'Good bye to all that'

[wainfleet]

To criticise this book on the grounds of factual error in details of military hardware seems to me to be akin to criticising Shakespeare's Middsummer Nights Dream for getting details of the weaving trade wrong.

Absolutely. Graves can be forgiven for getting the odd detail wrong or being a day out here and there under those circumstances. I think too much is sometimes expected of Graves. His highly polished style, his literary reputation, and his urbane sophistication can lead us to treat his word with gospel reverence, and when we find he is only human we feel disappointed. I wonder if people would expect the same of that diarist from a later war, Spike Milligan?

In fact Milligan was quite annoyed when his memoirs were referred to as "unreliable", because disturbed though he was, he had researched them meticulously and took pains to get his facts right. Graves and Milligan became good friends, which at first sight seems almost bizarre, but in fact they had quite a bit in common. Neither of these authors had been exactly well-adjusted before their wars began, and both endured the after effects in terms of fractured, disconnected lives shaped by the madness of war. Graves perhaps got over it better than Milligan, but the two must have understood each other pretty well.

Graves' occasional slips do not mean that he is any less factually correct than his contemporaries. Here and there he may have tidied up history to suit himself. I very much doubt he is the only memoirist of the Great War to have done that.

[Old Tom]

Hello,

When I started this I did not expect so much interest. Tom has got it just right!

Old Tom

[David Filsell]

Appearance on latest posts re-stimulated my interest in this post. It seems that there is agreement that GBTAT is not history, but a good/great book and contains flaws. That Graves was never reported dead on the 3rd in the Times and (probably) invented the tall tale is a useful bit of information to have proved. But it will re-appear!!

[truthergw]

Graves made no claim to have been reported dead, in the Times on the 3rd. To be precise, here on the forum, we have failed to find an official report of his death, the form of which is unspecified. There were many forms this report may have taken some of which may not have survived, especially if erroneous. While there may be instances of artistic licence in the autobiography of an author and poet, I do not see them as flaws. That, as I freely admit, is a matter of opinion.

[archangel9]

There seems little doubt that Graves romaticised his experiences for the book - artfull is perhaps the best description of him in its truest sense. Equally it is an extremely good book. But,I have often wondered if his claim to have had a death notice published in (I think) the Times was true. Has anyone ever seen it?

Yes.

The Times. 4th August 1916. Page 5. Under the heading "Died of Wounds" -

GRAVES, Capt. R. Von. R., Royal Welsh Fusiliers.

John

[maxi]

Old Tom

You might want to read 'Robert Graves - The Assault Heroic 1895 - 1926' by Richard Percival Graves (maybe this has already been posted in this thread). I think you will enjoy it.

Maxi

[moggs]

Yes.

The Times. 4th August 1916. Page 5. Under the heading "Died of Wounds" -

GRAVES, Capt. R. Von. R., Royal Welsh Fusiliers.

John

Great find!

[Guest]

Have posted a link to the book available on Scribd, in the ' Virtual Library ' Click

Mike

[Roxy]

I thought that it was a great read.

Roxy

[Muerrisch]

So he didn't make the dead story up ............... funny old thing, a good piece of work chaps.

Two more contributions: Private Frank Richards DCM MM was a lifelong friend and correspondent of RG, and anyone who knows anything at all about St Francis will tell you that he would have been highly critical of fiction disguised as autobigraphy. And, before the "RG actually re-wrote Old Soldiers Never Die" story comes up, I have a full copy of the penultimate proof, which strongly suggests that RG had no great part except to help publication.

Also, RG's description of how to stay alive in a combat zone without being obviously cowardly rings very true.

And yet, and yet: I firmly believe that RG never let the facts get in the way of a good tale, and all the better for that too!

[archangel9]

So he didn't make the dead story up ............... funny old thing, a good piece of work chaps.

No. He just got the date wrong.

[David Filsell]

Just spotted the Times piece. Thanks - happy to learn the truth of Graves story

David

[Marilyne]

Hi.

Just noticed the thread had been picked up this year... I just finished re-reading the book and then had 8 hours of a very boring and very badly given course on ICS - management... supposed to allow more efficient mission... just managed to give me a really efficient headache !!

So I just took a pen and started scribling some things about what I thought of the book, especially regarding "disillusionment" and truth telling. This is what came out of this only true interesting hour in ICS -class:

Graves joined the army to not have to go to Oxford, which he dreaded. His main concern in the first place is the general ambiance within the Bn. He obviously prefers the trenches than billets, for not having those riding lessons. He was in 2 “good battles” of which he speaks: Loos and the Somme. To me, apart from criticizing the orders, he does not seem more disillusioned than any other. Critics admire the sense of realism and horrid descriptions in his book. I had one “yuk” moment in the whole book. Read Vaughn or the French authors, and you’ll know what “yuk” means… Graves describes the battles, because the public wants it, and what he sees. He does not explicitly express the disgust from it or express the desire to get out. On the contrary, Dunn has to kick him out of the trenches because of his bad lungs. He suffered after – day-mares, fear of the telephone… but who did not have those fears after the war?

So what is this disillusionment? It’s when the soldiers go to war with the illusion that it is going to be a short heroic war, and then come back knowing war is not heroic… Graves left for France without the Great Ideas of coming back covered in glory. He knew medals were not the thing of the Welch. What we do find back, reading in between the lines, is a sense of being bored in the lines and the hatred of having to conform to the rules of the military – something he was never good at, not even at school. There’s a pattern here: bullied at school, he discarded the rules and traditions. Someone disillusioned would, I think, after a stint in the trenches condemn life over there and question the system as the fighting machine. He moans about having to attend riding classes… not much disillusionment…

Blunden, Sassoon and Graves share one point: they are all poets. They are writers who at some point have to live from their pens. Graves wrote this memoir from memory in 1929, in 11 weeks time. He wrote because he needed the money and thus wrote it so that it would sell. Which makes it very difficult to assess what is right to 100% in this book, what was his real state of mind at the moments of the facts and what was just “interesting”. In short, he wrote what the public would buy, not what is necessarily the truth. And apparently by doing so, he managed to insult his unit and his colleagues. Capt Dunn in “The War the Infantry Knew” refuted some of his sayings and Blunden and Sassoon set out after the book was written to corrects certain parts. In the second edition of the book, even Graves himself is surprised how his editor escaped a libel.

Going then with this idea that some pages are “full of crap” – pardon my French – how can I find traces of real disillusionment if I’m not 100% sure that they are real? How can I ascertain that he was truly disillusioned (or rather, more than any other writer of the FWW) and that he did not write this because it was “l’air du temps”? I’m not saying that he was not touched by the war and hurt by it at some level, I’m just saying that this book being written to be sold and with the intention to write something the public wants, it has to be handled with care.

On a personal level, don’t forget that Graves was a loner. Bullied at school, he escaped to the army obviously because he did not want the bully to follow him to university. He had only a few friends, also not the most popular kids at school. He chose boxing to make a difference, to hope they would leave him alone, hated school rituals and school traditions and seems to not have changed his attitude in the unit. The only real friend he had was Sassoon who was definitely not the brightest and best officer either. At this point, I definitely note I have to read Dunn to know what he thought of the fellows.

As a conclusion, I’d take Graves to illustrate some aspects of trench warfare, and after cross-check. But not really as a source on the state of mind of officers on the line.

Just some ideas, as I said...

MM.

[Muerrisch]

Hmmm ...............

'the only organisation I have ever been proud to belong to was The Regiment'.
Robert Graves, private correspondence, held at RWF Museum

see also Dunn's copy of GTAT, and the marginalia in Dunn's handwriting.

also at RWF Museum

[Marilyne]

Hmmm ...............

did i step on your toes??? (that's a Dutch expression... don't know if it has the same meaning in English... )

MM.

[David Filsell]

It would be helpful if post 38 could be made iPad friendly -ie in black an not fancy script please

[hazelclark]

I really don't care about what is 100% fact. It is a very good, well written book and gives a very good flavour of the war. Anyway, which old soldier didn't embellish things a bit. Makes for a better experience for the reader.

Hazel

[LarsA]

A good book, if everyone had shared in a similar way, what an archive we would have!

Lars

[Muerrisch]

did i step on your toes??? (that's a Dutch expression... don't know if it has the same meaning in English... )

MM.

The English is "tread" not step, but, no you did not.

If you have read the three volumes of RG's biography and Dunn's annotations we can have a discussion.

[Marilyne]

Aoutch ... I'll put it on the "to read" list... at the actual speed, we might have to postpone the conversation to next century ...

David... I sent you the text in non-fancy script per PM

M.M

[StuartAB]

When, in his paperback edition, the author can express surprise that his economies with the truth did not lead to libel actions against him, it's debatable whether the description 'biography' is appropriate.

Stuart

[EastSurrey]

I have a great affection for the book and R.G. was greatly attached to the R.W.F., but he wrote it as a bitter leave taking of England and in the hope of earning a good sum of money !

I found Graves' WO file at TNA-WO339/23299- some time back . It's a biggish file with numbers of copies of telegrams to him re. postings, etc. I couldn't find any ref. to such as his support of Sassoon. There was , however, a letter from the CO of a cadet battalion where he was an instructor ,commenting on him and recommending he didn't return.

Michael

[LarsA]

Well, he has made a mark in WWI history. I think many would miss the book, should it never have been published. As it is, with Sasson, Richards, Dunn, Graves and some other the picture of the RWF in WWI has been very well described.

ATB,

Lars

[Muerrisch]

When, in his paperback edition, the author can express surprise that his economies with the truth did not lead to libel actions against him, it's debatable whether the description 'biography' is appropriate.

Stuart

I think you confuse biography with autobiography: I was referring to the three books by Richard Perceval Graves.

[StuartAB]

I think you confuse biography with autobiography: I was referring to the three books by Richard Perceval Graves.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Stuartt