As the First World War progressed, working-class people became more aware, and resentful, of those profiteering from their suffering. While men were wounded and died in the trenches, and men, women and children at home suffered appalling poverty, capitalists saw the war as an opportunity to make money. Poets addressed this with anger, mockery and wit. The three poems here were all published by anti-war labour movement newspaper The Herald a century ago in 1916.
Writing from âSomewhere in Franceâ, Private A.W. Dawson introduced his poem by quoting a corporal of the Royal West Kents: âAh! My boy, thereâs blokes at home making money out of this business. They donât want it to stop.â Dawson used a poetic form originating in the country in which he was fighting. A âballadeâ (not the same thing as a ballad!) is a medieval and Renaissance French âforme fixeâ â three eight-line stanzas followed by a final, four-line âenvoiâ, each with the same last line (the refrain). Traditionally, the envoi addresses a prince; Private Dawsonâs addresses his corporal. The Herald published this poem on 30 September 1916.
Ballade of Merchant Princes
The Johnsons* and the whizz-bangs* fly,
The air is thick with dust and smoke;
Above the woods the summer sky
Laughs at the Devilâs ghastly joke,
I think of comfortable folk
Who in the City cut a dash;
Ah, me! That fat and pursy bloke
Who shouts âHooray!â and draws the cash.
If any kingly power on high
Could hear our prayers as we invoke
His aid, with blood and blasphemy,
Would he withhold the lightning stroke?
Would not his lightnings rive the oak
And raze the forest with a crash?
Nay, rather, they should strike the bloke
Who shouts âHooray!â and draws the cash.
Whether for him the freights are high,
Whether he deals in coal or coke,
His yellow goblins will not fly,
Nor will he âin the wars be broke.â
It is not ours to grouse and croak,
Our business is to smite and smash;
But someone ought to watch the bloke
Who shouts âHooray!â and draws the cash.
Say, Corpâral, chuck a chum a smoke
Or Iâll be writing something rash
About that baroneted bloke
Who shouts âHooray!â and draws the cash.
* Johnson (derived from US heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson) was the British nickname for a heavy, black German 15-cm artillery shell. Whizz-bangs were shells from German 77mm field guns.
M B (Maurice Benington) Reckitt was a guild socialist and one of the founders of the National Guilds League in 1915. Later in life, he wrote extensively on Christian Socialism, and the MB Reckitt Trust continues to fund projects concerned with Christian social action. His poem, written in his native Yorkshire vernacular and published on 8 July, is a satirical response to Billy Hughes, Labor Prime Minister of Australia (later National Party Prime Minister after Labor expelled him for attempting to introduce conscription for overseas military service). Hughes had told French daily newspaper Le Matin, âAll our sacrifices in the war will be in vain if we leave to Germany the means of recommencing the commercial warâ, and made similar calls while visiting troops in France.
The War To End War â New Style
âWeâve âad a perlitical bloke down âere of a most particular kind,
âE was a Practical Man, âe ses, anâ âe spoke âis practical mind;
Anâ âe said, âYer may lay the enemy out anâ make no end of a splash,
But wotâs the use of layinâ âim out if yer donât lay âold of the cash?â
âWell, we none of us came out âere for cash, but simply to do our bit.
But when we started explaininâ to âim, âe pretty near âad a fit;
âYouâre splendid fightinâ men,â âe said, âanâ a credit to Englandâs flag;
But wotâs the good of fightinâ at all if you donât get away with the swag?â
âAn âe said, âYou was unprepared for war, anâ for peace it will be the sameâ;
But we answered, âSoldierinâ isnât our job, but weâre learninâ the rules oâ the game,
Anâ now that weâve got our âand inâ â But âe larfed at us louder still â
âWot are you gettingâ your âand in for if yer donât get it into the till?â
âThen âe told us as âow the blood anâ the mud andâ the âellish kind of a strain
Oâ stickingâ out this blinkinâ war would all of it be in vain
Unless while we was charginâ the foe anâ gettinâ âim on the run
The blokes at home what collar the âoof âad collared the trade oâ the âUn.
âWell, we was jest abart fed up then, anâ we told âim to go to âell,
Or stop out here like us for a bit â which âud do pretty near as well.
We never though much of perlitical chaps, but this particular bloke â
A Practical Man? We donât think; âeâs a bâŠ.. bad practical joke!â
Albert Grieveâs poem was published on 9 September 1916. He also uses a refrain line, âHuman life is cheap to-dayâ, and like Dawsonâs, could be set to music. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find out any definite information about Albert, although there were several soldiers of that name.
Profit and Loss (A Song of the Profiteers)
Not of the fools am I who say
That war is waste and cannot pay.
Dear is grain, but I donât complain,
And human life is cheap to-day.
Why must these wage-slaves grumble, pray?
No sacrifice too great, I say.
Our purpose one is to crush the Hun,
For human life is cheap to-day.
To it, my soldiers! Win the day,
And steal the Teutonsâ trade away
The land I feed, and you may bleed,
For human life is cheap to-day.
(Chorus).
War is waste the cranks have said;
We gamble in ships, and coal, and bread,
And this is the burden of our lay;
Human life is cheap to-day.