Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs Ford Madox Ford’s Anglo-German Ambivalence: Authoring Propaganda and Negotiating Nationalism as a Literary Cosmopolitan Thesis How to cite: Borkett-Jones, Lucinda Carys (2019). Ford Madox Ford’s Anglo-German Ambivalence: Authoring Propaganda and Negotiating Nationalism as a Literary Cosmopolitan. PhD thesis The Open University. For guidance on citations see FAQs. c 2019 Lucinda Carys Burkett-Jones https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Version: Version of Record Link(s) to article on publisher’s website: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21954/ou.ro.00011398 Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk FORD MADOX FORD’S ANGLO-GERMAN AMBIVALENCE: AUTHORING PROPAGANDA AND NEGOTIATING NATIONALISM AS A LITERARY COSMOPOLITAN Lucinda Carys Borkett-Jones A small amount of material has been redacted from this thesis to comply with copyright legislation. Thesis submitted towards the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Departments of English and History The Open University, September 2019 ABSTRACT This thesis aims to analyse and reintegrate Ford Madox Ford’s Anglo-German identity into the biographical and critical narrative of his work. I concentrate on Ford’s writing during the First World War, the period when, critics suggest, his views on Germany changed because of his involvement with the British propaganda campaign and his subsequent decision to enlist in the British Army. Throughout the first year of the war, Ford wrote for the Outlook, a weekly review of politics and the arts. This is the first detailed study of these articles and, as such, it contributes to our understanding of Ford’s experience of the war before enlisting, as well as his wider journalism. Analysing Ford’s Outlook articles alongside his propaganda books provides an important corrective to a singular focus on the propaganda as Ford’s literary response to life on the home front. Combining archival research and literary analysis of his unpublished manuscripts, correspondence, and some lesser-known works, I argue that Ford neither loved Germany before the war as much as has sometimes been portrayed, nor hated it afterwards as much as is often assumed. Ford’s mixed cultural heritage constitutes an important part of his personal and literary identity and contributes to his ambivalent aesthetic. Through comparison with his contemporaries, and exploration of the complexities of broader Anglo-German relations, I suggest that Ford gave expression to feelings that were more widespread among propagandists than is usually acknowledged. I see Ford’s ambivalence as an asset rather than a mark of indecision, a distinctive feature resulting from his dual cultural heritage, which fuelled his revived cosmopolitanism in the post-war period, and which had both a social and artistic function. 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am enormously grateful to my wonderful Anglo-German supervision team of Professors Sara Haslam and Annika Mombauer. Quite unlike Ford’s notions about professors, they have guided me through this project with wisdom, grace and good humour. It has been a joy and a privilege to work with them. Thanks also to Professor Max Saunders for his encouragement and advice when I first showed interest in working on Ford during my MA. I have appreciated my time at the Open University, and my research has been made considerably easier by the funding I received from the OU Graduate School. I have been fortunate to conduct research at numerous libraries and archives; I am particularly grateful to the staff at the British Library, and the Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University. Sincere thanks to Isabelle Parsons for reading a draft, and to Sarah Hartmann for helping me with my German. Ruth May wins the award for world’s best flatmate, having been at various times an excellent proof reader, cheerleader, and personal chef. Phoebe Hill has made many a day at the British Library a delight. There are several others who have given moral support along the way, and for whom I will always be grateful. Thanks most especially to Howard and Caroline Borkett- Jones for their love and support, and for bearing with years of conversation about Ford. My mother did not live to see me begin my research but was always my biggest champion and my most enthusiastic reader. This work is dedicated to her memory. Part of Chapter 1 was published as ‘Anglo-German Entanglements, the Fear of Invasion and an Unpublished Ford Manuscript’ in Last Post: A Literary Journal from the Ford Madox Ford Society, 1 (2018), 37-49. My forthcoming chapter on ‘“My Friend the Enemy”: Ford’s Construction of the German Other in Wartime’ in Isabelle Brasme (ed.), Homo Duplex: Ford Madox Ford’s Experience and Aesthetics of Alterity (Montpellier: PULM, 2020), is also based on the work in this thesis. I am grateful to the Ford Madox Ford Estate for permission to include excerpts from Ford’s unpublished manuscripts and correspondence. 2 CONTENTS Abstract 1 Acknowledgements 2 Contents 3 Table of Figures 5 Introduction 6 I: Ford’s Biography in Brief 7 II: Literature Review 9 Ford studies 9 Literature on British propaganda during the First World War 13 Literature on Anglo-German relations before and during the war 14 III: Definition of Terms 26 Ambivalence 26 Cosmopolitanism and nationalism 29 Propaganda 31 Ford, impressionism and literary propaganda 34 IV: Methodology 36 V: Thesis Outline 40 Chapter 1: Ford and Germany before the War 42 I: Early Influences: The Hüffer Family 43 II: Ford’s Impressions of Germany: Writing and Correspondence 50 Early writing: ‘A Romance of the Times Before Us’ 50 The spa: Ford in Germany and Switzerland, 1904 56 The Rhineland and the ‘land of good Grimm’ 62 Ford in Germany from 1910 to 1911 66 Images of Germany 71 Conclusion 76 Chapter 2: Ford and the British Propaganda Campaign 78 I: The Organisation of British Propaganda 78 Wellington House and Britain’s authors 80 Masterman’s campaign 85 Ford’s propaganda for Wellington House 92 II: The Work of the Literary Propagandists 101 The invasion of Belgium and humanitarian responses to war 102 Kultur and civilisation for the literary propagandists 105 Ambivalent authors: loving and hating the enemy 108 Conclusion 113 Chapter 3: Ford’s Writing in the Outlook 115 I: Ford and the Outlook 115 A brief history of the Outlook 115 Ford’s writing in the Outlook September 1913 to July 1914 119 Ford’s writing in the Outlook August 1914 to August 1915 123 3 II: August 1914 to August 1915: Thematic analysis 125 Impressionism and history in Ford’s critical voice 125 Facing a ‘gallant enemy’ 129 Combating German culture: language, politics and the arts 133 Ford’s attack on German education 141 Words at war 146 Conclusion 152 Chapter 4: From Active Service to the Post-War World 155 I: Ford’s Combat Experience from 1915 to 1919 155 II: Post-War Responses 159 Rejecting Germany 160 Reflecting on propaganda 169 Redeeming language 174 Citizen of the Republic of Letters 179 Conclusion 185 Conclusion 187 Bibliography 192 4 TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 1 Postcard to Katherine Hueffer of Loreley [1904] 73 Figure 2 Postcard to Christina Hueffer from Boppard, 26 November 1904 74 Figure 3 Postcard to Katherine Hueffer from Mammern, 17 October 1904 75 Figure 4 Postcard to Katherine Hueffer of Germania monument [1904] 76 ABBREVIATED TITLES Ancient Lights and Certain New Reflections, Being Ancient Lights the Memories of a Young Man Between St Dennis and St George: A Sketch of Between St Dennis Three Civilisations The Desirable Alien at Home in Germany The Desirable Alien When Blood is Their Argument: An Analysis of When Blood Prussian Culture 5 INTRODUCTION Just days after the outbreak of the First World War, the British author and critic Ford Madox Ford wrote in the Outlook magazine that ‘[w]hichever side wins in the end—my own heart is certain to be mangled in either case’.1 At the time, he published under the name Ford Madox Hueffer, but he had been born Ford Hermann Hueffer, to a German father and English mother. Like many cosmopolitan writers, Ford had travelled extensively in Europe in the decades before the war and confronted the severing of relational and cultural ties at the declaration of war. Not long after writing the lines quoted above, Ford was commissioned to write anti-German propaganda for the British government. He was not alone – many eminent British authors were invited to join the campaign, although with his German connections Ford may well have found this a more difficult decision than others did. Ford’s reasons for participating were several, but his decision presents a quandary for readers, critics, and literary historians today as they analyse how and why so many cosmopolitans participated in the creation of the nationalistic rhetoric of wartime propaganda. Ford was commissioned by his friend, cabinet minister C.F.G. Masterman to write for the British War Propaganda Bureau at Wellington House. The principal result was Ford’s two propaganda books, both published in 1915: When Blood is Their Argument: An Analysis of Prussian Culture, followed by Between St Dennis and St George: A Sketch of Three Civilisations. In July 1915 Ford enlisted in the British Army and served in France, Belgium, and Britain for the remainder of the war. Ford’s combat experience is well known and is frequently considered in studies of his post- war tetralogy Parade’s End (1924-28).