old books

[andrew pugh]

Good evening.

Has anyone read a book called The Battles of the Somme by Philip Gibbs? and is the author the same person who became Sir Philip Gibbs who wrote a book called The War Dispatches.

I have a copy of the book called Battles of the Somme written in 1917 by him. Also are these books rare at all? I personally like the way he describes what is going on around him almost like a roving reporter.was he an official reporter because he seems to have very good access to the battlefield.

Regards Andy

[seaJane]

The same Philip Gibbs as far as I know.

I may be wrong in thinking that he was a journalist - not universally popular?

[alougheed]

I don't think they are that rare, you can pick up his books on Abebooks for a reasonable price and of course his work is on archive.org for free.

[rflory]

You might be interested in knowing that Major A. Hamilton Gibbs, RFA wrote Gun Fodder: The Diary of Four Years of War which was published in 1919. He was the brother of Philip Gibbs who wrote the introduction to his "kid-brother's" book. Major Gibbs served with 379th Battery, RFA.

Dick Flory

[andrew pugh]

Good Morning.

Thank you all very much for that information.

Regards Andy

[centurion]

Gibbs was a reporter and was pilloried (along with Belloc) in the Wipers Times the insinuation being that much of his stuff was made up away from the battle front. There was a good example of it's parodying his material in the recent programme made by the BBC

[Magnumbellum]

Philip Gibbs was primarily a journalist who became a prolific author. In 1914 he was commissioned by the Daily Chronicle (later to merge with the Daily News to make the News Chronicle) to cover the war, but initially found difficulty in being accepted by the military in France. Eventually he did report and was knighted, but later became ashamed of his uncritical attitude towards the Allies and the inventiveness of his battle descriptions, obscuring the realities of mud, guts and gore.

[centurion]

Eventually he did report and was knighted, but later became ashamed of his uncritical attitude towards the Allies and the inventiveness of his battle descriptions, obscuring the realities of mud, guts and gore.

I may be an old cynic but suspect that he had a good commercial awareness off what was selling at the time.

[Dust Jacket Collector]

I'm no fan of Gibbs work but it's perhaps a little unfair to suggest he was writing what he thought might sell at the time. The book you're probably thinking of is 'Realities of War' which was published in 1920. In it Gibbs certainly dwells on the horrors of War but it's a good 7 or 8 years before others saw fit to do the same thing.

[centurion]

I'm no fan of Gibbs work but it's perhaps a little unfair to suggest he was writing what he thought might sell at the time. The book you're probably thinking of is 'Realities of War' which was published in 1920. In it Gibbs certainly dwells on the horrors of War but it's a good 7 or 8 years before others saw fit to do the same thing.

A P Herbert had already started the trend in 1919 and a reference to "Lions and Asses" appeared as early as 1920. The concept of band wagons comes to mind.

[Dust Jacket Collector]

Perhaps nothing as big as a wagon, more a donkey cart.

[Sniper]

One only has Gibb's word for it, but he did have access to and visited the battle areas on frequent occasions.

He was an accredited correspondent in Paris along with Repington of the Times and HM Tomlinson of the Daily News.

All three of them had covered previous conflicts. They were billeted at house of Madame de la Rochefoucauld, in the Rue Amiral Courbet in Paris and each correspondent was accompanied wherever he went by a Press Officer who took and censored all reports before they were forwarded to GHQ, where they were taken by King's Messengers to the War Office who distributed them to the newspapers.

Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard was an Assistant Press Officer at the time and was assigned to Gibbs, who came to like him very much. He wrote about him on a number of occasions.

"He hated the War with a deadly loathing, because of its unceasing slaughter of that youth which he loved, his old comrades in the playing fields and his comrades’ sons. Often he would come down in the morning, when the casualty lists were long, with eyes red after secret weeping. He had a morbid desire to go to dangerous places and to get under fire, because he could not bear the thought of remaining alive and whole while his pals were dying. Often he would unwind his long legs, spring out of his chair and say, “Gibbs, old boy, for God’s sake let’s go and have a prowl round Ypres, or see what’s doing Dickebush way.”

Perhaps a little flowery, (well, very flowery) but in keeping with the sort of journalese of the times.

Hesketh-Prichard does not mention this phase of his war in 'Sniping in France', as it has no relevance to the subject on which he was writing but there are references to Gibbs in his personal papers.