Ford Madox Ford (1873 – 1939) – British WW1 soldier, poet, novelist, critic and editor

 With thanks to Connie Ruzich* for reminding me that I had not yet posted about Ford Madox Ford. 

Born Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer in Merton, Surrey, UK, Ford’s parents were Catherine Heuffer, nee Madox Brown and Francis Hueffer, Hueffer (born Franz Carl Christoph Johann Hüffer; 22nd May 1845 – 19th January 1889), a German-English writer on music, music critic, and librettist, who became music critic for “The Times” newspaper,

Ford, who was named after his maternal grandfather, the Pre-Raphaelite painter Ford Madox Brown, was the eldest of three children - his brother was Oliver Madox Hueffer and his sister was Juliet Catherine Emma Hueffer, the wife of David Soskice and mother of Frank Soskice. 

In 1889, after the death of their father, Ford and Oliver went to live with their grandfather in London. Ford was educated at University College School in London. In November 1892 he became a Catholic, 

In 1894, Ford eloped with his school girlfriend Elsie Martindale. The couple were married in Gloucester and moved to Bonnington. In 1901, they moved to Winchelsea. They had two daughters - Christina (born 1897) and Katharine (born 1900). Ford's neighbours in Winchelsea included the authors Joseph Conrad, Stephen Crane, W.H. Hudson, Henry James in nearby Rye, and H.G. Wells.

In 1904, Ford suffered a breakdown due to financial and marital problems. He went to Germany to spend time with family and undergo treatments.

In 1909, Ford left his wife and set up home with English writer Isobel Violet Hunt, with whom he published the literary magazine “The English Review” Ford's wife refused to divorce him and he attempted to become a German citizen to obtain a divorce in Germany. That was unsuccessful. 

During the First World War, Ford initially helped out with the Propaganda Bureau.  He joined the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in 1915 and was gazetted as a Second Lieutenant on 13th August.  He was posted to the Somme in July 1916 and was blown into the air, losing his memory for a few weeks and was sent to No 21 Casualty Clearing Station in Neuville, a district of Corbie in the Somme, France.     

After recovering, Ford was sent to the Ypres Salient.  He was hospitalised with lung problems, possibly due to gas inhalation, and was invalided home in March 1917.  The Medical Board refused to pass him fit for service on the front line and he was put in charge of a Company of the King’s Liverpool 23rd Regiment based in Yorkshire.  He was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant on 1st July 1917 and to the rank of Captain on 7th January 1918.   From mid-March to August 1918 Fordh eld the temporary rank of Brevet Major.  He left the Army on 7th January 1919.

Ford changed his name to Ford Madox Ford in 1919, partly to fulfil the terms of a small legacy, partly "because a Teutonic name is in these days disagreeable".

The Journals created by Ford - “The English Review” and “The Transatlantic Review” - were instrumental in the development of early 20th-century English and American literature.

Ford spent the last years of his life teaching at Olivet College in Olivet, Michigan. He was taken ill in Honfleur, France in June 1939 and died in Deauville on 26th June 1939.

Ford is  remembered now for his novels “The Good Soldier” (1915), ““he Parade's End” tetralogy (1924–1928) and “The Fifth Queen” trilogy (1906–1908).

According to Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p.129, Ford Madox Ford published the following collections of verse related to WW1:

“The good soldier; Selected memories; Poems (The Bodley Head, 1962)

“On heaven, and poems written on active service” (The Bodley Head, 1916)

and Ford had poems published in 6 WW1 Anthologies. 

*You can read Connie’s interpretation of Ford’s poem “Albade” on her wonderful website Behind their Lines here: https://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2016/09/an-early-morning-love-song.html

Here is Ford’s poem about the fall of Antwerp, which T.S. Elliott commented “The only good poem I have met with on the subject  of war.”

In October 1914 [Antwerp] BY FORD MADOX FORD

I 

GLOOM! 

An October like November; 

August a hundred thousand hours, 

And all September, 

A hundred thousand, dragging sunlit days, 

And half October like a thousand years . . . 

And doom! 

That then was Antwerp. . . 

                              In the name of God, 

How could they do it? 

Those souls that usually dived 

Into the dirty caverns of mines; 

Who usually hived 

In whitened hovels; under ragged poplars; 

Who dragged muddy shovels, over the grassy mud, 

Lumbering to work over the greasy sods. . . 

Those men there, with the appearance of clods 

Were the bravest men that a usually listless priest of God 

Ever shrived. . . 

And it is not for us to make them an anthem. 

If we found words there would come no wind that would fan them 

To a tune that the trumpets might blow it, 

Shrill through the heaven that's ours or yet Allah's, 

Or the wide halls of any Valhallas. 

We can make no such anthem. So that all that is ours 

For inditing in sonnets, pantoums, elegiacs, or lays 

Is this: 

“In the name of God, how could they do it?” 

II 

For there is no new thing under the sun, 

Only this uncomely man with a smoking gun 

In the gloom. . . 

What the devil will he gain by it? 

Digging a hole in the mud and standing all day in the rain by it 

Waiting his doom; 

The sharp blow, the swift outpouring of the blood, 

Till the trench of gray mud 

Is turned to a brown purple drain by it. 

Well, there have been scars 

Won in many wars . . .

Punic, 

Lacedæmonian, wars of Napoleon, wars for faith, wars for honour, for love, for possession, 

But this Belgian man in his ugly tunic, 

His ugly round cap, shooting on, in a sort of obsession, 

Overspreading his miserable land, 

Standing with his wet gun in his hand . . . 

Doom! 

He finds that in a sudden scrimmage, 

And lies, an unsightly lump on the sodden grass . . . 

An image that shall take long to pass! 

III 

For the white-limbed heroes of Hellas ride by upon their horses 

Forever through our brains. 

The heroes of Cressy ride by upon their stallions; 

And battalions and battalions and battalions— 

The Old Guard, the Young Guard, the men of Minden and of Waterloo, 

Pass, for ever staunch, 

Stand, for ever true; 

And the small man with the large paunch, 

And the gray coat, and the large hat, and the hands behind the back, 

Watches them pass 

In our minds for ever . . . 

But that clutter of sodden corses 

On the sodden Belgian grass — 

That is a strange new beauty. 

IV 

With no especial legends of marchings or triumphs or duty, 

Assuredly that is the way of it, 

The way of beauty . . . 

And that is the highest word you can find to say of it. 

For you cannot praise it with words 

Compounded of lyres and swords, 

But the thought of the gloom and the rain 

And the ugly coated figure, standing beside a drain, 

Shall eat itself into your brain: 

And you will say of all heroes, “They fought like the Belgians!” 

And you will say: “He wrought like a Belgian his fate out of gloom.” 

And you will say: “He bought like a Belgian his doom.” 

And that shall be an honourable name; 

“Belgian” shall be an honourable word; 

As honourable as the fame of the sword, 

As honourable as the mention of the many-chorded lyre, 

And his old coat shall seem as beautiful as the fabrics woven in Tyre. 

V 

And what in the world did they bear it for? 

I don't know. 

And what in the world did they dare it for? 

Perhaps that is not for the likes of me to understand. 

They could very well have watched a hundred legions go 

Over their fields and between their cities 

Down into more southerly regions. 

They could very well have let the legions pass through their woods, 

And have kept their lives and their wives and their children and cattle and goods. 

I don't understand. 

Was it just love of their land? 

Oh, poor dears! 

Can any man so love his land? 

Give them a thousand thousand pities 

And rivers and rivers of tears 

To wash off the blood from the cities of Flanders. 

VI 

This is Charing Cross; 

It is midnight; 

There is a great crowd 

And no light. 

A great crowd, all black that hardly whispers aloud. 

Surely, that is a dead woman—a dead mother! 

She has a dead face; 

She is dressed all in black; 

She wanders to the bookstall and back, 

At the back of the crowd; 

And back again and again back, 

She sways and wanders. 

This is Charing Cross; 

It is one o'clock. 

There is still a great cloud, and very little light; 

Immense shafts of shadows over the black crowd 

That hardly whispers aloud. . . 

And now! .  . That is another dead mother, 

And there is another and another and another. . . 

And little children, all in black, 

All with dead faces, waiting in all the waiting-places, 

Wandering from the doors of the waiting-room 

In the dim gloom. 

These are the women of Flanders.

They await the lost. 

They await the lost that shall never leave the dock; 

They await the lost that shall never again come by the train 

To the embraces of all these women with dead faces; 

They await the lost who lie dead in trench and barrier and foss, 

In the dark of the night. 

This is Charing Cross; it is past one of the clock; 

There is very little light. 

There is so much pain. 

L’Envoi 

And it was for this that they endured this gloom; 

This October like November, 

That August like a hundred thousand hours, 

And that September, 

A hundred thousand dragging sunlit days, 

And half October like a thousand years. . . 

Oh, poor dears!

Sources:  Wikipedia, 

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

Source for featured poem https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57289/in-october-1914-antwerp

And:  https://warpoets.org.uk/worldwar1/poets-and-poetry/ford-madox-ford/

https://fantastic-writers-and-the-great-war.com/war-experiences/ford-madox-ford/

Geoffrey Harold Woolley, VC, OBE, MC (1892 –1968) - British poet, writer, WW1 Army infantry officer, Church of England priest & WW2 Military Chaplain - the first British Territorial Army officer to be awarded the Victoria Cross

Geoffrey Harold Woolley was born on 14th May 1892 in Bethnal Green, London, UK.  His parents were The Rev. George Herbert Woolley, Curate of St Matthew’s Church, Upper Clapton in London, and his wife Sarah L. Woolley, nee Cathcart. Geoffrey had seven sisters and three brothers, including the famous archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley and George Cathcart Woolley, a colonial administrator and ethnographer. 

Geoffrey was educated at Parmiter's School, Bethnal Green, St John's School, Leatherhead, Surrey and Queen's College, Oxford University. While at University Geoffrey joined the Officers' Training Corps (OTC). He studied for Holy Orders and was going to be ordained as an Anglican priest like his father when, at the age of twenty-three, he decided to fight for his country.  Geoffrey obtained a commission in the Queen Victoria's Rifles, the 9th (County of London) Battalion of the London Regiment of the British Army.

The Queen Victoria's Rifles Regiment was posted to the Ypres Salient on the Western Front. On 17th April 1915 the British Army captured Hill 60, a low rise to the south-east of Ypres. In the midst of fierce German efforts to retake the hill, Second Lieutenant Woolley's company were sent up the line on the afternoon of 20th April to take ammunition supplies to the defenders. The situation quickly deteriorated, with many men and all the other officers on the hill being killed. Geoffrey refused verbal and written orders to withdraw, saying he and his company would remain until properly relieved. They repelled numerous attacks through the night. When they were relieved the next morning, he returned with 14 men remaining from the 150-strong company. 

The citation for the Victoria Cross he was awarded for this action reads:

“For most conspicuous bravery on "Hill 60" during the night of 20th–21st April  1915. Although the only Officer on the hill at the time, and with very few men, he successfully resisted all attacks on his trench, and continued throwing bombs and encouraging his men till relieved. His trench during all this time was being heavily shelled and bombed and was subjected to heavy machine gun fire by the enemy.”

Two days later Geoffrey was promoted directly to the rank of Captain. He saw further action in the early stages of the Second Battle of Ypres until he was invalided back to England suffering from poison gas and psychological effects. When he had recovered, he was appointed as an instructor at the Officers Infantry School. Geoffrey returned to the Western Front in summer 1916 as a General Staff Officer Grade II on the Third Army Staff.

In September 1919, Geoffrey married Janet Beatrix Culme-Seymour. Geoffrey and Janet’s son - Harold Lindsay Cathcart Woolley - was born on 7th October 1919

Geoffrey was demobilised on 1st February 1919 and was awarded the Military Cross on 3rd June 1919 for his actions in France and Flanders. He returned to Queen’s College Oxford from 1919-1920, earning a Diploma in Theology and an MA in 1924. He was part of the VC Guard at the interment of the Unknown Warrior on 11th November 1920. Geoffrey was ordained in Coventry Cathedral on 19th December 1920 with a licence as a curate at Rugby parish church and he was employed as an Assistant Master at Rugby School 1920-1923.

Joining the hastily formed Defence Force against strikes, Geoffrey was granted a temporary commission as Captain in 7th (Defence Force) Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment on 12th April 1921. He commanded a company in Coventry, and following this appointment, he resigned his commission on 5th July 1921.

Geoffrey became Vicar of Monk Sherborne, Hampshire, before moving on to take up the post of Chaplain of Harrow School.

In January 1940 Geoffrey resigned from the school and was commissioned into the Royal Army Chaplains' Department. He was appointed Senior Chaplain of the Algiers area in November 1942, reaching the rank of Chaplain to the Forces 3rd Class, with the rank of Major. Along with several other officers he was appointed OBE in 1943 "in recognition of gallant and distinguished services in North Africa." 

Geoffrey and Janet’s son Harold joined the Royal Air Force, became a Flying Officer and a Spitfire pilot with 152 Squadron.  Harold was posted to North Africa and was shot down and killed by a Bf109 near Souk el Arba on 2nd December 1942 in a battle over Tunis.

Geoffrey took on the parish of St Mary's, Harrow on the Hill, in 1944. In 1952, finding it difficult to climb the hill, he moved to be Rector of West Grinstead, Sussex, where he stayed until he retired in 1958.

Geoffrey died on 10th December 1968 and was buried in the Churchyard of St. Mary’s Church, West Chiltington, Sussex, UK.   

In 2013 a block of flats was built by Tower Hamlets Community Housing and named in memory of Geoffrey Woolley VC, OBE, MC, (1892-1968) who was born in Bethnal Green.

A collection of verse written by Geoffrey H. Wooley, VC was published under the title “The Epic of the Mountains (verse)” by Blackwell, Oxford in 1929.

I believe Geoffrey also had a poem published in “The Times” newspaper.

Sources:  Wikipedia, Find my Past, FreeBMD, 

https://riflesmuseum.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Rifles_Chronology_1685-2012_Edn2.pdf

https://victoriacrossonline.co.uk/geoffrey-harold-woolley-vc-obe-mc/

Geo Milev (1895 – 1925) Bulgarian soldier, poet, writer and artist who lost his right eye in WW1

 With thanks to John Daniel for finding this poet for us 

Georgi Milev Kasabov was born on 15th January 1895 in Radnevo, Bulgaria - his parents were teachers and owners of a book store.

In 1912, Geo studied philosophy at Sofia University, before continuing his education at Leipzig University in Germany, where he took up poetry inspired by German expressionism. His first selection of poems were published in a Bulgarian magazine in December 1913.

When the First World War began in July 1914, Bulgaria stayed neutral and Geo moved to London, UK to develop his poetry and improve his English. Geo returned to Leipzig on 18th October 1914, but was detained in Hamburg on suspicion of being a British spy. He was released after 11 days due to lack of evidence.

In August 1915, Geo returned to Bulgaria, who entered the First World War with the Central Powers on 14th October 1915.  Geo's father was soon mobilized, forcing Geo to take over the family's book store, where he continued to publish his own poetry.

In March 1916 Geo was mobilized into the Bulgarian 34th Trojan Regiment. Following training at an officer school, he was sent to the frontlines of the Macedonian Front at Lake Doiran, opposing British forces. Due to his extensive language skills, he was used as an interpreter, translator and counter-intelligence officer, translating intercepted British and French radio messages.

On 29th April 1917, during the Second Battle of Doiran, Geo's position was subjected to heavy British artillery fire. He was severely wounded in the head, losing his right eye.

In February 1918, Geo went to Berlin to have his eye socket operated on, where he underwent 15 operations and received an artificial glass eye. Geo immersed himself in the cultural and literary life of Berlin, joining a circle of expressionist poets. Geo was in Berlin when the war ended in November 1918.

Geo Milev Self Portrait 1918

Geo returned to Bulgaria in 1919. In Sofia, he founded a magazine, Vezni, (Tr Scales), in which he published symbolist and expressionist Bulgarian poets and translations of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Edgar Allan Poe and Oscar Wilde. Vezni was not to last. It ceased publication in 1922, but soon afterwards Geo began working on a new project - the literary magazine Plamak, or Flame.

Bulgaria was in the midst of a national catastrophe. A defeated nation in the Great War, it had lost some of its population and territory. The economy struggled and there were hundreds of thousands of destitute refugees. The government of the populist Agrarian Party put considerable effort into reconstruction, but its methods were often brutal, dictatorial, and anti-intellectual. Nationalism was riding high, and so were Communism and mysticism.

In June 1923, a bloody military coup overthrew the Agrarian Party. In September of that year, Agrarians and Communists staged a mutiny, which was later called the September 1923 Uprising and was instigated by the USSR, its first attempt to export revolution to Europe. The Bulgarian government repressed the mutiny with a brutality that spawned a clandestine and violent Communist opposition. In the years that followed, Bulgaria was on the verge of a civil war. Political assassinations followed one after another, inciting bloody repercussions from the government. Tensions peaked in 1925. On 16th April, Communist terrorists blew up the St Nedelya Church in Sofia while it was packed with people. 134 people lost their lives in the blast, and hundreds were wounded. The police reciprocated with mass arrests of leftists.  Geo was one of those.

A year previously, he had published his best known poem, Septemvri, or September. Inspired by the revolt of 1923, it masterfully uses rhythm and expressive imagery to recreate the hopes of the rebels and the tragedy of their failure.

The government was not sympathetic. After the poem was published in Plamak, the whole print run of the magazine was confiscated. In early 1925, Geo Milev was charged with violating the Law for the Defence of the State. He was arrested, but then released on bail.

In the wake of the St Nedelya terror attack things deteriorated. On 14 May, Geo Milev appeared in court and defended himself on the basis of freedom of artistic expression. He was found guilty and sentenced to a year in prison and a heavy fine. He appealed.

In the early morning of 15th May 1925, a police agent appeared at Milev's home. The poet was needed in the police station for a "talk," he said. Geo Milev complied. He was never seen again.

On 24th January 1954, a mass grave was discovered on the outskirts of Sofia. One of the skulls still had a glass eye in its right socket. Apparently, these were the remains of Geo Milev. An examination of the bones showed that the poet was strangled, probably with a wire.

By that time, Geo Milev was already one of Communism's stars. The regime might not have been much into avantgarde poetry but Milev's leftwing ideas and the manner of his death clearly made him fit for the position of a martyr in the Communist pantheon.

You can find some of Geo Milev's poems on the following websites:

https://thehighwindowpress.com/2021/03/28/geo-milev-the-icons-are-sleeping-translated-by-tom-phillips/

https://fortnightlyreview.co.uk/2023/04/milev-prose-poems/

https://allpoetry.com/Geo-Milev

https://www.poemhunter.com/geo-milev/

https://www.vagabond.bg/travel/high-beam/item/4443-who-was-geo-milev

Leonard Flemming (1889 - 1946) - Australian-born poet and WW1 soldier

 With thanks to John Daniel whose discovery of a poem written by Leonard Flemming led to my further research.  If anyone has any definite information please get in touch. 

Leonard Denman Flemming was born in Adelaide, South Australia on 29th April 1880.   According to one website I consulted, Leonard went to live in South Africa in around 1895.   It seems as though he may have fought with the Queenstown Mounted Infantry during the Boer War.

 The Queenstown Mounted Infantry was formed on the 6th March 1901 and was disbanded on 31st June 1902.  The Regiment was first commanded by Captain J Hoskins, then by Captain W J Elson.   It had no connection with the Queenstown Rifle Volunteers.

It seems that Leonard served during the Frist World War in the British Army:

“Leonard Denman Flemming was gazetted a 2nd Lieutenant in the Regiment on 7th August 1914.   He was initiated into the Lodge on 31st March 1915, by which date he had been promoted Lieutenant."

Leonard is in the group photograph shown above on the day of his initiation with his fellow Lodge members Lt Col Bradney, Captains Sampson, Scott and Hunter, Lt Flemming and 2nd Lt Keeson. Leonard is 3rd from the right on the front/middle row and is listed in the caption as Lieut LD Flemming (Transport Officer).

The 9th (County of London) Battalion, London Regiment (Queen Victoria's Rifles) was a Territorial Army infantry battalion of the British Army. The London Regiment was formed in 1908 in order to regiment the various Volunteer Force battalions in the newly formed County of London, and the Queen Victoria's Rifles were one of twenty six units brought together in that manner.

The British 1921 Census records Leonard living at 11, Canfield Gardens, Hampstead, London, UK.  He is listed as the stepson of one George A. Autsam, a journalist and composer born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, whose wife was Minna Autsam.   Leonard is recorded as being a farmer.    

Another website mentions that Leonard owned a farm in the Orange Free State, South Africa.

“Penistone, Stocksbridge and Hoyland Express”,  09 November 1929

In London in 1929 Leonard apparently married Wilma L K Berkeley, an Australian soprano.  

Leonard died in South Africa in 1946.

"The Silent Volunteers" a poem written by Lieutenant Leonard Flemming:

NO less, real heroes than the men who died,

Are you who helped the frenzied ranks to win;

Galloping heroes - silently - side by side,

Models of discipline.

You, too, had pals from whom you had to part,

Pals rather young to fight, or else too old -

And though the parting hurt your honest heart,

You kept your grief untold.

Thus in the parting have you proved your worth,

As you have proved it time and time again;

You, the most human animal on earth -

Nobler perhaps than men.

Nobler, perhaps, because in all you did,

In all you suffered, you could not know why;

Only, you guessed - and did as you were bid -

Just galloped on - to die.

Unflinchingly, you faced the screaming shell,

And charged and charged, until the ground was gained,

Then falling, mangled, and suffered simple hell,

And never once complained.

There, where your life blood spilled around you fast,

Lying unheeded by the surging van,

You closed your great big patient eyes at last.

And died - a gentleman.

Sources:  Information supplied by John Daniel, Find my past and

Catherine Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press,New York, 1978) p. 395

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/143667959

https://anglo437.rssing.com/chan-59775919/all_p140.html

https://www.angloboerwar.com/unit-information/south-african-units/3313-queenstown-mounted-infantry

https://www.bowlerhat.com.au/saforce/

http://victoriarifles.com/about-victoria-rifles/distinguished-brethren/distinguished-brethren-f-h/leonard-denman-fleming

https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A111711

https://www.chapter1.co.za/products/author/Flemming,Leonard/~/product_price_desc

https://lesserknownartists.blogspot.com/2023/05/fortunino-matania-1881-1963-italian.html

“Penistone, Stocksbridge and Hoyland Express”,  09 November 1929

Photos:  Officers of the 3/9th Battalion Queen Victoria Rifles 1915 and Leonard and Wilma on their wedding day in 1929.