A. M. Burrage - War Is War

First published in the United Kingdom in 1930 by Victor Gollancz Ltd.

Reprinted in this format in 2010 by

Pen & Sword Military

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street

Barnsley

South Yorkshire

S70 2AS

Copyright Ex-Private X (A.M. Burrage), 1930, 2010

ISBN 978 184884 154 3

ISBN 9781844685844 (epub)

ISBN 9781844685851 (prc)

The right of Ex-Private X (A.M. Burrage) to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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

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T his book is a sincere attempt to put on record, albeit from memory, the experiences of one man as a private soldier in France during the war, his own reactions to those abnormal conditions, and his observations concerning the very little that came within his orbit. Its object is to give those who may be curious to know what the war was really like, all the intimate details of the lives we led in and behind the lines.

Many books about the war have been written, and will be written, by ex-officers; but, as all those who served must realise, an officer, of no matter what rank, saw the war from an angle far remote from the view-point of Thomas Atkins. I will go further and state that a platoon commander, who practically lived with his men, was incapable of appreciating their sufferings and hardships unless he too had been in the ranks. They can record conversations in the officers' messes, describe battles, and tell anecdotes about us. But they were only with us, not of us, and they cannot get inside our skins.

Unfortunately Private Thomas Atkins is inarticulate. Few professional writers went on active service in the ranks. So, as a humble exception, and quite conscious that my own experiences of war were limited and tame, I have ventured to set down what I remember.

For reasons which will be obvious to the reader this book must appear under a pseudonym. Were it otherwise I could not tell the truth about myself and others. I have altered the names of the characters, each of whom exists or did exist, and every incident is, to the best of my knowledge and recollection, true.

In the cause of Truth I have given my literary stylesuch as it isa half-holiday, and written these random recollections and impressions much as I would convey them to a friend by word of mouth. Directly a writer attempts in his best professional manner to describe something that happened to himself he is bound to become impressionistic; and Impressionism and Truth are only half-sisters and scarcely on speaking terms.

There may be those who will complain of the sudden changes of key throughout this book. The reason is that I was looking back while I wrote and trying to recapture the mood of the moment. Out there Comedy and Tragedy tumbled over each other's heels as in one of the old-fashioned melodramas. If there is a note of irony here and there concerning people and institutions I didn't like, the graver passages of the book were written with the utmost sincerity.

The war had many facets: Bruce Bairnsfather saw Old Bill, and laughed and drew him, and laughed again. Seigfried Sassoon saw only poor ignorant boys sobbing out their last breath for a cause which they knew nothing about. Most of us saw these extremes of Comedy and Tragedy, and the means between them.

I have tried not to concentrate on any particular phase, and have helped myself to a fairly wide canvas to portray the comparative little that I saw. I have not grubbed in the dirt for obscenity and horror in the hope of selling a few extra copies, but I have shirked nothing, and I think I have contrived to be frank without the use of those dirty words which a certain German writer found so essential to his Art. Anyhow, I don't want women readers. If any young man should ask an old soldier, Was it really like this? and the old soldier answers, Yes, it's all true, this book will have served its purpose.

And I shall not mind if the young man exclaims, What a very unpleasant fellow the author must be! Perhaps I am.

EX-PRIVATE X.

N early all of us on the draft were men who had tried to obtain commissions in England, and failed. There was a black mark against one, the personal appearance of another was against him, and a third was hopelessly inefficient. There were therefore three fairly sound reasons why I was still a full private. Never mind. There was a chance of getting gazetted through G.H.Q. over on the other side, and sucking in the War Office.

I was senior to most of the other men on the draft, having had a good long spell in England, and not having shown that impetuous desire to get myself killed which the civilian population was agreed that one ought to feel. I suppose I could have pulled wires and stayed behind longer, but I had done exactly nothing except what I was toldand not always that. I had behaved with the passiveness of a cabbage, and like an exported cabbage I was now going out. Well, thank heaven I'd got away from those desolatingly patriotic old men who had given their sons.

Things might have been worse. We were not going up the line at once. Our service battalion was on lines of communication and doing headquarter guards, and looked like continuing so indefinitely. For that reason we were perhaps the cheeriest draft on the boat until seasickness reduced us all to one common level of humanity.

We were supposed to be a kid-glove regiment recruited from public school, university and professional men. But the war was getting on in years and the regiment could not afford to be so particular. Still, our fellows were intellectually and socially superior to most, and remained so until we were cut to pieces and had to swallow large drafts belonging to other units.

The boat, on which after some vicissitudes we embarked at Southampton, had been designed for the reception of cattle, and I should not have grumbled if it had been kept for its original purpose. A storm was blowing up and we met it as soon as we were outside Southampton Water. The passengers were a pretty mixed bag, containing men of every kind of unit of the British Army, except perhaps the Inland Water Transport. I never have seen any of the I.W.T. and I don't believe they ever really existed.

I stayed on deckto see the last of England, although I wouldn't confess itand just as the shores were fading I saw and heard sentiment rebuked. A youngster in the H.A.G. remarked: Well, there goes England; I wonder if we shall see her again. To which a gunner, who was clumsily feeding himself with a jack-knife out of a tin of bully beef, made cynical answer : Well, I'm havin' my tea.