Lost Generations

In recent weeks I have been reading First World War memoirs published in the 1920’s and 30’s. This is partly professional but it is also informational and I believe we can learn something about the way we view history, as well as contemporary politics, from these war writers.

There was a conscious literary movement after the First World War, led by ex-subalterns who fought bravely on the Western Front, to portray the war as a generational bloodletting wrought by irresponsible politicians and bad generals. This futile bloodletting led to a culture of disenchantment and cynicism. These writers are known collectively as Lost Generation writers, survivors who became the voice of their fallen comrades from beyond the trenches.

Most of these writers were pacifists in the 30’s. They had seen enough combat to know that they thought all war to be slaughter and folly and they had no problem telling people so in this decade of appeasement and political debate.

However, the Lost Generation writers that we identify with now, are those whom fit nicely into this narrative of the war. Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves lead the pack and Edmund Blunden brings up the rear. All three were friends, deeply loved Wilfred Owen (a good poet who died in the trenches) and all three sought to show their disdain for the war and the men they believed caused it.

Their interpretation of the Great War was not the only one; however, their collective voice has proved to be the most lasting, calling out from the 30’s to our present day. In their time, these authors were greeting with skepticism by people, largely other writers, who believed that the war was not all great folly and destitution, and that to call it such was in poor taste. This alternative view believed strongly that though Great Britain had lost so much in terms of the human costs of the war, they had shown great courage in the conduct of the war, and were able to win the war of attrition through better discipline and morale over an inferior German force and government.

There is some truth to this interpretation. When we think of the First World War, we think of futility, but surely if the men in the trenches thought their actions were completely futile then they would have given up. Writers construct their own version of history after the fact. Often this memory of war is clouded in horror or sentiment, sometimes nostalgia, and sometimes bitterness and political objective. In this case, writers after the war created a genre of literature that we often take as history, instead of taking it as memoir, which is a subjective retelling of one’s life events, a deliberate construction. When we think of the cost of the First World War, we think of the war poets, but we should think instead, of the letters written home by Tommy’s in September 1918.

For those few of you who are interested in these things, think for a moment about our perceptions of the Iraq War and where you predict they will be, say, in fifteen years. All governments, in time of war, put the best possible spin on the outcome of that war. Bush does it now and Asquith did it in the First World War. The legacy of this war will be determined, largely, by the end result. However, the experience of war, what our perception of combat is like, is not always interpreted by whether war is won or lost. You can win a war but lose the legacy of that war – the case in point is the Lost Generation.

Now I end with that generic, but appropriate dodge, only time will tell.