There's Life in the Trenches

There’s Life in the Trenches
“Non sono mai stato tanto attaccato alla vita”

The English Propaganda
The government in
London acted
quickly in bringing
out a stream of
recruitment
posters, including
possibly the most
famous of its type,
featuring Lord
Kitchener ("Your
Country Wants
You!").

The propaganda was not addressed only to
soldiers but also to women at home. They
were asked to save for food and build
weapons for the soldiers at the front to
support them.

The Propaganda was aimed to set British against
Germans, disparagingly called “Huns”.

The First Enthusiasm
The propaganda and the
reason given by the
government caused
enthusiasm for the war and
a feeling of patriotism.
Some soldiers wrote the
“war sonnets” celebrating
England. One of them was
Rupert Brooke who wrote
“The Soldier”. It was written
in the first months of World
War I, when patriotism and old
heroic ideals had not yet died.
The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That isf orever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

L’orgoglio italiano
Anche in Italia si era diffusa una concezione
romantica della guerra. Si pensava che
l’intervento italiano fosse necessario e nobile e la
guerra si sarebbe conclusa brevemente. In
seguito si rivelò essere estremamente devastante.
Lo scrittore Giovanni Papini nel 1914 scrisse:
“Ci voleva, alla fine, un caldo bagno di sangue nero dopo tanti
umidicci e tiepidumi di latte materno e di lacrime fraterne. Ci
voleva una bella innaffiatura di sangue per l’arsura dell’ agosto; e
una rossa svinatura per le vendemmie di settembre; e una
muraglia di svampate per i freschi di settembre.”
(da “Amiamo la guerra”- Giovanni Papini)

The Combat:
WAR POETRY
“There’s life in the trenches”
The attitude began changing because soldiers got disappointed and
began realising that:
• The ideals they enrolled for were not so true
• the war was not that short
• Germans were not so devilish
satire & sarcasm
The Government went on saying “old lies” to those at home through
censorship.
British people did not want to enrol any longer and conscription
started.

Dulce et Decorum Est
WILFRED OWEN
[…]
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green
light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
[…]
If in some smothering dreams you too could
pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Gas new terrible chemical weapon
of World War I
This scene is relived as a nightmare,
with men drowning in a green sea of
gas.
In the last stanza the soldier-poet
follows the wagon carrying dead or
dying bodies.
The old Lie: “It is sweet and glorious
to die for one’s country”.
Many similes help people, who
haven’t experienced the war to
imagine its horrors.

Break of Day in the
Trenches
The darkness crumbles away
It is the same old druid Time as ever,
Only a live thing leaps my hand,
A queer sardonic rat,
As I pull the parapet's poppy
To stick behind my ear.
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
Your cosmopolitan sympathies,
Now you have touched this English hand
You will do the same to a German
Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
To cross the sleeping green between.
It seems you inwardly grin as you pass
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
Less chanced than you for life,
Bonds to the whims of murder,
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,
The torn fields of France.
What do you see in our eyes
At the shrieking iron and flame
Hurled through still heavens?
What quaver -what heart aghast?
Poppies whose roots are in men's veins
Drop, and are ever dropping;
But mine in my ear is safe,
Just a little white with the dust.
ISAAC ROSENBERG
Rat irony men are stuck in the
trenches while this rat is
free
Poppy metaphor for soldiers’ lives
If it is safe, the soldier is safe too
Sleeping green no man’s land: neither
British nor German
Trenches bowels of earth
They are not fighting .
Soldiers are sleeping :
dead corpses

Veglia
Un'intera nottata
buttato vicino
a un compagno
massacrato
con la sua bocca
digrignata
volta al plenilunio
con la congestione
delle sue mani
penetrata
nel mio silenzio
ho scritto
lettere piene d'amore
Non sono mai stato
tanto
attaccato alla vita
1915
GIUSEPPE UNGARETTI
Cima Quattro il 23 dicembre
Ungaretti evidenzia le parole più
significative isolandole in un verso .
Esperienza reale attaccamento alla vita e
paura di perderla.
Tanto con questa parola Ungaretti
esprime ancora di più l’amor per la vita
rispetto a coloro che non vivono la guerra.
Non sono mai stato
tanto GNOME
attaccato alla vita
Dal film “La Grande Guerra”
di Mario Maroncelli

Fratelli
Di che reggimento siete
fratelli?
Parola tremante
nella notte
Foglia appena nata
Nell'aria spasimante
involontaria rivolta
dell'uomo presente alla sua
fragilità
Mariano il 15 luglio 1916
L’uomo vuole vincere il clima di negatività
della guerra pronunciando la parola “fratelli”.
Fratellanza trovarsi nella stessa
condizione umana porta a sentirsi fratelli
anche in guerra.
Tremante perché si fa fatica a
pronunciare.

War poetry
BRITAIN VS ITALY
No translations into
Italian
Writing during the
war. After?
Some went on writing
(Sassoon)
Some wrote only in the
trenches. Why?
Ungaretti
Some translations into
English.

Brothers
What regiment do you belong to,
brothers?
Word trembling in the night
Leaf barely born
In the shimmering air
involuntary rebellion
of man present in his fragility
Brothers.
TRANSLATION
Students’ translation
Vigil
A whole night long
crouched close
to one of our men
butchered
with his clenched
mouth
grinning at the full moon
with the congestion
of his hands
thrust right
into my silence
I’ve written
letters filled with love
I have never been
so
coupled to life.
Translated by Ungaretti himself

Home Front
The role of women in the war
“Valiant and Determined’ I arise
[every] day”

Introduction
• “home front” the civilian population of a country at war.
• Romantic image of the war
• Censorship no news
• Sassoon’s poetry women’s lack of knowledge of what the war
really was.
• Women’s involvement not passive
- in hospitals as nurses
- in factories to build weapons
The following are two examples of how women were portrayed during
the war: one depicts them as useless people, the other shows a more
positive side of them.

He uses sarcasm
to point out that
women brag
about having a
brother or a son
who’s a soldier.
German mothers are
in exactly the same
situation as any
British mother:
German soldiers are
dying too.
Glory of Women
You love us when we’re heroes, home on leave,
Or wounded in a mentionable place.
You worship decorations; you believe
That chivalry redeems the war’s disgrace.
You make us shells. You listen with delight,
By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled.
You crown our distant ardours while we fight,
and mourn our laurelled memories when we’re killed.
You can’t believe that British troops ‘retire’
They find war tales
entertaining: they are
not aware of what
the war really is.
When hell’s last horror breaks them, and they run,
Trampling the terrible corpses – blind with blood.
O German mother dreaming by the fire,
While you are knitting socks to send your son
His face is trodden deeper in the mud.
(Siegfried Sassoon, 1916)

The only moment
she stops she
realizes she’s afraid
and she starts
weeping.
The Nurse
Here in the long white ward I stand,
Pausing a little breathless space,
Touching a restless fevered hand,
Murmuring comfort’s commonplace
Long enough pause to feel the cold
Fingers of fear about my heart;
Just for a moment uncontrolled,
All the pent up tears of pity start.
While here I strive, as best I may,
Strangers’ long hours of pain to ease,
Dumbly I question-Far away
Lies my beloved even as these?
She’s holding the
soldier’s hand. It’s the
only thing she can do
to comfort him.
Her thoughts go to her
boyfriend: affections are
a constant theme in war
poems.
(Miss G.M. Mitchell, 30 August 1916)

Letter-writings are the human documents that have the power to
make history really live for us.
[…] “I am now using a new pony.
Nothing seems to do any good
To my old pont, which still
Remains lame in spite of
All bandages. The pony that
I now have belonged to our origi-
Nal padre, who has left us
For the Base Camp at Havre.
On the completion of his year he
Returns to his parish. He had
Merely six weeks to do until then,
And so the autohorities decided to
Retain him in France. It did not
Seem worthwhile to
Employ him with us, and then
Immediatly send him back.
Last night we had a
Long rumour that a Bulgarian gen-
Eral had been assassinated.
Sorry that I have no news!”.
This coded letter addressed to
a soldier’s father contains a
message : “In train for
Marseilles” because of
censorship.

Sergent James Milne wrote this letter to his wife moments before he
was going over the top. It was to be delivered in the event of his
death, but luckily J.M. survived.
• «Only God in Heaven knows who will
come out of it alive».
• «I go to Him with your dear face the last
vision on Earth I shall see and your name
upon my lips, you the best woman. You
will look after my darling son for me and
tell how his dad died».
• «Goodbye, you best of women you best of
wives, my beloved sweetheart. May God
in His mercy look over you and bless you
all… May He in that same mercy preserve
me today».

Many of the combatants of the First World War recorded the daily
events of their experiences in the form of a diary.
• «I might not have been wounded in
body but I was wounded in my mind».
• «You couldn’t stop to help anybody,
even if he was your brother».
• «There are machine guns going and
pandemonium all around. How the
devil did you get out of that unscathed?
[…] It’s a miracle, if there’s such a thing
as a miracle».
Sergent Bill Hay, 9th Battalion. The Royal Scots

• «Both German and Scottish
soldiers had come out of their
trenches and were fraternising
along the front».
• «He says they didn’t want to fight
and I think he was feeling the truth
as we are not getting half so many
bullets as usual. I know this
statement will take a bit of
believing but it is absolutely
correct».
On Christmas day

Songs to survive : “Testamento del capitano”
El capitan de la compagnia
e l’è ferito, sta per morì
e ‘l manda a dire ai suoi Alpini
perché lo vengano a ritrovar.
I suoi Alpini ghe manda a dire
che non han scarpe per camminar.
«O con le scarpe o senza scarpei
i miei Alpini li voglio qua».
«Cosa comanda sior capitano,
che noi adesso siamo arrivà?»
«E io comando che il mio corpo
in cinque pezzi sia teglià.
Il primo pezzo alla mia Patria
il secondo pezzo al Battaglion
il terzo pezzo alla mia Mamma
che si ricordi del suo figliol.
Il quarto pezzo alla mia bella
che si ricordi del suo primo amor,
l’ultimo pezzo alle montagne
che lo fioriscano di rose e fior».
Soldiers used to sing at the end
of the day just to make things
easier.

Songs to remember: “Where have all the flowers gone?”
Where have all the flowers gone,
long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone,
long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Gone to young girls, every one!
When will they ever learn,
when will they ever learn?
Where have all the young girls gone,
long time passing?
Where have all the young girls gone,
long time ago?
Where have all the young girls gone?
Gone to young men, every one!
When will they ever learn,
when will they ever learn?
Where have all the young men gone,
long time passing?
Where have all the young men gone,
long time ago?
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone to soldiers, every one!
When will they ever learn,
when will they ever learn?
And where have all the soldiers gone,
long time passing?
Where have all the soldiers gone,
long time ago?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards, every one!
When will they ever learn,
when will they ever learn?
And where have all the graveyards gone,
long time passing?
Where have all the graveyards gone,
long time ago?
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Gone to flowers, every one!
When will they ever learn,
oh when will they ever learn?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls picked them, every one.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

Thanks
Class 5^ – 2011-12