Rowland Feilding Surveys the Damage; Richard Aldington Forswears Love; Thomas...
Today, a century back, Rowland Feilding wrote an extremely long letter to his wife, upon which we have been drawing for nearly two weeks for his accounts of the running battle. But now the Civil...
View ArticleJack Martin Reads Some Very Good Poems; Rowland Feilding Jokes Along with the...
Jack Martin is a tentative presence here. He’s one of the veterans, by now, and a reliable and interesting diarist, but he has not had much in the way of harrowing or memorable experiences. And though...
View ArticleAll Things Do Cry: Duff Cooper Plays at the War’s Ending; C.E. Montague...
I’ve written before of my faint sense of embarrassment at finding the affair of Duff Cooper and Diana Manners to be so intriguing. Enough with this proto-celebrity-culture focus on the posh! But they...
View ArticleDuff Cooper Reveals a Mistress; Diana Manners Doesn’t Trust the Peace Talk;...
News of the German request for an armistice continues to spread. This is something that Duff Cooper can write home about. First, though, we will read his diary, which puts a nice buttery Parisian sheen...
View ArticleWilfred Owen: “But it Still Goes On;” Alfred Hale at the Mercy of a Can...
First, today, the war weighs on Wilfred Owen, whose battalion is now in support. Sat. 19 October 1918 My dearest Mother, We left the Corrugated Iron & Red Tent Billet in a hurry early yesterday...
View ArticleRichard Aldington’s Prayers and Fantasies; Rowland Feilding in the Chateau;...
Several poems could take pride of place today, but neither Vera Brittain‘s wan “Requiem” (written this month) nor the really awful–and loathsome–poem by Gilbert Frankau (carried by The Daily Mail[1] of...
View ArticleC.E. Montague Meets a Gunner; Rowland Feilding Stumbles into a Nunnery
C.E. Montague reached Valenciennes, today, a century back, in one of several convoys of journalists rushing up the line toward victory. We get in from the W., about one P.M., over a pontoon bridge… At...
View ArticleRichard Aldington’s Life is Ruined; Olaf Stapledon’s Future Gets a Decorative...
As the end draws near, we have three veterans in three very different situations today, a century back. One stands at the beginning of the end, another at the cusp of the beginning, and the third in...
View ArticleThe Great Calm
At 5 A.M., the representatives of Germany signed the Armistice that had been under negotiation for four days. At 11:00, it took effect, and the war ended, almost exactly a week after Wilfred Owen was...
View ArticleAny Soldier to His Son
Four and a half years is a long time, but then again nothing recedes quite like something that had been long awaited. Even with the purest intention of holding fast to century-back know-nothingness–by...
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