The Unknown Warrior

On November 11, 1920, the Great War was commemorated in a major way in London. Two monuments were unveiled. These were the Whitehall Cenotaph and the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey.

The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior © Westminster Abbey.

The two memorials evolved together as part of a major project to recognize the toll of the Great War and to attempt to channel public grief into some kind of symbolic object. Such projects are often fraught with difficulty and the nature of the symbols chosen and constructed are debated intensely.

The idea for Britain's Unknown Warrior (who was originally known as the Unknown Comrade, according to historian Neil Hanson's excellent book, The Unknown Soldier: The Story of the Missing of the Great War) was developed by Chaplain David Railton. Chaplain Railton first thought of the memorial when he saw the grave of an unidentified British soldier while serving in France. The grand and historic Westminster Abbey had a tradition of royalty and noted Britons being buried or memorialized onsite. Railton's "Unknown Comrade" would rest in the company of kings, queens, authors, and musicians. 

Westminster Abbey's website has a detailed and very informative page on the history of the Unknown Warrior. So does the Western Front Association, whose page features several fascinating photographs.  BBC News  also has a useful page on the Unknown Warrior, and a fantastic, moving, slideshow of images. The Warrior's story is also recorded in the Oxford Dictionary of Biography.

The soldier who would become the Unknown Warrior was chosen from among bodies exhumed from four different battlefields on the Western Front. Brigadier General L.J. Wyatt chose one set of remains at random in a small military chapel at St. Pol in France, near Arras. The Western Front Association's page on the Unknown Warrior considers some alternate versions of the selection process.

The Unknown Warrior's body was sealed in an English-made coffin and brought to Dover aboard the H.M.S. Verdun on November 10th. Later that day, the coffin was brought by train to London's Victoria Station. 

On the 11th of November, Londoners gathered for the unveiling of the Whitehall Cenotaph, which was followed by the Unknown Warrior's majestic funeral service at Westminster Abbey.

S. Burgess. Napkin commemorating Cenotaph and Unknown Warrior, 1920. © IWM,  Item EPH 1754.

In the days following the service, over a million people paid their respects to the Unknown Warrior. The following year, an inscribed slab of black marble was laid over the tomb and it remains there today. 

Upon the Duke of York's marriage to Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon at Westminster Abbey in 1923, the young bride placed her bouquet on the Warrior's grave. Elizabeth had lost a brother in the war and her personal gesture touched citizens across the nation.  The tradition of royal brides' bouquets laid on the grave as a mark of respect continues to this day.

Though he was said to be known only by God, the Unknown Warrior offered many civilians the closest approximation to the hundreds of thousands of individual Britons known, loved, and lost in the war.

© Fiona Robinson

The Great War at the Movies

Still from Abel Gance's 1919 J'Accuse. © SF Silent Film Festival Blog

I've been dreaming of the silver screen lately, and I wanted to compile an initial list of essential films about the First World War. There are lots, of course, and many movies feature unexpected links between a primary storyline and the war. Perhaps because I spend so much time reading and writing about the war, these links pop out at me--sometimes surprising me in films I've seen many times before. For instance, the 1992 Chaplin, a favorite of mine for several reasons, includes a phase of the silent star's life when, as he travels in Britain after the war, the relevance of his art is questioned in light of the devastation that his native country has experienced. Chaplin actually made a war "comedy" in 1918, called Shoulder Arms, about which Chris Edwards writes quite eloquently at his blog, Silent Volume. I have not seen the film, but Edwards writes that the Little Tramp character enlists in the American army. Perhaps this alignment, though surely stemming from Chaplin's association with American film studios, allows the film's (strangely chosen) comedy to avoid representational contact with British experience of the war. Though comedy was not an unknown note in this experience or its expression, it is true that the film may strike viewers as odd or somewhat disorienting in its unreal depictions. 

Here are ten films, to start. These are my personal picks for today, not all well-known or widely-recognized as war films, but the ghosts of 1914 haunt them nonetheless. Sometimes the most moving encounters with the Great War on film are not in movies directly about the war, after all. 

1. J'Accuse (1919) Clips from this incredible film can be found here.

2. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

3. War Horse (2011)

4. A Very Long Engagement/ Un long dimanche de fiancailles (2004)

5. Chariots of Fire (1981)

6. Paths of Glory (1957)

7. Joyeux Noel (1995)

8. Fairy Tale (A True Story) (1997)

9. Gallipoli (1981)

10. The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain (1992)

I hope you enjoy watching or remembering some of these films. Take a moment to consider the ways in which the ghosts of 1914 appear in these and other movies--at times manifesting right before our eyes, and at others, hovering at the edges of the screen.

© Fiona Robinson

Olympic Spirit

A largely musing post today to consider the Olympics, as the 2012 London Summer Games are underway.

Not being a subscriber to cable television and sadly unable to obtain a digital signal for the local station's broadcast (few in my region of the San Francisco Bay Area are able to do so), I've been more or less out of the loop on the 2012 Olympics so far, with the exception of newspaper articles, a fleeting glimpse of the Opening Ceremonies online, and a bit of time spent watching swimming and gymnastics events with family last night.

What I love about the Olympics is the ideal of common humanity and the celebration of athleticism in so many forms that the Games bring us every four years in Winter and Summer.  

For our ghosts of 1914, there were no Olympic Games during the war. After 1912's Games in Stockholm, Sweden, the 1916 Olympics, which had been scheduled prior to the war to take place in Berlin, Germany, were cancelled. The war cast a huge shadow over the Games, one that did not lift until the 1920 Antwerp, Belgium Summer Olympics. This Olympiad was awarded to the war-torn city as a way of initiating a healing process after Armistice. However, it appears that considerable tension remained, and several nations (including Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey) were not invited to participate. 

On a lighter note, I found that the 1920 Games included medals for Tug-of-War, which I had not previously realized was an Olympic sport! Tug-of-War lasted from 1900-1920 at the Olympics.

The Swedish Team engaged in Tug-of-War at the 1920 Games.  © Getty Images

Thinking about the Olympics as having some healing power after the international crisis of the First World War brings to my mind one of my (top two or three) favorite films: 1981's Chariots of Fire (for interested parties, the film has been re-mastered and re-released in time for the 2012 Games). Depicting the story of the British runners who went to the 1924 Paris Olympics, this film captures one of many pivotal moments in Olympic history. Chariots of Fire opens with scenes of solemn memorial--a contemporary funeral service gives way to memories of 1920s Cambridge, where young men just entering the University pay homage to other young Cambridge men, just a few years older than themselves, who have died in the war. Another sequence shows us two war veterans, one with an extensive facial prosthetic, helping two future members of the Olympic team into a cab as they arrive to begin their University education. The two veterans look resentfully at their only slightly younger peers, considering the toll they have paid so that these more privileged (both in age and presumably in financial status) men can enjoy the civilian life, saved by time and circumstance from the realities of the Front.

Eric Liddell at the 1924 Games.

While it recognizes the still-painful historical context of a post-war Olympiad, Chariots of Fire celebrates the more universal Olympic ideals of athleticism, teamwork, and personal triumph over various challenges. When we watch the runners sprinting around the track or racing along a windy beach, there is something compellingly pure about their movement and their engagement with their sport--it is as though nothing else exists and nothing else matters. 

Harold Abrahams, ca 1924.

Of course, it is not the case that nothing else really matters or exists--this is not the reality that the Olympics, or a film like Chariots of Fire, reflect. Rather, they offer an important reminder that, in spite of all else that does matter and affect us, in our daily lives or on a global scale, transcendence is possible. Regardless of our personal athleticism (or our possession or lack of a cable television subscription), we all have access to this truth.

© Fiona Robinson

Dr. Dolittle Goes to War

I once had a conversation with an advisor about the possibility of contracting academic shellshock from researching and writing about war literature. I believe we agreed that it was indeed possible. Truly, it isn't always easy engaging so deeply with the grim and arduous topic of war and its literary expressions. But no grad student would describe any dissertation as a walk in the park. Thus, how much of my occasional academic malaise has to do with war and how much to do with the mere process of writing a dissertation remains a mystery as yet unsolved.

A surprisingly effective remedy came my way this evening, though, from none other than the wonderful Dr. Dolittle. Yes, that Dr. Dolittle, the protagonist of Hugh Lofting's endearing series of children's books, the first of which was published in 1920.

Author Hugh Lofting

My route was circuitous, as usual, but I began by looking for further materials related to service animals in the First World War. I found a veritable menagerie in the IWM's collections database, including reindeer (yes, reindeer), an eagle, pigeons, a lemur, dogs, cats, mules, and horses. And then I found this charming photograph:

Varges Ariel. British Officer of the Army Veterinary Corps in Salonika with his Pets, 1916. © IWM, Item Q 32252.

The British veterinary officer with his jackdaws, goose, dog, and wolf cub seems a veritable Dr. Dolittle, friend to and communicant with all creatures great and small. The photograph made me go hunting for information about the books, which I first encountered in a school library as a child of about eleven.

“'Lord save us!' cried the duck. 'How does it make up its mind?'”  The Story of Dr. Dolittle.

To my surprise, I found that Dr. Dolittle is in fact a ghost of 1914. His creator, English-born, MIT-educated, civil engineer Hugh Lofting (1886-1947), served with the Irish Guards in the First World War. When writing home to his children, Lofting chose to protect them from the gruesome details of trench warfare. Instead, his letters featured the beginnings of the Dr. Dolittle stories. It is amazing to think of the way this fictional character allowed Lofting to create a bit of innocence amid the strife of the battlefield.

He was very fond of animals and kept many kinds of pets. Besides the gold-fish in the pond at the bottom of his garden, he had rabbits in the pantry, white mice in his piano, a squirrel in the linen closet and a hedgehog in the cellar. He had a cow with a calf too, and an old lame horse—twenty-five years of age—and chickens, and pigeons, and two lambs, and many other animals. But his favorite pets were Dab-Dab the duck, Jip the dog, Gub-Gub the baby pig, Polynesia the parrot, and the owl Too-Too.

--The Story of Dr. Dolittle, p. 3.

 “And she never came to see him any more” 
(A disgruntled patient leaves after sitting on a hedgehog) The Story of Dr. Dolittle.

Lofting was wounded in the war and eventually moved to Connecticut (my erstwhile home) with his family. In his lifetime, he would write and illustrate twelve books about the eccentric Doctor, who hails from a town called Puddleby-on-the-Marsh and learns to talk with and heal animals and undertakes many amazing adventures with them around the world and beyond. Dr. Dolittle enjoyed several incarnations on the stage and screen and continues to be a beloved hero of fiction.

There are many fantastic web resources on Dr. Dolittle, including full-text (with illustrations!) books on Gutenberg and Google Books. Karen Welbourn's Puddleby-on-the-Marsh website has a treasure trove of information and materials related to Lofting and Dr. Dolittle.

I hope you have enjoyed this lighthearted little jaunt with Dr. Dolittle and me. This merry ghost of 1914 certainly brightened a grad student's day of slogging through the dissertation trenches.

© Fiona Robinson

The Cats of War

Arthur L.F. Cary, "Dick Whittington," 1918. Lithograph. © IWM, Item Art.IWM PST 0555

I love cats (my own beautiful Rosie most of all, naturally). So, I thought that for today's post I would take a look for cat-related items in the IWM's wonderful database. I found the above charming poster of folktale hero Dick Whittington marching to the war with his impressive black cat, helmeted and walking magisterially on hind legs, at his side. Dick looks cheerfully at the viewer, tipping his hat to us as he lugs his considerable load of equipment. The cat, however, keeps eyes forward, pointing his body and gaze ahead of him, focused on their destination.

I must break from Great War talk briefly to mention that I keep thinking of AMC's Mad Men every time I see the name "Dick Whittington." The name sounds much like the real name of the show's 1960s protagonist Don Draper. Don, we eventually learn, is really Dick Whitman, whose name, history, family, and dead-end future he sheds (subsequently claiming the real Don Draper's name and identity from a dead comrade) while serving in the Korean War.

"Don Draper when he was really Dick Whitman." I couldn't have put it better myself, Access Hollywood.

I do hope I haven't ruined any mysteries for Mad Men followers out there, though the Don Draper/Dick Whitman storyline was revealed at least a couple of seasons ago, if not more. I digress, however. This is not a television blog; the bottom line is that: 

Dick Whitman & Dick Whittington=no relation

Since we are talking about identities false and true, though, who was the "real" Dick Whittington? The character comes from an old English folk tale loosely based on the true story of Richard Wittington, who served as Lord Mayor of London in the 1300s. Wittington's legend lived on into the twentieth century and came to inspire Arthur Cary to create the poster above in 1918. Having been transformed into a play as early as the seventeenth century and a pantomime stage show in the early 1800s (the first version of which starred the famous clown Joseph Grimaldi), the story of "Dick Whittington and His Cat" was well-known to readers and theater-goers in Britain throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries.

"Richard Wittington and his Cat," ca. 1790-1820.

Dick Whittington, in his fictional manifestation, is a poor boy who, through the incredible ratting powers of his cat, wins fame and fortune, eventually becoming the mayor of the great city of London. His real counterpart, Richard Whittington, is not known to have had a cat, though a source on Wikipedia speculates that a mistranslation might have led to the appearance of the mythical animal.

A final detail worth pondering in Arthur Cary's poster is the "ET 70" milestone that appears at bottom right. I will assume that this indicates Etaples, the northern French location of a major British base camp. Famously, the Etaples site was the setting for a serious mutiny incident in September, 1917.  Poor morale among troops led to an uprising over the arrest of a soldier from New Zealand. Military police fired into a surging crowd, killing one soldier and wounding a French civilian. Protests ensued and hundreds of men held demonstrations and eventually marched through Etaples over the next few days. When order was forcefully reestablished, punishments including one death sentence, imprisonment, and strippings of rank, were meted out. The Etaples Mutiny was a tragedy all around.

Are Dick Whittington and his cat headed for Etaples? Given the 1918 date of the poster, the Mutiny had surely made some news by the time of Cary's work. It is not clear what the two characters' march towards this location, if this is indeed where they are headed, might mean, though. Perhaps they are simply moving towards the base camp where many British troops were sent before going to the front. Or, are they signalling some solidarity with the frustrated marchers who walked through the town in 1917? A final grim possibility might be that Whittington and the cat are headed to Etaples to enforce order and subdue the spirit of unrest and agitation. No matter their purpose, Whittington appears quite boyish here as he greets us with a confident smile, and though his outfit is of a vaguely military green hue, its clearly antiquated style does not suggest that he is ready for war. His cat, though, seems possessed of a different and thoroughly modern sort of seriousness and motivation.

Herbert Hiller, "'Mowler,' One of Our Mascots," 1915. © IWM, Item Art.IWM ART 4378

The ghosts of 1914 had their allegiances to service animals of many kinds. Horses, dogs, birds, and cats facilitated transportation, communication, safety, and even simply comfort for their human comrades. Herbert Hiller's "Mowler," pictured above, looks quite a lot like Dick Whittington's cat--wise with understanding and intent that we humans can only imagine. This crouching creature, whose glance projects feline accusation as only cats are capable of expressing, reminds us that the war was seen through many eyes and from many perspectives. The actual and the mythical proportions of the conflict, though they shift and startle us even now, take on a new dimension when we consider the feline ghosts of 1914.

© Fiona Robinson