Great Britain’s Great War

[mhurst]

I have just finished reading Jeremy Paxman’s “Great Britain’s Great War”, his history of the conflict experienced by the people of Britain as a whole, both on the front line and those left at home. I have read others of Mr. Paxman’s books and found them to be well written and well researched (his book about the English was particularly illuminating), and his latest one can be added to that list.

Mr. Paxman states that his impetus for writing was on hearing a secondary school teacher set a homework essay to answer the question: “How does Wilfred Owen show us the futility of war?” which he says demonstrates an easy, shared assumption that all war is pointless. His rebuttal includes the observation that the same feelings weren’t expressed about war in 1939, and reasons that the only way to understand the First World War is to comprehend why so many people at the time thought it unavoidable, and even necessary.

There were many who didn’t answer the initial call for volunteers, and some who were conscientious objectors when conscription was finally introduced, but the vast majority of the country was behind the war from the start, increasingly so as the casualty figures mounted rapidly, and people needed to believe that their loved ones hadn’t died in vain. Mr. Paxman opines that there had to be more behind it all than Wilfred Owen’s ‘old Lie’ about dying for one’s country, and he explores the many motives behind support for the war by the bulk of the population.

Apart from the ferocity of the fighting and the unprecedented number of casualties, one of the features of the war which set it apart from preceding ones was the importance of the media, especially newspapers, although films came to play an ever increasing role. Lord Northcliffe comes over as the villain of the piece, shaping public opinion and even playing a significant part in changing governments. One almost feels a sense of come-uppance when he is finally abandoned by Lloyd George soon after the war, as having served his purpose.

There is a most interesting chapter on the men at the ‘sharp end’, and how they managed to keep fighting in such appalling conditions, with the ever present threat of violent death, and why, alone among the armies of the main combatants, there were no serious mutinies in the British army. His conclusion, not original, but worth repeating, is that most ordinary soldiers may have fought for a variety of reasons – a sense of duty, patriotism, fear of punishment, valiant leadership, revenge – but the overriding motive was that they didn’t want to let their friends down; if they refused to fight or go on a dangerous patrol, it meant that someone else would have to do it. Mr. Paxman comes to the conclusion that ‘in their sheer dogged readiness to endure fear and personal suffering for the sake of one another, there is something enormously admirable about them’, and it’s difficult to disagree with that conclusion.

The great changes wrought in civilian life are well described – a greatly increased female work force, the growing domination of the state in nearly all aspects of life, for instance. The inevitable consequences of industrial warfare are disturbingly demonstrated in the descriptions of the appalling injuries that some men suffered as a result of shell fire. Their survival was a constant reminder to the civilian population of what war really meant, even if most of the badly injured did their best to shun a normal life.

The most poignant chapter concerns Mr. Paxman’s great-uncle Charlie, who served with a Field Ambulance unit at Gallipoli, and was killed there very soon after wading ashore at Suvla Bay. His family never knew exactly what happened to him, but the author has managed to piece together the closest account that can be made from this distance – it must have been painful research work.

There are sharp pen-portraits of the leading British players: Asquith, Kitchener, Lloyd George, French and Haig, but the voices of the ordinary soldiers and civilians are heard regularly through diary entries, letters and newspaper articles. The horrors of life in the trenches are described briefly, but sufficiently vividly to give an idea of the contrast between what the soldiers endured and how that life was regarded back in Britain.

Mr. Paxman has provided a succinct and thoughtful one-volume history of the war, both at the front and at home. I have not read any of the many other such histories, but I doubt whether this could be bettered. His final comments on the war are particularly interesting.

The author returns to the prevailing twentieth century view of the war as being pointless, which initially inspired his writing, and asks why so many men joined up to fight in such a terrible war, to which the answer is, of course, that they didn’t – the war was meant to be short and sharp – and neither did the generals initially know how to fight such a new type of war. To the question of why did Britain keep on fighting after its true nature was all too apparent, comes the answer that opposition could only have emerged in the sort of country that Britain became after the war. Previously, the now outmoded sentiments of patriotism and a sense of duty – of honour, even – were sufficient to maintain the flow of munitions, keep the trenches manned and continue the attacks despite the appalling losses.

On the oft-debated question of whether Britain could have kept out of the war, Mr. Paxman supposes that it could, but this would have had dire economic consequences for the country with a Europe now dominated by Germany. The problem was that to stand aside would have been against the British people’s idea of who they were and what their country stood for. He says that even now it is hard to imagine a British government ignoring a treaty that threatens another nation’s integrity – a lesson, perhaps, for statesmen not to ‘write cheques’ they cannot honour themselves.

His final judgement is surprise that the war’s enduring legacy has been its futility, considering its far-reaching effects on twentieth-century history. Instead, he sees it as a punctuation point in British history – when the British accepted that what lay ahead of them would never be as grand as the past.

Those who might be inclined to pass up Mr. Paxman’s book because he is not an accepted historian would be doing him a disservice, and depriving themselves of a fascinating read.

[mandy hall]

I picked up a copy for £5.00 at the weekend in WH Smiths. After the above review it may make the top of the pile a bit quicker.

Mandy

[Wigwhammer]

Thanks for the review.

I've looked at this book a couple of times on Waterstone but couldn't make up my mind whether it would just be a run-of-the-mill cashing-in on the anniversary, but now I think I'll give it a try.

Cheers

Colin

[kenf48]

If you watched the television series http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=205519&hl=%20jeremy%20%20paxman you may, as I did, find the book a bit repetitive, if not then I suppose the review is fair enough but as an introduction to the war as discussed in the thread on the TV programme a rather narrow focus, although not surprising given the title.

Ken