[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
the foundation of the Myth which has been summarized by
Samuel Hynes as follows:
goodbye to all that, 1919--1933 49
the idealism betrayed; the early high-mindedness that
turned in mid-war to bitterness and cynicism; the growing
feeling among soldiers of alienation from the people at
home for whom they were fighting; the rising resentment
of politicians and profiteers and ignorant, patriotic
women; the growing sympathy for the men on the other
side, betrayed in the same ways and suffering the same
hardships; the emerging sense of the war as a machine and
of all soldiers as its victims; the bitter conviction that the
men in the trenches fought for no cause, in a war that
could not be stopped.40
Moreover, where military historians had struggled with
little success to present the conflict in an intellectual frame-
work and a language which would appeal to a readership
inclined to say goodbye to all that , Winston Churchill
and, more especially, Lloyd George had published power-
ful, scintillating, and seemingly authoritative Memoirs sad-
dling the generals with the chief responsibility for the in-
competent conduct of the war and the enormous butcher s
bill. These notions, which I would term the literary myth
and the political myth, would excite the attention of a new
generation in a very different military, social and cultural
atmosphere in the 1960s. This will form the subject of my
third chapter.
3 Donkeys and Flanders mud
the war rediscovered in the 1960s
My thesis in this chapter is that at the end of the twentieth
century popular notions of the First World War in gen-
eral, and Britain s role in particular, were largely shaped
in the 1960s, in part reflecting the very different concerns
and political issues of that turbulent decade, but in part
resurrecting anti-war beliefs of the 1930s.
At the risk of over-simplification and distortion, these
are some of the main events that provide the context in
which a new generation was introduced to the history of the
First World War. There was, first and foremost, a pervasive
fear of all-out nuclear war which is hard to imagine now.
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and its annual
Aldermaston march reached a peakof popularity and media
attention in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Cuban
missile crisis in 1962 provided hard evidence that the world
had teetered on the brinkof annihilation. National service
was ended in 1960 so the last conscripts had left the armed
forces by 1963. Thus ended a system of compulsory service,
reintroduced in 1939, by which the majority of the male
51
52 the unquiet western front
population for good or ill at the very least had some
familiarity with the realities of military life. By the end
of the decade this was ceasing to be so, and the gap has
necessarily grown ever wider. Not that unfamiliarity with
army life has entailed a diminishing interest in military
history, in fact quite the contrary.
The 1960s were also notable for the emergence of an in-
dependent youth culture and of much greater freedom in
sexual matters. Already, in 1957, the Wolfenden Committee
had reported in favour of legalizing homosexual relations
between consenting adults in private, while in 1960 the out-
come of the Lady Chatterley trial heralded a new and more
liberal era for the publication and discussion of formerly
taboo topics. As Philip Larkin would wistfully recall in
his poem Annus Mirabilis :
Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(Which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles first LP.1
This year (1963) was also that of the Profumo scandal,
in which the Secretary of State for War had consorted
with expensive call-girls whose circle included Stephen
Ward, a society osteopath, and Captain Eugene Ivanov,
naval attaché at the Russian Embassy. This affair had all
the ingredients to titillate the popular press: sleaze and
hypocrisy in the Tory Party and high society with the
possibility of espionage. John Profumo s political career
was ruined and Stephen Ward committed suicide, whereas
Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice Davies became celebri-
ties. As Arthur Marwickcommented:
It also provided a magnificent peg upon which to hang
denunciations of Britain s moral decadence.2
donkeys and flanders mud 53
The increasingly dire plight of the US forces in the
Vietnamese civil war provided a focus for anti-American,
anti-imperial, anti-military and anti-authority radical
protest. It became, in Arthur Marwick s phrase, the great
universal issue . The rapidity and scale of the build-up of
US troops in Vietnam gives a good indication of the grow-
ing desperation in Washington to end the war by victory
through overwhelming numerical and material strength.
By the end of 1961 there were some 3,000 US person-
nel in South Vietnam; four years later the number had
risen to 181,000 and by 1966 to 385,000. In1968 the com-
munist Tet offensives against southern cities were de- [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl wyciskamy.pev.pl
the foundation of the Myth which has been summarized by
Samuel Hynes as follows:
goodbye to all that, 1919--1933 49
the idealism betrayed; the early high-mindedness that
turned in mid-war to bitterness and cynicism; the growing
feeling among soldiers of alienation from the people at
home for whom they were fighting; the rising resentment
of politicians and profiteers and ignorant, patriotic
women; the growing sympathy for the men on the other
side, betrayed in the same ways and suffering the same
hardships; the emerging sense of the war as a machine and
of all soldiers as its victims; the bitter conviction that the
men in the trenches fought for no cause, in a war that
could not be stopped.40
Moreover, where military historians had struggled with
little success to present the conflict in an intellectual frame-
work and a language which would appeal to a readership
inclined to say goodbye to all that , Winston Churchill
and, more especially, Lloyd George had published power-
ful, scintillating, and seemingly authoritative Memoirs sad-
dling the generals with the chief responsibility for the in-
competent conduct of the war and the enormous butcher s
bill. These notions, which I would term the literary myth
and the political myth, would excite the attention of a new
generation in a very different military, social and cultural
atmosphere in the 1960s. This will form the subject of my
third chapter.
3 Donkeys and Flanders mud
the war rediscovered in the 1960s
My thesis in this chapter is that at the end of the twentieth
century popular notions of the First World War in gen-
eral, and Britain s role in particular, were largely shaped
in the 1960s, in part reflecting the very different concerns
and political issues of that turbulent decade, but in part
resurrecting anti-war beliefs of the 1930s.
At the risk of over-simplification and distortion, these
are some of the main events that provide the context in
which a new generation was introduced to the history of the
First World War. There was, first and foremost, a pervasive
fear of all-out nuclear war which is hard to imagine now.
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and its annual
Aldermaston march reached a peakof popularity and media
attention in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Cuban
missile crisis in 1962 provided hard evidence that the world
had teetered on the brinkof annihilation. National service
was ended in 1960 so the last conscripts had left the armed
forces by 1963. Thus ended a system of compulsory service,
reintroduced in 1939, by which the majority of the male
51
52 the unquiet western front
population for good or ill at the very least had some
familiarity with the realities of military life. By the end
of the decade this was ceasing to be so, and the gap has
necessarily grown ever wider. Not that unfamiliarity with
army life has entailed a diminishing interest in military
history, in fact quite the contrary.
The 1960s were also notable for the emergence of an in-
dependent youth culture and of much greater freedom in
sexual matters. Already, in 1957, the Wolfenden Committee
had reported in favour of legalizing homosexual relations
between consenting adults in private, while in 1960 the out-
come of the Lady Chatterley trial heralded a new and more
liberal era for the publication and discussion of formerly
taboo topics. As Philip Larkin would wistfully recall in
his poem Annus Mirabilis :
Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(Which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles first LP.1
This year (1963) was also that of the Profumo scandal,
in which the Secretary of State for War had consorted
with expensive call-girls whose circle included Stephen
Ward, a society osteopath, and Captain Eugene Ivanov,
naval attaché at the Russian Embassy. This affair had all
the ingredients to titillate the popular press: sleaze and
hypocrisy in the Tory Party and high society with the
possibility of espionage. John Profumo s political career
was ruined and Stephen Ward committed suicide, whereas
Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice Davies became celebri-
ties. As Arthur Marwickcommented:
It also provided a magnificent peg upon which to hang
denunciations of Britain s moral decadence.2
donkeys and flanders mud 53
The increasingly dire plight of the US forces in the
Vietnamese civil war provided a focus for anti-American,
anti-imperial, anti-military and anti-authority radical
protest. It became, in Arthur Marwick s phrase, the great
universal issue . The rapidity and scale of the build-up of
US troops in Vietnam gives a good indication of the grow-
ing desperation in Washington to end the war by victory
through overwhelming numerical and material strength.
By the end of 1961 there were some 3,000 US person-
nel in South Vietnam; four years later the number had
risen to 181,000 and by 1966 to 385,000. In1968 the com-
munist Tet offensives against southern cities were de- [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]