Re: The Pages of Punch

I suspect that he meant that it certainly wasn't like that at the front: it was far, far worse.

Re: The Pages of Punch

I’m not sure about that, JBR. Would he have said ‘Thank Heaven’ if he had thought the real front was worse (even much worse) than what was depicted in the paintings?

Re: The Pages of Punch

1918: Thou shall not be found out…

The scene is set in a public school. Joining the Officer Training Corps was compulsory. The Sergeant Major is a full-time member of the staff. The look on their faces show that the two miscreants face an unmilitary penalty for their crime.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1918: Communication of a sort

Oddly enough I have a personal recollection of this kind of thing.

In January 1954 I was sailing on a troopship to my National Service posting in Singapore. The ship was a civilian liner which had been hired by the military. As a Sergeant (in the Royal Army Educational Corps) I was travelling Second Class which felt quite luxurious to me. Back in the UK wartime rationing was still more or less in place. This did not apply on board ship. In the Dining Room we were served by liveried waiters and the food was ample. On each visit we were each presented with an individual printed menu with the day’s date.

On one occasion a Scot sitting next to me was pocketing that day’s printed menu. He told me why he was doing this. He said that although he was unmarried he had a woman (his word, not mine) back in Glasgow. He and she were not talking at the moment. However he wanted her to know how well he was enjoying his lavish trip so he was going to place just the menu into an otherwise empty envelope and post it to her. Clearly this singular behaviour must have made a deep impression and thus stick in my mind. But the weird thing is that after this one chance conversation over 60 years ago I can still remember that my table companion was a Sergeant Wishart of the Royal Artillery. Why on earth would I remember that amount of detail?

Re: The Pages of Punch

1918: Protection

George Belcher is, as always, avoiding upper middle scenarios. The soldier who is guarding the German prisoners of war is far from being an A1 specimen. At the start of the war a man with his physique would have been rejected by the Army. By 1918 the military authorities could no longer afford to be so fussy.

The thought that prisoners needed protection is not absurd. Hatred of the ‘horrible Hun’ was intense.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1918: Is this irony?

What is the joke here? I would imagine that the German prisoner is totally unlike Tommy’s little gal friend from Whitechapel.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1918: Sheer ignorance

The newly commissioned subaltern doesn’t even realise how much he is showing his ignorance. His rank has given him a totally inflated sense of his own importance.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1918: Business as Usual

In spite of the desperate war (or even because of it) the same instincts still prevail. The two uniformed Don Juans are looking for amorous conquests.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1918: Resentment dressed up as reason

Effie isn’t really concerned about her brother’s food coupons. She doesn’t want him to get the attention which she feels rightly belongs to her.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1918: Two neglected aspects of World War One

The first neglected aspect is that there was a front in the Balkans. The initial enemy was Bulgaria, an ally of Germany. There was also the campaign to liberate Serbia from Austria-Hungary. Serbia’s cause had been the original spark which led to the outbreak of the war.

The second aspect is that a large number of British soldiers came from Ireland – south as well as north. They were volunteers, not conscripts. This fact tends to be air brushed out of people’s memory.

The artist, Stanley Spencer, served in the Balkans. He commemorated his stay in a military hospital by some vivid paintings.