The neglected story of non-combatants at war. Modern British fiction on World War One

Jane Mattisson

Description

Resumen
La literatura tiene un poder especial para revelar la compleja historia de la guerra. Trata de soldados rasos y oficiales, en lugar de los civiles, objetores de conciencia, sacerdotes o capellanes, que suelen ser el foco de atención en los estudios históricos y de ficción. En este artículo, ofreceremos una vision panorámica desde la perspective de sacerdotes y capellanes del ejército, ya que ofrecen una oportunidad única para explorar los aspectos éticos y emocionales de la guerra. Con la participación del lector, navegaremos a través de una serie de decisiones morales, ante las cuales es imposible permanecer neutral.

Abstract
Literature has a special power to reveal the complex story of war. It is private soldiers and officers rather than non-combatants, civilians, conscientious objectors, clergymen and chaplains who are usually the focus of attention in historical studies and fiction. In my article, I focus on the situation of clergymen and army chaplains as they offer a unique opportunity to explore the ethical and emotional aspects of war, involving the reader in a series of moral choices to which it is impossible to remain neutral.

Sujets

• Primera Guerra Mundial
• Sacerdote
• Capellanes
• Moral
• Ética

Informations

• Publié par: erevistas
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 22
• Langue: Español

Extrait

Oceánide 4 2012
 
Fecha de recepción: 2 diciembre 2011
Fecha de aceptación: 20 diciembre 2011
Fecha de publicación: 25 enero 2012
URL:http://oceanide.netne.net/articulos/art4-2.php
Oceánide número 4, ISSN 1989-6328

The neglected story of non-combatants at war. Modern British fiction on World War One
Dr. Jane Mattisson
(Kristianstad University, Sweden)
RESUMEN:

La literatura tiene un poder especial para revelar la compleja historia de la guerra. Trata de soldados rasos y oficiales,
en lugar de los civiles, objetores de conciencia, sacerdotes o capellanes, que suelen ser el foco de atención en los
estudios históricos y de ficción. En este artículo, ofreceremos una vision panorámica desde la perspective de sacerdotes
y capellanes del ejército, ya que ofrecen una oportunidad única para explorar los aspectos éticos y emocionales de la
guerra. Con la participación del lector, navegaremos a través de una serie de decisiones morales, ante las cuales es
imposible permanecer neutral.

Palabras clave: Primera Guerra Mundial, sacerdotes, capellanes, moral, ética

ABSTRACT:

Literature has a special power to reveal the complex story of war. It is private soldiers and officers rather than non-
combatants, civilians, conscientious objectors, clergymen and chaplains who are usually the focus of attention in
historical studies and fiction. In my article, I focus on the situation of clergymen and army chaplains as they offer a
unique opportunity to explore the ethical and emotional aspects of war, involving the reader in a series of moral choices
to which it is impossible to remain neutral.

Keywords: World War One, clergymen, chaplains, morale, ethics

To tell the complex story of clergymen and difference between the two is important for
chaplains, seven novels and one short story have understanding the change in identity that takes
been selected: Mackenzie Ford’s Gifts of War place in Reavley. While Heroes provides some
(2008), Chris Ryan’s One Good Turn (2008) Anne insights into Reavley’s role at the front, its chief
Perry’s quintet (2003–2007) and her short interest for the present discussion is as a point of
story Heroes (2007). In Ford’s novel, the minister comparison between Perry’s earlier and later
is anonymous and a minor character serving on representations of the chaplain. As Reavley’s faith
the home front. In One Good Turn, he is similarly is challenged by his men, commanding officers,
anonymous and in a minor role; in his capacity as friends, family and, not least, his own conscience,
a chaplain on the western front, however, he plays and as he observes the brutalities of combat, the
a key part in the resolution of the central event of reader witnesses a series of crises involving
the novel, the clearing of the name of Private Chris complex moral and spiritual choices that bring to
Ransom. Anne Perry’s Joseph Reavley is also a the fore the nature and consequences of war for
chaplain at the front; however, in contrast to the individual. Since chaplains enlisted as non-
Ryan’s novel, he is the protagonist of Heroes and combatants, they were given a bad press, not only
one of the chief characters in Perry’s quintet. Only because people were unsure about their motives
in the quintet is the role of the minister both at (Holmes, 2005: 503) but also because their role in
home (in the person of Hallam Kerr) and on the war was diffuse (Snape, 2005: 83). The negative
front portrayed, and only here can the reader trace picture of the chaplain at war was established very
the development of the chaplain through four early on by such well-known figures as the soldier-
gruelling years at the front. poet and memoirist Robert Graves. Graves’s Good-
bye to All That contains the following passage:
Mackenzie Ford’s minister is the only clergyman
discussed here who is totally untouched by war. He For the regimental chaplains as a body
is a stereotypical figure, whose rigid ideas about we had no respect. If the regimental
right and wrong are unable to accommodate the chaplains had shown one tenth the
complexities and special circumstances of war. courage, endurance, and other human
Anne Perry’s Hallam Kerr, the vicar of Selborne St qualities that the regimental doctors
Giles, in Cambridgeshire, is also divorced from showed, we agreed, the British
war, but he gradually learns from Joseph Reavley’s Expeditionary Force might well have
experiences at the front, modifying his ideas and started a religious revival. (1973: 158)
practices to accommodate a world that he does not
understand. Christopher Ryan’s chaplain is at the Historians have also tended to assume that an
front but far removed from the action. He has fixed obsolescence of religion was an important force in
ideas of right and wrong, and a naïve belief in the early twentieth-century British culture and society,
justice and judgement of the British Army. causing chaplains to be treated as peripheral
figures with poorly defined roles (Snape, 2005:
As the protagonist of Heroes, Reavley is respon- 246). Anne Perry’s novels and her short story are
sible for the spiritual welfare of his men; as the an effective corrective to this view.
chaplain of the quintet, he cares for souls. The
URL:http://oceanide.netne.net/articulos/art4-2.php
 Oceánide 4 2012
 
1. THE ROLE OF THE CLERGY IN WORLD WAR his attitude damning. He condemns Samantha, the
ONE girlfriend of a German soldier whom Hal met at the
front, because she has given birth to a child out of
At the beginning of the war, the number of army wedlock. He has led the opposition to Samantha,
chaplains at the front totalled just 120 (Holmes, “even going so far […] as to preach ‘fornication’
2005: 509). By 1918, there were more than 3,000 from the pulpit” (Ford, 2008: 86). This is one of
(Rider, 2001: 7–12). Anglicans were the most the main reasons why she does not go to church.
numerous: in August 1914, they accounted for Ford’s minister is described as one who excludes
almost half of the chaplains; by August 1918, they and judges; he is preoccupied with religion rather
comprised more than fifty percent – 1,941 out of a than Christian love, divorced from the concerns
total of 3,416. and sufferings of the war, and has little
understanding of those in need of support. He also
The duties of ministers and chaplains were has no identity; this is not only because he is
multifarious, although not all were obligatory anonymous and mentioned only twice in the novel
(Rider, 2001: 10). On the home front, they but because he has no past or future, and he does
conducted services, visited their parishioners and not interact with or learn from other characters. He
performed all the normal mandatory tasks of a disappears as suddenly as he enters the story. His
minister in peacetime. In addition, during war they significance for the progression of the narrative
were required to comfort the bereaved and the rests in the implicit part that he plays in
wounded at home on convalescence. Chaplains at Samantha’s decision to go to London with Hal.
the front took church services and official church Unlike Hallam Kerr of Anne Perry’s quintet, Ford’s
parades where appropriate, as well as burial minister does not ponder questions of right and
services or committals. They identified corpses by wrong, duty and irresponsibility, faith and
collecting tags and papers on dead bodies and, confusion because his mind is already made up.
where possible, kept a record of the identities and Nor is there room for debate within the narrative
burial places in order to inform the dead men’s or between the reader and the text because the
families. Anglican chaplains were permitted to go minister’s story is a simple one, virtually
into forward positions only when summoned to untouched by the complexity of war.
bury the dead. There were few guidelines for their
work at the front other than those specified in Hallam Kerr’s parish, like that of Ford’s minister, is
King’s Regulations, which focused on parade and situated in an idyllic part of England: Selbourne St
voluntary services and performing burials. During Giles in Cambridgeshire. And, like Ford’s minister,
battle, chaplains also sometimes collected Kerr is far removed from the horrors of the front.
messages from the wounded to their families, However, unlike him, Kerr makes regular
assisted medical staff and organised mild appearances, albeit in only one of Perry’s
recreations. On occasion, they even censored novels, Angels in the Gloom (2006). The third in
letters. the series, the novel bears witness to Kerr’s
development emotionally as well as spiritually.
2. THE HOME FRONT Through Joseph Reavley, he begins to understand
the suffering caused by war and how this must
In the novels discussed here, the two ministers change his perception of his role at home as
serving on the home front (the anonymous comforter and spiritual guide. Kerr and
minister of Gifts of War and the more dynamic Reavley