffith, D.W. ref1
Gurney, Ivor ref1, ref2
Severn and Somme ref1
H
aig, Douglas ref1, ref2, ref3n, ref4, ref5
Hardy, Thomas ref1
The Dynasts ref1
Harris, Arthur (‘Bomber’) ref1
Hemingway, Ernest ref1
A Farewell to Arms ref1n, ref2, ref3
Hess, Rudolf ref1
Hibberd, Dominic ref1, ref2
Hill, Susan ref1, ref2
Strange Meeting ref1, ref2, ref3
Hiscock, Eric
The Bells of Hell Go Ting-a-ling-a-ling ref1
Hitler, Adolf ref1
Huizinga, Johan ref1
Huntford, Roland ref1
Hynes, Samuel
Imperial War Graves Commission ref1
Ingham, A ref1
Isherwood, Christopher ref1, ref2
Jagger, Charles Sargeant ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5
Hoylake and West Kirby Memorial ref1
Labour ref1
No Man’s Land ref1
Paddington Memorial ref1
Portsmouth Memorial ref1, ref2
Royal Artillery Memorial ref1
‘Wipers’ ref1
John, William Goscombe ref1
Port Sunlight Memorial ref1
Johnstone, Philip
‘High Wood’ ref1
Jones, David ref1
Junger, Ernst
Storm of Steel ref1n
Keats, John ref1
Kennington, Edward ref1
Kipling, Rudyard ref1, ref2
‘The Gardner’ ref1
‘Recessional’ ref1
Klee, Paul ref1
Kollwitz, Käthe ref1
Korner, Karl Theodor ref1
Larkin, Philip ref1, ref2
Last Post, The ref1, ref2
Lawrence, D. H. ref1, ref2
Ledward, Gilbert ref1
Guards Division Memorial ref1
Lehmbruck, Willhelm
The Fallen ref1
Head of a Thinker ref1
Lewis, C. Day ref1, ref2
Lewis, Wyndham ref1, ref2, ref3
Littlewood, Joan ref1
Lloyd George, David ref1, ref2
Lutyens, Edwin ref1, ref2, ref3
Cenotaph ref1
Memorial to the Missing of the Somme (Thiepval) ref1
McCarthy, Cormac
All the Pretty Horses ref1n
Macdonald, Lyn ref1, ref2, ref3
1914 ref1
1914: Voices from the Great War ref1
Somme ref1
They Called it Passchendaele ref1, ref2
Macmillan, Harold ref1
Manning, Frederic
The Middle Parts of Fortune (or Her Private We) ref1n, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5
Marsden, Walter ref1
St Anne’s on Sea Memorial ref1
Masefield, John ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
memorials ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13
Bradford ref1
Cenotaph (Lutyens) ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8n, ref9
Chipilly (Gaugié) ref1
Croydon (Montford) ref1
Elland ref1
Exeter (Angel) ref1
Flers (Toft) ref1
Huntingdon (Scott) ref1
Keighley ref1
Menin Gate at Ypres (Blomfield) ref1, ref2
Newfoundland Park ref1, ref2
Paddington (Jagger) ref1
Port Sunlight (John) ref1
Portsmouth (Jagger) ref1, ref2
Royal Artillery (Jagger) ref1
St Anne’s on Sea (Marsden) ref1
St Julien (Clemesha) ref1
Sheffield (in the Somme) ref1
Southwark Memorial (Clark) ref1
Stalybridge ref1
Streatham ref1
Thiepval (Lutyens) ref1, ref2
Vimy Ridge (Allward) ref1, ref2
Montford, P.J.
Croydon Memorial ref1
Moore, Henry ref1n
Morris, William
The Well at the World’s End ref1
Mosse, George ref1, ref2n
Mottram, R.H. ref1
The Spanish Farm Trilogy ref1
Musil, Robert ref1
Nash, Paul ref1
Neizvestny, Ernst
Soldier being Bayoneted ref1
Newfoundland Memorial Park ref1, ref2
Oates, Titus ref1
Oh What a Lovely War ref1
Ondaatje, Michael
The English Patient ref1, ref2
Orwell, George (Eric Blair) ref1
O’Sullivan, T. H. ref1n
Owen, Wilfred ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15, ref16, ref17, ref18, ref19, ref20, ref21
‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ ref1, ref2, ref3
‘Apologia pro Poemate Meo’ ref1, ref2
‘Disabled’ ref1, ref2
‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6
‘Futility’ ref1, ref2
‘Greater Love’ ref1
‘Hospital Barge’ ref1
‘Insensibility’ ref1
‘Mental Cases’ ref1
‘Miners’ ref1, ref2
‘The Next War’ ref1
‘The Send-off’ ref1
‘The Sentry’ ref1
‘The Show’ ref1
‘Song of Songs’ ref1
Paddington Memorial (Jagger) ref1
Parker, Peter
The Old Lie ref1, ref2
Passos, John Dos
USA ref1n
Pétain, Henri Philippe ref1
Picasso, Pablo
Guernica ref1
Plumer, Herbert ref1, ref2
Porter, Peter ref1
Pound, Ezra ref1
Read, Herbert
In Retreat ref1n
Remarque, Erich Maria
All Quiet on the Western Front ref1n, ref2, ref3
Remembrance Day ref1, ref2, ref3n, ref4
Rider-Rider, William ref1
Rimbaud, Isabelle ref1
Rivers, W.H.R. ref1
Robbins, Keith ref1
Rosenberg, Issac ref1
Rouad, Jean
Fields of Glory ref1, ref2, ref3
Royal Academy, The ref1n
Royal Artillery Memorial (Jagger) ref1
Sagar, Keith ref1
Sandburg, Carl
‘Grass’ ref1
Sandle, Michael
A Twentieth-Century Memorial ref1
Sargent, John Singer
Gassed ref1, ref2
Sassoon, Siegfried ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15, ref16, ref17, ref18, ref19, ref20, ref21, ref22, ref23, ref24
‘Aftermath’ ref1
The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston ref1
Counter-Attack ref1
‘Dreamers’ ref1
Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man ref1n
Memoirs of an Infantry Officer ref1n
‘On Passing the New Menin Officer’ ref1
‘The Road to Ruin’ ref1
‘An Unveiling’ ref1
Scannell, Vernon ref1
‘The Great War’ ref1, ref2
‘Walking Wounded’ ref1
Scarry, Elaine ref1
Scott, Kathleen ref1
Scott, Robert Falcon ref1
Shelley, Percy B. ref1
Simpson, Louis ref1
Sorley, Charles ref1
Speer, Albert ref1
Spender, Stephen ref1
Stallworthy, Jon ref1, ref2, ref3n
Tagore, Rabindranath ref1
Tavernier, Bertrand
Life and Nothing But ref1n, ref2n, ref3
Taylor, A.J.P ref1, ref2
Terraine, John ref1
Toft, Albert ref1
Holborn Memorial ref1
Tonks, Henry ref1
Toynbee, Philip ref1, ref2
Two Minutes’ Silence ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Unknown Warrior
(or Soldier) ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6
Updike, John ref1
Vimy Ridge Memorial (Allward) ref1, ref2
Viney, Nigel
Images of Wartime ref1
Ware, Fabian ref1
Williamson, Henry ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Wilson, Edward ref1
Wilson, Trevor
The Myriad Faces of War ref1
Winter, Denis ref1, ref2
Death’s Men ref1, ref2
Wolff, Leon
In Flanders Fields ref1, ref2, ref3
Wordsworth, William ref1
World at War, The (TV series) ref1
Yeats, W.B.
The Oxford Book of Modern Verse ref1
Young, James E. ref1, ref2
Zadkine, Ossip
Monument to Rotterdam ref1
A NOTE ON THE TYPE
Goudy Old Style was designed by Frederic W. Goudy, an American type designer, in 1915. It is a graceful, slightly eccentric typeface, and is prized by book designers for its elegance and readability.
Inspired by William Morris’ Arts and Crafts movement, Frederic Goudy designed over ninety typefaces throughout his career, and is one of the most influential type designers of the twentieth century.
ENDNOTES
1. As early as 1915 the Church Crafts League was making ‘a special effort to direct the pious intentions of bereaved relatives into the proper channels’. On 8 January 1916 the Civic Arts Association held a conference on how best to ensure that the dead were suitably remembered. Six months later the same association organized ‘An Exhibition of Designs for War Memorials’. In the same year the Royal Academy set up a committee of influential architects and sculptors to offer guidance on the aesthetics of remembrance. The following June various public bodies met at the Royal Academy ‘to secure combined instead of isolated efforts in erecting memorials and to protect churches and public buildings from unsuitable treatment in setting up monuments of the war’.
2. Until 1917 the Imperial War Graves Commission was known as the Graves Registration Commission; in 1960 it became the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
3. Bertrand’s words are echoed by those of an actual French soldier, Sergeant Marc Boassoan, who wrote to his wife in a letter of July 1916: ‘What kind of a nation will they make of us tomorrow, these exhausted creatures, emptied of blood, emptied of thought, crushed by superhuman fatigue?’
4. The anaesthetized solemnity of this process of selection is savagely undermined by John Dos Passos in Nineteen Nineteen, the second volume of his USA trilogy:
In the tarpaper morgue at Châlons-sur-Marne in the reek of chloride of lime and the dead, they picked out the pine box that held all that was left of
enie menie minie moe plenty other pine boxes stacked up there containing what they’d scraped up of Richard Roe
and other person or persons unknown. Only one can go. How did they pick John Doe?