Peter Baum (1869 – 1916) – German poet and writer

With thanks to AC Benus* for his fantastic work and research, for finding this poet for us and for finding and translating the poem featured.        

Peter Baum was born in Elberfeld, Wuppertal, Germany, on 30th September 1869.  He volunteered at the beginning of the First World War and was killed on 5th June 1916 at the age of 46 in Keckau, near Riga in Latvia.

Peter Baum’s collection of "trench verses" was published posthumously. They have been made available in VERSENSPORN No. 15 for the first time in almost a hundred years.

Wir sitzen da mit wenig Haaren,

Als seien eben wir geboren,

Und Sind doch lange schon bei Jahren.

 Gesichte immer Sich enthüllen,

Als wären wir noch junge Füllen

Mit Zukunftsrauschen in den Ohren.

AC Benus has kindly translated the poem for us:

We sit here with thinning hair in truth,

As if a tribe of newborns in years,

Though we're one already long of tooth.

But our faces unbosom our roles,

As if we were a herd of young foals

With futurity rushing our ears.

from “Schützengrabenverse” (Verlag der Sturm (Tr. Trench Verses)  , Berlin, 1916)

Sources:

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2073822

https://digital.ub.uni-duesseldorf.de/ihd/content/pageview/1069606

AC Benus is the author of "The Thousandth Regiment: A Translation of and Commentary on Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele’s War Poems” by AC Benus (AC Benus, San Francisco, 2020). Along with Hans's story, the book includes original poems as well as translations into English.    ISBN: 978-1657220584 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1657220583

Book details: ISBN: 978-1657220584

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1657220583

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1657220583

https://www.amazon.de/dp/1657220583

Cover photo: Mark Basarab

Ambrose Vickers (1875 - 1956) – poet and Blacksmith

With grateful thanks to Andrew Mackay for finding this poem for us and to Dave Cole via Twitter - who found me the information I needed enabling me to research Private Vickers.   Andrew Mackay also sent me information about “Little Kitchener”.

Ambrose Vickers was born on 12th January 1875 in Bunbury, Chechire, UK.  His parents were Samuel Vickers, a Journeyman bricklayer, and his wife, Mary Vickers, nee Large.  

By the time of the 1891 Census, Ambrose was apprenticed to a local Blacksmith.  The 1901 Census records him as boarding in Benedi Court Street, Bootle cum Linacre, West Derby, Lancashire, with his occupation being Coachsmith. He was still registered at the address in West Derby in 1911.

As far as I can ascertain, Ambrose was in the Army Service Corps during the First World War, serving as a driver.  A further message from Dave Cole via Twitter (@MrCheapSeats) confirms my discovery.

Ambrose survived the war and in 1921 was registered as living in Slack Road, Barnston, Barnston, Wirral, Cheshire, working as a Blacksmith for Liverpool Corporation Electric Tramways Building & Maintanence.

In 1939 he was registered as a retired Blacksmith living in Benedict Street, Bootle, Bootle C.B., Lancashire.

Ambrose died in Liverpool in 1956. 

Unfortunately I can’t find a photograph of Ambrose - if anyone has one please get in touch. The image above the poem on the postcard is of "Little Kitchener" - little Jennie Jackson from Lancashire.  Jennie was known as "Young Kitchener" for the work she did during the First World War, collecting money to fund parcels for the fighting men. Jennie's mother, Kate, dressed Jennie as young Kitchener and they collected enough money to buy a field ambulance too. WW1 poet Thomas Napoleon Smith wrote a poem about Jennie - https://forgottenpoetsofww1.blogspot.com/2018/07/thomas-napoleon-smith-pen-name-tonosa.html

"The postcard shown above was written by Pte. A Vickers in appreciation of a parcel he had received from "Little Kitchener"

Private Ambrose Vickers was not a Burnley man, born in Bunbury in Cheshire, he was a Blacksmith by trade. At the start of the war he was almost 40 years old, and not eligible for front line service."

Bunbury is a village in Cheshire, UK, south of Tarporley and north west of Nantwich on the Shropshire Union Canal.

Sources: Find my Past, FreeBMD, and http://www.burnleyinthegreatwar.info/burnleypicturesandpostcards2.htm

Alain-Fournier - pen name of Henri-Alban Fournier (1886 – 1914) - French author, poet and soldier.

Born Henri-Alban Fournier on 3rd October 1886 in La Chapelle-d'Angillon, in the Cher département in central France, Fournier’s father was a school teacher. 

He studied at the Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, near Paris, where he prepared for the entrance examination to the École Normale Supérieure, but without success. At the Lycée Lakanal, he met Jacques Rivière, and the two became close friends. 

Fournier went on to study at the merchant marine school in Brest. In 1909, Jacques Rivière married Fournier's younger sister Isabelle.

Abandoning his studies in 1907, from 1908 to 1909 Fournier did his military service. Around that time, he published some essays, poems and stories which were later collected and re-published under the title “Miracles”.  

In early 1914, Fournier started work on a second novel – “Colombe Blanchet” - but it remained unfinished when he joined the Army as a Lieutenant in August 1914.  Fournier was killed fighting near Vaux-lès-Palameix (Meuse) one month later, on 22nd September 1914. His body remained unidentified until 1991.

Alain-Fournier wrote the novel  “Le Grand Meaulnes”, published in 1913, which I read at school.   The book has been made into a film twice and is considered a classic of French literature. The story is partly based on his childhood unfolding in an atmosphere of mystical unreality beyond which the world of adulthood is perceived.

I remember when Alain-Fournier’s body was discovered and re-burried in the cemetery of Saint-Remy-la-Calonne, Meuse, Lorraine, France.

http://tonyshaw3.blogspot.com/2019/03/alain-fournier-in-la-tranchee-de.html

You can read some of Fournier's poems here:

https://fortnightlyreview.co.uk/2014/02/poems-alain-fournier/