Letters from the Great War |
Written while serving in France with the 22nd Battalion of the Manchester Regiment, to his wife Violet. Bland was killed on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme.
My only and eternal blessedness,
I wonder whether you resent my cheerfulness ever! Do you, dear? Because you might, you know. I ought, by the rules of love, to spend my days and nights in an eternity of sighs and sorrow for our enforced parting. And by all the rules of war, I ought to be enduring cold and hardship, hunger and fatigue, bitterness of soul and dismay of heart.
Alas! What shall I say in my defence? Because not even Merriman can depress me, and as for the CO, I am simply impertinent to him, while the dull routine of being behind the line fills me with an inexhaustible supply of cheerful patience. What shall we say about it? Would it rejoice you if I confessed to being utterly miserable every now and then? If I told you how I loathed war and hated every minute that prolonged it? If I admitted that I yearn hourly for my return, my final return away from it all? If I said that I hated my brother officers and was sick of the sight of the Company? If I described the filthy squalor of the village streets, the sickening repetition of low clouds and sulky drizzle and heavy rain, and the dreary monotony of ration beef and ration bread? Would you be glad or sorry?
Oh, I know how sympathetic and sad you would feel, and I know you would not be glad at all. Would you? And if you were glad, you would be all wrong; because, even if those things were true, it wouldn’t bring us together again, it wouldn’t make me love you more, it wouldn’t sweeten those embraces we are deprived of for the moment, it wouldn’t strengthen our divine oneness one scrap. Would it?
No, my darling, thank the heavens daily that in all circumstances you will be right in picturing your boy out here simply brimming over with gaiety irrepressible. I am becoming a byword. Cushion says, ‘I like you, Bill Bland.’ Why? Because I am always laughing with everybody and everything, greeting the seen and the unseen with a cheer. And it isn’t a pose. It’s the solemn truth.
So let us go back again to those imaginary admissions above. I am never utterly miserable, not even when I yearn most for the touch of your lips and a sight of my boys. Why? Because I am in France, where the war is, and I know I ought to be here. And I don’t loathe war, I love ninety-five per cent of it, and hate the thought of it being ended too soon. And I don’t yearn hourly for my final return, although I am very pleasantly excited at the possibility of nine days’ leave in March, which indeed we haven’t earned by any means so far.
And I don’t loathe my brother officers but love them more than I dreamed possible, and as for my Company, why bless it! And the mud is such friendly mud, somehow, so yielding and considerate – and I don’t have to clean my own boots. And I have lost the habit of regarding the weather, for if it rains, we get wet, and if it doesn’t, we don’t, and if the sun shines, how nice! And as for our food, well, I’ve given you an idea of that before, and I have nothing to add to the statements made in this House on November 30 and December 6 last or any other time.
No, dear, whether you like it or not, I am fundamentally happy and on the surface childishly gay. And there’s an end on’t.
Post just going.
Good night, darling.
Ever your
Alfred
James ‘Jim’ Milne was a company sergeant-major who served with the 4th Battalion, Gordon Highlanders. The following is a farewell letter to his wife Meg, in the event of his being killed in battle.
Milne came through the war, and returned home to Scotland.
My own beloved wife,
I do not know how to start this letter. The circumstances are different from any under which I ever wrote before. I am not to post it but will leave it in my pocket, and if anything happens to me, someone will perhaps post it. We are going over the top this forenoon and only God in Heaven knows who will come out of it alive. I am going into it now, Dearest, sure that I am in His hands and that whatever happens, I look to Him, in this world and the world to come.
If I am called, my regret is that I leave you and my Bairns, but I leave you all to His great mercy and goodness, knowing that He will look over you all and watch you. I trust in Him to bring me through, but should He decree otherwise then though we do not know His reasons, we know it must be best. I go to Him with your dear face the last vision on earth I shall see and your name upon my lips. You, the best of Women. You will look after my Darling Bairns for me and tell them how their Daddy died.
Oh! How I love you all, and as I sit here waiting I wonder what you are doing at home. I must not do that. It is hard enough sitting waiting. We may move at any minute. When this reaches you, for me there will be no more war – only eternal peace and waiting for you.
You must be brave, my Darling, for my sake, for I leave you the Bairns. It is a legacy of struggle for you, but God will look after you and we shall meet again when there will be no more parting. I am to write no more, Sweetheart. I know you will read my old letters and keep them for my sake, and that you will love me or my memory till we meet again.
May God in his Mercy look over you and bless you all till that day we shall met again in His own Good time. May He in that same Mercy preserve me today.
GoodBye Meg,
Eternal love from
Yours for Ever and Ever,
Jim
John Rapoport, aged twenty-four, became engaged during the spring of 1918; the letter below is to his fiancée. At the beginning of June, he was posted missing during the third battle of the Aisne. His body was never recovered.
The mail has just come in and I’ve got fourteen letters! Among them, my darling, were five from you. So you can imagine what I feel like. I got the very first one of all tonight, the one you sent to me at Havre. They’ve been awfully slack in forwarding it.
Darling, you were just splendid when you saw me off at Waterloo. You just typified the women of England by your attitude, everything for us men, and you have your dark times to yourselves so as not to depress us . . .
You mean so much to me, you have no idea how much. Life without you would be absolutely empty. I wonder however I got on before. As a matter of fact, I am full of love and for the last two or three years I’ve had a longing to pour it out on someone, and I’ve always lived in the hope of doing so – that kept me going. Now I’ve got someone on whom I can and have lavished all my love.
My darling, I love and adore you from the bottom of my heart. You wait till I come home – you will get some kisses then, and I shall hold you tight – you know how, my darling, don’t you?
I am so glad we are both alike on the question of friends. Of course I want you to carry on with your men friends just as if I didn’t exist. One thing I am [as] sure of as that I exist: that is that I have all your heart and all your love. So I just want you to enjoy yourself – I love you so much. Have a topping time on the river and at shows, etc, with your friends, won’t you?
I asked WW to write to me still, though we were engaged – just as friends. I feel very sorry for your friends. Just impress on them that you can be chums just as before. I know it isn’t quite the same, but I should like it, because I know what a help you’d be to any man. Just thank your friends for their good wishes, will you?
Oh, the more I think of it, the more I realize how lucky I am in having you for my own darling wife-to-be. Oh, hasn’t God been good to me – far more than I deserve.
