Noakes - Voices of Silence : the Alternative Book of First World War Poetry

VOICES OF
SILENCEVOICES OF
SILENCE THE ALTERNATIVE BOOK OF
FIRST WORLD WAR POETRY VIVIEN NOAKES First published in 2006 The History Press
The Mill, Brimscombe Port
Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL 5 2 QG
www.thehistorypress.co.uk Copyright selection and editorial matter Vivien Noakes, 2006, 2013 This ebook edition first published in 2013 All rights reserved
Acknowledgements on pages ix and x are a continuation of this copyright statement., 2013 Vivien Noakes has asserted the moral right to be identified as the editor of this work. This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly. EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 9610 8 Original typesetting by The History Press In memory of my uncle 2nd Lt Richard Langley, 13th Bttn, Alexandra, Princess of Waless Own Yorkshire Regiment, The Green Howards. Reported wounded and missing, 27 September 1916. Reported missing believed killed, 25 October 1916.

His name appeared on a German list of prisoners of war, 8 December 1916. He died as a consequence of his wounds, 16 July 1935.

Belgium and the Kaiser, Call to Arms, early training, the BEF leaves for France

Retreat from Mons, Kaisers Scrap of Paper, spy mania, Kaisers ambition to invade Britain, the First Battle of Ypres, the Christmas truce

The role of women, flag days, Zeppelin raids

The Canadians, the New Armies begin to leave for France, trench life

Billets, letters from home, estaminets and concerts

The Second Battle of Ypres and first use of gas, Gallipoli, Salonika, Egypt

Loos, Christmas 1915, protests at home and abroad, the Derby Scheme, conscription and conscientious objection, prisoners of war

Life at sea, sinking of the Lusitania, the Battle of Jutland

Life, death and chivalry in the air

The opening of the Big Push

The first wounded, the dead and the casualty lists, grief at home

Military hospitals, VADs, convalescence

The end of the Battle of the Somme, winter 19161917, the maintenance of morale in the line, Winston Churchill

Days in Blighty

Calls for peace, the Battle of Arras, the retreat to the Hindenberg Line, the old battlefields

Red tape, inter-corps rivalry, the Staff

The missing and the dead, burials and the horrors of no mans land, rain, winter 1917, fatigues and carrying parties, horses and mules, bombing behind the lines, the end of the Battle of Passchendaele

Another Call to Arms, Somewhere in France

England in 1918, hardships, the German assault of 21 March 1918, near defeat and anxiety, the reversal, thoughts on post-war, the Kaiser abdicates

Joy and sadness, the survivors, reconciliation and hatred, the return of the dead and the grief of the living, victory celebrations, the Peace Treaty, the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, war memorials, In Memoriam

Searching for graves, the next war

For any anthologist, the first and greatest thanks must go to the writers whose work makes up the collection. The last survivor, Geoffrey Dearmer, died aged 103 in 1996; it was my great privilege to be at his hundredth birthday celebration at the Imperial War Museum in 1993. But for these men and women, there would be no Voices of Silence. Catherine Rileys Bibliography of First World War Poetry is indispensable to anyone searching for poems of the Great War.

For their generous help I am grateful to: Colin Badcock; Emily Bird of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission; Anthony Boden; Mark Brown; Adrian Gregory; Jill, Duchess of Hamilton; Sally Harrower of the National Library of Scotland; William Hetherington of the Peace Pledge Union; Dominic Hibberd; Nigel Jaques; Colin Johnston, Principal Archivist of the Bath and North East Somerset Council; Michael Meredith; Joe Mulholland; Allen Packwood of the Churchill Archive Centre, Cambridge; Andrew Partridge; Robert Pike; Ann Riker; Nigel Steel; Dr David Sutton, Director of Research Projects at Reading University Library; Bill Turner; and Kevin Tye. The staff of the following libraries have been most courteous and helpful: the British Library; the Newspaper Library, Collindale; Friends House; the Imperial War Museum Department of Documents and Library; the London Library; the Royal Air Force Museum. For permission to use material that is still in copyright I would like to thank: Blackwell Publishing Ltd for A Song of the Air, Reconnaissance and Two Pictures by Gordon Alchin, From the Youth of all Nations by Henry Cecil Harwood and The Draft by A.P. Herbert; Mrs Anne Charlton for Noon by Robert Nichols; Mrs Peregrine Spencer Churchill for Y Beach; Jonathan Cutbill for Lieutenant Tattoon, M.C. by Edward Carpenter; Lord Elton for The War Memorial by Godfrey Elton; Samuel French Ltd on behalf of the estate of John Drinkwater for England to Belgium by John Drinkwater; Michael Gibson and Pan Macmillan for Bacchanal, Between the Lines, Mad, Ragtime and The Messages by Wilfrid Gibson; Duff Hart-Davis for The Song of the Mud by Mary Borden; Patrick W.H. Harvey for A True Tale of the Listening Post, At Afternoon Tea, Back to the Trenches, Ballad of Army Pay, Gonnehem, Loneliness, Peace The Dead Speak, Requiescat, The Route March, To Certain Persons and To the Kaiser Confidentially by F.W.

Harvey; David Higham for Tears by Osbert Sitwell; Mrs John Hills for Valete by William Box; The Earl of Home for The School at War 1914 by C.A. Alington; Jarrold & Sons Ltd for For a Horse Flag Day by Jessie Anderson and Dumb Heroes by T.A. Girling; the estate of Richard and Roger Lancelyn Green for All Souls, 1914 by Gordon Bottomley; Macmillan for A Flemish Village by Herbert Asquith, Meditation in June, 1917, On Trek and The Old Soldiers by Edward Shanks and In the Third Year of the War and Return by E. Hilton Young; Mary Claire ODonnell for After Loos, I oft go out at night-time, In the Morning and The Dawn by Patrick MacGill; Punch for Oxford Revisited by Cyril Bretherton, Requisitional by W. Hodgson Burnet, The Infantryman by E.F. Clarke, On Christmas Leave by W.W.

Blair Fish, Missing by Geraldine Robertson Glasgow, Beasts and Superbeasts, The Freedom of the Press, The Missing Leader and Winstons Last Phase by Charles Graves, Literary War Worker by T. Hodgkinson, The Four Sea Lords by Richard Keigwin, Mufti Once More by Edmund Knox, The General by George Menzies, From a Full Heart and Gold Braid by A.A. Milne, The Widow by C.M. Mitchell, Verdun by F.W. Platt, A Canadian to his Parents, My American Cousins, Raids, More Peace-Talk in Berlin, Punch in the Enemy Trenches and The Soul of a Nation by C. Conway Plumbe, Deportment for Women by Jessie Pope, Another Scrap of Paper and Model Dialogues for Air-raids by Owen Seamen, A Vision of Blighty by J.