The Lost Generation : Myth or Reality ?

By Stuart Goddard
Year 13
Tideway Community School
Newhaven
East Sussex

Introduction

In 1921 E L Woodward wrote, "Amongst the men I knew, either personally or by repute, the numbers killed included a very high proportion indeed of those whom I singled out for ability, strength of will, and the finest of the mind. These men were found often than the others in places of danger."

In 1932 in a church sermon in Cambridge it was preached that, "A generation was not decapitated, or mauled at mere haphazard but shorn precisely of its most brave."

The 'myth' of the lost generation had been firmly established, that is the belief that the men who went to fight the Hun and who did not return, were simply the best of the country's manhood. These men, had they survived, would have become the nations politicians, artists and great thinkers.

This personal project will describe the ways in which the belief in the lost generation grew; it will show how that loss was commemorated; it will investigate the 'reality' behind the belief that the 'best' had gone.

The Great War

When the Great War for civilisation eventually came many believed that it was going to be over by Christmas and hundreds of thousands of men rushed to volunteer and join the army, wanting to be part of the great if short lived adventure.

Kitchener, Minister for War, was among the few who realised that the war could carry on for a number of years. He issued an initial call for 100,000 men and within a year over 2 million men had volunteered.

Pals Battalions were a feature of these New Armies as many men who lived in the same street or town or worked in the same factory joined up together, trained together, fought together and died together. The Somme became a name forever associated with these battalions.

As the casualties grew the flood of recruits began to dry up. In March 1916 conscription was introduced for single men between 18 and 41 and for married men two months later.

Fighting for civilisation was no longer a choice !

In 1918 the Germans organised one last big push, hoping to defeat the allies before the Americans joined in any great numbers. Losses on both sides were as high if not higher than at any point in the war and the push failed. Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated and on the 11^th November 1918 a cease-fire or Armistice was signed.

The slaughter of the Great War was indeed the greatest that had ever been seen, as these British figures show. But had the 'best' been lost ? Certainly a higher percentage of officers to men had been killed and this point is important in understanding the growth of the 'myth'.

Battle  Period    Officers lost  Others lost

Somme 1 1.7.1917 - 31.11.1916  23080   474974

Arras  9.4.1917 - 6.6.1917  9367   178416

Messines 7.6.1917 - 30.7.1917  5377   103505

Third Ypres 31.12.1917 - 31.12.1917 20725   380335

Cambrai 20.11.1917 - 31.12.1917 4296   71385

Somme + Lys 21.3.1918 - 31.5.1918  16482   327330

Somme, etc 27.5.1918 - 7.8.1918  14708   82959

Amiens, etc 8.8.1918 -14.11.1918  17841   345376
   
Back home in Blighty the impact of these losses was enormous. In most towns and villages there had been loss of life. If you had not suffered personal loss you knew someone who had. Traumatic as the loss of the 'glorious dead' was it is the loss of the educated officers and the ways in which the memory of that loss was kept alive by friends and relatives that led to the development of the belief in a lost generation. What started as mourning for all in the period immediately after the war, became by the late 1920s mourning for the talented officers who had been lost.

The Glorious Dead

Early in the war years writers were already describing those men who lost their lives as the 'glorious dead'. They emphasised the individual value of the men and the need to remember.

"They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning.
We will remember them."

In the Sussex Express for 12^th November 1915 there was an obituary for one Private Hillman.

"Private Hillman was well known in Lewes and the surrounding district. He was an old boy of Castlegate School, and for three years prior to enlisting he was a member of the editorial staff of this paper at the Lewes office, and his duties brought him into touch with many in the county town and the surrounding villages…had Private Hillman lived till October 18^th, he would have reached the age of 19. He is he first member of our staff to give his life for his country"

The obituary emphasised his age and the fact that he was well known and popular in the area. This was not a nameless, faceless soldier!

Obviously as a source of information such newspaper reports are valuable in showing what people thought, however the newspapers felt they had a duty to be 'upbeat' about the war. Defeatist talk was not allowed. The dead had to have died for something worthwhile and this was what the newspapers told their readers.

As the war continued the length of these personal obituaries got shorter but a photograph still usually accompanied them. Death and loss were still a very personal thing.

Different villages and towns had their own ways of remembering.

In the village of Winford, Cheshire, the vicar set up an empty grave at which those who had lost loved ones could commemorate them.

"The old church also took the singular step of setting aside a 'soldiers' grave' - a plot in the churchyard which was empty of coffin or shrouded occupant, but where mothers and fathers, wives and children  (in the bewildering of mourning a son, husband or father buried in a foreign field, whose grave, they thought, they could never hope to see) could bring their flowers, could simply stand and remember. After the war, St. Chad's was enriched by the building of a memorial chancel."

By 1916 and especially after the great losses on the Somme many were thinking about more concrete ways of commemorating the 'lost' in the form of memorials. From North to South, plans for the building of memorials were underway.

In West Calder, which is about 14 miles to the west Edinburgh, over 180 local men had lost their lives by 1918 and a committee was established to plan a memorial. There was disagreement in the village as people wanted to remember them in different ways. Some wanted a memorial garden or a memorial hall. Others suggested a sports ground. Eventually a 'standard' memorial was agreed upon; it was felt a hall or sport ground would somehow be seen as the village benefiting from the loss of those who had gone.

In the Southover district of Lewes, in East Sussex, the memorial paid tribute to the 46 men who paid the 'supreme sacrifice' in the first war and was unveiled and dedicated on All Saints day, 1^st November 1921. The mother and the widow of one of the fallen, Captain T. A. Stewart, were members of the planning committee set up to choose and design a memorial worthy enough of the glorious dead. Councilor Mr. E. Glover, who had lost his son in the war, was invited to give the address at the unveiling and the dedication.

This local need to commemorate individual loss was also recognised at a national level.

A Royal Charter established the War Graves Commission in 1917. Its duties were to mark and maintain the graves of the men who were killed, to build memorials to those who had no known grave and to keep records and registers.

The guiding principles of the War Graves Commission were:

• each of the dead should be commemorated individually (my italics) by name on headstone or memorial
  
• headstones and memorials should be permanent
  
• headstones should be uniform (officers and men had the same memorials)
  
• there should be no distinction made on account of military or civil rank, race or creed.
  

"To their relatives there must have been added to their grief a tinge of bitterness and a feeling that everything possible had not been done to recover their loved ones' bodies and give them reverent burial…when peace came, and the last ray of hope had been extinguished, the void seemed deeper and the outlook more forlorn for those who had no grave to visit, no place where they could lay tokens of loving remembrance…and it was resolved that here at Ypres, where so many of the missing are known to have fallen, there should be erected a memorial worthy of them. A memorial has been erected which, in its simple grandeur, fulfils this object, and now it can be said of each one in honour we are assembled here today: he is not missing; he is here."

Even those with no known grave were now to be individually commemorated.

On a national scale the war was commemorated at the Cenotaph or 'empty tomb'. It was originally built out of wood and plaster, for the first anniversary, and was never meant to be permanent. But the design by Edward Lutyens was so popular that it was re-created from Portland stone as a permanent memorial.

On the 11^th November 1919 "… the king turned to face the Cenotaph…as the chimes died away, everyone fell silent for two minutes…the royal family had pride of place, but the congregation was primarily composed of widows and mothers who had lost sons…The Times said it was 'the most beautiful, the most impressive (scene) this island had ever seen'"

"At 11 O'clock Big Ben struck, and on the last note the king pressed the button which released first the Union Jack on the southern side of the Cenotaph and then that on the Northern side, so that the austere Grey mass was exposed for all to see an ever lasting reminder (my italics), to all who passed by, of the British valour. The two-minute silence began."

At the boys school of Meeching in Newhaven the headmaster wrote in the school log; "Today being the 1^st anniversary of the armistice and in accordance with the kings wish, the school paid silent tribute to the "glorious dead" after suitable instructions as to the past importance of the occasion the boys were assembled in the hall in a hollow square. A union Jack was suspended from the roof. The school sang "Jesus lover of my school" and at 11am the flag was run down and for the period of two minutes a perfect silence was maintained the flag was then run up and the hymn "now thank we all our god" was sung mister Corbett chairman of the managers then addressed the children recalling the deeds of courage and heroism of the allied forces in the Great War and impressed upon them the fact that they owed a great debt to the fallen heroes (my italics). The national anthem was then sung, the flag saluted and the school dismissed."

In the 1920s, despite the attempts to commemorate individually those who had fallen, it is the volume, the scale, the hugeness of the numbers that impresses and is remembered.

By the late 1920s and early 1930s a great many books and poems began to be published that influenced people's views of the war and it is here that we begin to see the birth of the lost generation.

The writings of Vera Brittain are well known. In 1914 she was eighteen and about to enter Oxford University. During the war she joined the Red Cross. She kept a diary of her experiences and eventually published it as 'A Testimony of Youth' in 1933. It was influential in the growth of a belief in a lost generation with its emotional descriptions of the loss of Vera's friends during the war and the gap this left in her life in future years. It is a sure sign of the popularity and power of her writings that she remains well read today and that her work has been adapted for radio, tv and film. Her impact is as great as ever.

Many influential politicians lost sons to the war. Prime Minister Asquith lost his son Raymond. Raymond Asquith was widely regarded as an intelligent man who would go far in whatever 'career' he chose and his death had a great impact on his family and friends. His father said that the light had gone out of his life and many believed that the future would not be the same without Raymond or the men like him who had died.

On the Thiepval Memorial on the Somme there is recorded the name of George Butterworth.

Butterworth was:

• Mentioned in dispatches (a recognition of bravery more significant than its typically British understatement indicates);
  
• Recommended for the Military Cross 'for conspicuous gallantry in action' at Bailiff Wood on July 9th;
  
• Awarded the Military Cross 'for commanding his company with great ability and coolness' at Pozières, July 17th-19th;
  
• Awarded the Military Cross posthumously for his actions at Munster Alley where he met his death, Aug 5th."