Soldiers always look forward to leave, but it is interesting and sad that many of those in the Great War found themselves like a ‘fish out of water’ when they went home.

German view Some women gave out white feathers

One relief from the life in the trenches and the rear areas was ‘leave’, a visit home, but it is amazing how often in diaries and memoires that the writer mentions his wish to return to the friendship of the group he has left. The horrors of the front were difficult to describe to those at home, and the soldier became to some extent alienated from those on the ‘Home Front’. The point is made a number of times in Henry Williamson’s books. General Jack, following a trip home comments; “I notice that men in London are less particular than formerly about their evening dress. The black dinner jacket and black tie have largely ousted the long black tailcoat with white tie, even at restaurant and theatre....” He can live through the horror of the front but is put out by standards at home which he perceives as dropping.  Dressing for the assault on July 1st on the Somme he comments; “...slipped on tunic, boots, accoutrements and silver spurs in order to be ‘properly dressed’ for, likely enough, the last time.” Richard Holmes in ‘Tommy’ quotes H. E. L. Mellersh, many of those going on leave had a “...feeling of alienation from the home front outlook .... one wanted to be with one’s companions but not at war: one wanted a binge, a spree, a night on the town, which meant going to “a show” which is to say to the theatre”.

One aspect of the Home Front that drew criticism from many of those at the real Front was the fact that some workers at home would go on strike during the war.  The soldiers did not have this right, and resented the workers at home who exercised that right. General Jack commented on this; “The strikers were, unwittingly no doubt, committing manslaughter, just as artillerymen would be doing by quitting their guns in action, their fire being required to cover an attack.”

It is a recurring theme in the memoires of many of those who fought, that there was such a divide between the men at the front and the family at home, like worlds apart and those at home did not, and indeed could not, understand what it was like.  Captain Carrington in Max Arthur’s book; “This world of the trenches, which had built up for so long and which seemed to be going on forever, seemed like the real world, and it was entirely a man’s world.  Women had no part in it, and when one went on leave one escaped out of the man’s world into the women’s world. But one found that however pleased one was to see one’s girlfriend, one could never somehow quite get through, however nice they were.  If the girl didn’t quite say the right thing one was curiouslt upset. One got annoyed by the attempts of well meaning people to sympathise, which only reflected the fact that they didn’t really understand at all. So there was almost a sense of relief when one went back into the man’s world, which seemed the realest thing that could be imagined.” That was the view of an officer, what of a private (Norman Demuth, 1/5th London); “One thing I found when I eventually got home was that my father and mother didn’t seem in the least interested in what had happened.  They hadn’t any conception of what it was like, and on occasions when I did talk about it, my father would argue points of fact that he couldn’t possibly have known about because he wasn’t there. i think his was probably the approach of the public at large.  They didn’t know - how could they? They knew that people came back on leave covered with mus and lice, but they had no idea of what danger we were in. I think they felt the war was one continual sort of cavalry charge; that one spent all day and all night chasing Germans or them chasing us.”

Strange as it was, many wanted to get back to the front, to their mates, because they just did not fit in any more at home.  As a female munitions worker said in Max Arthur’s book; “They were restless at home, they didn’t want to stay, they wanted to get back to the Front.  They always expressed a desire to finish it.”

And it was a similar sentiment on the German side; “In October [1918] I had leave to go home to Frankfurt, my home town, to my parents.  I was very much looking forward to this leave after the terrific battles we had been through.......We hadn’t realised at the Front how bad it was at home.  People were fed up with the war.  They wanted the war to be ended as soon as possible, victory or no victory.  After a fortnight I went back to the front line, to my comrades, to my guns, and I felt at home amongst the mud, the dirt and the lice.”

One sign of the difference between society then and now was the way in which girls and young women would give white feathers to young men they believed should have been at the front, often with no idea of whether they were or were not soldiers on leave. I have taken a couple of eaxmples from Max Arthur’s book.  In the first, Gunner Broome joined when he was fifteen years old, went to France in August 1914, was at Mons, the Marne and Ypres and then invalided out.  He was accosted on Putney Bridge by three girls “..who gave me three white feathers.  I explained to them that I had been in the Army, and had been discharged, and that I was still only sixteen years of age, but they didn’t believe me. ............ I felt most uncomfortable and awfully embarrassed ...... I finished the walk across the bridge, and there on the other side was the 37th London territorial Association of the Royal Field Artillery.  I walked straight in and rejoined the Army.” And this act of giving out the feathers was not just at the start of the war, in 1916 Private Demuth was handed some on a bus. As it had happened to him before his thought was “oh Lord, here we go again.”  When the girl handed it to him saying “Here’s a gift for a brave soldier.” He then used it as a pipe cleaner and handed it back to her saying, “You know we didn’t get these in the trenches.”