{"id":523,"date":"2018-06-22T19:45:57","date_gmt":"2018-06-22T19:45:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/openhistoryseminar.com\/canadianhistory\/?post_type=chapter&p=523"},"modified":"2018-07-14T14:37:23","modified_gmt":"2018-07-14T14:37:23","slug":"interpretation-1-tim-cook","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/openhistoryseminar.com\/canadianhistory\/chapter\/interpretation-1-tim-cook\/","title":{"raw":"Interpretation 1: Tim Cook","rendered":"Interpretation 1: Tim Cook"},"content":{"raw":"

Source: Cook, Tim. \"Anti-heroes of the Canadian Expeditionary Force\"<\/a>\u00a0Journal of the Canadian Historical Association<\/em>, 19, no. 1 (2008): 171-193.<\/h3>\r\n\r\n
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\u201cHeroes of St. Julien and Festubert,\u201d proclaimed a Canadian recruiting poster from 1916, evoking the famous and costly Canadian battles of the preceding year. \u201cHere\u2019s to the Soldier who bled \u2026 Their fame is alive, though their spirits have fled.\u201d\u00a0[1]<\/a>\u00a0It was not just posters that effusively praised the hero-soldiers, but public discourse from politicians, the pulpit, and newspapers routinely referred to the heroic sacrifice of the soldiers overseas and the need to support them and their families.\u00a0[2]<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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Some 620,000 Canadians enlisted from 1914 to 1918 to serve King and country in what many from this generation called the Great War for Civilization. The Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) drew recruits from across the country, from almost all regions, religions, and trades. This army was composed primarily of civilian-soldiers \u2014 for the most part farmers, clerks, students, and bankers, rather than professional soldiers. From the First Contingent soldiers, who left Canadian shores in October 1914, to the old breed of the Canadian Division, who survived their trial-by-fire engagement against overwhelming German forces, shells, and poison gas at the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915, the war quickly forged heroes for the young Dominion.\u00a0[3]<\/a>\u00a0Canadian airmen, especially fighter pilot aces such as Billy Bishop, William Barker, and Raymond Collishaw, were elevated to the status of \u201cknights of the sky,\u201d aerial warriors who fought by different rules as they flew into the wild blue yonder.\u00a0[4]<\/a>\u00a0Individual infantrymen were harder to distinguish among the masses in the muddy trenches of the Western Front, although gallantry medals offered tangible proof of bravery. By war\u2019s end, 70 Canadians were recognized with the prestigious Victoria Cross, while thousands more were awarded lesser, if still significant, gallantry medals.\u00a0[5]<\/a>\u00a0While these medals were politicized, with some deserving soldiers going unrewarded while others reaped the benefits of friendships, patronage, or being at the right place at the right time, they were nonetheless scarce. Medals or not, almost all the Canadians who enlisted were viewed as heroes, soldiers who had sacrificed much for King and country.\u00a0[6]<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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While Canadian soldiers were regarded as heroes, all men needed motivation to keep fighting in the difficult conditions in and behind the trenches. Medals were not the only form of reward, and, in fact, were far from the most important to the soldiers who relied on their comrades to see them through the conflict. Other simpler pleasures, such as mail, food, rest, rotation, and rum, and more complex factors, such as the creation of a fatalistic belief system and respect for leadership, allowed soldiers to keep fighting and to avoid succumbing to the stress of unending combat.\u00a0[7]<\/a>\u00a0Soldiers also developed their own unique culture to help them endure.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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This culture was manifested in songs, writing, sketches, theatre, folk art, and other products fashioned by the soldiers for themselves and one another to make meaning of their war experiences. While the civilian-soldiers were often shaped by military training and conditioning, they did not forsake their pre-war lives and drew heavily upon civilian influences. Nonetheless, the culture was wrought by the environment and circumstances of the Western Front and service in the military, and reflected a new sub-culture.\u00a0[8]<\/a>\u00a0The production and sharing of these cultural products forged social relationships, helping soldiers engage in a shared sense of agency, craft their own sense of identity, and sustain morale. But this culture was often exclusive of outsiders. The\u00a0R.M.R. Growler<\/em>, trench newspaper of the 14th Battalion, a journal published for soldiers by soldiers, noted in its first issue of 1 January 1916:<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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\u2026it is hardly to be expected that anyone outside our own immediate circle will find any interest in what, owing to circumstances, will be necessarily crude in conception and local in character \u2026 our humour must be rather blunt to appeal to the men spending their days and nights in wet and muddy trenches, dodging shells, and cursing the weather, the Huns, the Quartermaster, the Transport Officer, and anything else that occurs to them .... Should any layman be unfortunate enough to secure a copy, we can only sympathize with him and apologise, as it was not intended that the \u2018Growler\u2019 should wander from the family circle.\u00a0[9]<\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

Much of the soldiers\u2019 culture was not easily shared with or understood by outsiders. And this, of course, was part of its appeal.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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While ignored in much of the writing relating to the Great War, where historians have more readily turned to the highbrow culture of official war art, avant-garde dance, and the \u00e9lite discourse of war poets, there is much to be learned from the culture that was created by and supported the majority of soldiers who never painted the battlefields in studios behind the lines, danced to Stravinsky, or picked up a pen to write searing poetry with the Cambridge and Oxford educated British officer class.\u00a0[10]<\/a>\u00a0Instead, the armies of civilian-soldiers more readily embraced popular and parodied songs, music-hall inspired theatre, soldier-published trench newspapers, as well as other cultural products, to see their way through the terrible and seemingly endless war. This culture came from the soldiers themselves, allowing them to make sense of the war effort. Soldiers\u2019 culture was infused not only with pre-war cultural references, but also new wartime narratives, language, and perspectives.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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The anti-hero was one of the most important themes running through soldiers\u2019 culture. In a war where soldiers were elevated to heroes by civilians, the soldiers often chose to emphasis the anti-heroic in their cultural products. These anti-heroes, characters who lacked traditional heroic qualities such as courage or self-sacrifice, became the soldiers\u2019 heroes. This embracing of the anti-hero did not mean that the soldiers turned their back on their heroic comrades, as they surely respected soldiers exhibiting traditional \u201cheroic\u201d qualities; but there was space for the hero and the anti-hero to sit comfortably together within the soldiers\u2019 culture. Soldiers were reshaping their shared sense of identity by presenting images in stark contrast to those emanating from the home front.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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There were several anti-hero archetypes in Canadian soldiers\u2019 culture, and this paper will examine three: British cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather\u2019s Old Bill, \u201cold soldiers,\u201d and malingers. While these archetypes were separate, with identifiable qualities, they also bled into one another, creating a rich tapestry of anti-heroic cultural products and icons. These anti-heroes provided a voice for the soldiers, and at times even a language by which the soldiers could make sense of their war experience. The anti-heroes were not always emulated, but their unheroic actions resonated with the trench warriors.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/section>

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Bruce Bairnsfather and Canadian Cartoonists<\/h2>\r\n
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British officer Bruce Bairnsfather was the most popular cartoonist of the war, admired by British, Canadian, and most Allied soldiers. It may seem odd in a discussion about Canadian trench culture to highlight a British cartoonist, but it is worth remembering that almost half of the Canadian Expeditionary Force was formed by soldiers who had been born in Britain, and, of course, Canadian culture, both high and low, was influenced heavily by British content. The Canadian forces fought with the British during the war and were strongly influenced by its traditions and ethos, and Canada\u2019s pre-war military heroes were often Imperial.\u00a0[11]<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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Bairnsfather, a cartoonist with\u00a0The Bystander<\/em>, a British paper with a large working class readership, had found a pre-war niche with his cartoons lampooning British life, but was by no means a national star. Bairnsfather was quick to enlist when Britain declared war and his service with the infantry at the front immersed him in the unique culture of the soldiers, which he captured in his drawings. His cartoons were published in a collection,\u00a0Fragments from France<\/em>, which eventually sold an astonishing 250,000 copies.\u00a0[12]<\/a>\u00a0Several additional compilations were rushed to the public, and his cartoons and characters were franchised in postcards, posters, plays, movies, souvenirs, and other ephemera, with their appeal extending well into the postwar years.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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Bairnsfather\u2019s inspiration was drawn from his men and service in the army. Their grousing and grumbling over the food and mud became fodder for his cartoons. But his cartoons went beyond the physical discomforts to address the stress and strain at the front: the fears of standing sentry, the agony of shelling, the dislocation from civilized society. While he was a lieutenant in the line (later he was elevated to a captain when he became the army\u2019s only official cartoonist), he always treated the rank and file with respect. Many of Bairnsfather\u2019s characters, and especially his beloved anti-heroes Old Bill and Alf, epitomized some of the soldiers\u2019 experiences while serving on the Western Front. The disheveled, overweight, pipe-smoking, bushy-mustached Old Bill and his companions were not cowards, but they certainly were not heroes in the traditional sense.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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Bairnsfather\u2019s Old Bill and the other characters in the cartoon chronicles were instantly recognized by any British or Canadian Tommy, who saw themselves in the grumpy warrior. He endured as they endured; he growled what they growled. The grim but humourous view of war resonated with the soldiers: this was no pandering, no condescension, no \u201ceye-wash.\u201d It was the view of the war from the bottom. Bairnsfather\u2019s cartoons crossed national boundaries because his depictions were less about national stories and more about what united the common soldiers in service, servility, and survival. They represented the \u201cpoor bloody infantry\u2019s\u201d ability to endure the horror of war with a wry smile, a phlegmatic phrase, and a shrug of the shoulders.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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\u201cThese cartoons by Bairnsfather are very good and true to life,\u201d wrote Canadian infantryman Basil Morris to his sister.\u00a0[13]<\/a>\u00a0Bairnsfather\u2019s cartoons seemed to capture the war experience. His most famous cartoon, \u201cA better \u2019Ole,\u2019\u201d revealed in grim humour that during a bombardment there was no where to run. Some of his works had a vein of sentimentality running through them, reminding soldiers of the life and loves they left behind. Others satirized the usual suspects: the enemy, parasitic profiteers at home, or the out-of-touch generals behind the lines. Another Canadian from the infantry, H.R.N. Clyne, remarked, \u201cOur first long winter campaign against a welter of mud and caved-in trenches now began. The life was hard and dreary but often cheered by Bruce Bairnsfather\u2019s famous and cogent cartoons featuring \u2018Alf\u2019 and \u2018Old Bill,\u2019 that did so much to portray our kind of existence for those at home.\u201d\u00a0[14]<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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Cartoons are cultural objects that must be read as more than simply an expression of the creator; assessing their value requires at some level an understanding of the cartoon\u2019s reception. These cartoons had multiple levels of meaning, suggesting different messages to civilians and soldiers. It is clear that the Bairnsfather cartoons resonated with the rank and file and junior officers, and perhaps also at higher levels, although there is little mention of Bairnsfather in the personal papers of commanders. Old Bill was viewed initially on the home front as unpatriotic, almost treasonous, until the soldiers themselves offered a chorus of approval.\u00a0[15]<\/a>The civilian critics retreated, yet remained unsure why soldiers would embrace these unheroic images, when those at home were doing their best to elevate them to heroic status.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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Forced to confront a terrible new world of destruction, soldiers often had trouble capturing their fear, exhaustion, and strain in letters, either because of formal military censorship or the simple inability to put words to paper. But Bairnsfather\u2019s cartoons seemed to offer a common language, one of understood symbols, which allowed soldiers to speak to one another and sometimes even to loved ones at home. Lieutenant Maurice Pope could write to his parents in early 1916: \u201cI am well physically, but very tired mentally. This work is quite a strain on one and these nights I am living Bairnsfather\u2019s cartoon \u2014 \u2018This \u2014\u2014 war will be the death of us yet\u2019.\u201d\u00a0[16]<\/a>\u00a0Soldiers adopted the classic Bairnsfather phrases as a way to communicate with recognized cultural references. We cannot be sure if Pope\u2019s parents would have understood the allusion to Bairnsfather, but it was common enough and ingrained in Pope for him to turn to it to describe the nearly indescribable. Hugh Kay of the 43rd Battery noted that during an artillery bombardment, if one listened to the men taking shelter in their dugouts, \u201cyou might hear faint snatches of \u2018Where did that one go to \u2019Erbert\u2019,\u201d the reference to a cheeky Bairnsfather cartoon.\u00a0[17]<\/a>\u00a0A Canadian sniper officer, Peter Anderson, wrote grimly of shooting a German in the face, who peered through a hole between the sandbags in the parapet: \u201cif they knew of a \u2018better \u2019ole\u2019 they should have \u2018gone to it\u2019.\u201d\u00a0[18]<\/a>\u00a0The anti-heroic slang and phrases of Old Bill became the voice of the soldiers who appropriated the words to fill their own silences.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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Familiar heroes, such as actor Charlie Chaplin, music hall star Harry Lauder, and Old Bill, united Canadian, British, and other English-speaking Empire forces.\u00a0[19]<\/a>\u00a0Yet there were aspects unique to the Canadian forces too. Samuel Honey, a former teacher who rose through the ranks to become an officer and was awarded the Victoria Cross before his death in the last months of the war, wrote to his parents about how much he admired Bairnsfather\u2019s cartoons for capturing \u201cincidents and situations \u2026 I wish I had a talent for drawing like Capt. Bairnsfather.\u201d\u00a0[20]<\/a>\u00a0He did not, but other Canadians did. The popularity of Bairnsfather\u2019s cartoons sparked Canadian imitations, which were often published in soldiers\u2019 trench newspapers. Print was, according to Corporal John Ward, a \u201cmedium where he [the soldier] can make himself heard.\u201d\u00a0[21]<\/a>\u00a0With the Canadian forces drawing its recruits from across the country and all professions, there were many cartoonists in their ranks. Some were inspired by Bairnsfather and made no apologies for \u201csampling\u201d his work.\u00a0Oh, Canada<\/em>, a commemorative publication, had several cartoons that played on Bairnsfather success, with titles such as \u201cA Figment from Flanders, (with apologies to Captain B \u2013nsf\u2014\u2014-r.),\u201d that depicted two scared Canadians working in the dark of No Man\u2019s Land, either repairing or cutting through barbed wire: \u201cSay, George, when we get back to our farm in Ontario[,] I\u2019ll bet the old snake fence will be good enough for me!\u201d \u201cSame here! I don\u2019t never want to see anymore of this blame stuff again (And so say we, all of us!<\/em>).\u201d\u00a0[22]<\/a>\u00a0Here, and in other cheeky, mimicking cartoons, the Canadians were building on the accepted anti-heroic message established by Bairnsfather and other cultural products. While not overtly anti-heroic, admitting fear and fatigue was far different than the hyper-patriotic speeches from the home front or the caricatured superheroes of war posters. While Canadian cartoonists depicted all manner of subjects, the anti-hero figured prominently, although at least one cartoonist in\u00a0The Brazier<\/em>, the trench newspaper for the 3rd Brigade, queried politely if Alf and Old Bill-like soldiers truly represented the Canadians? There was no answer to that question in forthcoming editions of the paper, although in the same issue there was a dopey-looking Canadian soldier, who could pass as Alf\u2019s twin, dreaming of happy times and food away from the trenches.\u00a0[23]<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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The Listening Post<\/em>, the most popular Canadian trench newspaper that reached a circulation of 20,000 in the summer of 1917, had one of the most talented cartoonists in the CEF.\u00a0[24]<\/a>\u00a0Hugh Farmer was described by another slightly envious trench newspaper editor as being \u201cgood enough to put him in the Capt. Bairnsfather class.\u201d\u00a0[25]<\/a>\u00a0His drawings of Canadians often presented them as stronger, stockier, and better looking than Bairnsfather\u2019s sad-sack figures; but Farmer also embraced the anti-heroic theme to appeal to his readers. One December 1917 cartoon depicts a soldier trying to get out of the line by applying for a transfer to the motor transport unit. The officer asks, \u201cWhat do you know about motors?\u201d The private replies, \u201cOnly that they don\u2019t go into the trenches, sir.\u201d\u00a0[26]<\/a>\u00a0Gentle humour no doubt, with a simple punch-line, but also another acknowledgment of the anti-heroic as the haggard soldier looks to escape the front; and for good measure, the image is a slight insult directed against the transport soldiers in the service corps, and others along the safer lines of communication, positions that were usually derided by the infantry as \u201cbomb-proof.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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Figure<\/p>\r\n

Motors cartoon<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/figcaption>\"Motors<\/a>Credit: Canadian War Museum, Military History Research Centre,\u00a0The Listening Post<\/em>\u00a029, n.p.<\/cite>\r\n

-> See the list of figures<\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n

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Figure<\/p>\r\n

The Writing on the Wall<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/figcaption>\"The<\/a>Credit: Canadian War Museum, Military History Research Centre,\u00a0The Forty-Niner<\/em>, 23<\/cite>\r\n

-> See the list of figures<\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n

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The cartoons could be more daring. The\u00a0Iodine Chronicles\u00a0<\/em>made light of \u201cActivities on the Western front (Un-official),\u201d which depicted a bar fight in an\u00a0estaminet<\/em>.\u00a0[27]<\/a>\u00a0Alcohol-fueled battles were not uncommon behind the lines, between the Canadians and other national forces, or even amongst themselves; but this cartoon reveals broken wine bottles used as weapons, knives, and pistols. With temperance groups at home already worried about soldiers\u2019 seemingly unfettered access to alcohol, either through wet canteens or the daily rum ration, this cartoon of beer-soaked brawlers would have been no laughing matter.\u00a0[28]<\/a>\u00a0But it was to the soldiers, who well understood the pleasure of a blowout party behind the lines before returning to the front.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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There has been some attention by historians directed at wartime cartoons, suggesting that pictorial humour was a form of social mobilization in French and British civilian societies.\u00a0[29]<\/a>\u00a0If that is the case, then surely soldiers\u2019 cartoons, created by their own hands and for their own comrades, were at least as powerful in mobilizing the soldiers. But mobilizing them for what? Cartoons, like stories or art, are surrounded by layers of interpretation and understanding. Decoding a cartoon\u2019s meaning also requires an understanding of the context behind the image and punch-line, and sometimes it is lost over time. Is the pen mightier than the sword? Most soldiers would have passed on bringing a pen on a trench raid, but the pen could still draw blood, or at least help explain and make sense of the soldiers\u2019 experience.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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Veteran and historian G.R. Stevens observed the popularity of Bairnsfather and his messages. \u201cHis gallery of characters \u2014 Old Bill, Alf, Bert, his fed-up privates and his sardonic sergeants \u2014 became celebrities in their own right and their cross-talk became a common coin of conversational exchanges wherever English was spoken. \u2018Where did that one go?\u2019 \u2018If you knows of a better \u2019ole go to it?\u2019 \u2018What time do you feed the sea lions, Alf?\u2019 \u2018There goes our blinkin\u2019 parapet again!\u2019 \u2018Who made that \u2019ole? Mice.\u2019 \u2018They\u2019ve evidently seen me,\u2019 and a hundred other catchphrases portrayed a world war as Britons wanted to see it \u2014 stimulating, dangerous but on the whole a rather amusing business.\u201d\u00a0[30]<\/a>\u00a0Stevens is right to note Bairnsfather\u2019s prevalence amongst and his influence on the soldiers, but perhaps he offers too literal a reading of the cartoons, especially when combined with \u201cold soldiers\u201d or other \u201coutsiders\u201d that were so readily embraced by the soldiers. These anti-heroic cultural figures were more than simply an \u201camusing business\u201d \u2014 they were the means by which the armies of civilian-soldiers coped with the terrible strain of the war, pushed back against authority and hierarchy, and interpreted their wartime experiences.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/section>

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Old Soldiers<\/h2>\r\n
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Every unit had its \u201cold soldiers:\u201d experienced veterans from the Permanent Force or the South African War, often older in age and certainly more experienced in the ways of the world. But age alone did not define \u201cold soldier\u201d status: there were many \u201cold soldiers\u201d who had spent a year or two at the front, had become jaded, and all before their 20th birthday. Generally, this class of soldier had pre-war military experience. Victor Trowles recounted how one \u201cold soldier\u201d in his platoon could \u201cquote the King\u2019s regulations by the yard. And we used to sit down with our mouth open and listen to him \u2026. We just listened to him as if he was a tin god. We\u2019d pester the life out of the fellow.\u201d\u00a0[31]<\/a>\u00a0\u201cOld soldiers\u201d carried with them knowledge in an army short of military experience \u2014 beyond that of the Militia \u2014 even if supposed Zulu spear wounds looked suspiciously like appendicitis operation scars. \u201cOld soldiers\u201d displayed a crusty and phlegmatic attitude that made them colourful figures among military units; these veterans understood the ways of the army, allowing them to take liberties whenever they could. A.G. Jacobs remembered two \u201cold soldiers\u201d running a scam: one of them wormed his way into the position of issuing uniforms, where he always provided new men with clothing that was too small or too big; the second man then offered to help the mismatched soldier for a few dollars and get him better fitting clothes, of which they had an abundant supply of official regulation. When Jacobs and his mates caught on to the operation, they were not angry with the soldiers; instead, they admired their resourcefulness.\u00a0[32]<\/a>\u00a0Charles Savage, a pre-war clerk from Waterloo, Qu\u00e9bec, wrote: \u201cThe old soldiers in the regiment had long ago introduced us to Crown and Anchor and we were still innocent enough to hope for the best when we bet on the old Mud Hook.\u201d\u00a0[33]<\/a>\u00a0Most found that the house, run by the \u201cold soldiers\u201d with the boards to allow for betting in the dice game, almost always won. Yet still the soldiers played.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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Why was there admiration and not anger for these \u201cartful dodgers,\u201d as some of the \u201cold soldiers\u201d were known, especially when the work they avoided ultimately fell to other soldiers in the unit?\u00a0[34]<\/a>\u00a0While some of the \u201cold soldiers\u201d rose to become essential members of the fighting unit, passing on military knowledge and skills, others remained hopeless cases.\u00a0[35]<\/a>\u00a0Yet there was something about these latter \u201cold soldiers\u201d that appealed to the civilian-soldiers of the CEF, in a similar way to the anti-hero. Their shirking of duty was not always emulated, but it was often envied. Perhaps it was the hardening process of training and early combat that drove many new recruits to the realization that the army and military discipline were not about fairness or justice, and that an experienced soldier survived by his wits. While the Canadian soldier eventually took pride in their reputation as battle-hardened warriors, the foil to this aggressive behavior was the \u201cold soldier,\u201d who also became an important symbol among Canadians in supporting this constructed reputation.\u00a0[36]<\/a>\u00a0Soldiers\u2019 cultural products, from songs to jokes, and especially the trench newspapers, revealed the \u201cold soldiers\u2019\u201d appeal. While the \u201cold soldiers\u201d were not a large group among the fighting formations, they stood out in the soldiers\u2019 stories and cultural products.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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At the heart of the image of the \u201cold soldier\u201d was an anti-authoritarian message. Many of the \u201cold soldier\u201d jokes and cartoons revealed a tension between the soldiers and authority. In an army where everyone took orders, there was inherent frustration at the sometimes stupid and senseless demands from above. Grumbling and grousing was common in the army. \u201cIt is the soldier\u2019s privilege to grouse,\u201d wrote Armine Norris, an enlisted man who later received a commission. \u201cThese are the same kind of men who, with eyes wide open, entered hell to die for people and a country that had never done anything very special for them.\u201d\u00a0[37]<\/a>\u00a0Victor Wheeler of the 50th Battalion remarked: \u201cWe are being treated very badly here, and I am doing my \u2018expected\u2019 share of grouching. It doesn\u2019t remedy conditions, but it does help a fellow to keep going, like a horse under the whip!\u201d\u00a0[38]<\/a>\u00a0Complaining and grumbling at their lot \u2014 from being ordered to dig latrines to carrying spools of barbed wire to the front line trenches, and all of the other laborious tasks asked of the soldiers who were known informally as the \u201cpack mules\u201d of the army \u2014 was annoying, but generally accepted by the soldiers and their officers. But they would not do so without a word or two of disgust. As part of this mild \u201cpush back,\u201d the soldiers took delight in imagining how they could outwit their seniors, who had the hierarchy and discipline of the army on their side.\u00a0[39]<\/a>\u00a0By enjoying the antics of the \u201cold soldiers,\u201d most of their comrades could live vicariously through them in a safe environment, which neither required emulation nor forced officers to react strongly, as would be the case for more mutinous actions.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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A cartoon from The Forty-Niner, the newspaper for the 49th Battalion, summed up the tension of the \u201cold soldier,\u201d as expressed through the soldiers\u2019 cultural products. He stands at attention before his commanding officer at a court-martial, where he is being punished for returning late from leave, and looks the worse for wear after two weeks or so of drinking in England. On being asked why he was late, the private replies respectfully: \u201cSir, I was hurrying to catch my train and I met the Salvation Army Band playing \u2018God Save the King.\u2019 I had to stand at attention as became a Forty-Niner, and it caused me to lose my train by about a minute.\u201d The commanding officer, who knows he is hearing a story, nonetheless replies, \u201cDismissed,\u201d thereby letting the \u201cold soldier\u201d off the hook.\u00a0[40]<\/a>\u00a0The ranker is not dodging the illegality of being late from leave, but instead he has found a legitimate and patriotic response. Here, we see the \u201cold soldier\u201d talking his way out of a tight situation, and his commanding officer granting him that leeway without losing face.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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The \u201cold soldier\u201d did not always \u201cwin,\u201d but the end result was sometimes less important than the exchange between leaders and led. Sergeant W.B. Thomas of the 49th Battalion offered a soldiers\u2019 poem, \u201cBeaten to a Frazzle,\u201d which reveals another side to the relationship between the officers and rank and file. In the poem, a major is fed up with men asking for leave from the front and then overstaying it, to which they could receive only minor punishments. He decides to make an example of an \u201cold offender,\u201d Private Mathews. Mathews has asked for six days to see his wife, whose health is bad; he implores: \u201cShe\u2019s all I\u2019ve got, and we\u2019ve been wed \/ Just over twenty years; \/ We\u2019ve shared our joys, our ups and downs \/ Our pint of supper beer.\u201d The major is unmoved, but it is hard to counter the argument. He bluffs, saying he has a letter from Matthew\u2019s wife, \u201cWhich says that when you are at home \/ She\u2019s frightened for her life \/ She says that if you ask for leave, \/ To turn you down quite hard.\u201d The soldier knows he is beaten and responds by saluting and turning away, but then stops and asks for a final word:<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Can I have further speech, he said\r\n\u00a0<\/span>As conditions would have been\r\nIf you were not an officer,\r\n\u00a0<\/span>And we\u2019d no rank?<\/p>\r\n

All right, man to man, the major said,\r\nI\u2019ll hear what you\u2019ve to say;\r\nBut don\u2019t say aught about reform\r\nI guess that\u2019s past your day.<\/p>\r\n

It\u2019s just this, sir, the man replied.\r\nMy reputation here\r\nIs not what you would call first class:\r\nThey say I\u2019m fond of beer.<\/p>\r\n

They say I fight, and swear, and shirk\r\nAnd perhaps it\u2019s all quite true,\r\nBut when it comes to lying, sir,\r\nMy hat comes off to you.<\/p>\r\n

You said you\u2019d had a letter, sir,\r\n\u00a0<\/span>From the partner of my life;\r\nBut I regret to say, sir,\r\n\u00a0<\/span>I\u2019ve never had a wife.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

This interplay between officer and men, which moves playfully to the punch-line, no doubt tickled the soldiers\u2019 fancy, but the verbal sparring match revealed some of the constant negotiations of power that went on among the ranks of the Canadian army. This is a manly exchange of wits and guile, the very characteristics of the \u201cold soldier,\u201d and no doubt efficient and respected officers. The \u201cold soldier\u201d can have his way \u2014 or try to in this case \u2014 without destabilizing the system.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n

There were sharper jabs at the officers in the songs, skits, cartoons, and trench newspapers, but \u201cold soldiering\u201d tended to reflect the inherent tension between leaders and led, between the heroic and the anti-heroic. These anti-heroes were not simply about reflecting the complex relationships in the army; they were embraced by the soldiers as a way of seeing themselves.\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>had one amusing exchange between soldiers about the issuing of medals:<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\n

Bill: \u2018Say, hear that Jock Robinson got the D.C.M.\u2019\r\nFred: \u2018What for?\u2019\r\nBill: \u2018I dunno.\u2019\r\nFred: \u2018Blimy, why ain\u2019t I got one too, I hid in the same dug-out.\u00a0[41]<\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

Anti-heroic jokes like this must have been particularly perplexing to civilians who viewed soldiers as nothing less than heroes fighting for the Empire. The embracing of the anti-hero was in opposition to the expectation foisted on soldiers by civilians, and there was an appeal in approving of the unsoldierly in a hierarchical formation that demanded much sacrifice from its members, including, to some degree, their individualism.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n

Ignatz Hump was an anti-hero who the Canadian soldiers followed in\u00a0The Listening Post<\/em>. \u201cThe Adventures of Ignatz Hump\u201d was serialized over several issues and his \u201clong-service\u201d in the paper revealed his popularity, as the readers could easily express their dislike of the trench newspaper content to the editors who shared the trenches with them.\u00a0[42]<\/a>\u00a0Ignatz Hump was described as:<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\n

\u2026not a particularly beautiful person according to peace time standards. He stood fully five feet three in height and as of the build called slight. His features were non-descript and greatly overlaid by freckles. His pompadour required pruning, or, in other words he needed a hair cut. There were soup stains on his lapel, or there would have been had he had either soup or lapels. For the want of the latter, his tunic had suffered. He wore an officer\u2019s cast-off cap, a pair of dingy riding breeches, the gift of a fellow warrior of the A.S.C.; puttees with the effect of ballet shirts, and large boots of one time colour which he inherited from a deceased comrade \u2026. The battalion to which our hero belongs was due for a rest, and from the time the announcement was made Ignatz smacked his lips in anticipation of a period of blissful leisure.\u00a0[43]<\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n

Far different than a hapless new recruit who does not understand his role in the army, the mismatched, hoboish Hump is actively finding ways to push back against the system. This \u201cold soldier\u201d has not given up soldiering, but fighting the enemy seems far less important than relaxing with alcohol and women in the\u00a0estaminets\u00a0<\/em>behind the lines. For good measure, because he has no money to \u201cpurchase these golden pleasures,\u201d he steals a Crown and Anchor board in order to fleece his friends, and later our \u201chero,\u201d as the story ironically characterizes him, bilks his officer of additional money to drink himself into a stupor.\u00a0[44]<\/a>\u00a0Hump was unheroic in stature or action, but his actions were humorous, and perhaps envied by some Canadians.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n

There were no badges or medals distinguishing the \u201cold soldiers,\u201d but they were an identifiable group amongst Canadian formations, and loomed out of proportion to their numbers in the soldiers\u2019 cultural products. They included the experienced pre-war soldiers, but also many of the new breed of veterans who had served and survived at the front. While the \u201cold soldier\u201d embraced anti-heroic actions of flaunting authority, dodging duties, and cheating his mates, these actions did not extend in the soldiers\u2019 culture to any refusal to fight in battle. But there was another class of anti-hero who indeed filled that anti-soldiering role.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/section>

\r\n

Leadswingers and Malingers<\/h2>\r\n
\r\n

One of the most prevalent anti-heroic themes within the soldiers\u2019 culture is the art of malingering. Malingering, or leadswinging in the soldiers\u2019 parlance, was the attempt by soldiers to feign illness or injury to escape duty, and in the process be transferred to a safer rear area. Malingering was no joking matter to an army that prized itself on strict discipline in keeping soldiers at the front, and could hold them there on penalty of death, but it was a theme prevalent in the soldiers\u2019 dark humour.\u00a0[45]<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n

The regimental medical officer (MO) was a target for much of the angst and anger in the trench newspapers. It was the MO who could send a man from the firing line to the rear, and they had been instructed by senior officers to be vigilant. As detectives of real and imagined illness, the MO rarely let sick soldiers out of the line and often the remedy for ailments was the pill No. 9, a laxative. One medical officer described that his \u201cchief duties consists of handing out sentences to the bearers and pills with advice to the Battalion. His King and Country also expect him to convince a sick man that he is not sick.\u201d\u00a0[46]<\/a>\u00a0Private Archie Selwood, who went to France with the 72nd Battalion at age 35, remarked on the stringent medical examinations: \u201cUnless there was blood, we got little sympathy.\u201d\u00a0[47]<\/a>\u00a0Soldiers\u2019 humour was replete with references to the MO and his pill No. 9, as well as attempts by malingers and leadswingers to escape duty.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n

Under the title of \u201cThe Ancient Order of Lead Swingers,\u201d Private C.B. Eversick put out a call in the pages of\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>to \u201call experts at swinging the lead,\u201d in order to form a club to beat the medical officers. Playing up the anti-heroic nature of malingering, in addition to his own moniker of Eversick, other club members included Lord Windhupp, Sir Verey Badheart, and the Duke of Wellinrear. \u201cAll windy soldiers are welcome.\u201d The group\u2019s goal was to establish a branch of malingers to assist one another in \u201coutwit[ting] telepathic pill-throwers\u201d; to \u201cconcentrate expert ingenuity for the purpose of discovering diseases and ailments hitherto unknown to medical science\u201d; and to discover the place and units where \u201csympathetic army doctors (just out) and the cushiest Field Ambulances (newly organized) were situated.\u201d\u00a0[48]<\/a>\u00a0This anti-heroic \u201ccall to arms\u201d brought malingering from the shadows into the open. It also noted, in a backhand way, the effectiveness of the medical officers, who could be ruthless in stamping it out. But this was just one of the more flagrant examples of confronting unheroic topics head on in the soldiers\u2019 culture. An article in\u00a0The Splint Record\u00a0<\/em>spoke of soldiers lying \u201cawake nights thinking up schemes\u201d to get to the rear.\u00a0[49]<\/a>\u00a0\u201cLead Swinging \u2014 The New Career,\u201d again from\u00a0The Listening Post<\/em>, noted that \u201cthe ultimate aim of every God-fearing private is to procure the much coveted\u201d wound to escape the front.\u00a0[50]<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n

Figure<\/p>\r\n

Shellshock cartoon<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/figcaption>\"Shellshock<\/a>Credit: Canadian War Museum, Military History Research Centre,\u00a0The Listening Post 29<\/em>, 15<\/cite>\r\n

-> See the list of figures<\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n

\r\n

The soldiers\u2019 culture was not only represented in newspapers and cartoons. Songs were an important form of soldiers\u2019 expression and were sung in the trenches, behind the lines at rest, and while marching. The soldiers\u2019 songs ranged from the wistful and sentimental to the raunchy and rowdy, with many focusing on the unheroic and the unsoldierly. \u201cI Want to Go Home,\u201d later sung by generations of camp kids with their own parodied lyrics, implored:<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\n

I want to go home, I want to go home.\r\nI don\u2019t want to go in the trenches no more,\r\nWhere the whizzbangs and shrapnel they whistle and roar.\r\nTake me over the sea, where the Alleyman can\u2019t get me.\r\nOh my, I don\u2019t want to die, I want to go home.\r\nI want to go home, I want to go home.\r\nI don\u2019t want to visit la Belle France no more,\r\nFor oh the Jack Johnsons they make such a roar.\r\nTake me over the sea, where the snipers they can\u2019t get me.\r\nOh my, I don\u2019t want to die, I want to go home.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to join the Army\u201d is a variation on the anti-heroic theme, with the singers howling parodied lines from the music hall ditty, \u201cOn Sunday I walk out with a sailor.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\n

I don\u2019t want to join the army,\r\nI don\u2019t want to go to war.\r\nI\u2019d rather hang around Piccadilly underground.\r\nLiving off the earnings of a lady whore.\r\nI don\u2019t want a bayonet in my belly,\r\nI don\u2019t want my bollocks shot away.\r\nI\u2019d rather stay in England, in merry, merry England,\r\nAnd fuck this bleeding life away.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n

Those who did not know the songs might have thought the British and Canadian Tommy who sang them were on the verge of mutiny. Yet the songs, like the other forms of cultural expression that poked fun at authority or service in the army, were all part of the soldiers\u2019 culture that revelled in the blackness of their situation, rather than revealing some sort of mutinous underswell in the rank and file. In fact, like the regular grousing and complaining so prevalent in the army, the soldiers\u2019 anti-heroic songs were a method of relieving pressure, allowing for discontent to slowly dissipate rather than build up for a climactic explosion.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n

Anti-heroic jokes, stories, cartoons, and songs all offered respectability to the anti-heroic actions of malingering and equally serious search for Blighty wounds. This type of wound \u2014 severe enough to be sent back to England (Blighty, in soldiers\u2019 slang) \u2014 was an honourable way out of the line. Sung to the tune of \u201cHere We Are Again,\u201d T.W.L. Macdermot of the 7th Canadian Siege Battery noted the popularity of this jaunty song:<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\n

Hit me there! Hit me there!\r\nHit me there again!\r\nI can\u2019t get back with a bit of a scratch like this \u2014\r\nThe Allemanne who shot me\r\nThe son-of-a-gun that got me\r\nWas far too easy\r\nHeinie! Send another one!<\/p>\r\n

Hit me there! Hit me there!\r\nHit me there again!\r\nA little scratch ain\u2019t good enough for me.\r\nA Blighty now would suit me\r\nWon\u2019t somebody kindly shoot me\r\nHey! Fritz! Hit me there again!\u00a0[51]<\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\u201cHit me there again\u201d was but one of many seemingly acceptable references by the soldiers to anti-heroic activities and actions.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n

It may be surprising to read of soldiers embracing the anti-heroic so readily, looking for ways to deceive their officers or even deliberately seeking a wound to get out of the line. Although soldiers carried out such dark acts, they were, for all intents and purposes, trapped in the cycle of rotating from the firing line to the rear and back again until they were wounded, killed, or driven mad; why would the antiheroic be so acceptable? And why would it be allowed by officers to percolate through the soldiers\u2019 culture? The anti-hero, which appeared to epitomize low morale, in so far as soldiers were carrying out traditionally unheroic activities, was ironically good for morale. With soldiers enjoying the antics of the anti-heroes, even projecting on them a form of wish-fulfillment, this was recognized tacitly by officers who not only allowed these cultural references to exist, but also encouraged them to flourish. Moreover, to talk about taboos is to reveal them; to joke about them is to present the truth for all to see. While cheating one\u2019s mates, brawling, or malingering from the front were serious military charges, these deviant actions appeared to be condoned in the cultural products, and seemingly accepted by the led and the leaders as good for morale.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/section>

\r\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\r\n
\r\n

In the pages of\u00a0The Listening Post<\/em>, cartoonist Hugh Farmer codified one of the popular quips among soldiers into a cartoon. A nattily-dressed officer speaks to a Canadian infantryman, appropriately named \u201cPte. Coldfeet.\u201d The lieutenant asks: \u201cNow Pte. Coldfeet, if you were in the trenches, and the Germans were coming to attack[,] what steps would you take[?]\u201d Coldfeet replies promptly, \u201cLong quick one\u2019s [sic] sir.\u201d\u00a0[52]<\/a>To those not a part of the soldiers\u2019 culture, anti-heroic actions, gallows humour, and biting satire were sometimes misconstrued as soldiers looking to abandon the war effort. Had the army been reduced to cowards? Had rot set in to the once proud fighting forces? While it might have been true for some soldiers close to succumbing to the stress of combat, most understood their role in the war and were not anxious to leave their mates in the lurch. Anti-heroes helped the soldiers deal with the strain engendered by the boredom, banality, and brutality of trench warfare. These cultural figures were also a reflection of inner anxieties and deep-set wishes, which were not always acted upon, but provided a vicarious outlet for many of the expressions and actions prevalent among most soldiers at the front. One should be wary of unifying themes in cultural history; the messiness and inconsistencies of conflicting issues need to be acknowledged and teased out. Soldiers could despise civilians one day and write pining letters to loved ones at home the next; they could turn their nose down at the \u201ceye wash\u201d emanating from ultra-patriotic papers and then turn to those same newspapers to understand what was happening at the front; they could be dodging shells one minute and then, after clearing the wreckage of a trench or helping a bloodied companion to the rear, return to collect the same shell bits as trophies or souvenirs. Heroes could be anti-heroes in the complicated and constructed world of the trenches, where nothing was as it had been promised in the propaganda, and soldiers needed to create new tools to survive the unending strain.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n

Figure<\/p>\r\n

Private Cold feet<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/figcaption>\"Private<\/a>Credit: Canadian War Museum, Military History Research Centre,\u00a0The Listening Post<\/em>\u00a027, 31<\/cite>\r\n

-> See the list of figures<\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n

\r\n

\u201cOld soldiers,\u201d malingers, and other anti-heroic types offered the soldiers new ways to view the war with a grim smile and a phlegmatic shrug, while providing a form of agency for the civilian-soldiers, many of whom felt caught in the twilight world of the trenches and in the clutches of army discipline. Charles Pearce wrote to his father on the one-year anniversary of his service in the army: \u201cI am beginning to feel that I have always been in the army. I feel as though I had lived two lives for I have seen as much in one year here as I had in all my life before.\u201d\u00a0[53]<\/a>\u00a0Pearce\u2019s \u201ctwo lives\u201d ended on the Western Front, where he joined more than 60,000 Canadian slain. But several hundred thousand more survived. In the postwar years, these soldiers remained the heroes who had fought and sacrificed for their country, King, and Christ.\u00a0[54]<\/a>\u00a0Most veterans did not contradict this heroic role, but many had sustained themselves during the war by embracing the anti-heroic. Wyndham Lewis spoke of the anti-heroic tradition in the British army, which also seeped into the Canadian soldiers\u2019 ethos, as the cultural tools linked the fighting forces: \u201cA V.C. is after all a fellow who does something heroic; almost unEnglish. It is taking things a bit too seriously to get the V.C. The really popular fellow is the humourous \u2018Old Bill\u2019 \u00e1 la Bairnsfather. And it was really \u2018Old Bill\u2019 who won the war.\u201d\u00a0[55]<\/a>\u00a0The role of the anti-hero in soldiers\u2019 cultural products redefined the notion of the hero, or at least added a new layer of interpretation to how civilian-soldiers endured and survived the unimaginable strain and horror at the front. In a war that produced the absurdity of soldiers burying themselves in order to live, where they had traded the comfort of life at home for the deprivations in trenches, where bankers, clerks, and farmers were being subjected to wanton death and destruction, and in turn meting it out, it may not be surprising that the heroic Canadian soldier so readily embraced the anti-heroic.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/section><\/section>\r\n
\r\n

Footnotes<\/h2>\r\n[1]<\/a>Canadian War Museum (CWM), 19900055-001, poster.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[2]<\/a>For the patriotic discourse on the home front, see Jeffrey Keshen,\u00a0Propaganda and Censorship during the Great War\u00a0<\/em>(Calgary: University of Alberta Press, 1996), chap. 1.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[3]<\/a>On Second Ypres, see Tim Cook,\u00a0At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1914\u20131916<\/em>, vol. I (Toronto: Viking, 2007) and Andrew Iarocci,\u00a01st Canadian Division at War, 1914\u201315: A Study of Training, Tactics and Leadership\u00a0<\/em>(Ph.D. diss., Wilfrid Laurier University, 2005).<\/span>\r\n\r\n[4]<\/a>For the knights of the sky, see Jonathan Vance,\u00a0High Flight: Aviation and the Canadian Imagination\u00a0<\/em>(Toronto: Penguin, 2002).<\/span>\r\n\r\n[5]<\/a>On gallantry medals, see Surgeon Commander F.J. Blatherwick,\u00a0Canadian Orders, Decorations, and Medals\u00a0<\/em>(Toronto: The Unitrade Press, 1994); for a critical look at the awarding of medals, see Hugh Halliday,\u00a0Valour Reconsidered: Inquiries into the Victoria Cross and other Awards for Extreme Bravery<\/em>\u00a0(Toronto: Robin Brass Studio, 2006).<\/span>\r\n\r\n[6]<\/a>For the postwar elevation of soldiers to heroes, see Jonathan Vance,\u00a0Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning, and the First World War\u00a0<\/em>(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1997).<\/span>\r\n\r\n[7]<\/a>For Canadian combat motivation, see Tim Cook,\u00a0Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1917\u20131918<\/em>, vol. II (Toronto: Viking, 2008), chaps. 12\u201315.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[8]<\/a>For Canadian studies of soldiers\u2019 culture, see Jonathan Vance, \u201cBattle Verse: Poetry and Nationalism after Vimy Ridge,\u201d in\u00a0Vimy Ridge: A Canadian Reassessment<\/em>, eds. Geoffrey Hayes, Andrew Iarocci, and Mike Bechthold (Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2007) and Andrew Horrall, \u201cCharlie Chaplin and the Canadian Expeditionary Force,\u201d in\u00a0Canada and the Great War: Western Front Association Papers<\/em>, ed. Briton C. Busch (Montr\u00e9al: McGill-Queen\u2019s University Press, 2003), 27\u201345. For international studies on soldiers\u2019 culture, see J. G. Fuller,\u00a0Troop Morale and Popular Culture in the British and Dominion Armies, 1914\u20131918\u00a0<\/em>(Oxford: Claredon Press, 1990); James P. Daughton, \u201cSketches of the\u00a0Poilu<\/em>\u2019s World: Trench Cartoons from the Great War,\u201d in\u00a0World War I and the Cultures of Modernity<\/em>, eds. Douglas Mackaman and Michael Mays (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2000); John Brophy and Eric Partridge,\u00a0Soldiers\u2019 Song and Slang: 1914\u20131918\u00a0<\/em>(London: E. Partridge, 1931); St\u00e9phane Audoin-Rouzeau,\u00a0Men at War 1914\u20131918: National Sentiment and Trench Journalism in France during the First World War<\/em>, trans. Helen McPhail (Providence, RI: Berg, 1992).<\/span>\r\n\r\n[9]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0R.M.R. Growler\u00a0<\/em>1 (1 January 1916), 1.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[10]<\/a>See Modris Eksteins,\u00a0Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age\u00a0<\/em>(Toronto: Lester, Orpen and Dennys, 1989) and Brian Bond,\u00a0The Unquiet Western Front: Britain\u2019s Role in Literature and History\u00a0<\/em>(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).<\/span>\r\n\r\n[11]<\/a>On Imperial heroes for Canadian youth, see Mark Moss,\u00a0Manliness and Militarism: Educating Young Boys in Ontario for War<\/em>\u00a0(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) and in Britain, Michael Paris,\u00a0The Great War and Juvenile Literature in Britain\u00a0<\/em>(Westport: Praeger, 2004).<\/span>\r\n\r\n[12]<\/a>Tonie and Valmai Holt, eds.,\u00a0The Best of Fragments from France by Capt. Bruce Bairnsfather\u00a0<\/em>(London: Phin Publishing, 1978), intro., part II.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[13]<\/a>Grace Morris,\u00a0But this is our war\u00a0<\/em>(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 56.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[14]<\/a>H.R.N. Clyne,\u00a0Vancouver\u2019s 29th: A Chronicle of the 29th in Flanders Fields\u00a0<\/em>(Vancouver: Tobin\u2019s Tigers Association, 1964), 7.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[15]<\/a>See Tonie and Valmai Holt,\u00a0In Search of the Better \u2019Ole: The Life the Works and the Collectables of Bruce Bairnsfather\u00a0<\/em>(Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1985).<\/span>\r\n\r\n[16]<\/a>Maurice Pope,\u00a0Letters from the Front, 1914\u20131919\u00a0<\/em>(Toronto: Pope & Co., 1996), 36.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[17]<\/a>Hugh Kay,\u00a0Battery Action! The story of the 43rd (Howitzer) Battery, Canadian Field Artillery, 1916\u20131919\u00a0<\/em>(Ottawa: CEF Books, 2002), 46.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[18]<\/a>Pete Anderson,\u00a0I: That\u2019s Me: Escape from German Prison Camp and other Adventures\u00a0<\/em>(Edmonton, Alta: Bradburn Printers, 1920), 46.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[19]<\/a>For Chaplin and Lauder, see Horrall, \u201cCharlie Chaplin and the Canadian Expeditionary Force.\u201d<\/span>\r\n\r\n[20]<\/a>CWM, Samuel Honey papers, 19950008-014, letter, 6 September 1916.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[21]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Forty-Niner\u00a0<\/em>4 (December 1915), 16.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[22]<\/a>Oh, Canada\u00a0<\/em>(London: Simpkin and Marshall, 1917), 16.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[23]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Brazier\u00a0<\/em>8 (10 February 1917), 1.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[24]<\/a>For sales, see CWM,\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>19 (October 1916), 118.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[25]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Iodine Chronicle\u00a0<\/em>14 (22 December 1917), 9<\/span>\r\n\r\n[26]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>29 (1 December 1917), 17.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[27]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Iodine Chronicles\u00a0<\/em>(22 December 1917).<\/span>\r\n\r\n[28]<\/a>Tim Cook, \u201cWet Canteens and Worrying Mothers: Soldiers and Temperance Groups in the Great War,\u201d\u00a0Histoire sociale \/ Social History<\/em>\u00a035, no. 70 (June 2003): 311\u201330; Tim Cook, \u201c\u2018More as a medicine than a beverage\u2019: \u2018Demon Rum\u2019 and the Canadian Trench Soldier in the First World War,\u201d\u00a0Canadian Military History\u00a0<\/em>9, no. 1 (Winter 2000): 7\u201322.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[29]<\/a>See Pierre Purseigle, \u201cMirroring societies at war: pictorial humour in the British and French popular press during the First World War,\u201d\u00a0European Studies\u00a0<\/em>xxxi (2001): 289\u2013328.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[30]<\/a>G.R. Stevens,\u00a0A City Goes to War: History of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment\u00a0<\/em>(Brampton, Ont.: Charters, 1964), 66.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[31]<\/a>CWM, CBC radio program \u201cFlanders Fields,\u201d 1964, transcripts, Episode 3, page 4.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[32]<\/a>Ibid., Episode 3, page 5.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[33]<\/a>Canadian Letters and Images Project, Charles Savage, memoir, unpaginated.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[34]<\/a>Andrew Robertshaw, \u201c\u2018Irrepressible Chirpy Cockney Chappies\u2019? Humour as an Aid to Survival,\u201d\u00a0Journal of European Studies\u00a0<\/em>xxxi (2001): 277\u201387.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[35]<\/a>For the important role of the experienced \u201cold soldiers\u201d in the First Contingent, see Desmond Morton,\u00a0When Your Number\u2019s Up: The Canadian Soldier in the First World War\u00a0<\/em>(Toronto: Random House, 1993), 74\u20135. \\<\/span>\r\n\r\n[36]<\/a>Carman Miller, \u201cThe Crucible of War: Canadian and British Troops During the Boer War,\u201d in\u00a0The Boer War: Army, Nation and Empire<\/em>, eds. Peter Dennis and Jeffrey Grey (Canberra: Army History Unit, 2000); Tim Cook,\u00a0Clio\u2019s Warriors: Canadian Historians and the Writing of the World Wars\u00a0<\/em>(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2006), chaps. 1 and 2.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[37]<\/a>Armine Norris,\u00a0Mainly for Mother\u00a0<\/em>(Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1919), 118.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[38]<\/a>Victor Wheeler,\u00a0The 50th Battalion\u00a0<\/em>(Ottawa: CEF Books, 2000), 132.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[39]<\/a>On military discipline and justice, see Morton,\u00a0When Your Number\u2019s Up<\/em>; Chris Madsen,\u00a0Another Kind of Justice: Canadian Military Law from Confederation to Somalia\u00a0<\/em>(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1999).<\/span>\r\n\r\n[40]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Forty Niner\u00a0<\/em>1, no. 1 [n.d.], 22. Also see the similar joke in\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>12 (15 March 1916), 66.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[41]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>16 (17 June 1916), 96.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[42]<\/a>For a discussion of trench newspapers, see Audioun-Rousseau,\u00a0Men at War 1914\u20131918<\/em>; Fuller,\u00a0Troop Morale<\/em>; and Keshen,\u00a0Propaganda and Censorship during the Great War<\/em>, chap. 5.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[43]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>18 (21 July 1916), 111.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[44]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>20 (10 December 1916), 131; Ibid., 25 (21 May 1917), 171.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[45]<\/a>For self-inflicted wounds, see Joanna Bourke,\u00a0Dismembering the Male: Men\u2019s Bodies, Britain, and the Great War\u00a0<\/em>(London: Reaktion; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).<\/span>\r\n\r\n[46]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>1 (10 August 1915), n.p.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[47]<\/a>LAC, Records of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (RG 41), \u201cFlanders Fields,\u201d interview transcripts, v. 16, 72nd Battalion, Private Archie Selwood, 1\/11-12.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[48]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>29 (1 December 1917), 17.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[49]<\/a>Ibid.,\u00a0The Splint Record\u00a0<\/em>3 (10 May 1916), 1.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[50]<\/a>Ibid.,\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>30 (1 April 1918), 9\u201310.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[51]<\/a>T.W.L. Macdermot,\u00a0The Seventh\u00a0<\/em>(Montr\u00e9al: Seventh Canadian Siege Battery Association, 1953), 119.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[52]<\/a>LAC, RG 9, vol. 5079,\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>(10 August 1917), 31.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[53]<\/a>CWM, Charles Pearce papers, 19810740-054, letter, 21 August 1915.<\/span>\r\n\r\n[54]<\/a>For the postwar construction of memory and the heroicizing of veterans, and especially the fallen soldiers, see Vance,\u00a0Death So Noble\u00a0<\/em>and Jay Winter,\u00a0Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History\u00a0<\/em>(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).<\/span>\r\n\r\n[55]<\/a>P.W. Lewis,\u00a0Blasting and Bombardiering\u00a0<\/em>(London: Calder and Boyars, 1937), 37\u20138.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<\/section><\/section><\/div>","rendered":"

Source: Cook, Tim. “Anti-heroes of the Canadian Expeditionary Force”<\/a>\u00a0Journal of the Canadian Historical Association<\/em>, 19, no. 1 (2008): 171-193.<\/h3>\n
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\u201cHeroes of St. Julien and Festubert,\u201d proclaimed a Canadian recruiting poster from 1916, evoking the famous and costly Canadian battles of the preceding year. \u201cHere\u2019s to the Soldier who bled \u2026 Their fame is alive, though their spirits have fled.\u201d\u00a0[1]<\/a>\u00a0It was not just posters that effusively praised the hero-soldiers, but public discourse from politicians, the pulpit, and newspapers routinely referred to the heroic sacrifice of the soldiers overseas and the need to support them and their families.\u00a0[2]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Some 620,000 Canadians enlisted from 1914 to 1918 to serve King and country in what many from this generation called the Great War for Civilization. The Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) drew recruits from across the country, from almost all regions, religions, and trades. This army was composed primarily of civilian-soldiers \u2014 for the most part farmers, clerks, students, and bankers, rather than professional soldiers. From the First Contingent soldiers, who left Canadian shores in October 1914, to the old breed of the Canadian Division, who survived their trial-by-fire engagement against overwhelming German forces, shells, and poison gas at the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915, the war quickly forged heroes for the young Dominion.\u00a0[3]<\/a>\u00a0Canadian airmen, especially fighter pilot aces such as Billy Bishop, William Barker, and Raymond Collishaw, were elevated to the status of \u201cknights of the sky,\u201d aerial warriors who fought by different rules as they flew into the wild blue yonder.\u00a0[4]<\/a>\u00a0Individual infantrymen were harder to distinguish among the masses in the muddy trenches of the Western Front, although gallantry medals offered tangible proof of bravery. By war\u2019s end, 70 Canadians were recognized with the prestigious Victoria Cross, while thousands more were awarded lesser, if still significant, gallantry medals.\u00a0[5]<\/a>\u00a0While these medals were politicized, with some deserving soldiers going unrewarded while others reaped the benefits of friendships, patronage, or being at the right place at the right time, they were nonetheless scarce. Medals or not, almost all the Canadians who enlisted were viewed as heroes, soldiers who had sacrificed much for King and country.\u00a0[6]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While Canadian soldiers were regarded as heroes, all men needed motivation to keep fighting in the difficult conditions in and behind the trenches. Medals were not the only form of reward, and, in fact, were far from the most important to the soldiers who relied on their comrades to see them through the conflict. Other simpler pleasures, such as mail, food, rest, rotation, and rum, and more complex factors, such as the creation of a fatalistic belief system and respect for leadership, allowed soldiers to keep fighting and to avoid succumbing to the stress of unending combat.\u00a0[7]<\/a>\u00a0Soldiers also developed their own unique culture to help them endure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This culture was manifested in songs, writing, sketches, theatre, folk art, and other products fashioned by the soldiers for themselves and one another to make meaning of their war experiences. While the civilian-soldiers were often shaped by military training and conditioning, they did not forsake their pre-war lives and drew heavily upon civilian influences. Nonetheless, the culture was wrought by the environment and circumstances of the Western Front and service in the military, and reflected a new sub-culture.\u00a0[8]<\/a>\u00a0The production and sharing of these cultural products forged social relationships, helping soldiers engage in a shared sense of agency, craft their own sense of identity, and sustain morale. But this culture was often exclusive of outsiders. The\u00a0R.M.R. Growler<\/em>, trench newspaper of the 14th Battalion, a journal published for soldiers by soldiers, noted in its first issue of 1 January 1916:<\/p>\n

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\u2026it is hardly to be expected that anyone outside our own immediate circle will find any interest in what, owing to circumstances, will be necessarily crude in conception and local in character \u2026 our humour must be rather blunt to appeal to the men spending their days and nights in wet and muddy trenches, dodging shells, and cursing the weather, the Huns, the Quartermaster, the Transport Officer, and anything else that occurs to them …. Should any layman be unfortunate enough to secure a copy, we can only sympathize with him and apologise, as it was not intended that the \u2018Growler\u2019 should wander from the family circle.\u00a0[9]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Much of the soldiers\u2019 culture was not easily shared with or understood by outsiders. And this, of course, was part of its appeal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While ignored in much of the writing relating to the Great War, where historians have more readily turned to the highbrow culture of official war art, avant-garde dance, and the \u00e9lite discourse of war poets, there is much to be learned from the culture that was created by and supported the majority of soldiers who never painted the battlefields in studios behind the lines, danced to Stravinsky, or picked up a pen to write searing poetry with the Cambridge and Oxford educated British officer class.\u00a0[10]<\/a>\u00a0Instead, the armies of civilian-soldiers more readily embraced popular and parodied songs, music-hall inspired theatre, soldier-published trench newspapers, as well as other cultural products, to see their way through the terrible and seemingly endless war. This culture came from the soldiers themselves, allowing them to make sense of the war effort. Soldiers\u2019 culture was infused not only with pre-war cultural references, but also new wartime narratives, language, and perspectives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The anti-hero was one of the most important themes running through soldiers\u2019 culture. In a war where soldiers were elevated to heroes by civilians, the soldiers often chose to emphasis the anti-heroic in their cultural products. These anti-heroes, characters who lacked traditional heroic qualities such as courage or self-sacrifice, became the soldiers\u2019 heroes. This embracing of the anti-hero did not mean that the soldiers turned their back on their heroic comrades, as they surely respected soldiers exhibiting traditional \u201cheroic\u201d qualities; but there was space for the hero and the anti-hero to sit comfortably together within the soldiers\u2019 culture. Soldiers were reshaping their shared sense of identity by presenting images in stark contrast to those emanating from the home front.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There were several anti-hero archetypes in Canadian soldiers\u2019 culture, and this paper will examine three: British cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather\u2019s Old Bill, \u201cold soldiers,\u201d and malingers. While these archetypes were separate, with identifiable qualities, they also bled into one another, creating a rich tapestry of anti-heroic cultural products and icons. These anti-heroes provided a voice for the soldiers, and at times even a language by which the soldiers could make sense of their war experience. The anti-heroes were not always emulated, but their unheroic actions resonated with the trench warriors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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Bruce Bairnsfather and Canadian Cartoonists<\/h2>\n
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British officer Bruce Bairnsfather was the most popular cartoonist of the war, admired by British, Canadian, and most Allied soldiers. It may seem odd in a discussion about Canadian trench culture to highlight a British cartoonist, but it is worth remembering that almost half of the Canadian Expeditionary Force was formed by soldiers who had been born in Britain, and, of course, Canadian culture, both high and low, was influenced heavily by British content. The Canadian forces fought with the British during the war and were strongly influenced by its traditions and ethos, and Canada\u2019s pre-war military heroes were often Imperial.\u00a0[11]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Bairnsfather, a cartoonist with\u00a0The Bystander<\/em>, a British paper with a large working class readership, had found a pre-war niche with his cartoons lampooning British life, but was by no means a national star. Bairnsfather was quick to enlist when Britain declared war and his service with the infantry at the front immersed him in the unique culture of the soldiers, which he captured in his drawings. His cartoons were published in a collection,\u00a0Fragments from France<\/em>, which eventually sold an astonishing 250,000 copies.\u00a0[12]<\/a>\u00a0Several additional compilations were rushed to the public, and his cartoons and characters were franchised in postcards, posters, plays, movies, souvenirs, and other ephemera, with their appeal extending well into the postwar years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Bairnsfather\u2019s inspiration was drawn from his men and service in the army. Their grousing and grumbling over the food and mud became fodder for his cartoons. But his cartoons went beyond the physical discomforts to address the stress and strain at the front: the fears of standing sentry, the agony of shelling, the dislocation from civilized society. While he was a lieutenant in the line (later he was elevated to a captain when he became the army\u2019s only official cartoonist), he always treated the rank and file with respect. Many of Bairnsfather\u2019s characters, and especially his beloved anti-heroes Old Bill and Alf, epitomized some of the soldiers\u2019 experiences while serving on the Western Front. The disheveled, overweight, pipe-smoking, bushy-mustached Old Bill and his companions were not cowards, but they certainly were not heroes in the traditional sense.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Bairnsfather\u2019s Old Bill and the other characters in the cartoon chronicles were instantly recognized by any British or Canadian Tommy, who saw themselves in the grumpy warrior. He endured as they endured; he growled what they growled. The grim but humourous view of war resonated with the soldiers: this was no pandering, no condescension, no \u201ceye-wash.\u201d It was the view of the war from the bottom. Bairnsfather\u2019s cartoons crossed national boundaries because his depictions were less about national stories and more about what united the common soldiers in service, servility, and survival. They represented the \u201cpoor bloody infantry\u2019s\u201d ability to endure the horror of war with a wry smile, a phlegmatic phrase, and a shrug of the shoulders.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThese cartoons by Bairnsfather are very good and true to life,\u201d wrote Canadian infantryman Basil Morris to his sister.\u00a0[13]<\/a>\u00a0Bairnsfather\u2019s cartoons seemed to capture the war experience. His most famous cartoon, \u201cA better \u2019Ole,\u2019\u201d revealed in grim humour that during a bombardment there was no where to run. Some of his works had a vein of sentimentality running through them, reminding soldiers of the life and loves they left behind. Others satirized the usual suspects: the enemy, parasitic profiteers at home, or the out-of-touch generals behind the lines. Another Canadian from the infantry, H.R.N. Clyne, remarked, \u201cOur first long winter campaign against a welter of mud and caved-in trenches now began. The life was hard and dreary but often cheered by Bruce Bairnsfather\u2019s famous and cogent cartoons featuring \u2018Alf\u2019 and \u2018Old Bill,\u2019 that did so much to portray our kind of existence for those at home.\u201d\u00a0[14]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Cartoons are cultural objects that must be read as more than simply an expression of the creator; assessing their value requires at some level an understanding of the cartoon\u2019s reception. These cartoons had multiple levels of meaning, suggesting different messages to civilians and soldiers. It is clear that the Bairnsfather cartoons resonated with the rank and file and junior officers, and perhaps also at higher levels, although there is little mention of Bairnsfather in the personal papers of commanders. Old Bill was viewed initially on the home front as unpatriotic, almost treasonous, until the soldiers themselves offered a chorus of approval.\u00a0[15]<\/a>The civilian critics retreated, yet remained unsure why soldiers would embrace these unheroic images, when those at home were doing their best to elevate them to heroic status.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Forced to confront a terrible new world of destruction, soldiers often had trouble capturing their fear, exhaustion, and strain in letters, either because of formal military censorship or the simple inability to put words to paper. But Bairnsfather\u2019s cartoons seemed to offer a common language, one of understood symbols, which allowed soldiers to speak to one another and sometimes even to loved ones at home. Lieutenant Maurice Pope could write to his parents in early 1916: \u201cI am well physically, but very tired mentally. This work is quite a strain on one and these nights I am living Bairnsfather\u2019s cartoon \u2014 \u2018This \u2014\u2014 war will be the death of us yet\u2019.\u201d\u00a0[16]<\/a>\u00a0Soldiers adopted the classic Bairnsfather phrases as a way to communicate with recognized cultural references. We cannot be sure if Pope\u2019s parents would have understood the allusion to Bairnsfather, but it was common enough and ingrained in Pope for him to turn to it to describe the nearly indescribable. Hugh Kay of the 43rd Battery noted that during an artillery bombardment, if one listened to the men taking shelter in their dugouts, \u201cyou might hear faint snatches of \u2018Where did that one go to \u2019Erbert\u2019,\u201d the reference to a cheeky Bairnsfather cartoon.\u00a0[17]<\/a>\u00a0A Canadian sniper officer, Peter Anderson, wrote grimly of shooting a German in the face, who peered through a hole between the sandbags in the parapet: \u201cif they knew of a \u2018better \u2019ole\u2019 they should have \u2018gone to it\u2019.\u201d\u00a0[18]<\/a>\u00a0The anti-heroic slang and phrases of Old Bill became the voice of the soldiers who appropriated the words to fill their own silences.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Familiar heroes, such as actor Charlie Chaplin, music hall star Harry Lauder, and Old Bill, united Canadian, British, and other English-speaking Empire forces.\u00a0[19]<\/a>\u00a0Yet there were aspects unique to the Canadian forces too. Samuel Honey, a former teacher who rose through the ranks to become an officer and was awarded the Victoria Cross before his death in the last months of the war, wrote to his parents about how much he admired Bairnsfather\u2019s cartoons for capturing \u201cincidents and situations \u2026 I wish I had a talent for drawing like Capt. Bairnsfather.\u201d\u00a0[20]<\/a>\u00a0He did not, but other Canadians did. The popularity of Bairnsfather\u2019s cartoons sparked Canadian imitations, which were often published in soldiers\u2019 trench newspapers. Print was, according to Corporal John Ward, a \u201cmedium where he [the soldier] can make himself heard.\u201d\u00a0[21]<\/a>\u00a0With the Canadian forces drawing its recruits from across the country and all professions, there were many cartoonists in their ranks. Some were inspired by Bairnsfather and made no apologies for \u201csampling\u201d his work.\u00a0Oh, Canada<\/em>, a commemorative publication, had several cartoons that played on Bairnsfather success, with titles such as \u201cA Figment from Flanders, (with apologies to Captain B \u2013nsf\u2014\u2014-r.),\u201d that depicted two scared Canadians working in the dark of No Man\u2019s Land, either repairing or cutting through barbed wire: \u201cSay, George, when we get back to our farm in Ontario[,] I\u2019ll bet the old snake fence will be good enough for me!\u201d \u201cSame here! I don\u2019t never want to see anymore of this blame stuff again (And so say we, all of us!<\/em>).\u201d\u00a0[22]<\/a>\u00a0Here, and in other cheeky, mimicking cartoons, the Canadians were building on the accepted anti-heroic message established by Bairnsfather and other cultural products. While not overtly anti-heroic, admitting fear and fatigue was far different than the hyper-patriotic speeches from the home front or the caricatured superheroes of war posters. While Canadian cartoonists depicted all manner of subjects, the anti-hero figured prominently, although at least one cartoonist in\u00a0The Brazier<\/em>, the trench newspaper for the 3rd Brigade, queried politely if Alf and Old Bill-like soldiers truly represented the Canadians? There was no answer to that question in forthcoming editions of the paper, although in the same issue there was a dopey-looking Canadian soldier, who could pass as Alf\u2019s twin, dreaming of happy times and food away from the trenches.\u00a0[23]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Listening Post<\/em>, the most popular Canadian trench newspaper that reached a circulation of 20,000 in the summer of 1917, had one of the most talented cartoonists in the CEF.\u00a0[24]<\/a>\u00a0Hugh Farmer was described by another slightly envious trench newspaper editor as being \u201cgood enough to put him in the Capt. Bairnsfather class.\u201d\u00a0[25]<\/a>\u00a0His drawings of Canadians often presented them as stronger, stockier, and better looking than Bairnsfather\u2019s sad-sack figures; but Farmer also embraced the anti-heroic theme to appeal to his readers. One December 1917 cartoon depicts a soldier trying to get out of the line by applying for a transfer to the motor transport unit. The officer asks, \u201cWhat do you know about motors?\u201d The private replies, \u201cOnly that they don\u2019t go into the trenches, sir.\u201d\u00a0[26]<\/a>\u00a0Gentle humour no doubt, with a simple punch-line, but also another acknowledgment of the anti-heroic as the haggard soldier looks to escape the front; and for good measure, the image is a slight insult directed against the transport soldiers in the service corps, and others along the safer lines of communication, positions that were usually derided by the infantry as \u201cbomb-proof.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nFigure
\nMotors cartoon<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\"Motors<\/a>Credit: Canadian War Museum, Military History Research Centre,\u00a0The Listening Post<\/em>\u00a029, n.p.<\/cite><\/p>\n

-> See the list of figures<\/a><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

\nFigure
\nThe Writing on the Wall<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\"The<\/a>Credit: Canadian War Museum, Military History Research Centre,\u00a0The Forty-Niner<\/em>, 23<\/cite><\/p>\n

-> See the list of figures<\/a><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

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The cartoons could be more daring. The\u00a0Iodine Chronicles\u00a0<\/em>made light of \u201cActivities on the Western front (Un-official),\u201d which depicted a bar fight in an\u00a0estaminet<\/em>.\u00a0[27]<\/a>\u00a0Alcohol-fueled battles were not uncommon behind the lines, between the Canadians and other national forces, or even amongst themselves; but this cartoon reveals broken wine bottles used as weapons, knives, and pistols. With temperance groups at home already worried about soldiers\u2019 seemingly unfettered access to alcohol, either through wet canteens or the daily rum ration, this cartoon of beer-soaked brawlers would have been no laughing matter.\u00a0[28]<\/a>\u00a0But it was to the soldiers, who well understood the pleasure of a blowout party behind the lines before returning to the front.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There has been some attention by historians directed at wartime cartoons, suggesting that pictorial humour was a form of social mobilization in French and British civilian societies.\u00a0[29]<\/a>\u00a0If that is the case, then surely soldiers\u2019 cartoons, created by their own hands and for their own comrades, were at least as powerful in mobilizing the soldiers. But mobilizing them for what? Cartoons, like stories or art, are surrounded by layers of interpretation and understanding. Decoding a cartoon\u2019s meaning also requires an understanding of the context behind the image and punch-line, and sometimes it is lost over time. Is the pen mightier than the sword? Most soldiers would have passed on bringing a pen on a trench raid, but the pen could still draw blood, or at least help explain and make sense of the soldiers\u2019 experience.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Veteran and historian G.R. Stevens observed the popularity of Bairnsfather and his messages. \u201cHis gallery of characters \u2014 Old Bill, Alf, Bert, his fed-up privates and his sardonic sergeants \u2014 became celebrities in their own right and their cross-talk became a common coin of conversational exchanges wherever English was spoken. \u2018Where did that one go?\u2019 \u2018If you knows of a better \u2019ole go to it?\u2019 \u2018What time do you feed the sea lions, Alf?\u2019 \u2018There goes our blinkin\u2019 parapet again!\u2019 \u2018Who made that \u2019ole? Mice.\u2019 \u2018They\u2019ve evidently seen me,\u2019 and a hundred other catchphrases portrayed a world war as Britons wanted to see it \u2014 stimulating, dangerous but on the whole a rather amusing business.\u201d\u00a0[30]<\/a>\u00a0Stevens is right to note Bairnsfather\u2019s prevalence amongst and his influence on the soldiers, but perhaps he offers too literal a reading of the cartoons, especially when combined with \u201cold soldiers\u201d or other \u201coutsiders\u201d that were so readily embraced by the soldiers. These anti-heroic cultural figures were more than simply an \u201camusing business\u201d \u2014 they were the means by which the armies of civilian-soldiers coped with the terrible strain of the war, pushed back against authority and hierarchy, and interpreted their wartime experiences.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

\n

Old Soldiers<\/h2>\n
\n

Every unit had its \u201cold soldiers:\u201d experienced veterans from the Permanent Force or the South African War, often older in age and certainly more experienced in the ways of the world. But age alone did not define \u201cold soldier\u201d status: there were many \u201cold soldiers\u201d who had spent a year or two at the front, had become jaded, and all before their 20th birthday. Generally, this class of soldier had pre-war military experience. Victor Trowles recounted how one \u201cold soldier\u201d in his platoon could \u201cquote the King\u2019s regulations by the yard. And we used to sit down with our mouth open and listen to him \u2026. We just listened to him as if he was a tin god. We\u2019d pester the life out of the fellow.\u201d\u00a0[31]<\/a>\u00a0\u201cOld soldiers\u201d carried with them knowledge in an army short of military experience \u2014 beyond that of the Militia \u2014 even if supposed Zulu spear wounds looked suspiciously like appendicitis operation scars. \u201cOld soldiers\u201d displayed a crusty and phlegmatic attitude that made them colourful figures among military units; these veterans understood the ways of the army, allowing them to take liberties whenever they could. A.G. Jacobs remembered two \u201cold soldiers\u201d running a scam: one of them wormed his way into the position of issuing uniforms, where he always provided new men with clothing that was too small or too big; the second man then offered to help the mismatched soldier for a few dollars and get him better fitting clothes, of which they had an abundant supply of official regulation. When Jacobs and his mates caught on to the operation, they were not angry with the soldiers; instead, they admired their resourcefulness.\u00a0[32]<\/a>\u00a0Charles Savage, a pre-war clerk from Waterloo, Qu\u00e9bec, wrote: \u201cThe old soldiers in the regiment had long ago introduced us to Crown and Anchor and we were still innocent enough to hope for the best when we bet on the old Mud Hook.\u201d\u00a0[33]<\/a>\u00a0Most found that the house, run by the \u201cold soldiers\u201d with the boards to allow for betting in the dice game, almost always won. Yet still the soldiers played.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Why was there admiration and not anger for these \u201cartful dodgers,\u201d as some of the \u201cold soldiers\u201d were known, especially when the work they avoided ultimately fell to other soldiers in the unit?\u00a0[34]<\/a>\u00a0While some of the \u201cold soldiers\u201d rose to become essential members of the fighting unit, passing on military knowledge and skills, others remained hopeless cases.\u00a0[35]<\/a>\u00a0Yet there was something about these latter \u201cold soldiers\u201d that appealed to the civilian-soldiers of the CEF, in a similar way to the anti-hero. Their shirking of duty was not always emulated, but it was often envied. Perhaps it was the hardening process of training and early combat that drove many new recruits to the realization that the army and military discipline were not about fairness or justice, and that an experienced soldier survived by his wits. While the Canadian soldier eventually took pride in their reputation as battle-hardened warriors, the foil to this aggressive behavior was the \u201cold soldier,\u201d who also became an important symbol among Canadians in supporting this constructed reputation.\u00a0[36]<\/a>\u00a0Soldiers\u2019 cultural products, from songs to jokes, and especially the trench newspapers, revealed the \u201cold soldiers\u2019\u201d appeal. While the \u201cold soldiers\u201d were not a large group among the fighting formations, they stood out in the soldiers\u2019 stories and cultural products.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

At the heart of the image of the \u201cold soldier\u201d was an anti-authoritarian message. Many of the \u201cold soldier\u201d jokes and cartoons revealed a tension between the soldiers and authority. In an army where everyone took orders, there was inherent frustration at the sometimes stupid and senseless demands from above. Grumbling and grousing was common in the army. \u201cIt is the soldier\u2019s privilege to grouse,\u201d wrote Armine Norris, an enlisted man who later received a commission. \u201cThese are the same kind of men who, with eyes wide open, entered hell to die for people and a country that had never done anything very special for them.\u201d\u00a0[37]<\/a>\u00a0Victor Wheeler of the 50th Battalion remarked: \u201cWe are being treated very badly here, and I am doing my \u2018expected\u2019 share of grouching. It doesn\u2019t remedy conditions, but it does help a fellow to keep going, like a horse under the whip!\u201d\u00a0[38]<\/a>\u00a0Complaining and grumbling at their lot \u2014 from being ordered to dig latrines to carrying spools of barbed wire to the front line trenches, and all of the other laborious tasks asked of the soldiers who were known informally as the \u201cpack mules\u201d of the army \u2014 was annoying, but generally accepted by the soldiers and their officers. But they would not do so without a word or two of disgust. As part of this mild \u201cpush back,\u201d the soldiers took delight in imagining how they could outwit their seniors, who had the hierarchy and discipline of the army on their side.\u00a0[39]<\/a>\u00a0By enjoying the antics of the \u201cold soldiers,\u201d most of their comrades could live vicariously through them in a safe environment, which neither required emulation nor forced officers to react strongly, as would be the case for more mutinous actions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

A cartoon from The Forty-Niner, the newspaper for the 49th Battalion, summed up the tension of the \u201cold soldier,\u201d as expressed through the soldiers\u2019 cultural products. He stands at attention before his commanding officer at a court-martial, where he is being punished for returning late from leave, and looks the worse for wear after two weeks or so of drinking in England. On being asked why he was late, the private replies respectfully: \u201cSir, I was hurrying to catch my train and I met the Salvation Army Band playing \u2018God Save the King.\u2019 I had to stand at attention as became a Forty-Niner, and it caused me to lose my train by about a minute.\u201d The commanding officer, who knows he is hearing a story, nonetheless replies, \u201cDismissed,\u201d thereby letting the \u201cold soldier\u201d off the hook.\u00a0[40]<\/a>\u00a0The ranker is not dodging the illegality of being late from leave, but instead he has found a legitimate and patriotic response. Here, we see the \u201cold soldier\u201d talking his way out of a tight situation, and his commanding officer granting him that leeway without losing face.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The \u201cold soldier\u201d did not always \u201cwin,\u201d but the end result was sometimes less important than the exchange between leaders and led. Sergeant W.B. Thomas of the 49th Battalion offered a soldiers\u2019 poem, \u201cBeaten to a Frazzle,\u201d which reveals another side to the relationship between the officers and rank and file. In the poem, a major is fed up with men asking for leave from the front and then overstaying it, to which they could receive only minor punishments. He decides to make an example of an \u201cold offender,\u201d Private Mathews. Mathews has asked for six days to see his wife, whose health is bad; he implores: \u201cShe\u2019s all I\u2019ve got, and we\u2019ve been wed \/ Just over twenty years; \/ We\u2019ve shared our joys, our ups and downs \/ Our pint of supper beer.\u201d The major is unmoved, but it is hard to counter the argument. He bluffs, saying he has a letter from Matthew\u2019s wife, \u201cWhich says that when you are at home \/ She\u2019s frightened for her life \/ She says that if you ask for leave, \/ To turn you down quite hard.\u201d The soldier knows he is beaten and responds by saluting and turning away, but then stops and asks for a final word:<\/p>\n

\n

Can I have further speech, he said
\n\u00a0<\/span>As conditions would have been
\nIf you were not an officer,
\n\u00a0<\/span>And we\u2019d no rank?<\/p>\n

All right, man to man, the major said,
\nI\u2019ll hear what you\u2019ve to say;
\nBut don\u2019t say aught about reform
\nI guess that\u2019s past your day.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just this, sir, the man replied.
\nMy reputation here
\nIs not what you would call first class:
\nThey say I\u2019m fond of beer.<\/p>\n

They say I fight, and swear, and shirk
\nAnd perhaps it\u2019s all quite true,
\nBut when it comes to lying, sir,
\nMy hat comes off to you.<\/p>\n

You said you\u2019d had a letter, sir,
\n\u00a0<\/span>From the partner of my life;
\nBut I regret to say, sir,
\n\u00a0<\/span>I\u2019ve never had a wife.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This interplay between officer and men, which moves playfully to the punch-line, no doubt tickled the soldiers\u2019 fancy, but the verbal sparring match revealed some of the constant negotiations of power that went on among the ranks of the Canadian army. This is a manly exchange of wits and guile, the very characteristics of the \u201cold soldier,\u201d and no doubt efficient and respected officers. The \u201cold soldier\u201d can have his way \u2014 or try to in this case \u2014 without destabilizing the system.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

There were sharper jabs at the officers in the songs, skits, cartoons, and trench newspapers, but \u201cold soldiering\u201d tended to reflect the inherent tension between leaders and led, between the heroic and the anti-heroic. These anti-heroes were not simply about reflecting the complex relationships in the army; they were embraced by the soldiers as a way of seeing themselves.\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>had one amusing exchange between soldiers about the issuing of medals:<\/p>\n

\n

Bill: \u2018Say, hear that Jock Robinson got the D.C.M.\u2019
\nFred: \u2018What for?\u2019
\nBill: \u2018I dunno.\u2019
\nFred: \u2018Blimy, why ain\u2019t I got one too, I hid in the same dug-out.\u00a0[41]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Anti-heroic jokes like this must have been particularly perplexing to civilians who viewed soldiers as nothing less than heroes fighting for the Empire. The embracing of the anti-hero was in opposition to the expectation foisted on soldiers by civilians, and there was an appeal in approving of the unsoldierly in a hierarchical formation that demanded much sacrifice from its members, including, to some degree, their individualism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Ignatz Hump was an anti-hero who the Canadian soldiers followed in\u00a0The Listening Post<\/em>. \u201cThe Adventures of Ignatz Hump\u201d was serialized over several issues and his \u201clong-service\u201d in the paper revealed his popularity, as the readers could easily express their dislike of the trench newspaper content to the editors who shared the trenches with them.\u00a0[42]<\/a>\u00a0Ignatz Hump was described as:<\/p>\n

\n

\u2026not a particularly beautiful person according to peace time standards. He stood fully five feet three in height and as of the build called slight. His features were non-descript and greatly overlaid by freckles. His pompadour required pruning, or, in other words he needed a hair cut. There were soup stains on his lapel, or there would have been had he had either soup or lapels. For the want of the latter, his tunic had suffered. He wore an officer\u2019s cast-off cap, a pair of dingy riding breeches, the gift of a fellow warrior of the A.S.C.; puttees with the effect of ballet shirts, and large boots of one time colour which he inherited from a deceased comrade \u2026. The battalion to which our hero belongs was due for a rest, and from the time the announcement was made Ignatz smacked his lips in anticipation of a period of blissful leisure.\u00a0[43]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Far different than a hapless new recruit who does not understand his role in the army, the mismatched, hoboish Hump is actively finding ways to push back against the system. This \u201cold soldier\u201d has not given up soldiering, but fighting the enemy seems far less important than relaxing with alcohol and women in the\u00a0estaminets\u00a0<\/em>behind the lines. For good measure, because he has no money to \u201cpurchase these golden pleasures,\u201d he steals a Crown and Anchor board in order to fleece his friends, and later our \u201chero,\u201d as the story ironically characterizes him, bilks his officer of additional money to drink himself into a stupor.\u00a0[44]<\/a>\u00a0Hump was unheroic in stature or action, but his actions were humorous, and perhaps envied by some Canadians.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

There were no badges or medals distinguishing the \u201cold soldiers,\u201d but they were an identifiable group amongst Canadian formations, and loomed out of proportion to their numbers in the soldiers\u2019 cultural products. They included the experienced pre-war soldiers, but also many of the new breed of veterans who had served and survived at the front. While the \u201cold soldier\u201d embraced anti-heroic actions of flaunting authority, dodging duties, and cheating his mates, these actions did not extend in the soldiers\u2019 culture to any refusal to fight in battle. But there was another class of anti-hero who indeed filled that anti-soldiering role.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

\n

Leadswingers and Malingers<\/h2>\n
\n

One of the most prevalent anti-heroic themes within the soldiers\u2019 culture is the art of malingering. Malingering, or leadswinging in the soldiers\u2019 parlance, was the attempt by soldiers to feign illness or injury to escape duty, and in the process be transferred to a safer rear area. Malingering was no joking matter to an army that prized itself on strict discipline in keeping soldiers at the front, and could hold them there on penalty of death, but it was a theme prevalent in the soldiers\u2019 dark humour.\u00a0[45]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The regimental medical officer (MO) was a target for much of the angst and anger in the trench newspapers. It was the MO who could send a man from the firing line to the rear, and they had been instructed by senior officers to be vigilant. As detectives of real and imagined illness, the MO rarely let sick soldiers out of the line and often the remedy for ailments was the pill No. 9, a laxative. One medical officer described that his \u201cchief duties consists of handing out sentences to the bearers and pills with advice to the Battalion. His King and Country also expect him to convince a sick man that he is not sick.\u201d\u00a0[46]<\/a>\u00a0Private Archie Selwood, who went to France with the 72nd Battalion at age 35, remarked on the stringent medical examinations: \u201cUnless there was blood, we got little sympathy.\u201d\u00a0[47]<\/a>\u00a0Soldiers\u2019 humour was replete with references to the MO and his pill No. 9, as well as attempts by malingers and leadswingers to escape duty.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Under the title of \u201cThe Ancient Order of Lead Swingers,\u201d Private C.B. Eversick put out a call in the pages of\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>to \u201call experts at swinging the lead,\u201d in order to form a club to beat the medical officers. Playing up the anti-heroic nature of malingering, in addition to his own moniker of Eversick, other club members included Lord Windhupp, Sir Verey Badheart, and the Duke of Wellinrear. \u201cAll windy soldiers are welcome.\u201d The group\u2019s goal was to establish a branch of malingers to assist one another in \u201coutwit[ting] telepathic pill-throwers\u201d; to \u201cconcentrate expert ingenuity for the purpose of discovering diseases and ailments hitherto unknown to medical science\u201d; and to discover the place and units where \u201csympathetic army doctors (just out) and the cushiest Field Ambulances (newly organized) were situated.\u201d\u00a0[48]<\/a>\u00a0This anti-heroic \u201ccall to arms\u201d brought malingering from the shadows into the open. It also noted, in a backhand way, the effectiveness of the medical officers, who could be ruthless in stamping it out. But this was just one of the more flagrant examples of confronting unheroic topics head on in the soldiers\u2019 culture. An article in\u00a0The Splint Record\u00a0<\/em>spoke of soldiers lying \u201cawake nights thinking up schemes\u201d to get to the rear.\u00a0[49]<\/a>\u00a0\u201cLead Swinging \u2014 The New Career,\u201d again from\u00a0The Listening Post<\/em>, noted that \u201cthe ultimate aim of every God-fearing private is to procure the much coveted\u201d wound to escape the front.\u00a0[50]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nFigure
\nShellshock cartoon<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\"Shellshock<\/a>Credit: Canadian War Museum, Military History Research Centre,\u00a0The Listening Post 29<\/em>, 15<\/cite><\/p>\n

-> See the list of figures<\/a><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

\n

The soldiers\u2019 culture was not only represented in newspapers and cartoons. Songs were an important form of soldiers\u2019 expression and were sung in the trenches, behind the lines at rest, and while marching. The soldiers\u2019 songs ranged from the wistful and sentimental to the raunchy and rowdy, with many focusing on the unheroic and the unsoldierly. \u201cI Want to Go Home,\u201d later sung by generations of camp kids with their own parodied lyrics, implored:<\/p>\n

\n

I want to go home, I want to go home.
\nI don\u2019t want to go in the trenches no more,
\nWhere the whizzbangs and shrapnel they whistle and roar.
\nTake me over the sea, where the Alleyman can\u2019t get me.
\nOh my, I don\u2019t want to die, I want to go home.
\nI want to go home, I want to go home.
\nI don\u2019t want to visit la Belle France no more,
\nFor oh the Jack Johnsons they make such a roar.
\nTake me over the sea, where the snipers they can\u2019t get me.
\nOh my, I don\u2019t want to die, I want to go home.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to join the Army\u201d is a variation on the anti-heroic theme, with the singers howling parodied lines from the music hall ditty, \u201cOn Sunday I walk out with a sailor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

I don\u2019t want to join the army,
\nI don\u2019t want to go to war.
\nI\u2019d rather hang around Piccadilly underground.
\nLiving off the earnings of a lady whore.
\nI don\u2019t want a bayonet in my belly,
\nI don\u2019t want my bollocks shot away.
\nI\u2019d rather stay in England, in merry, merry England,
\nAnd fuck this bleeding life away.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Those who did not know the songs might have thought the British and Canadian Tommy who sang them were on the verge of mutiny. Yet the songs, like the other forms of cultural expression that poked fun at authority or service in the army, were all part of the soldiers\u2019 culture that revelled in the blackness of their situation, rather than revealing some sort of mutinous underswell in the rank and file. In fact, like the regular grousing and complaining so prevalent in the army, the soldiers\u2019 anti-heroic songs were a method of relieving pressure, allowing for discontent to slowly dissipate rather than build up for a climactic explosion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Anti-heroic jokes, stories, cartoons, and songs all offered respectability to the anti-heroic actions of malingering and equally serious search for Blighty wounds. This type of wound \u2014 severe enough to be sent back to England (Blighty, in soldiers\u2019 slang) \u2014 was an honourable way out of the line. Sung to the tune of \u201cHere We Are Again,\u201d T.W.L. Macdermot of the 7th Canadian Siege Battery noted the popularity of this jaunty song:<\/p>\n

\n

Hit me there! Hit me there!
\nHit me there again!
\nI can\u2019t get back with a bit of a scratch like this \u2014
\nThe Allemanne who shot me
\nThe son-of-a-gun that got me
\nWas far too easy
\nHeinie! Send another one!<\/p>\n

Hit me there! Hit me there!
\nHit me there again!
\nA little scratch ain\u2019t good enough for me.
\nA Blighty now would suit me
\nWon\u2019t somebody kindly shoot me
\nHey! Fritz! Hit me there again!\u00a0[51]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cHit me there again\u201d was but one of many seemingly acceptable references by the soldiers to anti-heroic activities and actions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

It may be surprising to read of soldiers embracing the anti-heroic so readily, looking for ways to deceive their officers or even deliberately seeking a wound to get out of the line. Although soldiers carried out such dark acts, they were, for all intents and purposes, trapped in the cycle of rotating from the firing line to the rear and back again until they were wounded, killed, or driven mad; why would the antiheroic be so acceptable? And why would it be allowed by officers to percolate through the soldiers\u2019 culture? The anti-hero, which appeared to epitomize low morale, in so far as soldiers were carrying out traditionally unheroic activities, was ironically good for morale. With soldiers enjoying the antics of the anti-heroes, even projecting on them a form of wish-fulfillment, this was recognized tacitly by officers who not only allowed these cultural references to exist, but also encouraged them to flourish. Moreover, to talk about taboos is to reveal them; to joke about them is to present the truth for all to see. While cheating one\u2019s mates, brawling, or malingering from the front were serious military charges, these deviant actions appeared to be condoned in the cultural products, and seemingly accepted by the led and the leaders as good for morale.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n
\n

In the pages of\u00a0The Listening Post<\/em>, cartoonist Hugh Farmer codified one of the popular quips among soldiers into a cartoon. A nattily-dressed officer speaks to a Canadian infantryman, appropriately named \u201cPte. Coldfeet.\u201d The lieutenant asks: \u201cNow Pte. Coldfeet, if you were in the trenches, and the Germans were coming to attack[,] what steps would you take[?]\u201d Coldfeet replies promptly, \u201cLong quick one\u2019s [sic] sir.\u201d\u00a0[52]<\/a>To those not a part of the soldiers\u2019 culture, anti-heroic actions, gallows humour, and biting satire were sometimes misconstrued as soldiers looking to abandon the war effort. Had the army been reduced to cowards? Had rot set in to the once proud fighting forces? While it might have been true for some soldiers close to succumbing to the stress of combat, most understood their role in the war and were not anxious to leave their mates in the lurch. Anti-heroes helped the soldiers deal with the strain engendered by the boredom, banality, and brutality of trench warfare. These cultural figures were also a reflection of inner anxieties and deep-set wishes, which were not always acted upon, but provided a vicarious outlet for many of the expressions and actions prevalent among most soldiers at the front. One should be wary of unifying themes in cultural history; the messiness and inconsistencies of conflicting issues need to be acknowledged and teased out. Soldiers could despise civilians one day and write pining letters to loved ones at home the next; they could turn their nose down at the \u201ceye wash\u201d emanating from ultra-patriotic papers and then turn to those same newspapers to understand what was happening at the front; they could be dodging shells one minute and then, after clearing the wreckage of a trench or helping a bloodied companion to the rear, return to collect the same shell bits as trophies or souvenirs. Heroes could be anti-heroes in the complicated and constructed world of the trenches, where nothing was as it had been promised in the propaganda, and soldiers needed to create new tools to survive the unending strain.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nFigure
\nPrivate Cold feet<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\"Private<\/a>Credit: Canadian War Museum, Military History Research Centre,\u00a0The Listening Post<\/em>\u00a027, 31<\/cite><\/p>\n

-> See the list of figures<\/a><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

\n

\u201cOld soldiers,\u201d malingers, and other anti-heroic types offered the soldiers new ways to view the war with a grim smile and a phlegmatic shrug, while providing a form of agency for the civilian-soldiers, many of whom felt caught in the twilight world of the trenches and in the clutches of army discipline. Charles Pearce wrote to his father on the one-year anniversary of his service in the army: \u201cI am beginning to feel that I have always been in the army. I feel as though I had lived two lives for I have seen as much in one year here as I had in all my life before.\u201d\u00a0[53]<\/a>\u00a0Pearce\u2019s \u201ctwo lives\u201d ended on the Western Front, where he joined more than 60,000 Canadian slain. But several hundred thousand more survived. In the postwar years, these soldiers remained the heroes who had fought and sacrificed for their country, King, and Christ.\u00a0[54]<\/a>\u00a0Most veterans did not contradict this heroic role, but many had sustained themselves during the war by embracing the anti-heroic. Wyndham Lewis spoke of the anti-heroic tradition in the British army, which also seeped into the Canadian soldiers\u2019 ethos, as the cultural tools linked the fighting forces: \u201cA V.C. is after all a fellow who does something heroic; almost unEnglish. It is taking things a bit too seriously to get the V.C. The really popular fellow is the humourous \u2018Old Bill\u2019 \u00e1 la Bairnsfather. And it was really \u2018Old Bill\u2019 who won the war.\u201d\u00a0[55]<\/a>\u00a0The role of the anti-hero in soldiers\u2019 cultural products redefined the notion of the hero, or at least added a new layer of interpretation to how civilian-soldiers endured and survived the unimaginable strain and horror at the front. In a war that produced the absurdity of soldiers burying themselves in order to live, where they had traded the comfort of life at home for the deprivations in trenches, where bankers, clerks, and farmers were being subjected to wanton death and destruction, and in turn meting it out, it may not be surprising that the heroic Canadian soldier so readily embraced the anti-heroic.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
\n
\n
\n

Footnotes<\/h2>\n

[1]<\/a>Canadian War Museum (CWM), 19900055-001, poster.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a>For the patriotic discourse on the home front, see Jeffrey Keshen,\u00a0Propaganda and Censorship during the Great War\u00a0<\/em>(Calgary: University of Alberta Press, 1996), chap. 1.<\/span><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a>On Second Ypres, see Tim Cook,\u00a0At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1914\u20131916<\/em>, vol. I (Toronto: Viking, 2007) and Andrew Iarocci,\u00a01st Canadian Division at War, 1914\u201315: A Study of Training, Tactics and Leadership\u00a0<\/em>(Ph.D. diss., Wilfrid Laurier University, 2005).<\/span><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a>For the knights of the sky, see Jonathan Vance,\u00a0High Flight: Aviation and the Canadian Imagination\u00a0<\/em>(Toronto: Penguin, 2002).<\/span><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a>On gallantry medals, see Surgeon Commander F.J. Blatherwick,\u00a0Canadian Orders, Decorations, and Medals\u00a0<\/em>(Toronto: The Unitrade Press, 1994); for a critical look at the awarding of medals, see Hugh Halliday,\u00a0Valour Reconsidered: Inquiries into the Victoria Cross and other Awards for Extreme Bravery<\/em>\u00a0(Toronto: Robin Brass Studio, 2006).<\/span><\/p>\n

[6]<\/a>For the postwar elevation of soldiers to heroes, see Jonathan Vance,\u00a0Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning, and the First World War\u00a0<\/em>(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1997).<\/span><\/p>\n

[7]<\/a>For Canadian combat motivation, see Tim Cook,\u00a0Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1917\u20131918<\/em>, vol. II (Toronto: Viking, 2008), chaps. 12\u201315.<\/span><\/p>\n

[8]<\/a>For Canadian studies of soldiers\u2019 culture, see Jonathan Vance, \u201cBattle Verse: Poetry and Nationalism after Vimy Ridge,\u201d in\u00a0Vimy Ridge: A Canadian Reassessment<\/em>, eds. Geoffrey Hayes, Andrew Iarocci, and Mike Bechthold (Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2007) and Andrew Horrall, \u201cCharlie Chaplin and the Canadian Expeditionary Force,\u201d in\u00a0Canada and the Great War: Western Front Association Papers<\/em>, ed. Briton C. Busch (Montr\u00e9al: McGill-Queen\u2019s University Press, 2003), 27\u201345. For international studies on soldiers\u2019 culture, see J. G. Fuller,\u00a0Troop Morale and Popular Culture in the British and Dominion Armies, 1914\u20131918\u00a0<\/em>(Oxford: Claredon Press, 1990); James P. Daughton, \u201cSketches of the\u00a0Poilu<\/em>\u2019s World: Trench Cartoons from the Great War,\u201d in\u00a0World War I and the Cultures of Modernity<\/em>, eds. Douglas Mackaman and Michael Mays (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2000); John Brophy and Eric Partridge,\u00a0Soldiers\u2019 Song and Slang: 1914\u20131918\u00a0<\/em>(London: E. Partridge, 1931); St\u00e9phane Audoin-Rouzeau,\u00a0Men at War 1914\u20131918: National Sentiment and Trench Journalism in France during the First World War<\/em>, trans. Helen McPhail (Providence, RI: Berg, 1992).<\/span><\/p>\n

[9]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0R.M.R. Growler\u00a0<\/em>1 (1 January 1916), 1.<\/span><\/p>\n

[10]<\/a>See Modris Eksteins,\u00a0Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age\u00a0<\/em>(Toronto: Lester, Orpen and Dennys, 1989) and Brian Bond,\u00a0The Unquiet Western Front: Britain\u2019s Role in Literature and History\u00a0<\/em>(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).<\/span><\/p>\n

[11]<\/a>On Imperial heroes for Canadian youth, see Mark Moss,\u00a0Manliness and Militarism: Educating Young Boys in Ontario for War<\/em>\u00a0(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) and in Britain, Michael Paris,\u00a0The Great War and Juvenile Literature in Britain\u00a0<\/em>(Westport: Praeger, 2004).<\/span><\/p>\n

[12]<\/a>Tonie and Valmai Holt, eds.,\u00a0The Best of Fragments from France by Capt. Bruce Bairnsfather\u00a0<\/em>(London: Phin Publishing, 1978), intro., part II.<\/span><\/p>\n

[13]<\/a>Grace Morris,\u00a0But this is our war\u00a0<\/em>(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 56.<\/span><\/p>\n

[14]<\/a>H.R.N. Clyne,\u00a0Vancouver\u2019s 29th: A Chronicle of the 29th in Flanders Fields\u00a0<\/em>(Vancouver: Tobin\u2019s Tigers Association, 1964), 7.<\/span><\/p>\n

[15]<\/a>See Tonie and Valmai Holt,\u00a0In Search of the Better \u2019Ole: The Life the Works and the Collectables of Bruce Bairnsfather\u00a0<\/em>(Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1985).<\/span><\/p>\n

[16]<\/a>Maurice Pope,\u00a0Letters from the Front, 1914\u20131919\u00a0<\/em>(Toronto: Pope & Co., 1996), 36.<\/span><\/p>\n

[17]<\/a>Hugh Kay,\u00a0Battery Action! The story of the 43rd (Howitzer) Battery, Canadian Field Artillery, 1916\u20131919\u00a0<\/em>(Ottawa: CEF Books, 2002), 46.<\/span><\/p>\n

[18]<\/a>Pete Anderson,\u00a0I: That\u2019s Me: Escape from German Prison Camp and other Adventures\u00a0<\/em>(Edmonton, Alta: Bradburn Printers, 1920), 46.<\/span><\/p>\n

[19]<\/a>For Chaplin and Lauder, see Horrall, \u201cCharlie Chaplin and the Canadian Expeditionary Force.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

[20]<\/a>CWM, Samuel Honey papers, 19950008-014, letter, 6 September 1916.<\/span><\/p>\n

[21]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Forty-Niner\u00a0<\/em>4 (December 1915), 16.<\/span><\/p>\n

[22]<\/a>Oh, Canada\u00a0<\/em>(London: Simpkin and Marshall, 1917), 16.<\/span><\/p>\n

[23]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Brazier\u00a0<\/em>8 (10 February 1917), 1.<\/span><\/p>\n

[24]<\/a>For sales, see CWM,\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>19 (October 1916), 118.<\/span><\/p>\n

[25]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Iodine Chronicle\u00a0<\/em>14 (22 December 1917), 9<\/span><\/p>\n

[26]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>29 (1 December 1917), 17.<\/span><\/p>\n

[27]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Iodine Chronicles\u00a0<\/em>(22 December 1917).<\/span><\/p>\n

[28]<\/a>Tim Cook, \u201cWet Canteens and Worrying Mothers: Soldiers and Temperance Groups in the Great War,\u201d\u00a0Histoire sociale \/ Social History<\/em>\u00a035, no. 70 (June 2003): 311\u201330; Tim Cook, \u201c\u2018More as a medicine than a beverage\u2019: \u2018Demon Rum\u2019 and the Canadian Trench Soldier in the First World War,\u201d\u00a0Canadian Military History\u00a0<\/em>9, no. 1 (Winter 2000): 7\u201322.<\/span><\/p>\n

[29]<\/a>See Pierre Purseigle, \u201cMirroring societies at war: pictorial humour in the British and French popular press during the First World War,\u201d\u00a0European Studies\u00a0<\/em>xxxi (2001): 289\u2013328.<\/span><\/p>\n

[30]<\/a>G.R. Stevens,\u00a0A City Goes to War: History of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment\u00a0<\/em>(Brampton, Ont.: Charters, 1964), 66.<\/span><\/p>\n

[31]<\/a>CWM, CBC radio program \u201cFlanders Fields,\u201d 1964, transcripts, Episode 3, page 4.<\/span><\/p>\n

[32]<\/a>Ibid., Episode 3, page 5.<\/span><\/p>\n

[33]<\/a>Canadian Letters and Images Project, Charles Savage, memoir, unpaginated.<\/span><\/p>\n

[34]<\/a>Andrew Robertshaw, \u201c\u2018Irrepressible Chirpy Cockney Chappies\u2019? Humour as an Aid to Survival,\u201d\u00a0Journal of European Studies\u00a0<\/em>xxxi (2001): 277\u201387.<\/span><\/p>\n

[35]<\/a>For the important role of the experienced \u201cold soldiers\u201d in the First Contingent, see Desmond Morton,\u00a0When Your Number\u2019s Up: The Canadian Soldier in the First World War\u00a0<\/em>(Toronto: Random House, 1993), 74\u20135. \\<\/span><\/p>\n

[36]<\/a>Carman Miller, \u201cThe Crucible of War: Canadian and British Troops During the Boer War,\u201d in\u00a0The Boer War: Army, Nation and Empire<\/em>, eds. Peter Dennis and Jeffrey Grey (Canberra: Army History Unit, 2000); Tim Cook,\u00a0Clio\u2019s Warriors: Canadian Historians and the Writing of the World Wars\u00a0<\/em>(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2006), chaps. 1 and 2.<\/span><\/p>\n

[37]<\/a>Armine Norris,\u00a0Mainly for Mother\u00a0<\/em>(Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1919), 118.<\/span><\/p>\n

[38]<\/a>Victor Wheeler,\u00a0The 50th Battalion\u00a0<\/em>(Ottawa: CEF Books, 2000), 132.<\/span><\/p>\n

[39]<\/a>On military discipline and justice, see Morton,\u00a0When Your Number\u2019s Up<\/em>; Chris Madsen,\u00a0Another Kind of Justice: Canadian Military Law from Confederation to Somalia\u00a0<\/em>(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1999).<\/span><\/p>\n

[40]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Forty Niner\u00a0<\/em>1, no. 1 [n.d.], 22. Also see the similar joke in\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>12 (15 March 1916), 66.<\/span><\/p>\n

[41]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>16 (17 June 1916), 96.<\/span><\/p>\n

[42]<\/a>For a discussion of trench newspapers, see Audioun-Rousseau,\u00a0Men at War 1914\u20131918<\/em>; Fuller,\u00a0Troop Morale<\/em>; and Keshen,\u00a0Propaganda and Censorship during the Great War<\/em>, chap. 5.<\/span><\/p>\n

[43]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>18 (21 July 1916), 111.<\/span><\/p>\n

[44]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>20 (10 December 1916), 131; Ibid., 25 (21 May 1917), 171.<\/span><\/p>\n

[45]<\/a>For self-inflicted wounds, see Joanna Bourke,\u00a0Dismembering the Male: Men\u2019s Bodies, Britain, and the Great War\u00a0<\/em>(London: Reaktion; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).<\/span><\/p>\n

[46]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>1 (10 August 1915), n.p.<\/span><\/p>\n

[47]<\/a>LAC, Records of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (RG 41), \u201cFlanders Fields,\u201d interview transcripts, v. 16, 72nd Battalion, Private Archie Selwood, 1\/11-12.<\/span><\/p>\n

[48]<\/a>CWM,\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>29 (1 December 1917), 17.<\/span><\/p>\n

[49]<\/a>Ibid.,\u00a0The Splint Record\u00a0<\/em>3 (10 May 1916), 1.<\/span><\/p>\n

[50]<\/a>Ibid.,\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>30 (1 April 1918), 9\u201310.<\/span><\/p>\n

[51]<\/a>T.W.L. Macdermot,\u00a0The Seventh\u00a0<\/em>(Montr\u00e9al: Seventh Canadian Siege Battery Association, 1953), 119.<\/span><\/p>\n

[52]<\/a>LAC, RG 9, vol. 5079,\u00a0The Listening Post\u00a0<\/em>(10 August 1917), 31.<\/span><\/p>\n

[53]<\/a>CWM, Charles Pearce papers, 19810740-054, letter, 21 August 1915.<\/span><\/p>\n

[54]<\/a>For the postwar construction of memory and the heroicizing of veterans, and especially the fallen soldiers, see Vance,\u00a0Death So Noble\u00a0<\/em>and Jay Winter,\u00a0Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History\u00a0<\/em>(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).<\/span><\/p>\n

[55]<\/a>P.W. Lewis,\u00a0Blasting and Bombardiering\u00a0<\/em>(London: Calder and Boyars, 1937), 37\u20138.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"menu_order":3,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[48],"contributor":[],"license":[],"part":510,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openhistoryseminar.com\/canadianhistory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/523"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openhistoryseminar.com\/canadianhistory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openhistoryseminar.com\/canadianhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openhistoryseminar.com\/canadianhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/openhistoryseminar.com\/canadianhistory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":527,"href":"https:\/\/openhistoryseminar.com\/canadianhistory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/523\/revisions\/527"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/openhistoryseminar.com\/canadianhistory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/510"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/openhistoryseminar.com\/canadianhistory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/523\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openhistoryseminar.com\/canadianhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openhistoryseminar.com\/canadianhistory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=523"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openhistoryseminar.com\/canadianhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=523"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openhistoryseminar.com\/canadianhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}