Part 1 (1/2)

The Soul of the War.

by Philip Gibbs, et al.

Introduction

This book is a companion book to another book by Philip Gibbs that is already in the Project Gutenberg library, namely _Now It Can Be Told_[1].

Together, both books const.i.tute the war-time memoirs of British war-correspondent Philip Gibbs, one of the few officially accredited journalists allowed on the British sector of the Western front. He covered the war from beginning to end. _The Soul of the War_ is the first part of his memoirs, published in 1915, _Now It Can Be Told_ is the second part, but published immediately after the war. Taken together, both books are amongst the most important and influential books published in English during the Great War, being in no small part responsible for the emergence of the ”Lost Generation” myth of the 1920's.

A pre-war best-selling author and journalist, Philip Gibbs was one of the most outstanding British war-time reporters and writers. Like many reporters in the opening months of the war, Philip Gibbs and his companions seemed to posses the knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, following armies across northern France in the vain hope of being on hand to witness battle. He never really succeeded during the first year, aside from joining a British volunteer ambulance service on the Ypres front in late 1914. But while other reporters unashamedly spruced up their reporting, dramatizing and glorifying small insignificant incidents and pa.s.sing occurrences of no import, Gibbs knew how to talk to soldiers coming from or going to the front lines, how to convey their thoughts and fears and vividly describe their battle experiences. Gibbs was a very serious writer, and extremely proficient at his trade. He knew how to get to the essence of things, to describe the feel of the times, the general att.i.tude, and the hopes and fears of both fighting men and civilians. Not only is this voluminous book a brilliantly written commentary on the opening months of the war, it is also infused with an inner sadness that could well be considered a precursor to the post-war ”lost generation” myth, which is yet another indicator at how well Gibbs could gage the feel of the times and a.s.sess its impact on future developments in society.

In this first book of his, he tells of his wanderings during the first year of the war, as he tried (in vain) to witness the fighting in France. His observations, descriptions and opinions are however well worth reading; they are accurate, insightful and to the point. He gives detailed descriptions of both British and French soldiers and includes an incredibly atmospheric portrait of Paris during the opening months of the war as well as a moving account of his time spent with the British Field Hospital in Furnes. After being arrested in 1915 on general principle by the British authorities as a nuisance and potential loose-lipped journalist, he was afterwards appointed one of the few officially accredited journalists attached to the British forces on the Western front. Thereafter Gibbs continued filing dispatches till the end of hostilities. His writing is heartily sympathetic to the common soldier and war-time refugees, but quite critical to those in power. After the war he was knighted for his valuable patriotic services and enjoyed a distinguished career as novelist and writer.

He served yet again as accredited reporter during the opening months of the Second World War, being billeted in the same areas in France as during the Great War. After the evacuation of the BEF in 1940 he remained in Great Britain. His son followed in his footsteps, taking up the profession of war reporter for the British press.

Anthony Langley

[1] Now It Can Be Told, by Philip Gibbs, is Project Gutenberg E-book #3317, nicbt10.txt and nicb10.zip. See ing closer to him at every tick. His little home, his household goods, the daily routine of his toil for the worldly rewards of life, his paltry jealousies of next-door neighbours are dwarfed to insignificance. They no longer matter, for the judgment of G.o.d is at hand. The smugness of his self-complacency, his life-long hypocrisy in the s.h.i.+rking of truth, are broken up. He feels naked, and afraid, clinging only to the hope that he may yet have time to build up a new character, to acquire new spiritual strength, and to do some of the things he has left undone--if only he had his time over again!--before the enemy comes to grips with him in a final bout.

That, with less simplicity and self-consciousness, was the spirit of England in those few swift days which followed the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, and Germany's challenge to France and Russia. At least in some such way one might express the mentality of the governing, official, political, and so-called intellectual cla.s.ses of the nation who could read between the lines of diplomatic dispatches, and saw, clearly enough, the shadow of Death creeping across the fields of Europe and heard the m.u.f.fled beating of his drum.

Some of our public men and politicians must have spent tortured days and nights in those last days of July. They, too, like the sinner at the mission service, must have seen the judgment of G.o.d approaching them. Of what, avail now were their worldly ambitions and their jealousies? They too had been smug in their self- complacency, hypocrites, s.h.i.+rkers of truth and stirrers up of strife, careless of consequences. If only they could have their time over again! Great G.o.d! was this war with Germany an unavoidable horror, or, if the worst came, was there still time to cleanse the nation of its rottenness, to close up its divisions and to be ready for the frightful conflict?

2

All things were changed in England in a day or two. The things that had mattered no longer mattered. The Arming of Ulster and the Nationalists, Votes for Women, Easier Divorce, the Craze for Night Clubs--had any of these questions any meaning now? A truce was called by the men who had been inflaming the people's pa.s.sion to the point of civil war. The differences of political parties seemed futile and idiotic now that the nation itself might be put to the uttermost test of endurance by the greatest military power in Europe. In fear, as well as with a n.o.bler desire to rise out of the slough of the old folly of life, the leaders of the nation abandoned then-feuds. Out of the past voices called to them. Their blood thrilled to old sentiments and old traditions which had seemed to belong to the lumber-room of history, with the moth-eaten garments of their ancestors. There were no longer Liberals or Conservatives or Socialists, but only Englishmen, Scotsmen, Irishmen and Welshmen, with the old instincts of race and with the old fighting qualities which in the past they had used against each other. Before the common menace they closed up their ranks.

3

Yet there was no blood-l.u.s.t in England, during those days of July.

None of the old Jingo spirit which had inflamed great crowds before the Boer War was visible now or found expression. Among people of thoughtfulness there was a kind of dazed incredibility that this war would really happen, and at the back of this unbelief a tragic foreboding and a kind of shame--a foreboding that secret forces were at work for war, utterly beyond the control of European democracies who desired to live in peace, and a shame that civilization itself, all the ideals and intellectual activities and democratic progress of modern Europe, would be thrust back into the primitive barbarities of war, with its wholesale, senseless slaughter, its bayonet slas.h.i.+ngs and disembowellings--”heroic charges” as they are called by the journalists--and its gospel of hatred. So humanity was still beastlike, as twenty centuries ago, and the message of Christianity was still unheard? Socialistic theories, Hague conventions, the progress of intelligence in modern democracy had failed utterly, and once again, if this war came upon the world, not by the will of simple peoples, but by the international intrigues of European diplomats, the pride of a military caste and the greed of political tradesmen, the fields of Europe would be drenched with the blood of our best manhood and Death would make an unnatural harvesting. Could nothing stop this b.l.o.o.d.y business?

4

I think the Middle Cla.s.ses in England--the plain men and women who do not belong to intellectual cliques or professional politics--were stupefied by the swift development of the international ”situation,” as it was called in the newspapers, before the actual declarations of war which followed with a series of thunder-claps heralding a universal tempest. Was it true then that Germany had a deadly enmity against us, and warlike ambitions which would make a shambles of Europe?

Or was it still only newspaper talk, to provide sensations for the breakfast table? How could they tell, these plain, ignorant men who had always wanted straightforward facts?

For years the newspaper press of England had been divided over Germany's ambitions, precisely as, according to their political colour, they had been divided over Tariff Reform or Home Rule for Ireland.