The Locust Years 1941-45

CHAPTER 3 THE LOCUST YEARS 1941-45 Waugh used the phrase “Locust Years” as the title for the Prologue to Unconditional Surrender. This expression, which has come to mean a period of poverty, crisis or decline, was popularized in a famous speech by Churchill, who had borrowed it from the English politician Thomas Inskip, and he, in turn, was inspired by the Book of Joel (2:25). In his history of The Second World War Churchill applied the phrase to the period between 1931 and 1935 when Great Britain did not seem to react to Hitler’s threats; other authors, like William McElwee in his book Britain’s Locust Years, 1918-1940 expanded the range, but Waugh appears to have gone further still, since he dedicated Unconditional Surrender to his favourite daughter, Margaret, born in 1942, as “Child of the Locust Years”. At any rate, we will borrow the expression to mark the time span of the novel beginning in the autumn of 1941, when Guy returns to “barrack duties” with the Halberdiers, until the end of the war in Europe, although the Epilogue concludes, after an ellipsis of six years, in the spring of 1951, the year of the Festival of Britain. The equivalence between story time and text time in the novel is hardly uniform. The period between autumn 1941 and August 1943 is summarized in just two paragraphs of the Prologue. From this point, the proper action of the novel starts, following the traditional changes in narrative pace (scenes, summaries, pauses and ellipses, etc.) until early spring of 1945 when Guy, once his mission in Yugoslavia is over, returns to England from the Allied base in Italy. Finally, the Epilogue provides information on the whereabouts of some of the characters in the six intervening years using brief summaries offered conversationally by other characters (one of the characterization methods most loved by Waugh). In short, the core narrative of the events that make up this story takes place between August 1943 and March 1945, and corresponds to the later stages of World War II in Europe. 92 In the Picture The Italian campaign When the action opens in summer 1943, “in Europe the initiative was now with the Allies” while “the army in the Far East now suffered as they had done [in the first two years of war]”,1 a reference to the relentless Japanese advance on Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and a large part of Burma. But, despite this and another brief reference to the oriental theatre,2 the military incidents mentioned or present in our novel are confined to Europe, and more specifically to the Italian campaign and the liberation of Yugoslavia. As for the first, Guy's role is limited to receiving news, which often comes from characters who have been close to him in the past. So, after two years’ work with the Halberdiers, Guy is left ashore when his brigade leaves for Salerno to participate in the Allied occupation of Italy, which had begun two months earlier, in July 1943, with the Allied invasion of Sicily (“Operation Husky”).3 The participation of Italy in the Axis had lost the favour of Italian public opinion, which was deeply demoralized by the Allied bombing in commercial areas and the recent deaths of soldiers in Russia. So, Victor Emmanuel III dismissed Mussolini on 25 July, and, under the guise of protecting him, had him arrested. The new Prime Minister, Marshal Badoglio, played both sides by promising the Germans that they would continue to enjoy the support of his country while secretly negotiating an armistice with the Allies. This was signed on 3 September and made public on 8 September. The German reaction was immediate: they took control of the north and centre of Italy, occupied Rome and disarmed the Italian forces. Victor Emmanuel III had already fled the country. In the novel, “news of the king’s flight came on the day the [Halberdier] brigade landed at Salerno”.4 The Salerno landings, codenamed “Operation Avalanche”’, started on 9 September, and received support from two parallel operations, one in Calabria (“Baytown”) and another in Taranto (“Slapstick”). But the Germans 1 Waugh, Sword of Honour, 397-98. 2 We are told that Ivor Claire has joined the Chindits, a special service force formed by British, Burmese and Gurkha guerrillas, fighting the Japanese behind the front lines in India and Burma between 1943 and 1944. 3 The Royal Marines, model for the fictional Halberdiers, participated in “Operation Husky”; 40 and 41 RM Commandos and VII Battalion RM were part of the Eighth Army, commanded by Bernard L. Montgomery. 4 Waugh, Sword of Honour, 398. .

Load more