They staggered more often than they stepped [WWI].

posted by LockeProposal on TheGrittyPast

[…] Eric Hiscock, writing in the 1970s, gives us what has become enshrined as the private soldier’s view of it all.

Haig (how we hated him and all his lot) had certain disastrous failings. An optimist of optimists he refused to acknowledge failure. In a daft way he was an inspired man, with the dire conviction that he was never wrong. ‘The well-loved horse,’ he said, years after the cataclysm of the Kaiser’s war, ‘will always be important in war,’ …Stupid sod, he should have been up to his navel in mud and water, with nothing but chlorinated tea to drink and dog biscuits and bully beef to eat, and have to piss in the place where he slept. He might then have noticed that the men under his sad command had dropped shoulders, bulging eyes, unshaven faces, and that they staggered more often than they stepped, on their way to the jaws of death.

Author’s Note:

The Haig quote is wrong both in substance and in date.

Source:

Holmes, Richard. "Brain and Nerve." Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front, 1914-1918. London: HarperCollins, 2004. 171. Print.

Original Source Listed:

Eric Hiscock The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling (London 1976) pp. 81-2.

Further Reading:

Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, KT, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCIE, ADC

>[…] Eric Hiscock, writing in the 1970s, gives us what has become enshrined as the private soldier’s view of it all. >>[Haig]( https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Sir_Douglas_Haig.jpg) (how we hated him and all his lot) had certain disastrous failings. An optimist of optimists he refused to acknowledge failure. In a daft way he was an inspired man, with the dire conviction that he was never wrong. ‘The well-loved horse,’ he said, years after the cataclysm of the Kaiser’s war, ‘will always be important in war,’ …Stupid sod, he should have been up to his navel in mud and water, with nothing but chlorinated tea to drink and dog biscuits and bully beef to eat, and have to piss in the place where he slept. He might then have noticed that the men under his sad command had dropped shoulders, bulging eyes, unshaven faces, and that they staggered more often than they stepped, on their way to the jaws of death. __________________________________ **Author’s Note:** > The Haig quote is wrong both in substance and in date. ________________________________________________ **Source:** Holmes, Richard. "Brain and Nerve." *Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front, 1914-1918*. London: HarperCollins, 2004. 171. Print. **Original Source Listed:** Eric Hiscock *The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling* (London 1976) pp. 81-2. ____________________________________ **Further Reading:** [Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, KT, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCIE, ADC]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Haig,_1st_Earl_Haig)

2 comments

[–] [Deleted] 1 points (+1|-0)

Reminds me of Dulce et Decorum est by Wilfred Owen:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

[–] LockeProposal [OP] 1 points (+1|-0)

WOW.

Thank you for sharing this.

They staggered more often than they stepped [WWI].

2 comments

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