I’ve written elsewhere of on of the most remarkable books to come out of World War II. That book was Bill Mauldin’s classic Up Front, the World War II journal that described and illustrated the life of the ordinary foot soldier. That piece can be found here:
http://jayeltee.blogspot.com/2019/11/up-front-and-bill-mauldin.html
I came across a book today that is a nice counterpart to that book. It’s called How to Live at the Front: Tips for American Soldiers. by Hector MacQuarrie, a second lieutenant in one of the British army’s field artillery units in World War I (although they called it the Great War then, not foreseeing an even greater one in the future). It was published in 1917, just when American troops were sent overseas to fight that war; My edition is the fifth one, published in 1918.
Lieutenant MacQuarrie with his dog Jack
Lieutenant MacQuarrie wrote the book to introduce American soldiers to what was the third year of the war. He assumes that the raw American recruits will be like the British ones he’d been fighting with at the beginning of the war: inexperienced, unused to the chain of command, afraid of what might befall them, and unfamiliar with the type of situations he’s likely to encounter on his trip to the front lines. He reassures them that once they figure out how the army works, what they can expect from their fellow soldiers, and how to reduce the chances of them being casualties, they are likely to survive the war.
In some ways, MacQuarrie’s war is much different from Mauldin’s. His account describes, better than any account I’ve read, the intricacies of trench warfare… how the trenches were laid out, what they were like to live in, and how to avoid some of their common dangers. An entire chapter is devoted to taking care of horses, which were critical in dragging artillery to where it was needed. And it assumes that at least some of the officers will be on horseback, whether they were familiar with horsemanship or not. (If you’re assigned to a horse unit, he advises you to carry a bucket at all times so that the horse may be watered whenever there’s an opportunity.) No unit can operate efficiently, he says, unless the horses are healthy, well-fed, well-watered, and kept away from terrain that could damage their hooves. With the exception of mules being used by the Allies in World War II to supply troops in rugged terrain, MacQuarrie’s war was probably the last one in which significant use of draft animals was made.
MacQuarrie’s main task is admonishing soldiers to fit into the great machine that is the modern army. He has little sympathy for slackers and goldbricks. These characters, he writes, are prone to put their fellow soldiers into harm’s way, and deserve nothing but contempt. He reassures the recruit that the army will always treat him as best it can, even if there are occasional shortages of food or supplies, or mail deliveries are disrupted for a few days. Supplying an army is a vast, complicated process and there are bound to be lapses, but that process is getting perfected every day of the war, and is much better in 1917 than it was in 1914, when the English army was only beginning to transform itself from a small standing army into the juggernaut that it had become.
And he tells, over and over again, that the people who are killed in this new form of warfare are usually the ones who are careless. In a lapse of caution, they are likely to present targets to the enemy. They are the ones who neglect to carry a gas mask (another instance in which the two world wars were much different). Or they haven’t taken care of their health. He has some respect for the daredevils who take chances and subvert the chain of command, but they are bad soldiers just the same, because the army works best when all its components submit to a rigid chain of command based on experienced assessments of risks and successes.
Other chapters tell what is expected when an American encounters English civilians. They will be generous, he says, but the soldier must be careful about getting romantically involved with the women, because they are likely to strike up a relationship simply to get as much from the serviceman as they can. They are likely to regard that serviceman as only one in a long string of men whom they will see over the course of the war. Many hearts have been broken by such liaisons, he says. And, of course, there is always the danger of venereal disease, which he discusses in an elliptical manner, not wishing to offend the more fastidious reader. This was 1917, after all.
MacQuarrie counsels men to stay in close contact with their families at home. He tells the soldier to write once a week, if possible, letting the folks back home that you are alive and well. Keep it short, lest the censors find much to delete concerning the military situations they’re in at the moment. And above all, don’t spread rumors about mutual acquaintances who are missing in action, since they may have only been temporarily separated from their unit, and describing them as “missing” will cause their own relatives to fear the worst.
And he devotes a chapter to describing the English Tommy, the foot soldiers they will be fighting with. They were raised in a different culture than the Americans were, he explains, and their ways will not be same. He tells the American recruits not to expect the rigid class system that was prevalent in the last century, as described in the literature of that era. There won’t be much to be seen of it in the present English army. In short, he advises the readers to discard any previous notions they may have had, and simply see the English army as it is, not all that different from the army you will be joining when you arrive in France.
The civilians the Yank will encounter in France will also be as generous as they can afford to be, MacQuarrie says, although many of them have lost houses and family to the wrecking machine of war. He recounts many instances of their generosity, and their deprivations. In that respect, it’s not much difference from the way the dogfaces of World War II encountered the civilians, although in the later war, those civilians were much more likely to be hostile. But in both cases, the war was brought to their doorsteps without their consent, and the devastation they suffered was likely to have been inflicted by either side of the conflict.
The book is strewn with nuggets of the peculiar attitude that the British have of the war and how to fight it. He describes how units have adopted pets, from dogs to goats, and are as affectionate toward them as to their fellow soldiers. And everybody in the British army seems to have time for tea, even in the trenches.
“Lectures can be interesting or can be very dry,” he writes. “I found their great value in getting to know my men. At lectures one always lets the men smoke, but objects to their slumbering with their eyes shut. If you must sleep (it is not good form), learn to sleep with your eyes open. Snoring is forbidden as it disturbs the other men, and hurts the pride of the lecturer, who will take the necessary steps to stop it. However, to be serious, it is a good thing to try and take notes at lectures if you can, and take an interest in your work. It will be easier in the long run.”
MacQuarrie’s sense of humor pops up in other places. Describing the transportation used to get the men to the front, he writes: “See that your bottle is filled, although this may be unnecessary, for at regular stops on the journey the French will supply you with much good coffee, well doped with cognac. This will tend to cheer you considerably.” And there are plenty of anecdotes about misunderstandings that were resolved to great satisfaction to all concerned.
But the humor disappears when he describes the reality of war, which he detests. He presages Patton in stating that the paramount purpose of the soldier is to kill the enemy while staying alive. “As a dead man you are quite useless to your country. As a wounded man, who has been wounded through not taking the right precautions, you are merely a nuisance.”
“When on sniping duty,” he adds, “you will not regard the fellow you are after as a living human being with a wife and children at home anxious for news of him. You are spared that. You will merely regard the German as a target. Generally if you get him, it is owing to his own carelessness in doing what you may be doing – showing himself.” He spares little sympathy for the common German soldier, although he concedes that the German army is better trained, with greater proficiency in the art of war and a more rigorously respected chain of command. But he has nothing but contempt for the “Hun” or the “Boche” who command them, accusing them of their most uncivilized and un-Christian methods of warfare.
By Bill Mauldin’s time, “Hun” and “Boche” had been replaced by “Kraut” and “Jerry,” but that’s about the extent of the differences that the Tommy and the Dogface had in their assessment of the enemy. MacQuarrie has the same sympathy for the plight of the common soldiers in the Allied armies, and the same knack of rendering it in words. Like Mauldin, he had a career in journalism after his own war, writing about his experiences in the war and his many travels afterwards. (Bill Mauldin, as I’ve noted elsewhere, became one of the eminent political cartoonists of the twentieth century, and wrote about his own boyhood in New Mexico.) Both books are worth reading, especially to gain an appreciation of what ordinary soldiers go through in wartime, and should stand proudly on the bookshelf next to Ernie Pyle’s classic reportage of World War II.
