Peter Hart - Laugh or Cry: The British Soldier on the Western Front, 1914–1918

Laugh or Cry

The British Soldier on the Western Front, 191418

The British Soldier on the Western Front, 191418

Peter Hart & Gary Bain

First published in Great Britain in 2022 by

Pen & Sword Military

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire Philadelphia

Copyright Peter Hart & Gary Bain 2022

ISBN 9781399068772

EPUB ISBN 9781399068796

The right of Peter Hart & Gary Bain to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library.

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T hose of us who were fortunate enough to meet veterans of The Great War were often struck by the sense of humour that pervaded their memories. Wartime anecdotes were usually accompanied by a quiet chuckle as they recounted funny tales, still remembered from nearly a century before.

They had found something to laugh about in literally everything around them; from the quirks of military life to the people they met and the places they served. In some cases even their darkest moments had been alleviated with a well-timed quip from a chum.

When the last of those thousands of old soldiers, who had fought in the war, finally faded away in 2009, it soon felt as if that humour had died out too.

Their laughter disappeared, to be replaced by a funereal sense that the First World War was no longer a suitable subject for funny stories, so I am delighted that Peter and Gary have written Laugh or Cry .

This wonderful collection of anecdotes highlights the ability of the British soldier to find those laughs in any, and every, circumstance, exactly as he had in every war before and since.

Whether in training, on parade, digging trenches, route marching, fighting the enemy or burying the dead, there was always a joke to be made, or a funny story to be told, to raise their spirits and take their mind off the work in hand.

The British soldiers sense of humour, along with his grousing, sentimentality, and those occasional moments of pathos, were just as important as his training, tactics and equipment. It kept his spirits up at times when others may have given in and plays a vital part in helping us to understand the Army of 1914-18.

This book is long overdue.

Taff Gillingham

The hottest place I was ever in, Zillebeke, there was a small lake there and one wag had written up, Boats let and hired; so much an hour! Thats what won the bloody war! Honestly humour!

Gunner Harry Bretton, 87 Brigade, Royal Field Artillery

T his is not a history of war on the Western Front. Far from it. This is a book that looks at the way humour helped the soldiers survive their terrible experiences. It will do this largely by using the words of the men themselves, as recorded in personal experience accounts in books, diaries, letters and oral history interviews. Reading accounts of the war can lead to a remarkably confused picture of the Tommy. At the start of the war, he is pictured as a valiant fighter out to avenge poor Belgium, a heroic figure rarely to be found without a cheery quip and a chorus of Tipperary on his lips. Then, after the war was over, there was a phase of dour books that sought to emphasize the mud, the lice, the spattered gore; with the Tommy now portrayed as an embittered brute, incapable of the finer feelings, blaspheming crudely, dependent on sex and alcohol to keep him going.