“The Listening Posts are Certainly our Night Lights”: Canadian Trench Newspapers During the Great War (original) (raw)
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The Soldiers' Press: Trench Journals in First World War
2013
I is one of the most studied topics of modern scholarship. Is it possible to say something about it that has not yet been said?' Graham Seal asks the question that must pop into the mind of many a reviewer when picking up a new volume on the First World War (although, curiously, he asks it in the final, rather than the first, paragraph of his monograph, by which time it might be rather too late for the reader). In this centenary year, it is difficult not to feel a little overwhelmed by the flood of material about the Great War, from books and magazine articles to television documentaries and public events. Thanks to the interventions of Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, moreover, the interpretation of the war has become a political battleground. (Gove probably wouldn't like this book, given Seal's description in his very first page of the 'palpable insanity' that frontline soldiers were forced to endure 'by forces beyond their control' (p. ix)). Fortunately, this is the sort of book that can help to shake off First World War fatigue and foster confidence that it is possible to view the conflict in fresh ways. There is, of course, always more to say. Seal's topic-the trench journalism of allied nations, found in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines produced by and for troops serving in the front-lines-is by no means unfamiliar. The author suggests, not unreasonably, that the trench press 'is an immensely rich and relatively under-utilised resource' (p. 223). It has, nevertheless, been examined in some depth by a number of scholars, including J. G. Fuller, Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Alfred Cornbise.(1) It is also part of the popular memory of the war: the Wipers Times, edited by Captain F. J. Roberts of the 12th Battalion Sherwood Foresters, has been collected in a number of published editions, and provided the basis for a recent BBC2 drama penned by Ian Hislop and starring Ben Chaplin and Michael Palin.(2) The way in which trench journalism used humour as a coping strategy in the face of the grim and unpredictable realities of modern warfare is well known. Nevertheless, this study has several distinctive elements that, when combined, add a new dimension to our understanding of this genre of writing. It is the first full-length comparative study, examining English-language newspapers produced by troops from Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States (and, on occasion, adding insights from French and German publications). It is concerned with all aspects of the production, content and reception of trench journalism, and does not merely use them as a prism to explore specific themes such as morale or national identity. As a Professor of Folklore, Seal reads the material slightly differently to most historians or literary scholars, and is particularly alive to implicit meanings, folkloric traditions, myth and rumour. Most significantly of all, though, the author develops an original and persuasive argument about the
Corps identity: the letters, diaries and memoirs of Canada's great war soldiers
2008
The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the role published diaries, letters and memoirs of Canadian soldiers played in shaping, consolidating, and preserving the "myth of the [Great] war experience" in Canada. In Death So Noble, Memory, Meaning, and the First World War, Jonathan Vance argues that, during and shortly after the First World War, Canadian politicians, artists and historians created this myth to soften the horrible realities of the trenches. To justify and explain the deaths of more than 60,000 Canadians, the war was most often portrayed as a positive, if costly, experience that led a colony to full nationhood. At the same time, Canadian soldiers were described as backwoodsmen; natural soldiers who evinced a strong disdain for army discipline. -- Although Vance's interpretation of the Great War legacy in Canada has been well received, the role that Canadian soldiers played in the creation of this legacy has yet to be examined. One approach to this en...
‘We're Here Because We're Here’: Trench Culture of the Great War
Folklore, 2013
English-speaking soldiers of the Great War created a large 'trench press', a body of periodicals by, for, and about their experiences. They contain a wealth of folkloric material and indications of its significance and functions. While acknowledging the constraints involved in retrieving once-living traditions from the fragmentary survival of mostly makeshift periodicals, this article describes and discusses the processes involved in the creation and development of an especially well-defined folk culture in unprecedented and extreme circumstances. While some elements of soldier folklore, especially song, verse, and language, have been the subject of usually discrete interest by folklorists, this is the first attempt to understand a range of folkloric practice and expression in the context of a particular set of combat circumstances.
2020
Throughout the First World War 4, 507 photographs were produced by the Canadian War Records Office. These photographs were used as propaganda to promote victory overseas and were popularized in exhibitions, magazines, books, and other wartime ephemera. Produced simultaneously to this official record was private soldiers' photography which is comprised of albums, scrapbooks, personal snapshots, and soldiers' portraits and communicate a narrative that is both similar and disparate from the official record. This thesis examines the ways in which private and official photographs were formed and how they were used to communicate soldiers' wartime experience. It argues that the official photographs are not just a piece of propaganda, but rather that of the photographer's and the private photographs are an extension of soldiers' culture and art, as well as an extension of twentieth-century photographic culture.
Behind the Lines: War Books of the Canadian Army Medical Corps, 1914 - 1918 (pp 233-260)
Papers of The Bibliographical Society of Canada
An analysis of published and unpublished materials generated by the Canadian Army Medical Corps during the First World War demonstrates that Canadian doctors and nurses serving in France created a narrative of the Great War that was more optimistic in its message than the canonical war books written in the 1920s and 1930s and more internationalist in orientation than the dominant narrative of the war created in Canada after the war.
Multi-panel comic narratives in Australian First World War trench publications as citizen journalism
Australian Journal of Communication, 39 (3). pp. 1-22
Although textual expressions by soldiers in their own trench and troopship newspapers are relatively well known, the way that the men created and used cartoon multi-panel format is not. Humorous visual self-expression has provided a record of satirical social observation from a 'bottom up' perspective. The contribution made by illustrative narratives of the armed forces needs to be acknowledged as early citizen journalism. Comic art by servicemen - mainly from the lower ranks - has contributed to the evolution of democratic self-expression in popular culture, and manifests aspects of collective First World War experience that can be construed as a form of journalistic observation. Soldiers' universal concerns about daily life, complaints and feelings about officers, medical services, discomforts, food and drink, leave, military routines, and their expectations versus emerging reality are emphasised. In this paper, we argue that perceptions of Australian identity can also be discerned in the detailed interaction between drawings, dialogue, and/or text that is unique to this early comic-strip form.
Canadian Battlefields 1915-1918: A Visitor's Guide
2011
Most of the world remembers the First World War as a time when, as historian Samuel Hynes put it, “innocent young men, their heads full of high abstractions like Honour, Glory, and England … were slaughtered in stupid battles planned by stupid Generals.” English-speaking Canadians have for the most part accepted this view and supplemented it with an imaginative version of a war in which their soldiers won great victories and forged a new national identity. Both approaches have served to promote literary, political, and cultural agendas of such power that empirical studies of actual wartime events have had little impact on the historiography. A new generation of scholars has challenged those approaches, however, insisting that the reality of the war and the society that produced it are worthy of study. This guide to the Canadian battlefields in France and Belgium offers a brief critical history of the war and of Canada’s contribution, drawing attention to the best recent books on the subject. It focuses on the Ypres Salient, Passchendaele, Vimy, and the “Hundred Day”s battles and considers lesser-known battlefields as well. Battle maps, contemporary maps, photographs, war art, and tourist information enhance the reader experience.