Experience
- Noun [mass noun]: practical contact with and observation of facts or events; The knowledge or skill acquired by such means over a period of time; An event or occurrence which leaves an impression on someone
- Verb: encounter or undergo (an event or occurrence); Feel (an emotion)1
The First World War is often depicted as a fundamentally negative historical event. Petty squabbles between emperors and élites are said to have pushed naïve young men into a nightmare environment of mud, blood and callous indifference that killed millions and left those who survived scarred and embittered.
This interpretation of the conflict came to prominence between the 1960s and the 1980s. It rested on the ubiquity of the anti-war poets in school curricula, on the release of literary-based studies by Paul Fussell, Eric Leed, Roland Stromberg and Modris Eksteins, and on the success of the Blackadder Goes Forth BBC television series.2 While numerous historians have since endeavoured to qualify or overturn such portrayals, the First World War is still widely perceived as a pointless conflict that destroyed a generation and ushered in a more brutal age.3
This appraisal wields so much influence because it contains an element of truth. The Somme, Verdun, Passchendaele, Gallipoli and many other engagements all resulted in dreadful losses of life. According to the most reliable estimates, fully nine million military personnel died during the conflict.4 Even more striking is the number of fatalities as a proportion of those who fought. From the 100,444 men and women who served overseas in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, 17,661, or 17.58 per cent, died as a result up to the end of 1923.5 Many of the survivors had braved artillery and machine-gun fire, in addition to enduring deplorable living conditions. Some suffered lasting physical or mental damage, which then hindered their return to civilian life.
Yet this popular understanding of the First World War suffers from four major problems. First, it discusses the conflict by reference to subsequent events and present-day concerns, particularly the Second World War and the geopolitical situation in the Middle East, rather than from the perspective of those who were alive at the time. Secondly, it centres on the development of ‘over-arching theories’ — ‘the lost generation’, ‘the birth of the modern’ and the ‘end of innocence’ — while omitting contradictory occurrences and neglecting specific details.6 Thirdly, it focuses on a narrow group of sources and the subjects they cover, meaning that trench warfare on parts of the western front often comes to represent the war as a whole.7 Finally, the dominant narrative implies a form of mass paralysis, where participants were powerless to avoid being caught up in a general decline from optimism to disillusionment.8
Analysing the First World War via the medium of experiences allows these difficulties to be overcome. On the one hand, a focus on specific episodes militates against present-centredness by requiring an extensive use of primary sources. If letters, diaries, memoirs, official documents and interviews cannot entirely bridge the gap between the historian and the past, they do offer the best way to narrow it. Accessing and reproducing the words of contemporaries facilitates a much deeper understanding of how they perceived events and why they reacted to them in a particular fashion.9
Prioritising experiences also takes into account that everybody who participated in the First World War did so as an individual. Men and women were drawn into the conflict for a wide range of reasons and from all manner of backgrounds and occupations.10 They served at different levels in the various branches of the armed forces across the war’s numerous theatres, or remained at home as workers or dependents. Some died, but most survived. Some were injured, but most went unscathed. Some had their health ruined by poor nutrition or disease, but the majority lived on for decades after the Armistice.11 Exploring particular eventualities helps to recognise the impact of these variables, and means that disparities are treated with the same degree of importance as similarities.
Experiences also provide a more nuanced understanding of what being involved in the war entailed. Although hardship and death were all too common, they took place alongside more positive occurrences. For example, the movement of multinational armies across countries and continents gave vast numbers of people the chance to see new parts of the world and led to an unprecedented mixing of cultures. For some this merely reinforced or generated prejudices, but in others it inspired a sense of wonder and respect. The conflict also produced countless interactions between people within the armed forces, within other war-related organisations and within local communities. If the consequences could be unfortunate or even provocative, there was also a simultaneous formation of bonds, friendships and relationships that would never have happened otherwise.
Another attraction of experiences is that they foreground agency. Rather than being overwhelmed and alienated by the war’s realities, many individuals were able to develop effective coping strategies.12 Soldiers interpreted their surroundings by reference to familiar landscapes, and recreated elements of their domestic lives by holding sports tournaments, concerts and variety shows.13 Likewise, people on the home-fronts and the battlefronts strove to maintain regular contact with each other. Millions of letters were sent in both directions, alongside countless trophies, mementos and keepsakes.14
A final consideration is that a person’s experiences shed light on how they acquired new knowledge and skills. The common emphasis on military blunders and stubbornness tends to obscure the great doctrinal strides that were made across four years of war. Whereas the armies of 1914 relied on élan and mass frontal assaults, those of 1918 employed intricate combined-arms operations supported by scientifically directed firepower.15 At the heart of these developments were groups of officers who honed their methods over an extended period of time.16 Likewise, many individuals received training and education in the combat support services, in occupations behind the lines, or when working on the home-front. This acquisition of knowledge and skills often proved of continued use after the Armistice. Most military commanders of the interwar and Second World War periods came to prominence during the First World War, while the conflict also had a formative influence on many politicians, writers, artists, union leaders and businessmen.17 Some ethnic minorities used their participation in the fighting to press for equal rights and full citizenship.18 Conversely, other groups developed a greater sense of self-identity and accelerated their efforts to achieve independence.19
The myriad benefits of experience as a research category are showcased across the following chapters. They comprise 16 of the papers delivered at ‘The Experience of a Lifetime: People, Personalities and Leaders in the First World War’ conference, which was held at Massey University’s Wellington campus from 22 to 24 August 2014. This event drew together academics, public historians, archivists and interested members of the public from New Zealand, Australia, France, the United States and the United Kingdom. A diverse programme of talks was formally opened in the Great Hall of the Old Museum Building, and was interspersed with panel discussions and audio-visual presentations. The conference formed part of the Centenary History of New Zealand in the First World War Programme, and was generously facilitated by its sponsors: the New Zealand Defence Force, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, and Massey University.
This volume covers a large number of First World War experiences. It is divided into five overall themes: high command experiences, soldiers’ experiences, imperial experiences, experiences in the air and at sea, and experiences behind the front line. Although New Zealanders predominate, there is a wide-ranging examination of the various campaigns they fought in, and substantial sections that deal with individuals from other belligerents. Ultimately, the editors make no claims for this being a definitive account of the conflict, but rather one that is influenced by, and that seeks to influence, an ongoing process of reassessment. For if the First World War was a fundamentally nuanced, multi-faceted and open-ended event, then its historiography should also demonstrate those characteristics.
Notes
1 Adapted from Judy Pearsall (ed.), The New Oxford Dictionary of English (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 647.
2 Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1975); Eric J. Leed, No Man’s Land: Combat and Identity in World War I (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979); Roland Stromberg, Redemption by War: The Intellectuals and 1914 (Lawrence, Regents Press, 1982); Modris Eksteins, The Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age (London, Bantam Press, 1989).
3 Charles Ferrall and Harry Ricketts, ‘Introduction’, in Charles Ferrall and Harry Ricketts (eds), How We Remember: New Zealanders and the First World War (Wellington, Victoria University Press, 2014), pp. 9–10; Max Hastings, Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War (New York, Vintage, 2014), p. xvii; Richard Holmes, The Western Front (London, BBC Books, 1999), p. 21.
4 Ashley Ekins, ‘Introduction’, in Ashley Ekins (ed.), 1918 Year of Victory: The End of the Great War and the Shaping of History (Auckland, Exisle, 2010), p. 20.
5 The Great War, 1914–1918, New Zealand Expeditionary Force, Roll of Honour (Wellington, Government Printer, 1924), p. ii.
6 Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 2–5.
7 Gail Braybon, ‘Introduction’, in Gail Braybon (ed.), Evidence, History and the Great War: Historians and the Impact of 1914–18 (New York, Berghahn Books, 2003), p. 2.
8 Jessica Meyer, Men of War: Masculinity and the First World War in Britain (Houndmills, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), p. 4.
9 David Silbey, The British Working Class and Enthusiasm for War, 1914–1916 (London, Frank Cass, 2005), pp. 3–13; Jay Winter and Antoine Prost, The Great War in History: Debates and Controversies, 1914 to the Present (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), pp. 25–30.
10 Catriona Pennell, A Kingdom United: Popular Responses to the Outbreak of the First World War in Britain and Ireland (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 4–5; Glyn Harper, Johnny Enzed: The New Zealand Soldier in the First World War, 1914–1918 (Auckland, Exisle, 2015), pp. 693–7.
11 Hew Strachan, The First World War, revised edition (London, Simon & Schuster, 2014), pp. xx–xxiv.
12 Alex Watson, ‘Self-deception and Survival: Mental Coping Strategies on the Western Front, 1914–18’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 41, no. 2, 2006, pp. 247–68.
13 Matthew Cunningham, ‘“Familiarising the Foreign”: New Zealand Soldiers’ Observations on Landscape during the Gallipoli Campaign’, New Zealand Journal of History, vol. 45, no. 2, 2011, pp. 209–24; J. G. Fuller, Troop Morale and Popular Culture in the British and Dominion Armies, 1914–1918 (Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 72–113.
14 Joanna Bourke, Dismembering the Male: Men’s Bodies, Britain and the Great War (London, Reaktion Books, 1996), pp. 164–8; Glyn Harper (ed.), Letters from Gallipoli: New Zealand Soldiers Write Home (Auckland, Auckland University Press, 2011), pp. ix–x.
15 Gary Sheffield, Forgotten Victory: The First World War: Myths and Realities (London, Review, 2002), pp. 258–63.
16 Paddy Griffith, ‘The Extent of Tactical Reform in the British Army’, in Paddy Griffith (ed.), British Fighting Methods in the Great War (London, Frank Cass, 1996), pp. 1–22.
17 Monty Soutar, ‘Te Hokowhitu-A-Tu: A Coming of Age?’, in John Crawford and Ian McGibbon (eds), New Zealand’s Great War: New Zealand, the Allies and the First World War (Auckland, Exisle, 2007), pp. 103–4.
18 Timothy C. Winegard, Indigenous Peoples of the British Dominions and the First World War (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012).
19 Piers Brendon, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781–1997 (London, Vintage, 2008).