'The lamps are going out all over Europe'

War has inspired great prose and poetry in the English language. Churchill's speeches in the Second World War. The poetry of Owen, Sassoon and others in the First World War. One liners by military and naval men such as Wellington and Drake. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle for the year 878. 

Among the most elegant, and most prophetic, words spoken about war were those of Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, on the evening of 3rd August 1914. Britain was not yet at war, but the belief was that British participation in the already ongoing European war could not now be avoided. 

Grey's words have become so closely associated with the outbreak of war that they have been taken as the theme for this week's commemoration. 

In a generation of politicians that included David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, Grey was not the most charismatic nor the best orator nor the greatest man of letters. But it was his speech to the House of Commons on 3rd August that defined the British position and caused the majority, in Parliament and in the country, to accept that Britain had just cause to go to war. It was 'a statement destined to remain memorable in the history of the world', said the Times. 

According to his own memoirs, it was after making that speech that Grey, while looking out of the window of his rooms in the Foreign Office, spoke the words to a friend who was with him. 

'We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.'

The Great War changed Europe and the lives of many families not just for Grey's lifetime (he died in 1933) but forever. 

Four Empires fell - the German, the Austrian, the Russian and the Turkish. The consequences are still being felt in parts of Europe and in the Middle East today. 

The Peace of Versailles, which was recognised as flawed almost before the ink was dry, contributed to the great financial problems of Europe in the 1920s and to the Second World War, which in turn led to the Cold War. 

Grey's own party, the Liberals, yielded to a Coalition government in 1915. The party was deeply split and never again held office.  

The Great War had a much greater impact on the people of Britain than any previous war. Every family must have been touched by it  in some way. 

For Britain, this was the first war fought with a conscript army (from 1916). 5.7 million British men served in the Army at some time during the war. A further three million Imperial and Commonwealth troops served. Men also served in the Royal and merchant navies and the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force.  About one million died. Many more were left disabled, with lasting impact on their families. 

Millions more men and women worked in munitions and other industries related to war. Many moved away from their homes to do so, sometimes taking their families with them, changing the course of their lives and those of their descendants. 

This war was fought on the Home Front, something which the Britain, as an island, was not accustomed to. Aerial warfare brought civilian casualties. The U Boat campaign brought the country near to starvation.  

This week we should remember not just the men who went to fight and who died, but also those who came home disabled, and the women and children whose lives were changed by the war.

First World War Centenary

I'm sure I'll be posting more about the Great War as we approach all the major anniversaries, but for now a couple of resources for writers and historians:

The British Library has just launched a major new website on the First World War, with articles by present day historians and collections of resources from the time. The War is addressed from a European, not just a British, perspective, and the resources are drawn from various countries and are in various languages.

The BBC also has a First World War site where there are articles by present day authorities on various aspects of the war and links to and transcripts of radio and television programmes on the subject. (People outside the UK may not be able to access the television programmes.)

In addition, First World War.com is an established site that's well worth a visit, especially for its collections of contemporary source material.

The late and greatly missed military historian Professor Richard Holmes made two television series of War Walks, which are available on YouTube. The first series included episodes on the battles of Mons and the Somme.

God for Harry?

Today, 21 March, is the anniversary of the accession of Henry V in 1413.

  

Henry is best known for leading the English armies to victory at Harfleur and Agincourt, largely thanks to Shakespeare, who put some stirring speeches into his mouth:

And you, good yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;

For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

The reality is less dramatic. Henry V was the son of a usurper. In the early part of his reign he had to contend with religious difficulties and rebellion in England.

 
Shakespeare compressed the events of several years into his play. The victory at Agincourt was followed by protracted negotiations; it was not until 1420 that the treaty of Troyes secured for Henry Catherine de Valois as his wife and the promise of the French crown after the death of the then king, Charles VI.

Henry’s military success proved ephemeral; he had to spend the remainder of his reign fighting to hold onto his conquests. He died of dysentery in 1422 while on campaign in France.

Henry’s death when his son was an infant of nine months led to a long period of unstable government and ultimately to the Wars of the Roses. Henry might have served his country better if he had stayed at home, where he might have lived until his son reached his majority.

A noble cupola -

- a forme of church-building not as yet known in England, but of wonderfull grace. 

So John Evelyn described the proposed design for the new St Paul's, to replace  the cathedral destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. It’s a building that every English person probably, and every Londoner certainly, should see at least once.

It’s not cheap to go in (£14.50 at time of writing), but there is a lot to see. It needs a whole afternoon to begin to do it justice.

To men accustomed to the Norman and Gothic styles, Wren’s design for St  Paul’s was revolutionary. His plan, with the great dome, was rejected in favour of something more familiar.

Wren reputedly achieved his masterpiece by erecting a high fence around the site, allowing no-one but himself to see the complete plans, and making alterations as building progressed, until the work was too far advanced to reverse them.

Despite the initial reservations about the design, the dome of St Paul’s has become an essential and iconic part of the London skyline.

The image of the cathedral surrounded by smoke and flames came to symbolise Londoners’ resistance during the Blitz of 1940-41.

Wellington and Nelson are probably the best known of those buried in St Paul‘s, but it is not only national heroes who are commemorated there. There are memorials to artists, musicians, newspapermen. In the north aisle are plaques commemorating the crew of HMS Captain, lost in 1870. In the crypt is a memorial to correspondents who covered the Sudanese campaigns of 1883, 1884 and 1885.

Christopher Wren is buried in his cathedral. His tomb is unobtrusive and easily overlooked. It does not matter. His epitaph, composed by his son, also Christopher, says all that is necessary:

Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice

Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you.