Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936) – British journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer.

 

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay, India on 30th December 1865.  He began writing poetry at an early age while he was at the United Services College and his first collection was published privately in 1881.   He joined his parents in India and worked as a journalist. In 1892, Kipling married Caroline Balestier, an American, and they lived in Vermont from 1892 until 1896 when they moved to Sussex, UK.  

Kipling turned down the offer of the role of Poet Laureate, however, in 1907, he became the first English writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. 

In 1914, Rudyard Kipling was one of 53 leading British authors – a number that included H. G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle and Thomas Hardy – who signed their names to the "Authors' Declaration." This manifesto declared that the German invasion of Belgium had been a brutal crime, and that Britain "could not without dishonour have refused to take part in the present war."

Kipling wrote pamphlets and poems enthusiastically supporting the UK war aims of restoring Belgium, after it had been occupied by Germany, together with generalised statements that Britain was standing up for the cause of good. In September 1914, Kipling was asked by the government to write propaganda, an offer that he accepted. Kipling's pamphlets and stories were popular with the British people during the war, his major themes being to glorify the British military as the place for heroic men to be, while citing German atrocities against Belgian civilians and the stories of women brutalised by a horrific war unleashed by Germany, yet surviving and triumphing in spite of their suffering.

Kipling’s only son John Kipling (17 August 1897 – 27 September 1915), known as Jack, was killed

2nd Lt. Jack Kipling

fighting on the Western Front. He had only been in France for three weeks and because of his very poor eyesight had initially been rejected by the army. It was only because of the intervention of his influential and famous father that he was subsequently accepted and commissioned into the Irish  Guards Regiment.

Rudyard Kipling died on 18th January 1936.

My Boy Jack” (1915)

"Have you news of my boy Jack? "

Not this tide.

"When d'you think that he'll come back?"

Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

"Has any one else had word of him?"

Not this tide.

For what is sunk will hardly swim,

Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

"Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?"

None this tide,

Nor any tide,

Except he did not shame his kind---

Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,

This tide,

And every tide;

Because he was the son you bore,

And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!

Rudyard Kipling’s entry in Catherine W. Reilly’s “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” runs into three pages – from 188 to 191 and his poems were included in 24 WW1 anthologies.

“THE CHOICE”

THE AMERICAN SPIRIT SPEAKS:

To the Judge of Right and Wrong

  With Whom fulfillment lies

Our purpose and our power belong,

  Our faith and sacrifice.

Let Freedom's land rejoice!

  Our ancient bonds are riven;

Once more to us the eternal choice

  Of good or ill is given.

Not at a little cost,

  Hardly by prayer or tears,

Shall we recover the road we lost

  In the drugged and doubting years,

But after the fires and the wrath,

  But after searching and pain,

His Mercy opens us a path

  To live with ourselves again.

In the Gates of Death rejoice!

  We see and hold the good—

Bear witness, Earth, we have made our choice

  For Freedom's brotherhood.

Then praise the Lord Most High

  Whose Strength hath saved us whole,

Who bade us choose that the Flesh should die

  And not the living Soul!

Rudyard Kipling

"FOR ALL WE HAVE AND ARE"

For all we have and are,

For all our children's fate,

Stand up and meet the war.

The Hun is at the gate!

Our world has passed away

In wantonness o'erthrown.

There is nothing left to-day

But steel and fire and stone.

    Though all we knew depart,

    The old commandments stand:

    "In courage keep your heart,

    In strength lift up your hand,"

Once more we hear the word

That sickened earth of old:

"No law except the sword

Unsheathed and uncontrolled,"

Once more it knits mankind.

Once more the nations go

To meet and break and bind

A crazed and driven foe.

Comfort, content, delight—

The ages' slow-bought gain—

They shrivelled in a night,

Only ourselves remain

To face the naked days

In silent fortitude,

Through perils and dismays

Renewed and re-renewed.

    Though all we made depart,

    The old commandments stand:

    "In patience keep your heart,

    In strength lift up your hand."

No easy hopes or lies

Shall bring us to our goal,

But iron sacrifice

Of body, will, and soul

There is but one task for all—

For each one life to give.

Who stands if freedom fall?

Who dies if England live?

Rudyard Kipling

From: A TREASURY OF WAR POETRY: BRITISH AND AMERICAN POEMS OF THE WORLD WAR 1914-1917 Edited, With Introduction And Notes, By

GEORGE HERBERT CLARKE Professor of English in the University of Tennessee (The Riverside Literature Series, Houghton, Mifflin) 

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8820

John Hunter Wickersham, Medal of Honor (1890 - 1918) – American soldier poet

With thanks to Dr Connie Ruzich* for reminding me that I had not written a post about John H. Wickersham

Born in Brooklyn, New York on 3rd February 1890, John Hunter Wickersham’s parents were Mary E. Damon and her husband, John Edgar Wickersham.   John Hunter moved to Denver, Colorado when he was little and was educated at Manual High School.  He then joined the Army.

In May 1917, a month after America entered the First tWorld War, John Hunter Wickersham graduated from the First Officers Training Camp at Camp Funston on Fort Riley, Kansas. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant and assigned to Company H, 353rd Infantry, 89th Division.  By 11th September 1918, John was serving on the Western Front in France. In the first week of September 1918, American forces prepared to attack German positions in the St. Mihiel sector of northeastern France.

Before the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, John wrote his last letter home to his mother in Denver. The letter contained a poem entitled "The Raindrops on Your Old Tin Hat".  By the time his mother received his letter, her son was dead - John Hunter was mortally wounded near Limey, France on 12 September 1918.

The poem was published in an Oregon newspaper - the “St. Helen’s Mist” -  on 13th December 1918. The paper noted that the author had been killed in battle and gave it the title “Its Patter Touches the Heart” - Wickersham's aunt and uncle had shared the poem.

 “Raindrops on your old tin hat.”

The mist hangs low and quiet on a ragged line of hills,

There's a whispering of wind across the flat,

You'd be feeling kind of lonesome if it wasn't for one thing --

The patter of the raindrops on your old tin hat.

An' you just can't help a-figuring--sitting there alone --

About this war and hero stuff and that,

And you wonder if they haven't sort of got things twisted up,

While the rain keeps up its patter on your old tin hat.

When you step off with the outfit to do your little bit,

You're simply doing what you're s'posed to do --

And you don't take time to figure what you gain or what you lose,

It's the spirit of the game that brings you through.

But back at home she's waiting, writing cheerful little notes,

And every night she offers up a prayer

And just keeps on a-hoping that her soldier boy is safe --

The mother of the boy who's over there.

And, fellows, she's the hero of this great big ugly war,

And her prayer is on that wind across the flat,

And don't you reckon maybe it's her tears, and not the rain,

That's keeping up the patter on your old tin hat?

John Hunter Wickersham’s Medal of Honor:

Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Company H, 353rd Infantry, 89th Division. Place and date: At Limey, France; September 12, 1918. Entered service at: Denver Colorado. Birth: February 3, 1890; New York, New York. General Orders: War Department, General Orders No. 16 

(January 22, 1919).

Citation:

Advancing with his platoon during the St. Mihiel offensive, Second Lieutenant Wickersham was severely wounded in four places by the bursting of a high-explosive shell. Before receiving any aid for himself he dressed the wounds of his orderly, who was wounded at the same time. He then ordered and accompanied the further advance of his platoon, although weakened by the loss of blood. His right hand and arm being disabled by wounds, he continued to fire his revolver with his left hand until, exhausted by loss of blood, he fell and died from his wounds before aid could be administered.  He was buried in the Saint Mihiel American Cemetery and Memorial in France (Plot B, Row 19, Grave 12). 15 American women nurses who died while serving in WW1 are also buried in that cemetery.

John Hunter’s family placed a cenotaph for him in the Fairmount Cemetery in Denver, Colorado.

Sources: 

Find my past

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wickersham-297

https://stacyallbritton.com/2012/08/07/the-raindrops-on-your-old-tin-hat-by-john-hunter-wickersham/

https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/john-h-wickersham

Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliograph” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p. 401.

*Dr Connie Ruzich’s wonderful website Behind their Lines:

https://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2017/01/rain-on-your-old-tin-hat.html

https://www.talesofhonorpodcast.com/stories/john-h-wickersham

Painting by Augustin Gabriel Maurice Toussaint (1882 - 1974) - French artist known as
Maurice Toussant 

Born in 1882 in Fontenay-aux-Roses, a town in the Hauts-de-Seine region of France, southwest of Paris, Maurice’s father was painter and engraver Henri Toussaint (1849-1911), known for his prints depicting the architecture of Paris and other French cities.

St. Mihiel

A soldier sitting on top of a hill, overlooking a valley and a bridge. The Germans had held St. Mihiel and surrounding areas since the first battle at the Marne in 1914. At last, in 1918, under the command of General Ferdinand Foche (1851-1929), the Allied forces broke through the German hold on St. Mihiel and it was safely under France's control once again.

https://www.loc.gov/item/99613528/

Paul Graham Clark (1897 - 1918) – British born New Zealand poet

With thanks to Dr Connie Ruzich* for finding this poet for us

Paul Graham Clark was born in Leicester, Leicestershire, England in 1897. His parents were Alfred Clark, a physician and surgeon, and his wife, Isabella E. F.Clark, nee Christy. Paul’s siblings were Phyllis K., born 1898 in Leicester and Victoria C., born 1901 in Sholing, Hampshire.

In March 1901 the family home was at Bath Lodge, Bath Road, Heathlands Terrace, Sholing, Hampshire. I found a reference to Paul travelling to Australasia in 1903, when he was six years old, so the family may have gone to live in New Zealand at around that time. 

Paul studied medicine at Auckland University College and also enrolled at St John’s in 1915.  He applied and was accepted for a Maria Blackett Scholarship the same year when he had to take leave of absence to enlist in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. He was initially rejected as underage and wasn’t accepted into the force until 1918. He attained the rank of Second Lieutenant. 

Information taken from Paul’s Army records show that he gave his mother as his next of kin living at Victoria Avenue, Remera, Auckland, New Zealand. He was issued the serial number 46224 on enlistment. Paul embarked on 8th February 1918 as part of the 34th Reinforcements Auckland Infantry Regiment, “A” Company from Wellington, New Zealand aboard H.M.N.Z.T. 100 “Ulimaroa” bound for Liverpool, England. 

The archives at the John Kinder Theological Library hold correspondence from Clark to the St John’s College Trust Board asking for leave from the college and whether they can hold his scholarship for him until he returns from the war. He was killed while fighting in Bapaume, France, during the Second Battle of Bapaume on 26th August 1918 and was buried in the Achiet-Le-Grand Communal Cemetery Extension, France, Grave Reference: III. F. 28.

Paul is also remembered on the King’s College Honour Roll for the Great War 1914-1918.

A poem written by Paul Graham Clark:

“En Voyage”

They’ve swung her out into the harbour now

And she’s rounded the Heads at last,

While the waves of the briny break over her prow

And New Zealand’s a thing of the past.

We’ve said good-bye to the “missis,”

And kissed all the kiddies, too,

With a note to all that will miss us,

And a special one sent up to you.

We’re a speck in the boundless ocean now,

Just a thousand poor souls, all told;

And feel just like — well, just like how

We felt back in the days of old

When they fitted us out in Bill Massey’s boots,

Dished each one out a spoon and a fork,

Then lined us up like a lot of coots

And told us we couldn’t talk.

Oh, what of the squeamish first few days,

When we’d hardly cleared N.Z.!

The transport ship Ulimaroa leaving Wellington Port, NZ 

How the fellows in hundreds of different ways

Went over and hung the head.

They’d stay there forlorn for hours on end

While they gazed at the ship’s black side,

And swore they were counting the rivets up —

But somehow I think that they lied.

They shove us at night into our six by two’s

In a hole that should only hold ten;

But at somebody’s order — I wish I knew whose —

It’s branded “Two hundred men.”

The air’s none too good of a night time,

But when in the morning we wake,

You could take out your knife and slice it

Then scrape it away with a rake.

The tucker’s as good as it always was -

— I don’t think! ” did you say?

Well, what if it isn’t, we’ll eat it because —

Well, if we didn’t it wouldn’t pay.

We’ve not come out on a picnic, boys,

Nor yet on a pleasure trip,

So we’ll have to give up a few of our joys

When aboard the King’s troopship.

New Zealand troops after the capture of Bapaume

So we’re swinging away on our journey still

And we’ve nothing to trouble us yet,

Save our thoughts of the land that knows no ill

And the folks that we can’t forget.

For a life on the ocean waves all right,

And there’s a good time yet to come;

But as sure as the moon shines bright to-night

There’s no place now like home.

We’re steaming ahead for England and France

All willing to do our bit;

We’re willing to live or die, just as

Chance in her uncertain way thinks fit.

But back of the mind of each one of us

Is the land we are longing to see,

Where bush fire and beach are a part of us

Way back in our “ain countree.”

Paul Graham Clark

SOURCES;

*Initial Source: Dr Connie Ruzich's wonderful website Behind their Lines: https://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2018/08/a-new-zealanders-war.html

Additional Sources

Find my Past, FreeBMD, 

https://www.kinderlibrary.ac.nz/remembering-anzacs-paul-graham-clark/

Leicestershire And Rutland, Soldiers Died 1914-1920

https://www.findmypast.co.uk/transcript?id=GBM%2FLEIC-RUT%2F3904&expand=true&tab=this

Frank Carbaugh (1896 – 1918) - American soldier ("Doughboy") poet

 With thanks to Dr Connie Ruzich” for finding this poet for us

Franklin L. Carbaugh – known as Frank - was born in Greencastle, Pennsylvania, United States of America in 1896.  His parents were George H. Carbaugh and his wife, Alice, nee Deardorff. 

Frank joined the American Army as a non commissioned officer with the 7th Machine Gun Battalion. He was posted to the Western Front and was wounded during the Second Battle of the Marne in late July 1918, by which time his rank was Sergeant.   

While in hospital in France, Frank wrote a poem entitled “The Fields of the Marne” about "war and future peace".  Frank died in August, 1918.  Nearly three years later, in May 1921, his parents met the train that took their youngest son's body back to Pennsylvania for burial in the family plot at Cedar Hill Cemetery in Franklin County. 

("Doughboys” became the most enduring nickname for the troops of General John Pershing's American Expeditionary Forces, who crossed the Atlantic Ocean to join war weary Allied armies fighting on the Western Front during the First World War. )

“The Fields of the Marne”

The fields of the Marne are growing green,

   The river murmurs on and on;

No more the hail of mitrailleuse,

   The cannon from the hills are gone.

The herder leads the sheep afield,

   Where grasses grow o'er broken blade;

And toil-worn women till the soil

   O'er human mold, in sunny glade.

The splintered shell and bayonet

   Are lost in crumbling village wall;

No sniper scans the rim of hills,

   No sentry hears the night bird call.

From blood-wet soil and sunken trench,

   The flowers bloom in summer light;

And farther down the vale beyond,

   The peasant smiles are sad, yet bright.

The wounded Marne is growing green,

   The gash of Hun no longer smarts;

Democracy is born again,

   But what about the troubled hearts?

            —Sgt. Frank Carbaugh

The poem was first published in the American Army’s newspaper “Stars and Stripes,” and in 1919 it was included, along with  83 other poems written by American Doughboys, in a WW1 anthology entitled “Yanks; A.E.F. Verse” (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1919), which can be viewed as a free download via Archive: https://archive.org/details/yanksaefverse00newy/page/n7/mode/2up

Sources:

Original Source:*Dr Connie Ruzich's wonderful website Behind Their Lines :

https://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2018/07/fields-of-marne.html

Additional sources:  Find my Past, 

https://eu.publicopiniononline.com/story/news/2018/11/09/world-war-stories-battlefields/1928931002/

https://eu.echo-pilot.com/story/news/2021/06/01/memorial-day-ceremony-held-cedar-hill-cemetery-greencastle/7491417002/

P.S. When the Peace Treaty was signed in Versailles in 1919, Australian artist, writer and poet Will Dyson (1880 – 1938) drew this cartoon entitled “Peace and Future Cannon Fodder”  

Source:

https://archive.cartoons.ac.uk/record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=P0497

   

Edward L. Davison (1898 - 1970) – Scottish-born poet who later moved to the United States of America

With thanks to Dr Connie Ruzich* for discovering this poet for us

Edward Lewis Davison was born in Fife, Soctland in 1898 and grew up in Newcastle. He left school when he was 12 to support his mother by working as an assistant in a music hall.  In 1914, Edward joined the Royal Navy with the rank of Sub Lieutenant, serving as a Paymaster.   

After the war, Edward went to study Modern Languages at St John's College, Cambridge University on a scholarship.  When at Cambridge Edward edited an anthology of student poetry and met and became friends with the writer J. B. Priestley, with whom he shared accommodation when he moved to live in London. 

While living in London, Edward contributed to The London Mercury and other magazines. He met an American girl, Nat alie Weiner, and followed her to the United States in 1925. Natalie and Edward were married in New York in 1926. Their son Peter Davison was born in June 1928.   Peter also became a poet. 

Edward taught at Vassar College, the University of Miami, and the University of Colorado Boulder, where he was involved in the Colorado Writers 1937 Conference. He was a friend of American poet Robert Frost 

In 1943, during the Second World War, shortly after becoming a Naturalized Citizen of the United States, Edward joined the US Army.  He attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Due to his knowledge of the German language, he was named Director of the Special Projects Division, which was responsible for overseeing the re-education of German prisoners of war.

Edward died on 8th February 1970.

According to Catherine Reilly, Edward’s poetry collections were 

“Poems” (Bell,1920)

“Harvest of Youth: poems” (Harper, New York, 1926)

“The Heart’s Unreason” (Gollancz, 1931.

And he also had a poem published in “Soldiers’ verse” Edited by Patric Dickinson (Muller, 1945)

Sources:   Find my Past, Wilipedia,

Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978). Pp. 106 and 7.

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/02/09/archives/edward-davison-poet-and-teacher-exdean-at-hunter-prolific-writer-is.html

* You can read Edward's WW1 poem for Conscientious Objectors on Dr Connie Ruzich's wonderful Website Behind their Lines here:: https://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2018/07/singing-in-shattered-street.html

James Griffyth Fairfax (1886 -1976) - Australian-born British poet, translator and politician

With grateful thanks to Dr. Connie Ruzich* for reminding

me that I had not yet written a post for this poet

James was born in Sydney, Australia, on 15th July 1886. His parents were Charles Burton Fairfax (1863-1941) and his wife, Florence Marie Fairfax, née Frazer. His great-grandfather, John Fairfax (1804-1877), was a printer, bookseller,and newspaper publisher who emigrated to Australia from Warwickshire, UK in 1838.

Educated in Britain, James attended Winchester College in Hampshire as a boarder, before going on to study at New College, Oxford University. He had poems published in "Isis", "The Idler", and "Pall Mall Magazine"

At the outbreak of the First World War, James joined the army, serving as a Captain in the British Royal Army Service Corps, attached to the 15th Indian Division from 1914-1919. He published two volumes of war poems – “The Temple of Janus” in 1917 and “Mesopotamia” in 1919.

An extract from “The Forest of the Dead 1919” by James Griffyth Fairfax

There are strange trees in that pale field

Of barren soil and bitter yield:

They stand without the city walls;

Their nakedness is unconcealed.

Cross after cross, mound after mound,

And no flowers blossom but are bound

The dying and the dead, in the wreaths

Sad crowns for kings of Underground.

You can read the rest of the poem on the All Poetry website

https://allpoetry.com/James-Griffyth-Fairfax

* Read two more poems by James on Dr. Connie Ruzich’s wonderful website Behind their Lines :

https://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2018/07/memories-of-mesopotamia.html

More information here on Discover War Poets Website:

https://warpoets.org.uk/worldwar1/poets-and-poetry/james-griffyth-fairfax/

And this is an extremely interesting article with a great deal of information:

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/366746/pdf

Additional sources: Find  my Past and 

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/366746/pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairfax_family

https://allpoetry.com/James-Griffyth-Fairfax

https://warpoets.org.uk/worldwar1/poets-and-poetry/james-griffyth-fairfax/

Photograph of James by Mary Laffan and copyright National Library of Australia. 

André Breton (1896 – 1966) - French writer and poet

André Robert Breton was born on 19th February 1896 in Tinchebray, France.   He was the only son born to Louis-Justin Breton, a policeman, and his wife, Marguerite-Marie-Eugénie, nee Le Gouguès, who was a former seamstress.

André studied medicine and was particularly interest in mental illness. His studies were interrupted when he was conscripted into the French Army in the First World War.  André worked in a neurological ward in a hospital in Nantes, France, where he met the Alfred Jarry devotee Jacques Vaché, whose anti-social attitude and disdain for established artistic tradition influenced André considerably. Vaché committed suicide when he was 23, and his war-time letters to Breton and others were published in a volume entitled ‘Lettres de guerre’ (Tr. Letters of War) (1919), for which André Breton wrote four introductory essays.

André's first collection of poems - written before and during the First World War – was published in 1919 with the title “Monte de Piété” (Tr. 'Pawnbroker').  Here is a poem from that collection:

During the post-war years André expanded on his work as a writer and was a pioneer of Dadaism and surrealism, both of which flourished in the disillusioned post-war years.

André died in Paris on 28 September 1966.

You can find out more about André Breton's poems by borrowing this book on line free from Archive

https://archive.org/details/poemsofandrbre00bretrich/page/n7/mode/2up