When Did Wales Last Have Its Own Army? Hedd Wyn

When did Wales last have its own army? Hedd Wyn

One Welsh soldier came to symbolise all the sacrifice.

Ellis Evans is better known as the poet Hedd Wyn. He was brought up on a farm just outside Trawsfynydd. Like many working on the land he was reluctant to join up, but by 1917 the army’s demand for more men led to a change in the law.

Now only one son could stay on the farm and Hedd Wyn chose to enlist in place of his younger brother. He joined the Royal Welch Fusiliers and went to France. He continued to write, reflecting on the world around him.

This is part of his poem Rhyfel (War): “The harps to which we sang are hung on willow boughs and their refrain drowned by the anguish of the young whose blood is mingled with the rain.”

Hedd Wyn’s cottage has remained virtually unchanged. It’s cared for by his nephew Gerald Williams. Back in 1917 the poet composed his entry for that year’s eisteddfod while serving in the trenches. He sent it in under the pen name Fleur de Lis.

Gerald Williams: “They had a bit of a job getting it out of him to the eisteddfod because it was in Welsh and you see all the letters that were sent from the front line were heavily censored. But it was in Welsh so they had a bit of a job to find an officer that could translate from Welsh to English to say that it was okay to go through.”

Eddie Butler: “But it did get through?”

GW: “But it did get through in time, yes. Yes.”

The eisteddfod that year was held in Birkenhead, on Merseyside, with prime minister Lloyd George in attendance, welcomed by flag-waving crowds. Inside, the atmosphere was sombre.

EB: “What happened at the chair ceremony at Birkenhead in 1917?”

GW: “They gave the adjudication and said who was the winning bard: Fleur de Lis. And then they asked him to stand up. They asked three times around the audience and nobody stood up, so one of the officials of the eisteddfod came on and said that it was Hedd Wyn and he was lost in action.”

Hedd Wyn had been killed at Passchendaele just five weeks earlier. His cottage has become a shrine to him and to all Welsh soldiers killed in the war.