World war 1: inspiration

What words of inspiration or comfort did soldiers take with them to the front?

The books published in late 1914 include many slim paperbound pamphlets of ‘inspirational’ thoughts. Some are cheap and basic, a kind of spiritual first aid book.  ‘So fight I’ is a compilation of quotations from the Bible and Christian writers, only a few pages and only 12 cm tall. Similar is “The happy warrior”, a collection of Biblical texts for each time of day and each day of the year, based on the soldier’s daily routine. So at Reveille on Monday April 19th, the text was “Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead, and Christ will give thee light.”

There are also packets of postcards with suitably cheerful texts on them, like these ‘cheer cards’ (above) published for Christmas 1914. And finally there are more expensive productions printed on fine paper with silver lettering, like “The happy warrior: in memory of the gallant sons who, by land or sea, have laid down their lives for the Empire.” The happy warrior is the hero of a painting by G. F. Watts, which is reproduced as the frontispiece:

The hero is at the point of death on the battlefield, when a ‘spirit form’ appears and kisses him, while the shaft of light falling on his face seems to come from another world, beyond the clouds. Watts’ painting appeared in 1884, but during the first world war it became a “talismanic image” for some. These pocket-sized pamphlets include pictures, hymns and poetry – whether quotations from Homer’s Iliad or  a printed card with the understated text “Pluck is the ability to face a difficult situation with brave calmness and undiscouraged energy.”

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World War 1 – books published in late 1914

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1914, Publishing, World war 1

We’ve just started to catalogue books published at the end of 1914. It’s noticeable how fast and how completely the outbreak of the First World War came to dominate the books published. Since about 1907 we’ve noticed several pamphlets on the arms race, and glossy brochures about Britain’s new warships, but by the end of 1914 every shelf in the bookshops must have been filled with books about the war.

Books published in late 1914

 Some of these are so out of date as to be of no practical use: the book entitled ‘Cold steel’ has a chapter on dealing with ‘savages’  which I think would be useless when faced with an enemy armed with guns instead of spears. The author of a book on the treatment of wounds explains that his advice is based on experience of the Boer war.

Poetry is famously important to our understanding of the first world war, but the poetry published in late 1914 was centred on one theme: patriotism. The titles say it all:

With the Season's Greetings

Poems of war and battle

The flag of England: ballads of the brave and poems of patriotism

England, my England, a war anthology.

The Union Jack.

War songs.

 

And finally the card (left) issued for Christmas 1914.