on the United States army entering WWI

By alice | September 22, 2009

VeraBrittain

Vera Brittain. See the First World War digital archive.

I’ve been enormously enjoying Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth, a thoroughly honest, heartfelt and morally self-critical memoir of the life of the author as a student and nurse before, after and during WWI. The following description of American soldiers stood out for me, as a remarkable view of Americans from an English perspective. What I think might have modern minds addled is the fact that a self-described pacifist can be so admiring of foreign armed forces intervening in an already indescribably horrific conflict. But Brittain’s pacifism is not about grand ideals. In fact she more or less refutes the very idea of grand ideals, as immature by nature and a fundamental cause of this war she considers wrong and avoidable. Her politics are pragmatic, and she seeks an end to the war, and victory here represents that end.

…though the sight of soldiers marching was now too familiar to arouse curiosity, an unusual quality of bold vigour in their swift stride caused me to stare at them with puzzled interest.

They looked larger than ordinary men: their tall, straight figures were in vivid contrast to the under-sized armies of pale recruits to which we had grown accustomed. At first I thought their spruce, clean uniforms were those of officers, yet obviously they could not be officers, for there were too many of them; they seemed, as it were, Tommies in heaven. Had yet another regiment been conjoured out of our depleted Dominions? I wondered, watching them move with such rhythm, such dignity, such serene consciousness of self-respect. But I knew the colonial troops so well, and these were different; they were assured where the Australians were aggressive, self-possessed where the New Zealanders were turbulent.

Then I heard an excited exclamation from a group of Sisters behind me.
“Look! Look! Here are the Americans!”
I pressed forward with the others to watch the United States physically entering the War, so god-like, so magnificent, so splendidly unimpaired in comparison with the tired, nerve-racked men of the British army. So these were our deliverers at last, marching up the road to Camiers in the spring sunshine!

Well, let’s hope we don’t have any more wars like that one, anyway; I’m not sure the United States will continue showing up in the future.

3 Comments »

3 Responses to “on the United States army entering WWI”

Vicki Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 6:09 am

Thanks for letting me know about this memoir! The reason I’m excited about it is that A Farewell to Arms was my favorite, favorite book in 11th grade and, as a result, I tried to write a mopey story about a nurse from America in Italy myself. It didn’t amount to much because you know, I’ve never been in WWI, but her writing brings back many memories.

Friday Links 9.25.09 | Vicki Boykis Says:
September 25th, 2009 at 6:00 am

[...] US in WWI and nurses at that time (thanks, MadHousewife!) [...]

Rob Says:
September 28th, 2009 at 10:50 am

Nice find. My guess (and it’s only a guess, I don’t have any data) is that the Americans of the time were genuinely larger than their British counterparts. Most of the American recruits were probably from rural settings: strapping big corn-fed farm boys, used to a rigorous outdoor life.

The part that surprises me is the idea that the psychology of the troops would be different; so different that you could tell it at a glance. Thinking about it, this doesn’t seem impossible or even unlikely. It’s just something I had never thought about. It seems to me that the Brits had good reason to be “nerve-racked”, but I had never thought of Ausies as “aggressive” or Kiwis as “self-posssesed”.