Authors: Richard Holmes
Tommy (70 page)
When the Reverend Theodore Bayley Hardy arrived in France he spoke to the more experienced Studdert Kennedy.
He asked me about purely spiritual works. I said there is very little: it is all muddled and mixed. Take a box of fags in your haversack and a great deal of love in your heart and go up to them. Laugh with them, joke with them. You can pray with them sometimes but pray for them always.
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But even Studdert Kennedy, eccentric and outgoing as he was, questioned his own role.
What the bloody hell is the Church doing here? An amateur stretcher bearer or an amateur undertaker? Was that all a Christian priest could be in this ruin of a rotten civilisation? I have pondered as I sat down after singing a comic song to the men at rest. An amateur comedian struggling to make men forget for one short hour the horrors in the midst of which they live and are called upon to die; always an amateur, always more or less inefficient and untrained, I was typical it seemed to me of the Church I loved and served.
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And in
The Unutterable Beauty,
the volume of poetry he published in 1927, he acknowledged the burden:
It was perhaps in their ability to shift easily between roles that Roman Catholics had the greatest advantage. They were, suggests Stephen Louden, âable to minister as priests, dispensing not fags but forgiveness, not just cheer but communion'.
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Sacramental rituals were at their most valuable when men confronted the terrifying unknown, and there was something âcommendably professional' about the average Catholic padre. Irish regiments containing an overwhelming majority of Roman Catholics sometimes celebrated the sort of
grande messe militaire
once seen in the French army, whose drummers beat the long roll of
au champs
at the elevation of the Host. Rowland Feilding's Connaughts heard High Mass in the village church at Locre on 17 December 1916.
Three priests officiated. Soldiers, accompanied by a soldier organist, composed the choir, and the battalion bugles sounded the âGeneral Salute' during the Elevation. All was very impressive and, considering that they are only out of the trenches for a few days' rest, the smart and soldierly appearance of the men was very remarkable. But there is never any difficulty â no matter what the circumstances â in getting a good Irish battalion to turn out well to go to Mass.
âThe intensity of their religion is something quite remarkable,' he reflected later, âand I had under-estimated it.'
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Father Francis Gleeson, mounted, with a stole over his service dress, gave absolution to 2/Royal Munster Fusiliers at a wayside shrine as the battalion moved up to attack Aubers Ridge in May 1915: the men, heads bared, within sound of gunfire, then sang the
Te Deum.
The Munsters lost nineteen officers (including their commanding officer and adjutant) and 374 men the next morning: only eight were taken prisoner. The incident formed the basis for Fortunino Matania's well-known painting
The Last Absolution of the Munsters.
But not all approved of the line taken by Roman Catholic clergymen. C. P. Blacker attended Mass with the Irish Guards and was shocked to see how the congregation was visibly horrified by Father Leahy's description of hell. âI could not overcome a feeling of distaste,' he wrote, âover the picture of this group of fine men weeping and striking their breasts when what they really wanted was a renewal of faith and a message of comfort.'
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Many Church of England chaplains had to improvise. The Reverend Victor Tanner was in a trench at Passchendaele.
After another shell fell close I said âNow, lads, I am going to ask you to do something which perhaps you have not done yet. I am going to ask you to close your eyes and pray that God will protect and keep the boys in the front line, and that He will extend the protection to us,' and every man closed his eyes. We could scarcely hear one another's voices amid the whistling and bursting of the shells. But God heard those prayers. That very trench was blown in during the afternoon and several men were killed or wounded.
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But if Anglican clergymen could not produce anything to equal the Connaughts' High Mass, it is clear that the good ones could indeed engage the spirituality of their flock. Julian Bickersteth put considerable effort into preparing willing soldiers for confirmation, though he noted sadly how death constantly raided his flock. When Charles Doudeney was mortally wounded by a shell fragment his widow received letters which testified to the fact that her husband had given men much more than cigarettes. Corporal R. W. R. Bond of the Military Police told her that:
Your dear husband was the means of getting a party of us ready for our Confirmation for which we all owe an allegiance to our dead comrade. He is greatly missed by us all â a brave and plucky gentleman. We will do our best to get to your dear husband's resting place, and do our best to make it up properly. While I am writing these lines I must thank you for the copies of the C. F. N.
[Christian Fellowship News]
which I distribute among my comrades, who find a very healthy bit of literature very acceptable in this awful place.
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And there were Scots and Welsh battalions where Protestantism was firmly founded. On Easter Sunday 1915 John Reith attended Communion with officers and men of 5th Scottish Rifles:
On this occasion the Minister took service behind the bar of a common drinking shop; silver flagons were ordinary bottles, chalices were tumblers. For long years this grey-haired padre had ministered to a congregation in a Scottish border town. He had dispensed a hundred Communions but never one so solemn as this, for all its undecorous setting. It had a circumstance of its own, a dignity and a compelling pathos. Drone of an aeroplane overhead, intermittent gunfire, rattle of a passing limber, these the organ undertones. As at home, we sang the 35th paraphrase to the tune Rockingham, but with new and pregnant significance. I looked from Minister to congregation, a hundred or so mostly very young, but with five months of war strain.
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Charles Douie attended a service in a barn at Henencourt at much the same time.
The night was quiet, apart from the incessant muttering of the distant guns. A few candles gave a flickering light. All round the barn men's equipment and rifles hung on the shadowed walls. The Communion table was a rough wooden packing-case. Yet the service was impressive, had indeed a splendour often absent in formal surroundings.
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And Walter Nicholson had the highest regard for Chaplain Rushby, a Wesleyan, who âwent over the top with the leading company' at Fricourt, and reported âa pleasurable excitement I shall never forget, nor ever be able to deserve'. âI never met a finer Christian,' reflected Nicholson,
but he never paraded his religion. He had a complete and utter faith in the goodness of our soldiers; glorying in their courage, endurance and cheerfulness. It was clear to him that they had a deep regard for divine things and that one of his battalion was linked to Cromwell's ironsides in piety and courage.
In Nicholson's experience âwhen the padres were good, they were very very good; but when they were bad they were awful'.
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In 1917 Anglican chaplains produced the report
The Church in France,
based on the results of 300 questionnaires. Neville Talbot, one of the chaplains who responded, affirmed that: âThe soldier has got religion, I am not sure that he has got Christianity.' There was a widespread feeling that Jesus was respected as a heroic fellow-sufferer, but little support for turning the other cheek. Many chaplains who responded thought that the war had broken down social barriers, and there was surprisingly little hatred of the Germans. However, it affirmed that priests needed to do more than simply to reach soldiers through their âTommy-ness': âThere are things beyond Tommy, and the minute he wakes up to this primary fact, we shall have a sign that he is saved.' In 1919 an inter-denominational group of seventeen chaplains published
The Army and Religion,
which reached some similar conclusions. The war, it declared, had shown many of the clergy to be amateurs because of their unwillingness to discuss spiritual issues man to man.
Chaplains' familiarity with the opinions of their soldiers through their censorship duties would have enabled them to see, as a modern researcher can, just how deep a current of belief flowed through the army: it certainly gives the lie to Robert Graves's suggestion that: âHardly one soldier in a hundred was inspired by religious feeling of even the crudest kind.'
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For some, belief was a reflection of pre-war teaching and feel for liturgy. Second Lieutenant Huntley Gordon reflected on the Psalms at Hellfire Corner, just outside Ypres, in August 1917.
In this strange world, the Psalms can be a very present help in time of trouble; particularly as they were written by a fighter who knew what it was to be scared stiff. It's really amusing to find how literally some of them apply to life in the Ypres Salient in 1917. âI stick fast in the mire where no ground is.' (Psalm 69) âThe earth trembled and quaked: the very foundation also of the hills shook.' (Psalm 18) âThe clouds poured out water, the air thundered: and the arrows went abroad.' (Ps 77) âThou shalt not be afraid for any terror by night: nor for the arrow that flieth by dayâ¦' (Ps 91) But David was obviously whistling to keep his courage up. Well, there are moments when it's something to be able to whistle at all. But this is surely to regard God as your lucky mascot; and that won't do nowadays.
One has to accept that one's own survival cannot be the first consideration. We have got to beat the Boche, whatever the cost. But this suppressing of one's instinct for safety is not easy, particularly at moments when your stomach turns over and won't go back into its place; âOur belly cleaveth unto the ground' (Ps 44) when the 5.9 cometh! All I hope is that, whatever happens, we may still be able to say âOur heart is not turned back: neither our steps gone out of thy way: No, not when thou hast smitten us into the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.' (Ps 44).
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And in August 1916 Private Alf Arnold RAMC told his parents that he had just heard a very good sermon comparing the nurse who looked after the patients in his ward to Jesus Christ: âI think that is very beautifully explained,' he wrote.
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But for far more soldiers belief was a conviction akin to fatalism, where God was indeed a mascot and prayers became more fervent as danger loomed. Some officers saw God as a sort of celestial commander in chief to whom they would eventually have to give an account of their operations on earth. Brigadier General Johnnie Gough, Haig's chief of staff until he was killed in 1915, told a padre that:
I believe that I shall stand before Almighty God. There are many things which I have done which I ought not to have but I think he will say: âLook here, when you have honestly known a thing to be your duty have you failed to do it?' I really think I shall be able to say, âNo'.
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Others, officers and men alike, simply trusted that God would do his best for them. Private George Taylor of 1/Grenadier Guards told his mother how much he hoped for her prayers, and concluded: âMay Jesus in his great love and compassion please grant that we may be spared to meet each other again. Give my love to all my friends⦠Yours in the Pink, George.'
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Private Roy Ashford reported that services at the base were âbetter attended than any I have seen in the Army', and was glad to be blessed by a chaplain before he went up the line.
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Driver Len Doust RFA admitted to the desperate prayer so common before danger: âOh God, for Christ's sake, don't let me be killed or maimed; don't let me lose my arms or legs.'
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Another soldier told his sweetheart:
I know a lot of men here before the war were great sinners but I know that they often pray now, it is the time the Germans are shelling our trenches that they think there is a God. I am not saying that I said my prayers before the war because I did not, but I don't believe I have missed a night since I have been out here and ever since the battle of Neuve Chapelle I have believed there is a god because I prayed to him before the battle to keep me safe and He did, I had some marvellous escapes.
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On the eve of the Somme a major in the London Scottish told Julian Bickersteth that he was quite confident that he would be safe because he knew that his young son prayed so hard for him: âThe faith of my little boy is so real⦠God could not disappoint a faith like that.' âI never saw him again,' wrote Bickersteth sadly. âHe was shot dead in the advance next morning.'
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But the current of belief flowed in two directions. W. H. A. Groom, religious when he went to war, lost his faith: âmy belief in a church which condoned killing faded away'.
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Religious belief, so fervent when shells whined overhead, was coupled with the selflessness which was so common in good units to encourage some chaplains, like David Railton, to âhope for such great things from the war'. But the war did not produce the national religious revival they prayed for, and the replacement of comradeship by selfishness was one of the unwelcome features of men's return to civilian life. âIt was just too wonderful for words to be a civilian again, free from orders and restraints,' exulted Roy Ashford, âbut just one thing was missing, and that was the comradeship and helpfulness one received from “chums” in the army'.
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