Till Eve came along and ate it one day,
And got thrown out of Mesopotamia.
is the Biscuit that’s made in Delhi,
It breaks your teeth and bruises your belly,
And grinds your intestines into a jelly,
In the land of Mesopotamia.
is the poor old Indian Corps,
Which went to France and fought in the war,
Now it gathers the crops and fights no more
In the land of Mesopotamia.
is the Digging we’ve all of us done
Since first we started to fight the Hun,
By now we’ve shifted ten thousand ton
Of matter in Mesopotamia.
was the Energy shown by the Staff
Before the much-advertised Hanna strafe,
Yet the nett result was the Turks had a laugh
At our Staff in Mesopotamia.
stands for ‘Fritz’ who flies in the sky,
To bring down the brute we’ve had many a try,
But the shells we shoot with all pass him by
And fall in Mesopotamia.
is the Grazing we do all the day,
We fervently hope that some day we may
Get issued again with a ration of hay,
’Though we’re still in Mesopotamia.
are the Harems, which it appears
Have flourished in Baghdad for hundreds of years,
We propose to annex all the destitute dears –
When their husbands leave Mesopotamia.
is the Indian Government, but
About this I’m told I must keep my mouth shut,
For it’s all due to them that we failed to reach Kut-
El-Amara in Mesopotamia.
is the Jam, with the label that lies,
And states that in Paris it won the First Prize,
But out here we use it for catching the flies
That swarm in Mesopotamia.
are the Kisses from lips sweet and fair,
Waiting for us around Leicester Square
When we wend our way home, after wasting a year
Or two in Mesopotamia.
is the Loot we hope we shall seize –
Wives and wine and bags of rupees,
When the Mayor of Baghdad hands over the keys
To the British in Mesopotamia.
is the local Mosquito, whose bite
Keeps us awake all the hours of the night,
And makes all our faces a horrible sight
In the land of Mesopotamia.
is the Navy that’s tied to the shore,
They’ve lashings of beer, and provisions galore,
How I wish I had joined as a sailor before
I came out to Mesopotamia.
are the orders we get from the Corps,
Thank goodness by now we are perfectly sure
If issued at three they’ll be cancelled by four –
In this land of Mesopotamia.
are the Postal officials who fail
To deliver each week more than half of our mail;
If they had their deserts they’d all be in jail
Instead of in Mesopotamia.
’s the Quinine which we take every day
To keep the Malarial fever away,
Which we’re bound to get sooner or later, they say,
If we stop here in Mesopotamia.
’s for the Rations they give us to eat,
For brekker there’s biscuits, for dinner there’s meat,
And if we’ve been good we get jam as a treat
For our tea in Mesopotamia.
are supposed to supply
The Army with food, we all hope when they die
They will go to a spot as hot and as dry
As this rotten old Mesopotamia.
is the Lake know as Um-el-Brahm
Which guards our left flank from all possible harm,
And waters old G——s barley farm
In the middle of Mesopotamia.
is the Victory won at Dijailah,
I heard it first from a pal who’s a sailor
Who read it in Reuter on board his Mahola
On the Tigris in Mesopotamia.
stands for Wonder and pain
With which we regard the infirm and insane
Old *…… …….. … ….. this campaign
We’re waging in Mesopotamia.
[* CENSORED – ED.]
are the ’Xtras the Corps say we get,
But so far there isn’t a unit I’ve met
That has drawn a single one of them yet
is the Yearning we feel every day
For a passage to Basrah, and so to Bombay;
If we get there we’ll see that we stop right away
From this wilderness Mesopotamia.
I’ve tried very hand, and at last I had hit
On a verse which this damnable letter would fit,
But the Censor deleted it – every bit
Save the last word ‘Mesopotamia.’
Chahels is really a horrible spot
Where there isn’t a drop of drink to be got,
Yet here we’re going to be left till we rot
In the Middle of Mesopotamia.
Salonika in November
Up above the grey hills the wheeling birds are calling,
Round about the cold grey hills in never-resting flight;
Far along the marshes a drifting mist is falling,
Scattered tents and sandy plain melt into the night.
Round about the grey hills rumbles distant thunder,
Echoes of the mighty guns firing night and day, –
Grey guns, long guns, that smite the hills asunder,
Grumbling and rumbling, and telling of the fray.
Out among the islands twinkling lights are glowing,
Distant little fairy lights, that gleam upon the bay;
All along the broken road grey transport wagons going
Up to where the long grey guns roar and crash away.
Up above the cold grey hills the wheeling birds are crying,
Brother calls to brother, as they pass in restless flight.
Lost souls, dead souls, voices of the dying,
Circle o’er the hills of Greece and wail into the night.
Brian Hill
June in Egypt, 1916
June! – and, here,
Quivering heat,
Shimmering sand,
An aching land
Of sun’s beat
And straggling, sere,
Wizened scrub;
Of mile on mile
Of nothingness
Scorched by the stress
Of some most vile
Beelzebub.
In this hell
Humankind
(You and I)
Live (and die)
Bent in mind
On killing well . . .
Over away
Across the plain
Of baking sand,
In an alien land
Ripe to be slain,
Ready to slay,
Other men
(Like you and me)
Scorch and endure,
Plan and procure,
Incessantly,
To kill again . . .
June, here;
This year.
June! – and there
The grasses stand
Green and tall,
And cuckoos call,
By Overstrand –
By Mundesley, where
The air breathes sweet
Of crisp dry turf
(O! wine-like smell
I love so well)
And salt from the surf;
Where lovers meet,
As I and a maid
(Divine with youth,
In her eyes
The light that cries
A splendid truth –
; Unafraid)
Met long ago
(Before this hell)
Met and loved,
Loved, and proved
Love was well,
Long, long ago . . .
June, there;
Yester year.
El Qantara, 1916
Eliot Crawshay Williams
SEVEN
Conscription, Protest and Prisoners
Loos, Christmas 1915, protests at home and abroad, the Derby Scheme, conscription and conscientious objection, prisoners of war
After the failure of the earlier campaigns in 1915, the British attacked at Loos, south of Ypres, in September. The attack was a failure, partly because of shortage of shells and the poor quality of many of those that were sent; the German wire was largely uncut, and the British advanced into impenetrable defences. The scandal brought an end to the career of the British Commander-in-Chief, Sir John French, and the fall of Asquith’s government. Haig was sent out to replace French, and Lloyd George became Prime Minister. The disaster led to the soldiers’ song: ‘If you want to find the ol’ battalion, they’re hanging on the ol’ barbed wire.’
Failures in leadership meant that questions were now increasingly being asked about the conduct and purpose of the war. There was industrial unrest at home, and, although more than two million men had volunteered, a slowing down of recruitment and mounting casualties meant that more were needed. To begin with, those still eligible were given the opportunity to register voluntarily under the Derby Scheme, where they would then be called upon only if required, but at the end of December 1915 conscription was announced. By the summer of 1916 all men between 18 and 41 could expect to be called up – by April 1918 this would be 17 and 51 – and many previously turned down as medically unsound were re-examined and passed fit. Those who had moral objections to fighting – conscientious objectors, popularly known as ‘COs’ or ‘conshies’ – were allowed to plead their case in special courts, and might then be given work that did not involve fighting but that supported the war effort. Many joined the Friends’ Ambulance Unit. Others believed that any support of the war was morally indefensible, and many of those who refused to participate were sent to prison. Here handwritten magazines were illicitly circulated among the prisoners, like the Winchester Whisperer put together by prisoners in Winchester Gaol.
Meanwhile there were other prisoners, as British troops fell into the hands of the Germans and spent the rest of the war in prison camps.
In the Morning
(Loos, 1915)
The firefly haunts were lighted yet,
As we scaled the top of the parapet;
But the East grew pale to another fire,
As our bayonets gleamed by the foeman’s wire;
And the sky was tinged with gold and grey,
And under our feet the dead men lay,
Stiff by the loop-holed barricade;
Food of the bomb and the hand-grenade;
Still in the slushy pool and mud –
Ah! the path we came was a path of blood,
When we went to Loos in the morning.
A little grey church at the foot of a hill,
With powdered glass on the window-sill.
The shell-scarred stone and the broken tile,
Littered the chancel, nave and aisle –
Broken the altar and smashed the pyx,
And the rubble covered the crucifix;
This we saw when the charge was done,
And the gas-clouds paled in the rising sun,
As we entered Loos in the morning.
The dead men lay on the shell-scarred plain,
Where Death and the Autumn held their reign –
Like banded ghosts in the heavens grey
The smoke of the powder paled away;
Where riven and rent the spinney trees
Shivered and shook in the sullen breeze,
And there, where the trench through the graveyard wound,
The dead men’s bones stuck over the ground
By the road to Loos in the morning.
The turret towers that stood in the air,
Sheltered a foeman sniper there –
They found, who fell to the sniper’s aim,
A field of death on the field of fame;
And stiff in khaki the boys were laid
To the sniper’s toll at the barricade,
But the quick went clattering through the town,
Shot at the sniper and brought him down,
As we entered Loos in the morning.
The dead men lay on the cellar stair,
Toll of the bomb that found them there,
In the street men fell as a bullock drops,
Sniped from the fringe of Hulluch copse.
And the choking fumes of the deadly shell
Curtained the place where our comrades fell,
This we saw when the charge was done,
And the East blushed red to the rising sun
In the town of Loos in the morning.
Patrick MacGill
After Loos
(Café Pierre Le Blanc, Nouex-les-Mines, Michaelmas Eve, 1915.)
Was it only yesterday
Lusty comrades marched away?
Now they’re covered up with clay.
Seven glasses used to be
Called for six good mates and me –
Now we only call for three.
Little crosses neat and white,
Looking lonely every night,
Tell of comrades killed in fight.
Hearty fellows they have been,
And no more will they be seen
Drinking wine in Nouex-les-Mines.
Lithe and supple lads were they,
Marching merrily away –
Was it only yesterday?
Patrick MacGill
Christmas Truce
In France, maybe, war-weary men,
Thinking once more of home and peace,
Will bid this daily horror cease,
And call the truce of God again.
Will meet their enemy, and call
Him friend, and take him by the hand,
And, for the moment understand,
The bloody folly of it all.
But while in Flanders foe is friend,
Far from the shell-scarred battle-line
Old men will sit and sip their wine,
And talk about ‘the bitter end’.
And reckon up the tale of dead,
And hate the foe they never saw,
And vow to carry on the war
Till the last drop of bleed be shed.
So they will stop the truce of Christ,
Will bid the battle re-begin;
And for the Elder Statesmen’s sin
More young lives shall be sacrificed.
W.N. Ewer
A Soldier’s Testament
If I come to die
In this inhuman strife,
I grudge it not, if I
By laying down my life
Do aught at all to bring
A day of charity,
When pride of lord or king
Un-powerful shall be
To spend the nations’ store,
To spill the peoples’ blood;
Whereafter evermore
Humanity’s full flood
Untroubled on shall roll
In a rich tide of peace,
And the world’s wondrous soul
Uncrucified increase.
But if my life be given
Merely that lords and kings
May say: ‘We well have striven!
See! where our banner flings
Its folds upon the breeze
(Thanks, noble sirs, to you!).
See! how the lands and seas
Have changed their pristine hue’.
If after I am dead
On goes the same old game,
With monarchs seeing red
And ministers aflame,
And nations drowning deep
In quarrels not their own,
And peoples called to reap
The woes they have not sown . . .
If all we who are slain
Have died, despite our hope,
Only to twist again
The old kaleidoscope –
Why then, by God! we’re sold!
Cheated and wronged! betrayed!
Our youth and lives and gold
Wasted – the homes we’d made
Shattered – in folly blind,
By treachery and spite,
By cowardice of mind
And little men and light! . . .
If there be none to build
Out of this ruined world
The temple we have willed
With our flag there unfurled,
If rainbow none there shine
Across these skies of woe,
If seed of yours and mine
Through this same hell must go,
Then may my soul and those
Of all who died in vain
(Be they of friends or foes)
Rise and come back again
From peace that knows no end,
From faith that knows not doubt,
To haunt and sear and rend
The men that sent us out.
Bir el Mazar, Egypt
Eliot Crawshay Williams
The Cry
‘Give us Peace!’ cry the Peoples as they listen to their lords,
As they read the nimble speeches that are deadlier than swords.
‘Give us Peace, though Peace be bitter with the memory of Woe
And the dead go past in millions, victor, vanquished, friend and foe.’
You have made your maps so proudly with their cruel crimson lines,
Secret schemes of shrieking conquest, treaties shaped of mad designs;
You have made us drunk with anger, you have poisoned us with lies
Till the Earth is desolation and a horror cleaves the skies.
Lo, your maps are madman-fancies! lo, your treaties curl in flame
If they be not drawn by Justice, if they spell a people’s shame!
Lo, your lust of hate has shrivelled in the furnace of our pain!
You, who gave us war and torment, give the Peoples Peace again!
‘Give us Peace! Our hearts are sickened with the terror of the strife;
Give the son back to the mother, and the husband to the wife!’
And the dead, the broken millions – let their supplication cease –
They are crying with living and the dying, ‘Give us Peace!’