'Good bye to all that'

[kenf48]

In 'A War Imagined' Samuel Hynes cites a letter written by Graves describing the Armistice at the training camp in North Wales where he was stationed at the time. He wrote, "Things were very quiet up here on the 11th; London was full of buck of course, but in North Wales a foreign war or a victory more or less are not considered much. Little boys banged biscuit tins and a Verey light or two went up in the camp but for the rest not much. A perfunctory thanksgiving service with nothing more cheerful in it than a Last Post for the dead; and then grouses about demobilisation. Funny people les anglais."

Ten years later in 'Goodbye to All That' writing about the same event Graves declared, 'The news sent me out walking alone along the dyke above the marshes of Rhudlan cursing and sobbing and thinking of the dead'. This powerful and emotional image, refers back to the traditional Welsh lament mourning the savage defeat of the Welsh by the Saxons in 795, the 'Morfa Rhuddlan'. The comparison of 'Cursed Cymru', in the original lyrics and Graves 'cursing' the memory of his comrades in the RWF shows Graves condensing his experience into a literary style that gives full rein to his glorious poetic imagery and draws a direct comparison to the suffering of the veterans of the Great War to their ancient ancestors. There is no evidence he actually walked out on Rhuddlan Marsh on Armistice night. The passage is also quoted in Richard Perceval Graves 'Assault Heroic' although he acknowledges that as a biographer it would have been 'tiresome in the extreme' to correct Graves acknowledged memory lapses. It is Graves literary style and poetic allusion to a cruel, almost forgotten, battle that makes the 'revised version' of what was a fairly uneventful day so graphic and moving. After all that had gone before we need to feel emotion at the War's end.

Graves was, as noted in the original incarnation of this thread, not writing an Official History but a literary classic that grew in stature as he became older and more famous. It is one of the few Great War memoirs that has remained in print to this day.

He claimed to have written Goodbye to All That to 'make a lump of money' (a constant obsession) and went on to list what he considered the ingredients of a popular memoir, 'Sport is essential...other subjects of interest which could not be neglected were school episodes, love affairs, wounds, weddings, religious doubts, methods of bringing up children. severe illnesses, suicides. But the best bet of all is battles and I had been in two quite good ones...So it was easy to write a book that would interest everybody'.

On publication one critic wrote , 'His war scenes have been justly acclaimed to be excellent; they are, in fact among the few in books of this nature which are of real historical value.' However he went on to say, 'His attitude, however, leaves a disagreeable impression.' In 1928 the wounds were raw and his message of futility and disillusionment was not universally popular and many believed diminished the sacrifice of millions.

Incidentally, in February 1969 Graves, wrote to Spike Milligan commenting on the 'Jubilee of his demobilization from the war' and wrote, 'at least it wasn't such a shameful, soulless, utterly filthy one as the Vietnam War'. His disillusion had apparently mellowed in old age and the experience of greater horrors in the twentieth century!

One consequence of what Fussell has described as 'fiction' (post 2) is the powerful prose of the 'war poets' mentioned by Marilyne perpetuate the myths that remain the accepted 'history' of the war, evidenced today by the Government's selection of those setting the agenda for the Centenary having a heavy bias towards the literary tradition.

Ken

[Felix C]

I always used GTAT as a reading primer when someone asks for a military memoir recommendation. It is one of those books one picks up intending only to browse for a few minutes and then realizes hours have gone by.

I am also no fan of Paul Fussel.

[David Filsell]

It was good to see this thread back again. Forumeering at its best and most interesting. Not least it reached the truth about the report of Graves death report which I had never, until the Times report was found, quite believed having read so much about the old rogue.

[Mark Hone]

A few months ago, after reading a review of Graves's poetry which mentioned this, I posted a query as to whether anyone had ever identified the soldier called 'Private Challenor' in GTAT who was killed at Festubert and whose ghost he claims to have seen staring at him through a restaurant window. This incident obviously made an impact on Graves because he also wrote a poem about it in which he calls the spectre 'Corporal Stare'. I didn't get any takers at the time.

After the publication of GTAT Graves was not a popular figure amongst veterans of 20th (Public Schools Battalion) RF. Don Price, whom I met in the 1980s on a WFA tour, was still very bitter about the slur on his comrades' good name made by Graves in his account of High Wood.