Canadian Military History
Volume 22 Issue 2 Article 5
2013
“I will meet the world with a smile and a joke” Canadian Soldiers’ Humour in the Great War
Tim Cook
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Recommended Citation Tim Cook "“I will meet the world with a smile and a joke” Canadian Soldiers’ Humour in the Great War." Canadian Military History 22, 2 (2013)
This Canadian War Museum is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military History by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. : “I will meet the world with a smile and a joke” Canadian Soldiers’ Humour in the Great War Canadian War Museum 19830594-007 Canadian War
THINGS THAT MATTER. Colonel Fritz-Shrapnel receives the following message from “G.H.Q.” “Please let us know, as soon as possible, the number of tins of raspberry jam issued to you last Friday.”
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“I will meet the world with a smile and a joke” Canadian Soldiers’ Humour in the Great War
Tim Cook
he Great War of 1914-1918 a belief that a lost generation was the crushing psychological strain. Twas a tragedy of monumental forced to flounder in the mud of Humour remained an important proportions. This cataclysm of world Flanders or the slime of the Somme, safety valve for soldiers attempting history left more than nine million eking out a grim existence with rats, to endure the destruction at the front. dead with Canada adding more lice, and unburied corpses, until some Lieutenant Clifford Wells had a laugh than 60,000 to that butcher’s bill. homicidal, septuagenarian general as he censored a letter from a ranker The memory of the Great War is ordered the infantry over the top in who advised his wife to prepare the mired in the mud and misery of a slow, methodical march into the house for his arrival home at war’s the Western Front. It is the cries of mouth of the waiting guns. This is end in 1925; Wells wrote to his own anguish that resonate through the the most resilient strand of memory loved ones, “The men have a sense tragic memory of the war. British emanating from the war, and it is of humour which goes far towards soldier-poet Siegfried Sassoon wrote difficult for writers, film-makers, and lightening their burdens.”3 in his angry poem “Suicide in the historians to construct a narrative in Soldiers’ humour has no Trenches” that the Western Front was disjunction to this.2 If we do not use uniformity. There are pieces of “The hell where youth and laughter the language of suffering, what are buffoonery mixed with maudlin go.”1 we left with? The language of the war – so In the Great War for civilization, Résumé : Le langage de la guerre, brilliantly captured by the war poets – where the allies claimed that liberal consigné et créé par les poètes de guerre, présente un souvenir construit de la is of suffering, pity, and trauma. The values were pitted against unfettered Grande Guerre, imprégné de souffrance, constructed memory is built upon militarism, was there time for de pitié et d’événements traumatisants. laughter? In fact, was laughter in Il est quasi blasphématoire de suggérer Abstract: The language of war captured war not an insult to the legions of que les combattants des tranchées and created by the war poets presents dead? It seems almost blasphemous riaient et plaisantaient, jouaient des a constructed memory of the Great War tours et chantaient des chansons that is infused with suffering, pity, and to suggest that trench warriors drôles, dressaient des caricatures trauma. It seems almost blasphemous giggled and joked, played pranks grinçantes et faisant des calembours to suggest that trench warriors giggled and sang merry tunes, satirized odieux. Mais c’est ce qu’ils faisaient. and joked, played pranks and sang merry and punned mercilessly. But of L’humour était une importante soupape tunes, satirized and punned mercilessly. course they did. Reading the de surpression pour les soldats qui But of course they did. Humour remained cherchaient à endurer la destruction an important safety valve for soldiers vast discourse of published and dont ils étaient témoin au front. Cet attempting to endure the destruction unpublished memoirs, diaries, or article examine comment les soldats at the front. This article examines how letters reveals countless examples canadiens refusaient de se laisser Canadian soldiers refused to be broken of soldiers’ humour. Jocularity and détruire par la machine de guerre in the machine of war and how they used wit were outlets for soldiers and et comment ils utilisaient la culture low-brow culture and social interactions primaire et les interactions sociales to survive on the Western Front. one of the ways they staved off pour survivre sur le Front occidental. https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol22/iss2/5© Canadian Military History, Volume 22, Number 2, Spring 2013, pp.48-62. 49 2 : “I will meet the world with a smile and a joke” Canadian Soldiers’ Humour in the Great War
the horror of the 1917 Battle of Passchendaele that he had done his duty and would not let his personal sense of disillusionment cause his “comrades to be downhearted. So I will meet the world with a smile and a joke and trust that smile to carry me through.”7 In this war of endurance, laughter was armour, the vol.1, p.127 Canada in Khaki, vol.1, joke was a crutch, and the song was a shield. Gentle or jagged, humour was everywhere. * * * * * he Canadian Expeditionary TForce was an army of civilian- soldiers. It drew its strength from across Canadian society, representing all regions, all classes, and all occupations. With only a tiny prewar cadre of professional soldiers sentimentality, of biting wit and a satirical yarn among a group of numbering around 3,000, the overseas groan-inducing ditties, of sardonic men in a dugout after a snort of rum Canadian Expeditionary Force would satire and simple quips. The soldiers’ had a different tenor than two bored eventually climb to over 450,000 by humour was enigmatic and must be soldiers trading jokes to keep each war’s end. The vast majority of these understood within the context of other occupied. While the historian soldiers were drawn from the ranks creation, message, and audiences. can reconstruct the circumstance and of bankers and farmers, clerks and The power of the soldiers’ humour place of the joke, he or she must often miners, and while they would be was its ability to adapt to changing rely on the surviving printed word. remade into infantrymen, gunners, or circumstances, to meet the needs This is an acknowledged limitation engineers, they carried their prewar of divergent groups, and to push but one can still hear the echo from culture with them into the forces. against the system but not to break soldiers’ humour. The first Canadian division arrived it. This article will look at the jokes, The role of humour among on the Western Front in February pranks, and quips, but not songs or soldiers in the Great War is a little 1915, and it was joined by three theatre shows, where humour was explored topic, and this article others, which would eventually form the key in connecting with soldier attempts to address that gap by the Canadian Corps, although there audiences.4 examining the multi-faceted role that were other cavalry and ancillary Jokes are infused with symbols. jokes played in helping Canadians forces in Western Europe. While The language employed in the joke endure and cope on the Western the Canadians fought as part of was important, as well as intangible Front.6 It is important to stress that the British Expeditionary Force, supporting actions like facial the war of the trenches was not throughout the war there was an gestures and tone of voice. The use some happy-go-lucky event where emerging distinct identity among the of familiar slang, the reinforcement everyone danced in the mud and formation and its soldiers.8 With the of stereotypes or in playing against offered wise-cracks like some half- Canadian Corps firmly anchored on them, all situate humour within the hour television sitcom. However, the Western Front, it was that strange context of the time, place, or culture. the story of soldiers in the Great wasteland that most deeply shaped Both the telling and reception of War is one of resiliency rather than the soldiers’ wartime experiences. the joke are important, but it is resignation. Comedy and humour The Western Front was a vast, challenging to recreate, or even allowed for the soldiers to exert underground city of trenches, saps, place, the “topography of where some control over their wartime and dugouts. With the battlefield jokes were told.”5 The mimicking experience, which was profoundly swept by murderous small-arms of an officer’s tone of voice or a discombobulating, unsettling, and fire and shells, the only place of sergeant’s affectation personalized terrifying. Infantryman Harold relative safety was below the ground. a joke for a select audience. Telling Simpson wrote to his mother after Here the armies on both sides faced
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off across no-man’s-land. Trench behind the lines.9 The soldiers, too, and sergeant-major, and wounding fighting was about digging a hole played a part. They found solace two men.…I used to get two hours in the ground and then defending it in one another as they groused and sleep per day, and that was in a little to the death. It was about the tense complained about the war, their funk-hole much too small. The other waiting, listening, and searching of plight in it, and those who were twenty-two hours were taken up the darkness for a lurking enemy. seemingly dodging their duties, with fighting and work. We struck It was the misery of runny noses from the red tabs in the rear to the this for ten days…My men were and feet that were always cold in conscientious objectors at home. wonderful. Never a grumble or a the winter, and of sweltering heat Within this constellation of groan, but actually an undercurrent and eye-watering body odour in morale-building activities, free time of humour ran through all our the summer. In all seasons it was was also spent entertaining one miseries.11 about the lice tormenting day and another with jokes, pranks, puns, and night and of constant thirst when all manner of humourous diversions. Walton provides an important clue being surrounded by dank water. T.C. Lapp wrote from France in for how soldiers coped. Wartime There was relief from the trenches March 1918: “On one occasion after journalist F.A. McKenzie echoed as units were rotated from front to a hard day’s march in the rain, we these sentiments when he wrote of rear, but the sharp end forces knew were billeted in a leaky old barn with the soldiers’ turn to humour: “You they would always be returning to the most ‘odiferious’ farm yard that I cannot have large bodies of young the killing zone. ever experienced. In spite of adverse men living together in the open, in Within this grim environment, conditions the place echoed with the best of good health, with plenty soldiers relied on each other for songs and laughter…I think that this of food, with abundant exercise, and survival. They cooked and shared unfailing sense of humor accounts in have sustained gloom. Youth would their food; they often built their own a large degree for the splendid morale find joy in life in a coal mine. High structures and then slept together; of the Canadians.”10 Lieutenant J.M. spirits, practical jokes, endless chaff they guarded one another from attacks Walton described the strain at the and good fellowship are to be found and then fought together. In their front during the 1916 Battles of the in the army. The young soldier will isolated community, soldiers talked Somme, and shortly before his death: make a joke about anything. If he is about life after the war and promised wounded that is a joke – if a joke can to write letters to each other’s family The other day I was standing in a be had out of it.”12 should they be killed in battle. Not particularly hot spot when a large At the heart of this humour was all men were friends of course. There shell dropped thirty yards away, its ability to help soldiers deal with were mean, petty relationships and completely disintegrating an officer their harsh environment. Soldiers the “brotherhood of the trenches” could be strained by spending too much time together under unending stressful conditions, and the threat of death always present, but the strong ties of camaraderie bound most of the soldiers together. There was a unifying series of values and beliefs, which, while not uniform, forged common ground between men. Morale and combat motivation required constant attention, both by
the high command and the soldiers 1400 Canada PA Library and Archives themselves. When the war on the Western Front degenerated into a protracted stalemate, the high command more readily embraced rotation and leave policies for soldiers, as well as the provision of chaplains for spiritual guidance and, from 1916 onwards, more formalized sports, theatre, and leisure activities https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol22/iss2/5 51 4 : “I will meet the world with a smile and a joke” Canadian Soldiers’ Humour in the Great War
whistled past the graveyard – or in While soldiers cursed the enemy or “A roaring shell gathers no moss.” it – with the hope of staving off death, their commanders for the seemingly “Discretion is the better part of or at least to avoid succumbing to unending menial labour required R.I.P.”18 the terrible pressure of the Western in this war of the shovel, humour Front. Tom Leask of the Canadian could be found in many of the Soldiers joked about their kit, their Field Ambulance wrote to a friend monotonous tasks. Canadian officer boring jobs, the slackers at home, at home about his experiences while D.E. Macintyre wrote of two wags in and countless other subjects. One campaigning: “It is a very strenuous the line filling sandbags to repair a unnamed Canadian of the First life and a hard game. The people in shattered trench parapet: “Finally in Contingent wrote home in July 1915 Canada have no idea, nor can any disgust one said, ‘If those Germans of the lice: “I am alive, and so is my person have unless they have been want this country why don’t they shirt.”19 The seemingly never-ending in it. The spirit of the soldiers is come over and get it? We’ve got it war was a source of grim inspiration. wonderful. They meet everything all shoveled into bags for them to One of the stand-up comedians from with a smile. I sometimes think that carry away and the crazy part of it the Canadian ranks, Gitz Rice, offered to them Death is a joke. To see them is we poor fools have come all the a little pitter-patter with a friend: march up to the trenches smiling and way from Canada to fill the bags for joking apparently without a care in them.’”16 How long did you enlist for: 7 the world is wonderful to me.”13 Fear The soldiers’ jokes were generally years. could be channelled into humour. pretty gentle, with ample silly stories Oh, you’re lucky. Clifton Cate, nicknamed “Yank” by and playful puns. Hal Kirkland, a I enlisted for the duration.20 his mates since he was an American long service member of the PPCLI serving in the Canadian Corps, wrote who would be wounded three times Gunner Frank Ferguson wrote in his of his battery’s transport caught in the war, offered a groan-inducer to diary on 6 September 1916, revealing under the fall of high explosive his loved ones at home about the close classic soldiers’ humour: “This is the bombs, when a number of enemy proximity of the German trenches: 289th day since leaving home, and planes flew over their position. “I fell “Probably you haven’t heard this it doesn’t seem any more than ten flat on my face in the shallow gutter one. In the trenches everyone does years.”21 by the roadside, and there awaited not possess a periscope – So they The army of young men often the first bomb – the others I never use their looking glass by fastening engaged in laddish behaviour and expected to hear.” In the terrible it to the end of a stick. One morning there were constant pranks played seconds of waiting, some terrified one of the fellows was shaving using on one another, from pulling down comrade had the presence of mind to his periscope as a looking glass. He tents behind the lines and diverting shout out “Goodbye France – Hello scratched, scratched, made faces, latrines towards sleeping comrades, Satan!”14 The guffaws were drowned and went thru all the operations of to tampering with food or depositing out when the bombs crashed down. shaving. He at last finished the job, newly-collected lice into the officers’ The monotony of the static and to his great disappointment, for mess. Infantryman Edward Sawell Western Front produced humorous he had shaved a German.” Somewhat of the 21st Battalion talked about fodder. With much of the soldiers’ apologetically, Kirkland remarked one prank among the officers. “Lt. day spent in manual labour or that “at the time of writing, this is Audette was to take over a raid the on sentry duty, it should not be considered a good joke.”17 next night and he came in for a great surprising that the men at the front The Canadian 7th Infantry many jokes and chaff that night, such looked for ways to amuse themselves Battalion’s trench newspaper, The as telling he had better make the most and one another. Artilleryman Albert Listening Post, which reached a of the meal, as it would probably be Fereday wrote to his mother from circulation of 20,000 copies in the his last. Then each of us asked for a “somewhere in France.” summer of 1917, offered some grim part of his kit which he would not humour for its readers. These were likely be in need of anymore. The next This morning our gun team were new maxims for the trenches: day, he had had his kit neatly divided roused out of bed at 4am to go on a out among us. Of course, all of this working party which occupied the “A bullet in the hand is worth two was in fun. Cruel fun when I think time until 12 noon…Trench digging in the head.” of it again, but it was a danger zone, isn’t bad fun and we all chat and “People who live in shell-holes and it helped lighten the moment and make jokes together so that the time shouldn’t throw flare lights.” pull the men together, even the ones soon passes.15 “Half a rum issue is better than being led on.”22 ten beers.”
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W.A. Spear of the PPCLI described brought up his latest meal” to the couldn’t see that the hole was long a practical joke by the junior officers’ guffaws of the remaining officers.23 enough so he got down and laying mess on a new, unpopular member. Another combat veteran, Herbert at full length measured it to his own While the officers were in their Clemens, wrote with great delight of satisfaction. Then he went away.” dugout eating, an intelligence officer a prank a group of privates pulled The men got one of the sergeants in returned from a patrol. Covered on a pompous member of their unit. on the prank and he asked Woods in mud and soaked to the bone, he The outcast, a man named Woods, if he would be a pallbearer. Woods spoke extravagantly to his chums, “is a little short chap chuck full and arrived at the designated time, with who were in on the joke, that he running over with importance and the group of men overly sombre, needed a towel, holding up his truly when he speaks you listen to an which made Woods carry “an air filthy hands. As he walked over to Oracle. His wisdom is in inverse ratio of profound dignity and mightily the unliked officer, he proceeded to to what he thinks it is though.” The importance. Of course the news wipe his hands on the man’s uniform, men wanted to put him in his place having got around there were a large loudly telling the group that he had and a group of them devised a plan to number of ‘mourners’. Woods was been crawling through no-man’s- dig a grave. As Woods walked by, he shown to the place where the ‘stiff’ land and unluckily put his hands asked what had happened. “He was was and was told he was in charge through the ripe, rotting chest of a told it was a grave for a fellow who of the pall bearers.’” In his element, German soldier. The horrified officer had just died in the surgical hut and Woods began to give orders, and then whose uniform was being used as as there was no room in the morgue grabbed a hold of the corpse. “Our towel, “bolted out of the dugout and they were going to bury him in this respected friend took hold of the feet hole. Woods swallowed it all right but of the ‘departed’ and probably you https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol22/iss2/5 53 6 : “I will meet the world with a smile and a joke” Canadian Soldiers’ Humour in the Great War
and at a signal all pulled together in our own trenches. Fritz hearing the noise, thought a raid was coming, vacated his front line and turned on his artillery in his own trenches, heavy stuff 5.9s etc. thinking of course to teach these raiders a lesson. I can well imagine how our fellows would laugh and roar, lie down on
27, p.31. 27, Post The Listening the trench mats and tie themselves in knots with glee and mirth.”26 Captain Frank Morison of the 16th Battalion remarked on the give and take between the Germans and his own Canadian Highland battalion: “Jock will throw over empty bully beef tins to ‘Fritz’ and yell to him ‘fill up the tins Fritz – we will soon be over.’ Then Fritz will yell out, ‘Hello Jock where are you’ and Jock will say ‘Here’ and then there will be a veritable fire of rifles in that direction. They are very cute but they have not got any of us on that game yet. Then you will hear ‘Jock’ casually yell out, ‘Be careful Fritz, you will hurt someone.’ Really it is extraordinary how casual one gets under fire.”27 Humour could also be directed at the enemy to rationalize the killing process and to make it less cold-hearted. Captain A. Milligan wrote callously of German dead on could hardly blame him for jumping These jokes and pranks suggest that the shattered Somme battlefield, about 25 feet in the air and producing not only were their rules to follow in after more than three years at the a very wild and terrifying look on his dispensing with humour, but also in front, “Outside the place is a mess – face when the stiff sit up and grabbed receiving it. machine-guns, rifles, equipment, Woods around the waist and hugged Soldiers traded taunts and clothing and every form of rubbish of him. Never was there such a jovial insults with the enemy across no- a battlefield is lying about. Two dead bunch of mourners.”24 man’s-land. Stereotypes were used Huns are causing us about as much All of these pranks were infused freely, with the Germans referred annoyance in their present states with a masculine spirit of teasing. to as sausage-eaters or Canadians as when they were alive. They will There were elements of rough chiding the Germans to “bring the have to be put out of sight soon, but justice, too, with the outsider getting menu!,” a reference to the supposed there is something more important his come-uppance. In this case, large number of German waiters in to do first, and that is to get a few pranks were a means of reinforcing England before the war.25 There were more to put with them.”28 One of the group actions, affirming norms, and also gags and pranks with which Canadian trench newspapers, The singling out the unwanted, unliked, to torment the enemy, to varying Brazier, offered this account: or “other.” The case of Lieutenant degrees of seriousness. John Law Audette is equally interesting as wrote to his mom in the summer of Hun: (shouting across to the he played along with the “game,” 1916: “My old battalion played a huge Canadians): “Say, do you know embracing the possibility of his joke on Fritz the other day. During Ottawa?” own death, especially in mocking the night some of the men went Canadian: “Yes.” the sacred act of dividing up his kit. over and tied ropes to his barb wire, Hun: “Well, I’ve got a wife and
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three kiddies in Ottawa.” the veneer of humour, as well as nights. This was humour for soldiers Canadian: “Just put your head antiauthoritarianism. by soldiers. It was deeply influenced over the parapet for a minute and While soldiers were death- by their environment, both in the you’ll have a widow and three dealers, they were also aware of trenches and in the army. It was self- orphans in Ottawa.”29 their own fragile existence. For men referential and usually crude, which who lived with death everyday, made it more appealing and less Here was schadenfreude with an often in an open graveyard, with the likely to be understood by civilians. edge. In another example, the dead protruding from the sludge, “Humour out here is a saving grace,” 16th Canadian Infantry Battalion much of the humour was dark. In wrote Lieutenant William Gray. “Of defended against an enemy raid on 21 glancing at an enormous crater, 160 course,” he added, “no one who July 1918. The Canadian Highlanders feet wide, which had been blown hasn’t been out here can appreciate” lost no men, but a number of enemy under the Germans, one Canadian the soldiers’ humour.33 soldiers were wounded or killed. The quipped that the Germans were “up Cecil French, a prewar student glib Highlanders buried a few of the in the air” about it.32 Gallows humour studying to be a missionary in India German dead and put a none-to-nice and wartime wit carried many men before his enlistment, wrote of his cross above it, with an inscription through the long days and longer experience in the lines during one of that read:
R.I.P. Unter Offizier Otto ______Corporal ______German Infantry Regiment Attempted to raid 16th Canadian Scottish 24-7-18 Enough said.30
Captain J.B. Paulin who served with the machine gunners recounted this dark story of a German sniper firing at the Canadians in their trenches, shooting through the sandbags in the hope of hitting the men. One bullet nearly struck the colonel who was tramping through the lines. The enraged officer ordered one of his best scouts to go out and get the sniper. The man snuck out and eventually tracked down the enemy, catching him in a vulnerable position: “whereupon the sniper, who spoke very good English, held up his hands and cried ‘Mercy, Mercy,’ but the soldiers said, ‘No mercy for you, you missed the colonel.’”31 In the joke, we have a soldier who might have spared the sniper if he had actually hit the unpopular colonel; instead, he executes the sniper, after offering the cheerful aside. The joke sounds apocryphal, and certainly seems honed from much telling and retelling, but there is a message of cruelty buried around https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol22/iss2/5 55 8 : “I will meet the world with a smile and a joke” Canadian Soldiers’ Humour in the Great War
his tours at the front: “Just a line to tell everything is prearranged by Divine Scoffing at death to pluck up you we’re here and to say Hurrah! By Power, and if it one’s time to die no one’s courage was one thing, but ‘here’ I mean that we’re where we can matter what one does, one has to die. infantryman Will Bird recounted the see ‘Fritz’; that is, we could see him Their motto is ‘If my turn comes next, sometimes harsh slide from joking if he’d only poke up his head. He’s I can’t do anything to to cruel humour. His comrades, too wary for that, so we have to wait drunk on cheap French wine the till a ‘whizz bang’ or one of night before going into the front its big brothers blows lines, “shouted at each other about Fritz into the air and into the three kinds of cases we might view. Oh yes, we talk in encounter, ‘walking,’ ‘sandbag,’ cruel terms here, but it’s and ‘stretcher,’ taunting each usually done with a lighter other with grisly questions heart than folks at home concerning ‘next of kin,’ made imagine. I’ve seen nothing vows to either get a Victoria – absolutely nothing yet Cross or a ‘wooden one.’”37 The compared with the almost grotesquery of war became literal hell which most of the fuel that drove the dark the boys over here have been humour that sustained many through, but they seem to be men. “We have been under much the same boys as they attack for some days now,” were before. (The human frame wrote Private Bert Drader can become used to anything, of the 49th Battalion. “The it seems). They seem happy, boys have got a good many they laugh at danger and joke at new dances named here hardship, and they have plenty – to wit – ‘Machine Gun to laugh and joke at, therefore, as Flop,’ ‘Whiz Bang Glide,’ a rule.”34 ‘Sausage dip,’ ‘Shrapnel At its core, gallows humour Wiggle,’ etc.”38 Within helped to trivialize the terrifying. this sepulchral, death There was no escaping the constant became a joke, at least through and sometimes instant death at the avoid it, so outward acts of bravado. The dead, front. Experienced soldiers knew ‘I should worry’. They don’t too, were fit for pranks or jokes. when to run and when to duck, and worry either. Of course there are The rotting corpses that over time honed a sixth sense for lots who suffer from shell shock or protruded from the trench walls survival, but for many there was no nervous breakdown, and they can’t were so common as to be a part of the dodging one’s fate. Humour became fight against fear, but most of the landscape. The horrifying discovery another form of shielding against boys have a keen sense of humor, and that a soldier was bunking down the strain. John Sudbury made light laugh at almost anything. I know of beside a rotting cadaver is a common of the earth-shattering artillery one in particular, a corporal. He is occurrence in soldiers’ writing, but so bombardments on the Somme: “I the life and wit of our party. A shell too are the jokes and callous pranks have been under some shellfire in, landed close to him one night and at the expense of the dead. “Along days gone bye but down here Oh! the concussion threw him on his the road was an unburied hand of my word. How annoying the smoke head several yards away. The shock a soldier,” wrote Lieutenant Fred is, and those showers of mud after a stunned him for a minute and when Wells, “some of our ‘wags’ would burst - most aggravating to get into he came to the first question he asked pretend to shake hands with it – a our fresh made tea and fried bacon. was ‘Is my head still on?’ That sent bit of humour along the way.”39 The Yes that’s the comic side but the other the rest of us into a roar, and only a hanging of gas masks from sun- side is best left unsaid…”35 Alexander minute before they were all ready bleached femurs or the striking of Decoteau tried to share the soldiers’ to beat it to the nearest dugout. It’s matches on the mummified heads of mentality with this sister: “Most of the likes of him that make army life the dead were examples of a studied the boys turn (Fatalists). I don’t know bearable, and the army is full of such callousness and of how dark humour if I’ve got it spelled right, after a few as he.”36 was a shield. “We are all used to dead month[s] fighting. They believe that bodies or pieces of men, so much
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so that we are not troubled by the Eric Partridge and John Brophy, sight of them,” wrote one Canadian. Yes! Waltonhammer has them observed that with formations “There was a right hand sticking now; consisting of civilian-soldiers there out of the trench in the position of He’s hunting day and night; were usually a handful of professional a man trying to shake hands with So now we laugh and jolly him; or semi-professional singers, jesters, you, and as the men filed out they It serves him damn well right.42 actors, or simply funny men, “who would often grip it and say, ‘So long, would produce, for the battalion old top, we’ll be back again soon.’”40 Herbert White wrote of a comrade, or battery concert party, jest and Infantryman John Becker wrote of the Jacobs, after their last rotation ditties about topics of the moment “black and bloated” dead, “covered through the line. “He had found a or outstanding personalities of the with flies and maggots, a sight that nice new pair of Fritzies long leather unit. Such songs as these correspond would turn the stomach of one who boots and was going to take them to the ‘family’ jokes abhorred of had not grown accustomed to such home with him when he discovered visitors.”46 The “in-joke” or “family” sights. It seems cruel to think of that part of the legs and the feet of the joke was pervasive in the closed the crude joking remarks that were German still remained in the boots soldiers’ society. Almost everything passed among us at the sight of these so he left them there.”43 The most was a target for a pun, an ironic remnants of men but it was necessary popular Canadian trench newspaper, statement, a satirical slash. While to force jokes at times like these The Listening Post, scoffed at death: jokes and humour were one method although invariably we were sick and of communicating the experience of weary and ready to quit – if there was New Draft: “Why do we have to war back to civilians at home, not all any way of quitting.” Without such wear two identity-discs?” of the content was fit for sharing, or cruel jokes, “We would have gone Old-Timer: “They take one when even able to be understood. crazy otherwise.”41 you are napoo’d and the other one The popularity of Bruce There was humour in suffering. is left to identity you by when they Bairnsfather, the most famous One soldier penned a poem that made dig you up a year later to see if English cartoonist of the war, struck light of the soldiers’ lice infestations, you’re properly shaved and have a chord with most allied soldiers. His and of a particular officer who you iron ration with you.”44 antiheroes Old Bill and his friends, thought he would be immune to the who groused and complained their privation. A macabre joke conflating death and way through the war, were wildly superstition circulated among Allied popular with Canadian soldiers, who He always used to laugh at us soldiers: “It is considered bad luck to could see themselves in the cartoons, When we looked through and be killed on Friday.”45 and hear their own dialogue repeated through British wartime veterans and back to them. But Bairnsfather was Our shirts for little things that bite compilers of soldiers’ song and slang, initially condemned by many on But now he’s lousy too. the home front for his seemingly antipatriotic While we would sit messages.47 It was only and scratch all night, after the overwhelming He’d lay abed and support of the soldiers snooze; for Bairnsfather that But now they’re civilians embraced marching ‘round his his cartoons, although back many grimaced as his In fours and threes and characters pushed back twos. against authority and embraced antiheroic He used to grin as we themes. stripped bare Antiheroic jokes And found more than were among the most a few; transgressive forms But now we love to of humour as they hear him swear; seemingly undermined For he is lousy too. the patriotic and heroic
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there would have been a particluar edge to this quip; running away from the front in battle could – and occaisionally did – result in a death sentence.51 John Sudbury recounted a “good joke” to a friend at home in the summer of 1916: “The Chaplain of this identical battalion was going on his usual Sunday morning round talking to the boys, when he came to an Irishman. ‘Well Pat!’ he said, ‘Have you seen Fritz this morning.’ ‘No! Yer reverence,’ Canadian War Museum 19830594-006 Canadian War says Pat with his head well below the top of the parapet, ‘And I’m darn sure he hasn’t seen me.’”52 Every soldier, even the most fire-eating types, could at times empathize with these antiheroic sentiments, and of course the antihero played against the constructed civilian image that equated all servicemen with selfless heroics. For soldiers who had seen much of the heroics blasted away from front-line service, they often embraced the antiheroic. Jokes could also be a subtle form of warning. Infantryman A.O. Hickson of the 26th Battalion from New Brunswick offered his philosophy at the front: “Keep your mouth shut and your bowels open; keep your throat wet and your feet KEEPING HIS HAND IN. dry; keep you pecker up and your head down; and never, never, never Private Smith, the company bomber, formerly “Shino,” the popular 53 juggler, frequently causes considerable anxiety to this platoon. volunteer.” Another Canadian infantryman, Percy Willmot, wrote how he warned a friend who had discourse of the war.48 Soldiers Bill: “I dunno.” recently arrived in the battalion, “I embraced the antiheroic in their Fred: “Blimy, why ain’t I got one gave him the usual caution – half comedy, songs, and skits because it too, I hid in the same dug-out.”49 joke – half earnest – Keep your head allowed them to distance themselves down.”54 Half-joke, half-earnest from those at home, and reinforce the Building on the unheroic account seems an important clue. Sergeant bonds that strengthened their own above, jokes like this were not Harold Baldwin, a First Contingent insulated society. The Listening Post uncommon: veteran, wrote of one chirpy, Irish- had one amusing exchange between Canadian soldier who had survived soldiers about the issuing of gallantry “Did You hear that shell just death by mere inches: he happened medals: now?” to bend down just as a shell came “I did. Twice. Once when it passed roaring through the trench. The shell Bill: “Say, hear that Jock Robinson me, and again when I passed it.”50 took off the head of the man behind got the D.C.M. [Distinguished him, but the lucky, and probably Conduct Medal]” Grin-inducing perhaps, but it is dazed, Irish man quipped, “Shure Fred: “What for?” worth considering in more detail as it always pays to be polite.”55 While
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most soldiers knew the value of of the traumatic event and what it disillusionment writers, with the ducking at the right time, there were continues to mean after almost a English poets or Erich Remarque lessons in the humour, even if it is hundred years. While satirists have having remarkable longevity as the wisecrack that is remembered occasionally found fodder in the they are taught, read, and revered rather than the headless victim. The Great War’s absurd slaughter – most in the western world.61 New jokes were coded partially because strikingly in England through the generations of academic historians of the masculine nature of soldiers, television series Blackadder Goes Forth have railed against the view of who often were forced to face (1989) and here in Canada through an all-encompassing hopeless and nonchalantly the worst of the war, Donald Jack’s novels featuring the disillusioned generation at war, and and had to prove their toughness, cheerful, incorrigible incompetent, have tried over the years to inject but veterans of the front also had Bartholomew Bandy – the most a more balanced assessment of the lessons for new soldiers, which they common strand of memory remains war’s multiple meanings, but even shared in their own particular, almost that most closely associated with the the most successful admit defeat or ritualized manner. The lewd, the rude, and the crude all rose to the forefront. The laddish behaviour of a masculine culture lent itself to rough jokes.56 “There is no girl to say it’s terrible or something like that, so you can get on with it, and that gives you a good laugh,” remembered British infantryman George Coppard who had enlisted at the age of 16, lying about his age to get into the ranks.57 While some soldiers refused to engage in such behaviour, the tough life of
soldiering, when combined with Museum 19830594-008 Canadian War bravado amongst comrades, often led to hyper-masculinity. As Canadian Leonard Youell wrote to his family, he would “become a man with a capital M.”58 The Kilt, the trench newspaper of the 72nd Battalion, chided that those who, in their civilian lives before joining the army, “used to lie in bed to nurse a headache,” now had been transformed into “men.”59 The soldiers’ humour reflected and fed this masculine environment. First Contingent soldier Richard Graeme wrote of the myriad of jokes and songs howled by him and his comrades, many of which were rough and unsophisticated. As he noted, “there is nothing subtle about soldier humour.”60 * * * * * he multiple strands of constructed Tmemory that cocoon the war, COIFFURE IN THE TRENCHES. which are spun by each new “Keep yer ‘ead still, or I’ll ‘ave yer blinkin’ ‘ear off!” generation, offer us a changing view
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THE THIRST FOR REPRISALS. “‘And me a rifle someone. I’ll give these ______s ‘ell for this!”
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draw at best in the battles to shift, or tried to stay in contact with those on Cambridge University Press, 2002); Gary add levels of nuance, to the popular the home front. While many soldiers Sheffield, Forgotten Victory: The First World War: Myths and Realities (London, memory of the futile war. claimed that their loved ones at Headline, 2001); Dan Todman, The The bountiful range of soldiers’ home would never understand what Great War: Myth and Memory (London, humour indicates that it was a they were experiencing overseas, Hambledon Continuum, 2005). 3. O.C.S. Wallace, ed., From Montreal to Vimy common element in the serviceman’s they nonetheless tried to offer a Ridge and Beyond (Toronto: McClelland day to day activities. While this glimpse of their world through their and Stewart, 1917), p.183. 4. For songs and theatre in the Canadian article is not suggesting that humour letters home. This sometimes came context, see Jason Wilson, “Soldiers of is, or should be, the dominant trope in the form of direct descriptions Song: The Dumbells and Other Canadian of memory, historians need to make of hardships and loss, although Concert Parties of the First World War,” (Master’s thesis, University of Guelph, allowances for soldiers’ pranks, censorship muted some of these 2003) and Tim Cook, “The Singing jokes, and laughter. These comedic messages.65 Jokes and quips were a War: Soldiers’ Songs in the Great War,” by-products of the war became means to soften the grim descriptions American Review of Canadian Studies 39, no.3 (September 2009), pp.224-241. essential tools to battle boredom and while not all of these humorous 5. See Eric Weitz, The Cambridge Introduction and ennui, to rail against the system, offerings likely resonated or were to Comedy (Cambridge University Press, and are a reflection of how soldiers even understood, they could lighten 2009), pp.ix to 15 and Chad Bryant, “The Language of Resistance? Czech Jokes resisted the dehumanizing effects the emotional load for mothers, and Joke-telling under Nazi Occupation, of the war.62 The jokes, satire, and fathers, and siblings. Humour at the 1943-45,” Journal of Contemporary History all-encompassing irony were one front helped to raise morale in the 41, no.1 (2006), p.145. 6. For an exploration of humour on the home method by which soldiers dealt with trenches; it also appears to have been front, see Pierre Pursiegle, “Mirroring death, constructed new concepts of used by soldiers to ease the worry of Societies at War: pictorial humour in the masculinity, and embraced antiheroic those across the Atlantic. British and French popular press during the First World War,” Journal of European sentiments; they are an indication of “We are bound to win this war, Studies 31, pp.289-328; Jan Rüger, the wider, every day practices and because we’ve tried our damndest for “Laughter and War in Berlin,” History Workshop Journal 67, no.1 (2009), pp.23-43, behaviors of men coping in their 4 years to lose it,” wrote B.H. Cox to Martina Kessel, “Talking War, Debating surroundings. his loved ones in the summer of 1918. Unity. Order, Conflict, and Exclusion in While the use of humour was a Perhaps wondering if his parents ‘German Humour’ in World War One,” in Martina Kessel and Patrick Merziger, coping mechanism – with Canadian got the joke, he added: “Laughing eds., The Politics of Humour: Laughter, T.W. Johnson writing that he believed is good for the morale of the troops, Inclusion, and Exclusion in the Twentieth that “the gift of humor is as priceless you know.”66 Ignored at the time, Century (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011). For a glimpse into humour in as the gift of physical courage”— and for much of the last 95 years, the trenches, see Marcel Cinq-Mars, L’écho the nature of Canadian soldiers’ soldiers’ humour remains buried du front: journaux de tranchées, 1915-1919 humour does not appear to be linked in their writings, although these (Outremont, Québec: Athéna Éditions, 2008); Jason Crouthamel, “Cross-dressing 63 to national identity. That is to say, old punch lines and insults should for the Fatherland: Sexual Humour, the content of the Canadian jokes remind us of how these Canadians Masculinity and German Soldiers in the was not exclusively about Canadian refused to be broken in the machine First World War,” First World War Studies 2, no.2 (2011), pp.195-215. subjects or mores, and referenced of war and how they used low-brow 7. Canadian Letters and Images Project more generally the experience of all culture and social interactions to [CLIP],
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10. Percy Climo, Let Us Remember: Lively 33. A Sunny Subaltern: Billy’s Letters from NS: Cape Breton University Press, 2007), Letters from World War One (Colborne: Flanders (Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild p.118. P.L. Climo, 1990), p.278. & Stewart, 1916), pp.124-5. 55. Harold Baldwin, Holding the Line (Toronto: 11. Canadian Bank of Commerce, Letters 34. LAC, MG 30 E558, Cecil J. French, French G.J. McLeod, 1918), p.86. from the Front: Being a Record of the Part to McAulay, 22 August 1916. 56. For insight into masculinity and male Played by Officers of the Bank in the Great 35. CLIP, John Sudbury, 19 September 1916. bonding, see Jessica Meyer, Men of War: War, 1914-1919 (Toronto: Southam Press, 36. CLIP, Alexander Decoteau, letter to sister, Masculinity and the First World War in [1920-21]), pp.171-3. 10 September 1917. Britain (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 12. F.A. McKenzie, Canada’s Day of Glory 37. Will Bird, Ghosts Have Warm Hands (CEF 2009); Craig Heron, “The Boys and Their (Toronto: William Briggs, 1918), p.328. Books, 1997), p.47. Booze: Masculinities and Public Drinking 13. CLIP, Cecil and Louis Duff collection, 4 38. David Earl Drader, The Pain of War: What in Working-Class Hamilton, 1890-1946,” September 1916. We Owe To Those Who Suffered So (self- The Canadian Historical Review 86, no.3 14. Clifton and Charles Cate, “Notes”: A published, 2009). (2005), pp.411-452; Peter Layman, “The Soldiers’ Memoir of World War I (self- 39. Malcolm Brown, Tommy Goes to War Fraternal Bond as a Joking Relationship,” published, 2005), p.64. (Charleston, SC: Tempus Publishing, in Michael S. Kimmel and Michael A. 15. CLIP, Albert Henry Fereday, letter to 2001), p.94. Messner, eds., Men’s Lives (New York: mother, 17 July 1918. 40. Louis Keene, ‘Crumps’: The Plain Story of Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992), 16. Library and Archives Canada [LAC], MG a Canadian who went (Boston: Houghton pp.143-154. 30 E 241, D.E. Macintyre, DSO, MC, 12 Mifflin Company, 1917), p.109. 57. Roy Palmer, ‘What a lovely war!’: British October 1916. 41. John Harold Becker, Silhouettes of the Great Soldiers’ Songs (London: Joseph, 1990), 17. Canadian War Museum, Military History War (CEF Books, 2001), pp.126-128. p.12. Research Centre, [CWM], 2007171, Hal 42. LAC, MG 30 E31, Thomas B. Smith 58. Jeffrey A. Keshen, Propaganda and Kirkland papers, letter, 19 October 1915. papers, “Clearing: the Tale of the 1st Censorship during Canada’s Great War 18. The Listening Post 24 (20 April 1917), p.165. Canadian Casualty Clearing Station, (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, For Canadian trench newspapers, see British Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919,” 1996), p.159 Cinq-Mars, L’Echo du Front; and Fuller, p.255. 59. LAC, RG 9, vol.5079, Kilt, 27 November Troop Morale and Popular Culture in the 43. CLIP, Herbert White, untitled memoir, 5 1916, p.2 British and Dominion Armies, 1914-1918. August 1917. 60. Richard Graeme, “The Happy Warriors,” 19. Canadian Fields Comforts Commission, 44. CWM, The Listening Post 25 (21 May 1917), The Legionary, Christmas Number (1934), With the First Canadian Contingent p.177. p.34 (Toronto: Hodder & Stoughton, 1915), 45. Jeffrey Williams, Byng of Vimy (Toronto: 61. Donald Jack, Three Cheers for Me (1962); p.114. University of Toronto Press, 1992), p.132. That’s Me in the Middle (1973); It’s Me 20. Gitz Rice, Life in a Trench in Belgium, no. 2, 46. John Brophy and Eric Partridge, Songs and Again (1975). (Sound recording: New York, Columbia Slang of the British soldier, 1914-1918, 3rd 62. For an admonishment to study violence Graphophone company, 1917). ed. (London: E. Partridge, 1931), p.5. and the soldier, see Stéphane Audoin- 21. Peter Rogers, ed., Gunner Ferguson’s Diary: 47. See Tonie and Valmai Holt, In Search Rouzeau and Annette Becker, 14-18: The Diary of Gunner Frank Byron Ferguson, of the Better ‘Ole: The Life the Works and Understanding the Great War, Catherine 1st Canadian Siege Battery, Canadian the Collectables of Bruce Bairnsfather, Temerson, trans. (New York: Hill and Expeditionary Force, 1915-1918 (Hantsport, (Canada: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1985), Wang, 2002); for the complexities of NS: Lancelot Press, 1985), p.49. introduction. violence on the battlefield, see Tim Cook, 22. Steven E. Sawell, ed., Into the Cauldron: The 48. For an exploration of the antiheroic, see “The Politics of Surrender: Canadian Experiences of a CEF Infantry Officer During Tim Cook, “Anti-heroes of the Canadian soldiers and the Killing of Prisoners in the the Great War (self-published, 2010), p.36. Expeditionary Force,” Journal of the Great War,” Journal of Military History 70, 23. Robert Zubkowski, As Long as Faith and Canadian Historical Association 19, no.1 no.3 (July 2006), pp.637-665. Freedom Last: Stories from the Princess (2008), pp.171-193. 63. CLIP, T.W. Johnson to Lulu, 11 October Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry from June 49. CWM, The Listening Post 16 (17 June 1916), 1917. 1914 to September 1919 (Calgary: Bunker p.96. 64. See Wilson, “Soldiers of Song” and Cook, to Bunker Books, 2003), p.285. 50. Hunt Tooley, The Western Front: Battle “The Singing War: Soldiers’ Songs in the 24. CWM, Herbert Clemens, 19980050-005, Ground and Home Front in the First World Great War.” 58A 1 122.2, 19 March 1918. War (Houndsmills, Hampshire: Palgrave 65. On censorship, see Keshen, Propaganda 25. Canadian Fields Comforts Commission, Macmillan, 2003), p.222; also see Daniel and Censorship during Canada’s Great With the First Canadian Contingent, p.55. Dancocks, Legacy of Valour: The Canadians War; Michael Roper, The Secret Battle: 26. CLIP, John Law, letter to mother, 22 at Passchendaele (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1986), Emotional Survival in the First World War August 1916. p.134; CWM, The Listening Post, Special (Manchester: Manchester University 27. Transcripts of Frank Morison’s diary, 16 Edition (10 August 1917), p.31. Press, 2009). March 1915, in author’s possession. 51. See Andrew B. Godefroy, For Freedom 66. CLIP, Cox, Bertram Howard, 9 July 1918. 28. Letters from the Front, p.296. and Honour?: The Story of the 25 Canadian 29. The Brazier 4 (18 July 1916), p.8. Volunteers Executed in the First World War 30. H.M. Urquhart, The History of the 16th (Ottawa: CEF Books, 1998). Tim Cook is the First World War historian Battalion (the Canadian Scottish), Canadian 52. CLIP, John Sudbury, letter to Stan, 19 July at the Canadian War Museum. He is the Expeditionary Force, in the Great War, 1914- 1916. author of six books, including Warlords: 1919 (Toronto: Macmillan Company of 53. A.O. Hickson, As it was then: Recollections, Borden, Mackenzie King, and Canada’s Canada, 1932), p.265. 1896-1930: A Memoir (Wolfville, NS: World Wars (Alan Lane, 2012), which was 31. Empire Club of Canada, 1917-1918 (Toronto: Acadia University, 1988), p.55. a finalist for the 2013 Charles Taylor Prize Warwick Bros., 1919), p.192. 54. Brian Douglas Tennyson, Percy Willmot for Literary Non-Fiction. 32. Ibid. Tennyson: A Cape Bretoner at War (Sydney,
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