Nothing to Write Home About
© Copyright 2000 John K. Taber
Stephen O’Shea mentions in Back to the Front (ISBN 0-380-73167-3), a contemporary reflection on WW I, that “nothing to write home about” originated in the trenches of WW I.
Today, the expression means “nothing significant enough to write about.” Back then, it meant “nothing that the authorities will allow us to write home about.” Something we must not tell the folks.
In hindsight the expression seems sardonic. A ghastly event, thousands of lives snuffed out in a moment of raw mayhem, is nothing to write home about.
Like the Kindermord. O’Shea walked the length of the Front, recording dreary monuments whose purpose he thinks was to let our leaders escape blame for their misrule by memorializing the victims of their misrule. At the Northern end of the Front is the German monument to the Slaughter of Children at Ypres. German boys at the start of the century joined a sort of sweet, idealistic organization, sort of like our Boy Scouts called Wandervogel (wander bird). Hiking, camping, singing folksongs. O’Shea says their motto was rein bleiben, reif werden (to stay pure is to mature). Rein bleiben (to stay pure) must have meant no masturbation.
They were eager to help the war effort. And at last their chance came. Desperate, the German high command hurled these volunteers at the British as the German offensive bogged down. Arms linked, singing German folksongs, which are among the loveliest tunes in the world, these kids marched across No-man’s Land to the waiting British machine guns.
What did they sing, I wonder? The songs my wife learned as a little girl?
In an identical manner, O’Shea says, Iran hurled idealistic young Moslems at the Iraqi forces at Basra in our own time. “God is great!” they chanted as they charged the Iraqi.
The Kindermord was nothing to write home about.
A happenstance irony is that the Kindermord took place near the Flemish town of Passendale (Passchendaele). That means Passion Valley, that is, the Valley of the Passion of Christ, or Crucifixion Valley.
On the British side O’Shea tells of the members of the London Regiment who cheerfully charged across No-man’s land kicking a soccer ball. Maybe somebody thought of the Duke of Wellington’s “The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.”
1200 men were dead within an hour. The ball bounced a few times, then stopped.
The soccer ball was nothing to write home about.
There are many such stories.
Mail home was censored. The authorities, British, French, German, and later American, in no way wanted the truth of the Front and the War to get home. It was forbidden to write anything that might demoralize the Home Front, which was fed with propaganda from the newspapers, optimism from the military, and lies from the government. The French called it le bourrage de crâne (skull stuffing).
Censors made sure you didn’t. Perhaps you could not determine exactly what was forbidden or allowed, but everybody understood. If there were doubts, you played it safe and kept your mouth shut. Everybody knows how that is done.
A few did not such as E. E. Cummings and his friend William Slater Brown. The French imprisoned them, but that is another story that Cummings tells in The Enormous Room.
Most of us understand what the authorities want of us, and do not disobey because the penalties are too great. The soldiers cooperated with the authorities. I’m sure that many of them rationalized the censorship. The mismanagement, the incompetence of the leaders, the demands upon the people and the indifference to the people’s well being, the butchery of the war, are trivialized so that in the soldier’s mind, all that seemed truly nothing to write home about.
O’Shea uses Madonna’s song “Papa don’t preach” as a leitmotiv. Wherever he is along the former Front, from someplace the song is blaring. O’Shea does not explain its significance. Here and there throughout the book, he records that “Papa don’t preach” is playing.
Despite the monuments, each nation taking care of its own, despite the endless tallies of names of the dead and missing, or maybe because of them, the War is meaningless to the present generation. Millions killed, and somehow it doesn’t matter. A historian could explain what was important, why it was important, why we should care. But it’s preaching. The young listen politely, but tune out. The past is not communicable. It becomes irrelevant.
People were baffled why O’Shea was walking the Front. “You’ll get sore feet” a French kid tells him.
After recounting the mindless slaughters at Passendale, early in the book, O’Shea sums it up in this remark:
Her point is that in spite of all the horrors in history, life goes on.
In a way, the popular meaning is right. Despite preaching papas, World War I, the Great War, is nothing to write home about.
Stephen O’Shea mentions in Back to the Front (ISBN 0-380-73167-3), a contemporary reflection on WW I, that “nothing to write home about” originated in the trenches of WW I.
Today, the expression means “nothing significant enough to write about.” Back then, it meant “nothing that the authorities will allow us to write home about.” Something we must not tell the folks.
In hindsight the expression seems sardonic. A ghastly event, thousands of lives snuffed out in a moment of raw mayhem, is nothing to write home about.
Like the Kindermord. O’Shea walked the length of the Front, recording dreary monuments whose purpose he thinks was to let our leaders escape blame for their misrule by memorializing the victims of their misrule. At the Northern end of the Front is the German monument to the Slaughter of Children at Ypres. German boys at the start of the century joined a sort of sweet, idealistic organization, sort of like our Boy Scouts called Wandervogel (wander bird). Hiking, camping, singing folksongs. O’Shea says their motto was rein bleiben, reif werden (to stay pure is to mature). Rein bleiben (to stay pure) must have meant no masturbation.
They were eager to help the war effort. And at last their chance came. Desperate, the German high command hurled these volunteers at the British as the German offensive bogged down. Arms linked, singing German folksongs, which are among the loveliest tunes in the world, these kids marched across No-man’s Land to the waiting British machine guns.
What did they sing, I wonder? The songs my wife learned as a little girl?
Alle Vögel sind schon daMaybe that was too childish. How about?
Alle Vögel, alle!
All the birds are here already
All the birds, all.
Das Wandern ist des Müllers Lust,Some 44,000 are buried at the German memorial to the Kindermord.
Das Wandern ist des Müllers Lust,
Das Wandern!
Das muß ein schlechter Müller sein,
Dem niemals fiel das Wandern ein!
Das Wandern!
Wandering is the miller’s joy
Wandering is the miller’s joy
Wandering!
It’s a sorry miller
Who never thought of wandering
Wandering!
In an identical manner, O’Shea says, Iran hurled idealistic young Moslems at the Iraqi forces at Basra in our own time. “God is great!” they chanted as they charged the Iraqi.
The Kindermord was nothing to write home about.
A happenstance irony is that the Kindermord took place near the Flemish town of Passendale (Passchendaele). That means Passion Valley, that is, the Valley of the Passion of Christ, or Crucifixion Valley.
On the British side O’Shea tells of the members of the London Regiment who cheerfully charged across No-man’s land kicking a soccer ball. Maybe somebody thought of the Duke of Wellington’s “The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.”
1200 men were dead within an hour. The ball bounced a few times, then stopped.
The soccer ball was nothing to write home about.
There are many such stories.
Mail home was censored. The authorities, British, French, German, and later American, in no way wanted the truth of the Front and the War to get home. It was forbidden to write anything that might demoralize the Home Front, which was fed with propaganda from the newspapers, optimism from the military, and lies from the government. The French called it le bourrage de crâne (skull stuffing).
Censors made sure you didn’t. Perhaps you could not determine exactly what was forbidden or allowed, but everybody understood. If there were doubts, you played it safe and kept your mouth shut. Everybody knows how that is done.
A few did not such as E. E. Cummings and his friend William Slater Brown. The French imprisoned them, but that is another story that Cummings tells in The Enormous Room.
Most of us understand what the authorities want of us, and do not disobey because the penalties are too great. The soldiers cooperated with the authorities. I’m sure that many of them rationalized the censorship. The mismanagement, the incompetence of the leaders, the demands upon the people and the indifference to the people’s well being, the butchery of the war, are trivialized so that in the soldier’s mind, all that seemed truly nothing to write home about.
O’Shea uses Madonna’s song “Papa don’t preach” as a leitmotiv. Wherever he is along the former Front, from someplace the song is blaring. O’Shea does not explain its significance. Here and there throughout the book, he records that “Papa don’t preach” is playing.
Despite the monuments, each nation taking care of its own, despite the endless tallies of names of the dead and missing, or maybe because of them, the War is meaningless to the present generation. Millions killed, and somehow it doesn’t matter. A historian could explain what was important, why it was important, why we should care. But it’s preaching. The young listen politely, but tune out. The past is not communicable. It becomes irrelevant.
People were baffled why O’Shea was walking the Front. “You’ll get sore feet” a French kid tells him.
After recounting the mindless slaughters at Passendale, early in the book, O’Shea sums it up in this remark:
As I sit on a bench waiting for the bus back to town, an ice cream truck rounds the corner, bells ringing. The children of Passendale step out of the doorways and run for their treats. There is shouting in the streets. The rays of the late-afternoon sun catch the hair of one boy, sending a sudden shower of gold down the barren thoroughfare…It is an obvious reference to Polish Poet (and Nobel winner), Wislawa Szymborska’s poem Reality Demands, whose crux lines are:
Where not a stone still stands
you see the Ice Cream Man
besieged by children.
Her point is that in spite of all the horrors in history, life goes on.
In a way, the popular meaning is right. Despite preaching papas, World War I, the Great War, is nothing to write home about.
posted by John | 4:56 PM
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