Charles Edward Byles (1873 – 1944) – British writer, journalis and poet

Charles Edward Byles was born on 7th October 1873 in Hackney, London, UK. His parents were James Cotton Byles, MRCS (1838 – 1874), a physician, and his wife, Edith Adeline Byles, nee Dinham. 

Educated at Uppingham School in Fircroft House, Charles went on to become a journalist. 

In 1897, Charles married Rosalind Hawker. Charles and h is wife initially lived in Wandsworth, London but later moved to Amersham in Buckinghamshire, where Charles died in 1944. 

NOTE:

Founded in 1871 by Reverend George Christian, who was then school Chaplain, Fircroft House is one of the ‘hill houses’, alongside its neighbour Highfield, overlooking the southern approach to Uppingham. A five-minute walk from the main school building, the house sits in private gardens, adjacent to open farmland and the Middle playing fields – giving a real sense of space and freedom. The house has its own football pitch, a games room with table tennis, pool and table football, and a large boys’ kitchen for year-group evenings.

The WW1 collection of poetry written by Charles Edward Byles was entitled “Rupert Brooke’s grave, and o ther poems “ (Erskine Macdonald, London, 1919). 

"Might and Mercy"

HAD  German  might with mercy been allied 

And  chivalry march'd with conquest,  bearing  still 

A heart to love,  nor only hands to kill, 

Then had the gray waves of invasion's tide 

Reach 'd to the furthest flood-mark, there to bide 

Unebbing:  for the vanquish'd lands they fill 

Would cry — " Submit we to the kindlier will : 

What need of further blood ?  too  many  have  died." 

But now — behold Louvain!   Dinant!  and  all 

The tale — so hellish — of a nation's crime 

As haunts not the dark retrospect of Time  ! 

The tide must ebb — and ebb beyond recall. 

Else were life made a murderer's carnival, 

And Earth spun back to its barbaric  prime. 

1914

Page 33

To read about how WW! Poet Stanley Casson organised the placing of a tomb over Rupert Brooke’s grave on the Greek Island of Skyros please see

https://forgottenpoetsofww1.blogspot.com/2015/03/rupert-brooke-1887-1915-british.html

Rupert Brooke's grave 1920s

A recent photograph of Rupert Brooke's grave

Sources:

“Rupert Brooke's grave, and other poems” by Byles, C. E. (Charles Edward), 

(Erskine Macdonald, London, 1919), which is available as a download free via Archive. 

Catherine W. Reilly, “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p. 17. 

https://archive.org/details/rupertbrookesgra00byleuoft/mode/2up

https://archive.org/stream/rupertbrookesgra00byleuoft/rupertbrookesgra00byleuoft_djvu.txt 

https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/charles-edward-byles/3561636/

Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963) – British writer, philosopher and poet

With thanks to Paul Breeze for discovering that Aldoux Husley wrote and published poetry during and about The First World War

Portrait of Aldoux Huxley
 by
John Maler Collier 

Aldous Leonard Huxley was born on 26th July 1894 in Godalming, Surrey, UK. His parents were Leonard Huxley, a writer and schoolmaster, and his first wife, Julia Frances Huxley, nee Arnold. Julia was the niece of poet and critic Matthew Arnold and the writer Mrs. Humphry Ward was her sister.   Julia named him Aldous after a character in one of her sister's novels.

Initially educated at home by his mother and a governess, Aldous went on to study at Balliol College, Oxford University, graduating with a degree in English Literature.  He published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine “Oxford Poetry”.

Exempted from military service due to extremely poor eyesight, during the First World War, Aldous worked on the land as a farm labourer at Garsington Manor near Oxford, home of Lady Ottoline Morrell. While at the Manor, he met several Bloomsbury Group figures, including Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehead, and Clive Bell. In September 1916 Aldous Huxley’s first collection of poetry, "The Burning Wheel", was published by Blackwell.

In 1919, when John Middleton Murry was reorganising “The Athenaeum”  magazine and invited Huxley to join the staff, he accepted immediately, and married Belgian refugee Maria Nys (1899–1955), who he met at Garsington. 

The Huxleys lived with their young son in Italy part of the time during the 1920s, where Aldous used to visit his friend D. H. Lawrence. 

In 1937 the Huxley family went to live in Hollywood, USA. He lived in the U.S., mainly in southern California, and for a time in Taos, New Mexico, until his death on 22nd November 1963. 

As a Hollywood screenwriter Huxley used much of his earnings to bring Jewish and left-wing writer and artist refugees from Hitler's Germany to the US. He worked for many of the major studios including MGM and Disney.

Aldous Huxley died in the UK on 22nd November 1963. 

NOTES:

Garsington Manor in the village of Garsington, near Oxford, UK, is a country house, dating from the 17th century. The owner in the early 20th century was Lady Ottoline Morrell, who held court there from 1915 to 1924.

Garsington became a haven for the Morrells’ friends.  In 1916, they invited conscientious objectors among their friends to go and work on the home farm for the duration of The First World War - as civilian work classified as being of national importance was recognised as an alternative to military service.

“Oxford Poetry”, founded in 1910,  is the oldest dedicated poetry magazine published in the UK, and one of the oldest in the world.

 “The Athenæum” was a British literary magazine published in London, UK from 1828 to 1921.

Although Aldous Huxley is famous as a writer of novels, his WW1 poetry collections were “The Burning Wheel” (Blackwell, Oxford, 1916), “The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems” (Blackwell, Oxford, 1918) and he had two poems published in the anthology “Oxford Poetry 1918”.

Aldoux Huxley by
Vanessa Bell

ALDOUS HUXLEY (BALLIOL)

TWO SONGS

I

THICK-flowered is the trellis

That hides our joys

From prying eyes of malice

And all annoys,

And we lie rosily bowered.

Through the long afternoons

And evenings endlessly

Drawn out, when summer swoons

In perfume windlessly,

Sounds our light laughter,

With whispered words between

And silent kisses.

None but the flowers have seen

Our white caresses —

Flowers and the bright-eyed birds.

II

MEN of a certain age

Grow sad remembering

Their youth’s libertinage,

Drinking and chambering.

She, whom devotedly

Once they solicited,

Proves all too bloatedly

Gross when revisited

Twenty years after,

Sordid years,

Oh, bitter laughter

And bitter tears!

SONG OF POPLARS

SHEPHERD, to yon tall poplars tune your flute:

Let them pierce, keenly, subtly shrill,

The slow blue rumour of the hill;

Let the grass cry with an anguish of evening gold,

And the great sky be mute.

Then hearken how the poplar trees unfold

Their buds, yet close and gummed and blind,

In airy leafage of the mind,

Rustling in silvery whispers the twin-hued scales

That fade not nor grow old.

“Poplars and fountains and you cypress spires

Springing in dark and rusty flame,

Seek you aught that hath a name?

Or say, say: Are you all an upward agony

Of undefined desires?

“Say, are you happy in the golden march

Of sunlight all across the day?

Or do you watch the uncertain way

That leads the withering moon on cloudy stairs

Over the heaven’s wide arch?

“Is it towards sorrow or towards joy you lift

The sharpness of your trembling spears?

Or do you seek, through the grey tears

That blur the sky, in the heart of the triumphing blur,

A deeper, calmer rift?”

So; I have tuned my music to the trees,

And there were voices, dim below

Their shrillness, voices swelling slow

In the blue murmur of hills, and a golden cry

And then vast silences.

From “Oxford Poetry 1918” pp 33 and 34. 

THE BURNING WHEEL.

Wearied of its own turning,

Distressed with its own busy restlessness,

Yearning to draw the circumferent pain —

The rim that is dizzy with speed —

To the motionless centre, there to rest,

The wheel must strain through agony

On agony contracting, returning

Into the core of steel.

And at last the wheel has rest, is still,

Shrunk to an adamant core:

Fulfilling its will in fixity.

But the yearning atoms, as they grind

Closer and closer, more and more

Fiercely together, beget

A flaming fire upward leaping,

Billowing out in a burning,

Passionate, fierce desire to find

The infinite calm of the mother's breast.

And there the flame is a Christ-child sleeping,

Bright, tenderly radiant;

All bitterness lost in the infinite

Peace of the mother's bosom.

But death comes creeping in a tide

Of slow oblivion, till the flame in fear

Wakes from the sleep of its quiet brightness

And burns with a darkening passion and pain,

Lest, all forgetting in quiet, it perish.

And as it burns and anguishes it quickens,

Begetting once again the wheel that yearns —

Sick with its speed — for the terrible stillness

Of the adamant core and the steel-hard chain.

And so once more

Shall the wheel revolve till its anguish cease

In the iron anguish of fixity;

Till once again

Flame billows out to infinity,

Sinking to a sleep of brightness

In that vast oblivious peace.

VISION

I had been sitting alone with books,

Till doubt was a black disease,

When I heard the cheerful shout of rooks

In the bare, prophetic trees.

Bare trees, prophetic of new birth,

You lift your branches clean and free

To be a beacon to the earth,

A flame of wrath for all to see.

And the rooks in the branches laugh and shout

To those that can hear and understand;

"Walk through the gloomy ways of doubt

With the torch of vision in your hand."

THE CHOICE.

Comrade, now that you're merry

And therefore true,

Say — where would you like to die

And have your friend to bury

What once was you?

"On the top of a hill

With a peaceful view

Of country where all is still?"...

Great God, not I!

I'd lie in the street

Where two streams meet

And there's noise enough to fill

The outer ear,

While within the brain can beat

Marches of death and life,

Glory and joy and fear,

Peace of the sort that moves

And clash of strife

And routs of armies fleeing.

There would I shake myself clear

Out of the deep-set grooves

Of my sluggish being.

“ THE BURNING WHEEL” BY ALDOUS HUXLEY (B. H. Blackwell, Oxford, 1916)

Sources:  Find my Past, FreeBMD, Wikipedia and

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70771

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-burning-wheel-aldous-huxley/1138559289

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-burning-wheel-aldous-huxley/1138559289

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Burning-Wheel-Aldous-Huxley-ebook/dp/B07BS5BGJP

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/47912/47912-h/47912-h.htm

https://www.oxfordpoetry.com/

https://archive.org/details/defeatofyouthoth00huxluoft/page/n5/mode/2up

 

James Laughlin Hughes (1846 – 1935) – Canadian public speaker, educator, school inspector, author and poet

With thanks to Stanley Kaye – the Poppy Man – for sending me a WW1 poem written by J.L. Hughes. 

James Laughlin Hughes was born near Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada on 20th  February 1846. James’ father came from County Tyrone (Northern Ireland). His mother was the daughter of a British Artillery officer serving in Lower Canada. James was the eldest of their 11 children

At the age of 12 James passed the examination for a second-class teaching certificate and finished his schooling two years later. He worked on the family farm until he was 17, then accepted a six-month teaching position in Hope Township’s school section 10, which began his teaching career.

James wrote at least 29 books, including 8 works of poetry, and scores of articles on pedagogy, among other subjects. When his retirement was announced, a tribute published in the “Toronto Star Weekly” labelled him “a many sided man.”

James died in Toronto on 3rd January 1935.

A poem entitled “His Unfinished Story” by James L. Hughes, Toronto, Canada … (ended in Belgium 14th November 1915)   

Sources:  Information supplied by Stanley Kaye, 

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/james-laughlin-hughes

http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/hughes_james_laughlin_16F.html

Catherine W. Reilly.- “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p. 397.

George Chester Duggan (1885 - ? ) - Irish poet and Civil Servant

George Chester Duggan was born on 5th February1885 in Parsonstown, King's Co. (Offaly), Ireland. His parents were George Duggan, born in Co. Fermanagh, Manager of the Provincial Bank, College Green, Dublin, and his wife, Emily Dugga, née Grant.  

On the 1911 Census his name is registered as Chester George Duggan. The family later lived at Ferney, Greystones, Co. Wicklow. 

Educated at the High School, Dublin, and Trinity College Dublin, where he was a senior moderator and double gold medallist (1907), George graduated in 1907 with a Batchelor of Arts Degree (BA). In 1908 he entered the British civil service and served in the Admiralty (1908–10, 1914–16), chief secretary's office, Dublin Castle (1910–14, 1919–21), and Ministry of Shipping (1917–19). 

In 1912 George married Elizabeth Gore, youngest daughter of Rev. Robert Blair of Ballinamallard, Co. Fermanagh. They had one daughter.

“The Watchers on Gallipoli” is a 43 page poetic work, published in 1921 as a dedication to Irish poet and Civil Servant George Chester Duggan’s two brothers – George Grant (Royal Irish Fusiliers) and Jack (5th Royal Irish Regiment) who both died at Sulva in August 1915.

A line from the poem:

“March away my brothers, softly march away“ 

Sources:

Catherine W. Reilly.-  “English Poetry of the First World War:  A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978), p. 117.

Find my Past, FreeBMD,

https://fass.open.ac.uk/sites/fass.open.ac.uk/files/files/new-voices-journal/issue10/allen.pdf

https://www.dib.ie/biography/duggan-george-chester-a2821#:~:text=Duggan%2C%20George%20Chester%20(1885%E2%80%93,Emily%20Duggan%20(n%C3%A9e%20Grant).

https://www.mayobooks.ie/March-Away-Brothers-Irish-Soldiers-Music-Great-War-9781907535246

Who was the poet C.A.A.?

 To C.A.L. (The Hon. Charles Lister) by C.A.A.

To have laughed and talked - wise, witty, fantastic, feckless -

To have mocked at rules and rulers and learnt to obey,

To have led your men with a daring adored and reckless,

To have struck your blow for Freedom, the old straight way:

To have hated the world and lived among those who love it,

To have thought great thoughts and lived till you knew them true,

To have loved men more than yourself and have died to prove it -

Yes, Charles, this is to have lived: was there more to do?

The poem was first published in London, UK in “The Times” newspaper in November 1917 and reprinted in February 1918 in “The Muse in Arms” anthology Edited by E. B. Osborne

https://www.firstworldwar.com/poetsandprose/mia_tocal.htm?fbclid=IwAR2N7bpLrnxl0q8FmhvWU8BNpCa7etzdUDO3dZlwySCKhukTPiYLZRgFrv4_aem_AWEgHouUrlPM_D7vmjgOBsJM6nGRaO5AWdomSIbrkOk0csq3z5BSPC78JM-0gr4yyQyooCN-CV20OUNC8uZwOKHc

Duncan Campbell Scott (1862 – 1947) – Canadian poet, writer and Civil Servant

Duncan was born on 2nd August 1863 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. His parens were the Rev. William Scott and his wife, Janet, nee MacCallum. Educated at Stanstead Wesleyan College, Duncan also learnt to play the piano and became an accomplished pianist.  

Duncan’s ambition was to study medicine and become a doctor, but that was too expensive.  In 1879 he joined the federal civil service and worked as a Civil Servant, spending all his working life in the same branch of government - the Department of Indian Affairs. In 1913, Duncan became Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs, the highest non-elected position possible in his department, and remained in the post until his retirement in 1932.

In 1894, Duncan married Belle Botsford, a concert violinist, who he had met at a recital in Ottawa. They had one child, Elizabeth, who died when she was12 years old.

Belle died in 1929 and in 1931 Duncan married the poet Elise Aylen. After his retirement, Duncan and Elise spent much of the 1930s and 1940s travelling in Europe, Canada and the United States of America. 

Duncan died in December 1947 in Ottawa at the age of 85 and was buried in Ottawa's Beechwood Cemetery.

Photo of Scott with Rupert Brooke from Rupert Booke Remembered Facebook Page:

As a poet, Duncan became a member of the group known as the "Confederation poets" which also included Charles G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carman and Archibald Lampman.  Duncan’s first poetry collection, “The Magic House and Other Poems”, was published in 1893 and was followed by seven more volumes of verse: Labor and the Angel (1898), New World Lyrics and Ballads (1905), Via Borealis (1906), Lundy's Lane and Other Poems (1916), Beauty and Life (1921), The Poems of Duncan Campbell Scott (1926) and The Green Cloister (1935).

“The Fallen” by Duncan Campbell Scott 

Those we have loved the dearest,

The bravest and the best,

Are summoned from the battle

To their eternal rest;

There they endure the silence,

Here we endure the pain —

He that bestows the Valor

Valor resumes again.

O, Master of all Being,

Donor of Day and Night,

Of Passion and of Beauty,

Of Sorrow and Delight,

Thou gav'st them the full treasure

Of that heroic blend —

The Pride, the Faith, the Courage,

That holdeth to the end.

Thou gavest us the Knowledge

Wherein their memories stir—

Master of Life, we thank Thee

That they were what they were.

Sources: Find my Past, Wikipedia,

https://allpoetry.com/poem/14330124-The-Fallen-by-Duncan-Campbell-Scott

https://www.facebook.com/rupertbrookepoet

Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p. 400.

Robert Lee Frost (1874 – 1963) - American poet

Robert Frost c. 1910

Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, California, USA on 26th March 1874..  His parents were William Prescott Frost, Jr., a journalist and teacher, and his wife Isabelle, nee Moodie. His mother was from Scotland and his father was descended from Nicholas Frost of Tiverton, Devon, England, who sailed to New Hampshire in 1634 on the “Wolfrana”.

Robert’s first poem was published in his high school's magazine.  He studied at Harvard University from 1897 to 1899, then became a teacher.   

On 19th December 1895 Robert married Elinor White in  Massachusetts, United States.

In 1912 Robert and his family travelled to England – living initially in Beaconsfield, a small town in Buckinghamshire. His first book of poetry, “A Boy's Will”, was published the following year. In England Robert met fellow poets, including Edward Thomas (a member of the group known as the Dymock poets and Frost's inspiration for "The Road Not Taken"), T. E. Hulme, and Ezra Pound.

Robert returned to America in 1915 and bought a farm in Franconia, New Hampshire, where he launched a career of writing, teaching, and lecturing.

The following poem was written to tease his chronically indecisive friend and fellow poet Edward Thomas, who misinterpreted the meaning, enlisted in the British Army and was killed fighting on the Western Front in France on the First Day of the Battle of Arras – Easter Monday, 9th April 1917. Edward Thomas was buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery at Agny, France – Row 3, 43.

“The Road Not Taken” was originally published in “The Atlantic” magazine in 1915 along with two other poems from Frost.

The Road Not Taken  BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Sources:  

Find my Past, Wikipedia, 

Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978), p. 396

https://forgottenpoetsofww1.blogspot.com/2019/03/edward-thomas-1878-

Robert Bagster Wilson Vinter, MC (1896 – 1916) – British soldier and poet

With grateful thanks to Rachel Hassall, Archivist at Sherborne School, Dorset, UK

Robert was born in Torpoint, St. Germans, Cornwall, UK on 5th April 1896.  His parents were Sydney Garrett Vinter, a medical practitioner, and his wife, Frances Vinter, nee Toms.  Robert had a sister – Frances Jean, born 1904.

Educated at Sherborne School, Dorset, Robert was awarded a scholarship to study at Keble College, Oxford.  However, the First World War intervened and instead he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant into the 6th Worcestershire Regiment.  

Posted to the Western Front, Robert was awarded the Military Cross on 28th July 1916 for conspicuous gallantry during an attack on an enemy crater.   He was killed in action near Les Boeufs (Vimy Ridge) in France on 31st October 1916, during the Battle of the Somme.  Robert is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial in France and on the War Memorial in Torpoint, Cornwall.  

An untitled poem written by Robert:

The Saviour fast nailed to the Cross,

Suffered theloss of comforting divine

Because the world’s sin burdened him too much

With black despair. Some of that sin was mine.

Hard sought, scarce won, He set my spirit right

And bade me follow up th’illumined way!

Nor leaves me now amid the rocks and thorns,

Uncomforted, but is my staff and stay.

October, 1916 R.B.W.V.

Published in “The Shirburnian” magazine of Sherborne School in April 1917. 

Sources:

“The Shirburnian” magazine, April 1917

Find my Past, FreeBMD, 

“Supplement to The London Gazette, 27 July 1916

http://somme-roll-of-honour.com/Units/british/2nd_worcestershire.htm

The Rev. Geoffrey Anktell Studdert Kennedy MC, CF (1883 - 1929) – British Anglican priest, Rugby player, poet and WW1 Chaplain, who was known as 'Woodbine Willy'

Born in Leeds, Yorkshire, UK, on 27th June 1883, Geoffrey Anktell Studdert Kennedy’s parents were William Studdert Kennedy, Vicar of St Mary's, Quarry Hill in Leeds, and his wife, Jeanette, nee Anktell.  Geoffrey was the seventh of nine children. His paternal grandfather, Robert Mitchell Kennedy, was Dean of Clonfert in County Galway, Ireland from 1850 until his death in 1864. One of Geoffrey's brothers was Hugh A. Studdert Kennedy, a biographer of American religious leader Mary Baker Eddy.

Geoffrey was educated at Leeds Grammar School before going on to study at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, where he gained a degree in classics and divinity in 1904. After a year's training at Ripon Clergy College, a Church of England theological college in Cuddesdon, Oxfordshire, Geoffrey became a curate at St Andrew's Church, Rugby, and then, in 1914, the Vicar of St. Paul's, Worcester.

When the First World War began, Geoffrey volunteered as a Chaplain to the British Army on the Western Front, where he gained the nickname "Woodbine Willie". In 1917, he was awarded the Military Cross at Messines Ridge after running into no man's land to help the wounded during an attack on the German frontline.

During the war he supported the British military effort with enthusiasm. Attached to a bayonet-training service, Geoffrey toured with boxers and wrestlers to give morale-boosting speeches about the usefulness of the bayonet. One of his inspirational speeches is vividly described by A. S. Bullock as "the most extraordinary talk I ever heard'. Bullock notes that the listeners 'were a very rough, tough lot, but they sat spellbound", and quotes a section of the speech, at the end of which "everybody sprang to their feet and cheered him to the echo".

Geoffrey wrote a number of poems about his experiences, and these were published by Hodder & Stoughton under the tittles “Rough Rhymes of a Padre” (1918), “More Rough Rhymes”(1919), “Songs of faith and doubt” (1922), “The Sorrows of God, and other poems” (1921) and a collection of his works was published under the title “The Unutterable Beauty” by Hodder & Stoughton in 1927.

Geoffrey also had a poem published in “A Treasury of War Poetry : British and American poems of the World War, 1914 – 1919” edited by George Herbert Clarke (Hodder & Stoughton, 1919). 

THE SECRET

You were askin' 'ow we sticks it, 

Sticks this blarsted rain and mud,

'Ow it is we keeps on smilin'

When the place runs red wi' blood.

Since you're askin' I can tell ye,

And I thinks I tells ye true,

But it ain't official, mind ye,

It's a tip twixt me and you.

For the General thinks it's tactics,

And the bloomin' plans 'e makes.

And the C.O. thinks it's trainin',

And the trouble as he takes.

Sergeant-Major says it's drillin',

And 'is straffin' on parade,

Doctor swears it's sanitation,

And some patent stinks 'e's made.

Padre tells us its religion,

And the Spirit of the Lord;

But I ain't got much religion,

And I sticks it still, by Gawd.

Quarters kids us it's the rations,

And the dinners as we gets.

But I knows what keeps us smilin'

It's the Woodbine Cigarettes.

For the daytime seems more dreary,

And the night-time seems to drag

To eternity of darkness,

When ye ave'nt got a fag.

Then the rain seems some'ow wetter,

And the cold cuts twice as keen,

And ye keeps on seein' Boches,

What the Sargint 'asn't seen.

If ole Fritz 'as been and got ye,

And ye 'ave to stick the pain,

If ye 'aven't got a fag on,

Why it 'urts as bad again.

When there ain't no fags to pull at,

Then there's terror in the ranks.

That's the secret - (yes, I'll 'ave one)

Just a fag - and many Tanks.

'Woodbine Willy'

THE SPIRIT

When there ain't no gal to kiss you,

And the postman seems to miss you,

And the fags have skipped an issue,

Carry on.

When ye've got an empty belly,

And the bulley's rotten smelly,

And you're shivering like a jelly,

Carry on.

When the Boche has done your chum in,

And the sergeant's done the rum in,

And there ain't no rations comin',

Carry on.

When the world is red and reeking,

And the shrapnel shells are shrieking,

And your blood is slowly leaking,

Carry on.

When the broken battered trenches,

Are like the bloody butchers' benches,

And the air is thick with stenches,

Carry on.

Carry on,

Though your pals are pale and wan,

And the hope of life is gone,

Carry on.

For to do more than you can,

Is to be a British man,

Not a rotten 'also ran,'

Carry on..

'Woodbine Willy'

Sources:  Find my Past, FreeBMD, Wikipedia

Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978).  Pp 5 and 185 - 186

James Reese Europe (1881 – 1919) – lyricist, composer, musician, band leader and WW1 soldier

With thanks to John Daniel for reminding me that I had not yet written about James Reese Europe, found for us by Dr. Connie Ruzich 

Born in Mobile, Alabama, USA on 22nd February 1881, James’ parents were Henry Jefferson Europe (1848–1899) and his wife Loraine Europe, nee Saxon (1849–1930).  James had four siblings, Minnie Europe (Mrs. George Mayfield; 1868–1931), Ida S. Europe (1870–1919), John Newton Europe (1875–1932), and Mary Loraine (1883–1947).  The family moved to Washington, D.C., when James was 10 years old. 

During the First World War, James was commissioned into the New York Army National Guard and served as a Lieutenant with the 369th Infantry Regiment (known as the "Harlem Hellfighters") when it was assigned to the French Army. James was the first African-American officer to enter the trenches of WW1 and the first  to lead troops in combat.

Additional information from John Daniel:  France awarded the Regiment the Croix de Guerre. One hundred-and-seventy-one of the Regiment's men received individual Croix de Guerre medals for their valour during the First World War. 

While in France James directed the regimental band to great acclaim. In February and March 1918, James Reese Europe and his military band travelled over 2,000 miles in France, performing for British, French and American military audiences, as well as French civilians. 

The "Hellfighters" also made their first recordings in France for the Pathé Brothers. The first concert included a French march, and the Stars and Stripes Forever, as well as syncopated numbers such as "The Memphis Blues", which, according to a later description of the concert by band member Noble Sissle "... started ragtimitis in France".

Injured during a gas attack, James used his time in hospital to compose music; among the songs he wrote while recuperating was “On Patrol in No Man’s Land.”° 

“On Patrol in No Man’s Land”

What's the time? nine? all in line

Alright, boys, now take it slow

Are you ready? Steady!

Very good, Eddie.

Over the top, let's go

Quiet, sly it, else you'll start a riot

Keep your proper distance, follow 'long

Cover, smother, when you see me hover

Obey my orders and you won't go wrong

There's a minnenwerfer coming --                               

look out (bang!)

Hear that roar, there's one more 

Stand fast, there's a Very Light                                   

Don't gasp or they'll find you alright

Don't start to bombing with those hand grenades

There's a machine gun, holy spades!

Alert, gas! Put on your masks

A-just it correctly and hurry up fast

Drop! There's a rocket for the Boche barrage                  

Down, hug the ground,

close as you can, don't stand

Creep and crawl, follow me, that's all

What do you hear? Nothing near

Don't fear, all is clear

That's the life of a stroll

When you take a patrol

Out in No Man's Land!

Ain't it grand?

Out in No Man's Land.

James Reese Europe

You can listen to the 1919 recording of the song here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeIET9ZIkGk

After his return home in February 1919, James stated, "I have come from France more firmly convinced than ever that Negros should write Negro music. We have our own racial feeling and if we try to copy whites we will make bad copies ... We won France by playing music which was ours and not a pale imitation of others, and if we are to develop in America we must develop along our own lines."   

James was one of the first African-American musicians to make it to mainstream - James Reese Europe (more commonly known as “Jim Europe”) was the first black bandleader to record in the United States and the first to conduct a black orchestra performing ragtime/jazz music on the concert stage of New York’s Carnegie Hall.

James died on 9th May1919 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery · Arlington,  Arlington County, Virginia, USA.

Sources:  Information kindly supplied by John Daniel, Wikipedia 

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6553895/james-reese-europe   and 

https://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2017/02/out-in-no-mans-land.html

Dudley Eyre Persse (1892 - 1915) – Irish poet and WW1 soldier

 

With grateful thanks to Ciaran Conlan for finding the link that led to the discovery of this forgotten WW1 soldier poet and to Derek O Byrne White for his help in discovering that Dudley was a poet and finding out more about him.   

Dudley Eyre Persse was born on 14th August 1892 at Eyrecourt, Portumna, County Galway, Ireland (Eire).  His parents were Alfred Lovaine Persse and his wife, Florence Geraldine Persse, nee Eyre.

On the Census of 1911, when he was 18 and listed as a scholar, Dudley was recorded living in his parents' house at 20.2 Grove Park (Rathmines & Rathgar West, Dublin).

During the First World War, Dudley served as a Captain in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, Unit 4th Batallion, attached to 2nd Batallion. He was seriously wounded while on active service on the Western Front -   

‘He saw some Germans going into a wood some distance off and wanted to telephone to the General.  There was no telephone in the trench, so he ran 80 yards across the open in a hail of bullets and telephoned from another trench. The General ordered the wood to be shelled at once and commended him for what he had done. He also found that the Germans were mining the trench, and started counter-mining, which stopped the enemy’s game, so he did all he could bravely, poor boy.’ (De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour)

Sadly, Dudley died of his wounds  on 1st February 1915 at No. 2 Casualty Clearing Station, Bailleul, France.  Dudley was buried in Bailleul Communal Cemetery, Bailleul, Departement du Nord, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France; Grave Reference:  PLOT F. 6.

Derek O Byrne White put me in touch with Gerard Kearnery  who has published two books about the extremely interesting Persse Family – “The Perse Family of County Galloway” and “In Days That Were: The Great War and Beyond” – both  books are available to purchase from http://www.kennys.ie

I am hoping to be able to up-date this post with further information.

Sources:

A tag from Ciaran Conlan on a post on a Facebook page commemorating Irish Soldiers of WW1

Additional Sources:  

https://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000134590

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Persse-173

https://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/clare_men_women_great_war_29.pdf

     

Edouard Chiesa, Croix de Guerre (1887 - 1915) – French poet

With thanks to Yetkin İşcen who posted information about this poet on the Facebook page Artists of the First World War And to Lyn Edmonds via Twitter - @edmondslynEric Ingouf via Twitter - @misteringouf – for considerable additional information 

Edouard Paul Chiesa was born in Marseille, France on 30th January 1887.  During his milirary service in the 2nd Regiment of Mountain Artillery (2e Régiment d’Artillerie de Montagne), Edouard reached the rank of Maréchal de Logis (Tr. 'marshal of lodgings').  

When his military service ended in 1913, Edouard became a Reserve Second Lieutenant and went to work in an office.  He continued writing poetry and articles, sending them to local newspapers. The Bulletin des Écrivains of 1914 identifies Edouard Chiesa as a regular contributor to newspapers in the South of France.

Maréchal de Logis is a sub-officer rank used by some units of the French Armed Forces. It is traditionally a cavalry unit rank. There are three distinct ranks of maréchal des logis, which are generally the equivalents of sergeant ranks (although they generally have less responsibility than a British or Commonwealth sergeant).

When war broke out in 1914, Edouard rejoined his Regiment and served in France until he was posted to Gallipoli, where he was killed on 7th August 1915.

AU JOUR LE JOUR (IMPRESSIONS ET FRAGMENTS)

1. APRÈS LE DÉPART :

Le navire s'est éloigné. L'espace est large.

On aperçoit la ville au loin telle une marge.

Le ciel, qui joint la mer au bord de l'horizon,

Semble, sous le soleil couchant, en fusion,

L'air est tout rose où vont en planant les mouettes.

Les brises ont fraîchi. Mais, les lèvres muettes,

Les passagers assis songent, les yeux sur l'eau,

Comme songent ceux qui s'en vont. Un matelot

Furtivement passe, pieds nus, dans le silence

Où la machine bat, semblant un cœur immense.

English trnslation:

DAY BY DAY (PRINTS AND FRAGMENTS)

1. AFTER DEPARTURE:

The ship has moved away. The space is wide.

We can see the city in the distance like a margin.

The sky, which joins the sea to the edge of the horizon,

Seems, under the setting sun, in fusion,

The air is all pink where the seagulls glide.

The breezes have freshened. But, with silent lips,

The seated passengers are thinking, their eyes on the water,

As those who leave think. A sailor

Furtively passes, barefoot, in silence

Where the engine beats, resembling an immense heart.

Gravestone found by Yetkin İşcen

Yetkin İşcen found Edouard Chiesa's grave stone in an olive grove in Gelibolu Seddülbahir, near today's Turkish monument.

Sources: 

Information supplied by Yetkin İşcen via https://www.facebook.com/groups/385353788875799

https://pgg.parisnanterre.fr/lesindividus2/brouillon-auto-86

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k10409590/f2.image.r=%22bulletin%20des%20%C3%A9crivains%22

CROSS, Tim. "The Lost Voices of World War 1 An International Anthology of Writers, Poets and Playwrights" (Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd., London, 1989), p. 391

Poems and prose by Edouard Chiesa were included in “Anthologie des écrivains mort à la guerre 1914-18 (Association des écrivains combattants, Amiens, 1924 – 26 – 5 volumes) – Volume 3 – pp. 167 - 170

https://books.google.co.uk/books?redir_esc=y&hl=fr&id=Woc6AAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=Chiesa+

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015065457205

WW1 song lyrics written by a member of the 5th (Reserve) Battalion, New Zealand Rifle Brigade (Earl of Liverpool’s Own),

 

With thanks to Andrew Mackay and Jane Tutte via Andrew’s Facebook page:

Published in “The Taranaki Herald” on 31 December 1918, this appears to have been written by a member of the 5th (Reserve) Battalion, New Zealand Rifle Brigade (Earl of Liverpool’s Own), which was then serving at Brocton Camp in Staffordshire. 

The battalion had been stationed at Sling Camp on Salisbury Plain since June 1916, but the accommodation at the camp became overcrowded and on 15 August 1917 the N.Z.R.B. Reserve Troops were moved to tents at Tidworth Pennings. However, the canvas camp would not be suitable for the troops as colder weather approached and an alternative station was required. It was decided to quarter the battalion on Cannock Chase, where more suitable hutted accommodation was available, and on 27 September the battalion entrained for Brocton, which lies at Cannock Chase between Stafford and Cannock. The strength of the N.Z.R.B. Reserve Troops at this time was 1,925 all ranks, and they were joined by the 27th Reinforcement, which had disembarked at Liverpool from New Zealand and had arrived at Brocton ten days previously.

The units were reorganised to become the 5th (Reserve) Battalion, The New Zealand Rifle Brigade, and Brocton Camp was designated the New Zealand Rifle Brigade Reserve Depot. The “Dinks,” as the Riflemen were known, remained on Cannock Chase until 14 June 1919, when the last detachment of the 5th (Reserve) Battalion left Brocton for Codford Camp.

Sources: The poem was kindly provided by Historian and author Andrew Mackay and the link to information regarding the lyrics was provided by Jane Tutte:

https://ourwar1915.wordpress.com/2017/09/28/the-battalion-national-anthem-a-verse-from-the-dinks/?fbclid=IwAR3cCPnmS1zDK9REo-K1H32a5W2XOd9nW5Ko9LVgxo9Z5yiJ9EdBQomkv8s

Neil Munro (1863 - 1930) - Scottish WW1 Writer, Poet, newspaper Editor and War Correspondent

Neil Munro by
William Strang RA

Neil Munro was born in Inveraray, Stornoway, Ross & Cromarty, Scotland on 3rd June 1863.  He became a journalist, newspaper editor, poet, author and literary critic.  He married Jessie E. Adam and they lived in Busby, Renfrewshire, Scotland. They had five children.  At the outbreak of war in August 1914, Neil commented in verse:

       “Come awa, Jock, and cock your bonnet,

Swing your kilt as best ye can;

Audl Dumbarton’s Drums are dirlin’

         Come awa, Jock, and kill your man.”

Neil Munro as official
war correspondent, WW1

In his capacity as an official war correspondent, Neil visited the Western Front several times in 1914 and 1917.  The war touched him personally when his elder son, Hugh Adam Munro – a Captain in the 1st/8th battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders – was killed in France on active service on 22nd September 1915. Neil then concentrated on journalism again, but his work was affected by his poor health and the death of his son.

Neil died on 22nd December 1930.

Neil Munro’s WW1 poems were published by William Blackwood and Sons Ltd., Edinburgh in 1931, with the title “Poetry by Neil Munro” – with a preface by John Buchan. 

Some of Neil Munro’s poems were also published in 12 WW1 anthologies, among them:

Clarke, George Herbert 1873-1953 .- “ A Treasury of war poetry: British and American poems of the World War, 1914 – 1919.”  With intro. And notes. Second series. Houghton Mifflin, Boston (Mass.) 1919, which is available to read as a free download on Archive:

https://archive.org/stream/s2treasuryofwar00claruoft/s2treasuryofwar00claruoft_djvu.txt

NEIL MUNRO:  “Pipes  in  Arras” pp. 27 - 28

PIPES IN ARRAS  (APRIL 1917) 

IN the burgh toun of Arras 

When gloaming had come on, 

Fifty pipers played Retreat 

As if they had been one, 

And the Grande Place of Arras 

Hummed with the Highland drone! 

Then to the ravaged burgh, 

Champed into dust and sand, 

Came with the pipers' playing, 

Out of their own loved land, 

Sea-sounds that moan for sorrow 

On a dispeopled strand. 

There are in France no voices 

To speak of simple things, 

And tell how winds will whistle 

Through palaces of kings; 

Now came the truth to Arras 

In the chanter's warblings: 

“O build in pride your towers, 

But think not they will last; 

The tall tower and the shealing 

Alike must meet the blast, 

And the world is strewn with shingle 

From  dwellings of the past." 

But  to  the  Grande  Place,  Arras, 

Came,  too,  the  hum  of  bees, 

That  suck  the  sea-pink's  sweetness 

From  isles  of  the  Hebrides, 

And  in  lona  fashion 

Homes  mid  old  effigies: 

"Our  cells  the  monks  demolished 

To  make  their  mead  of  yore, 

And  still  though  we  be  ravished 

Each  Autumn  of  our  store, 

While  the  sun  lasts,  and  the  flower, 

Tireless  we'll  gather  more." 

Up  then  and  spake  with  twitt'rings 

Out  of  the  chanter  reed,  ^ 

Birds  that  each  Spring  to  Appin, 

Over  the  oceans  speed, 

And  in  its  ruined  castles 

Make  love  again  and  breed: 

"Already  see  our  brothers 

Build  in  the  tottering  fane! 

Though  France  should  be  a  desert, 

While  love  and  Spring  remain, 

Men  will  come  back  to  Arras, 

And  build  and  weave  again.'* 

So  played  the  pipes  in  Arras 

Their  Gaelic  symphony, 

Sweet  with  old  wisdom  gathered 

In  isles  of  the  Highland  sea, 

And  eastward  towards  Cambrai, 

Roared  the  artillery. 

Neil  Munro

Sources:  Wiki[pedia, Find my Past, FreeBMD,

Catherine W. Reilly.- “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin, Press, New York, 1978). P. 232, 

Clarke, George Herbert 1873-1953 .- “ A Treasury of war poetry: British and American poems of the World War, 1914 – 1919.”  With intro. And notes. Second series. Houghton Mifflin, Boston (Mass.) 1919.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world-war-1/466382/Scotland-the-brave-Tough-kilties-battled-for-Britain-in-WWI

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poet/neil-munro/

http://www.inverclydeww1.org/honour-roll/hugh-adam-munro

Pastel Portrait of Neil Munro by William Strang RA (13 February 1859 – 12 April 1921) - a Scottish painter and printmaker who illustrated the works of Bunyan, Coleridge and Kipling.

Arthur Keedwell Harvey James (1875 – 1917) – British actor, soldier poet, Freemason and writer who took the stage/pen name Arthur Scott Craven

I have not been able to find much definite information about Arthur, although there is an interesting account of her early life written by his daughter who was born in 1906 and also became a writer. 

According to my extensive research, Arthur Keedwell Harvey James was born in 1875. His parents were Stephen and Sarah Harvey James.  Arthur was educated at Shrewsbury School in Shropshire, leaving In 1888. Arthur became an actor, adopting the stage name Arthur Scott-Craven, and starring in 'Ivanhoe'.  He wrote a number of books, poems and plays.

He was a Freemason – a member of the Drury Lane Lodge.

Arthur Married Meliora Louisa Harvey-James, née Milner, 1875-1944. – their son Basil Milner Keedwell James was born on 24th December 1904 and a daughter, Olive, was born in 1906. Arthur and Louisa separated at some point in 1912.

Within two days of the start of the First World War in August 1914, by which time he was nearly forty years old, Arthur applied for a commission in the Army. He wrote to all his friends urging them enlist. His application was rejected on health grounds, but he made his way down to the headquarters of The Artists Rifles and stood for the most part of two days in the queue that gathered at its doors, eager to enrol, before he was enlisted.

In November 1914, Arthur was commissioned into the 1st Bn. The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment). He was speedily promoted to be a Temporary Captain, commanding a company. In spite of being given a series of staff jobs he volunteered for front line service and was killed on 15th April 1917. Mentioned in Despatches, Arthur was buried in ST. PATRICK'S CEMETERY, LOOS Cemetery/memorial – Grave reference: III. A. 6.  He is also remembered on the WW1 memorial in St Just Cornwall and in The Buffs (East Kent) Regiment - First World War Book Of Remembrance (WMR 40979), Canterbury, Kent, UK.

Arthur’s friend, fellow actor, Freemason, WW1 soldier poet and writer Robert  Henderson-Bland (1876 – 1941)  wrote a poem about his friend Arthur after his death in combat in 1917.

https://forgottenpoetsofww1.blogspot.com/2024/01/robert-henderson-bland-1876-1941.html

Works by Arthur Keedwell Harvey James - Arthur Scott Craven:

The Last of the English (1910) A play in four acts

The Fool's Tragedy (1913) A novel

Poetry:

Poems in Divers Keys (1904)

Joe Skinner, or, The man with the sneer (1907)

Alarums and Excursions (1910)

"ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS " BY ARTHUR SCOTT CRAVEN

In memory of the third of August MCMX (LONDON, ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET, W. MCMX)

AUTHOR'S NOTE

As the original editions of " Poems in Divers Keys "and " Joe Skinner " are now exhausted, I have made a selection here of some of those poems which appearedin the first volume. "Joe Skinner " reappears in extenso.

On a previous occasion I expressed my acknowledgments to the proprietors and editors of those papers by whose courtesy I was permitted to re-publish several of the shorter pieces. The present volume contains considerable matter now published for the first time, including " Fudge " and " Mukerji Lal," both in a light vein.

ARTHUR SCOTT CRAVEN. August, 1910.

Some of his poems:

“A Fragment”

IN Life's meridian could we hold

The sun, like Joshua of old -

To keep in check advancing night,

And change our fortune in the fight.

Or could we bid the moon abide

To suit our circumstance and tide -

Had we the power,

Or I, or you

(Who dream away this pregnant hour),

What things we'd do !

Page 31 

"The Call to Arms "

Hodge Loquitur

"TAINT no sort o' use denyin'

There's a summat about dyin'

To the sound o' bugle calls,

An' the thud o' cannon balls ,

An' the whiz o' bullets flyin' ,

An' the rumble o' guns firin'

Wot's consid’rable inspirin'

Tothe man as stays behind.

Yus, it's fine an' fair excitin' ,

An' a thing I takes delight in :

Just the thought o' beggars fightin'

Makes me tingle through and through !

It's the martial instinct brewin',

An' it kinder needs subjuin' ,

So my wery best I'm doin'

All sich feelin's to subjoo.

I'm a chap o' brawn an' muscle,

An' it's 'ard to ' ave to tussle

' Gin these bulldog inclinations

When sich fever fires the blood,

But the thought o' my relations -

(In pertikler dear old mother) -

Makes me wishful fer to smother

All sich feelin's in the bud.

Still, there ain't no use denyin'

There's a summat about dyin'

To the rumble o' guns firin'

Wot's pertikler inspirin'.

Pp 33  - 34 

The Eternal Now

To dream of a gilded morrow shall we sleep through the golden day,

And steep for ever our senses in wishes and hopes and fears ?

E'en as we long and repine the hour hath glided away,

And added its wailing note to the dirge of the wasted years!

P. 38

Critique:

" Mr. Craven sings with equal ease in many tones-narrative,

reflective, dialect, the light song, the serious monologue ; the poet's

interest always centering in human joys and sorrows, and his note

clear, polished and musical. ”—The Times.

Sources: Free BMD, Find my Past, various other sites:

https://timenote.info/en/Arthur-Keedwell-Harvey-James

http://www.westwardhohistory.co.uk/memories/memories-by-olive-ordish/

There is also a very brief biographical note in the WW1 anthology “For remembrance: soldier poets who have fallen in the war” (1920) by A. St. John Adcock.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/For_remembrance:_soldier_poets_who_have_fallen_in_the_war/Chapter_3#73

Robert Henderson-Bland (1876 – 1941) – British actor, writer, Freemason and WW1 soldier poet

Born on 10th March 1876 in Croydon, Surrey, UK, Robert’s parents were William Charles Bland (1828 –1890), a clock manufacturer and church bell founder, and his wife, Frances Maria, nee Baker (1838 - 1910).

Robert’s siblings were: Rosetta (b.1861 d.1942), Clara Elizabeth (b.1864 d.1935), Charles Edward Evans (b.1866 d.1938), Spencer William (b.1872 d.1945), Percy Richard (b.1874 d.1917) and Leopold Grosvenor Bland (b.1877 d.1947).

Robert became an actor and worked with Sir Herbert Beerbohm-Tree during the great days of Her Majesty's Theatre in London.  He accompanied Lily Langtry on her tour of South Africa, and acted with American actress Mrs. Brown Potter.

In 1910, Robert married Maud Hyde in St. George’s, Hannover Square, London, UK. 

Away acting in America when the First World War broke out, Robert, who was a Freemason, returned to England and enlisted in the Gloucester Regiment, serving as a Captain.  Posted to the Western Front in July 1916, Robert was wounded in April 1918.

Robert Henderson-Bland, WW1
portrait in oil by Robert Hampton

Robert wrote the following poem after the death of his friend and fellow soldier, poet, writer, actor and Freemason, Arthur Scott-Craven - stage and pen name of Arthur Keedwell Harvey James (1875 – 1917) - to whom Robert dedicated a volume of his poetry published in June 1917:

‘O all my youth came singing back to me

When first I learnt that you were dead, my friend.

What of the years when you and I did see

In life a splendour daily spilt to mend

Our souls grown tired of trivial delights?

Not lost to you the glimpses of the heights,

For you went gladly where the worst is surely best.’

Robert acted in films between 1912 and 1921. He was killed during the Blitz in August 1941.

The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom, in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term Blitzkrieg - the German word meaning 'lightning war'.

Films in which Robert acted: 

From the Manger to the Cross (1912)

Mr. Gilfil's Love Story (1920)

General Post (1920)

A Cigarette-Maker's Romance (1920)

The Wife whom God Forgot (1920)

Gwyneth of the Welsh Hills (1921)

Another of Robert’s poems:

Ramparts Cemetery Lille Gate, Ypres
CWGC 

THE RAMPARTS CEMETRY (LILLE GATE) YPRES

               (Night of June 4th, 1933)            

           Calm and lovely is the night,

              And the graves are lovely too:

           The moon rides high as if it rode

              With deep intent to strew

           Its beams upon the water

              Where peace is born anew.

    It is well with you, my brothers, it is well

       Sleeping in the shadows of this immortal place

    That saw your comrades pass, and pass again,

       And was the silent witness of their grace,

               And all their holy pain.

    (Printed in "The Ypres Times")

Sources: Wikipedia, Find my Past, Free BMD, CWGC website,

https://www.delahyde.com/joan/index.html?https://www.delahyde.com/joan/pagesj/cross.html

Information supplied by Antony R. Crofts - Professor of Biophysics & Computational Biology at the University of Illinois, a grandson of Spencer William Bland - and Richard Bland, who runs a company selling farm machinery in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England and is a grandson of Percy Richard Bland, who was killed in WW1 in the Battle of the Somme.

“Actor-sioldier-poet: (autobiography) with an appreciation by General Sir Herbert Gough. (Heath, Cranton, 1939). Includes “A Sheaf of poems” - Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p. 166