WHAT THE SOLDIER THINKS
By CAPTAIN, B.L.A.
THE B.L.A. is well served with daily newspapers. Instead of I. reading, too long after to be interested, about the event in which one has participated—our experience when in the Middle East—one now reads of it when it is still fresh in mind. Do not imagine this is an altogether unqualified advantage. Too often of late, in leader and dispatch, the soldier in the field has had brought home to 'him with brutal clarity the gulf that widens between his point of view and that of the citizen in England. Too often he is represented as holding opinions which he never has held and never will. It would appear to be as true of this war as of the last that the citizens at homp—even acute observers like Mr. Harold Nicolson —are totally unable to span the gap that separates them from the combatant forces.
Although any generalisation is dangerous, it is less perilous to dogmatise about the Army than about other organisations. Regi- mentation, shared experiences, shared opinions, are all apt to tend towards a uniformity of outlook and expression. This is not to say, of course, that you will not find every shade of opinion in every unit of the Army ; almost any generalisation can be demolished-by refer- ence to the particular. But there is, I believe, an easily discernible trend of opimon in the Army today. If I attempt to give it expression it is with the knowledge of how inevitably I must lay myself open to attack, but in the belief that the man on the spot is perhaps more qualifiea to write of these things than the man in Fleet Street. I speak of the Army as a whole, because as a result of spending 5o per cent. of my service-in the ranks I would say that officers and men largely share the same views on broad issues. The difference, if any, lies in the fact that, whereas the officer leans to the left, the man bends over to the left.
Here, then,..is how I suggest the soldier of the and Army is facing the world today.
(r) He believes we shall lose the peace and precipitate another war in ten or twenty years' time. He believes the Englishman is fundamentally sentimental towards his enemy—he was himself before he saw for himself the horrors perpetrated by the Germans in France, Belgium and Holland. • Knowing that his hatred will only endure until he hears the first German baby ask him for chocolate, he Wants to be saved from himself by letting Russia occupy the country and direct the peace. He profoundly distrusts what he reads about Germany in the Press, and is convinced that the bankers, bishops and barons will ensure a peace that will make the Third Great War certain.
(2) He is deeply distrustful of all civilian authority—parliamentary, municipal and industrial. A large number of men in my unit will not fill up the form for the electoral register. They are not interested in a vote because " it won't do me any good." The soldier distrusts the Tories. He distrusts the Socialists now they have become the Tories' bedfellows. He distrusts the reforms that are brought in, either because they are too late or because they were grudgingly introduced-under such pressure that he doubts whether they will ever be honourably implemented. For instance, he suspects the White Paper on Social Insurance because of the previous partial rejection of Beveridge. (" There must be a catch in it.") He questions the policy of the Governmerit on the bombed-out (many soldiers have had their families affected and know personally how unsatisfactory the remedial measures often are); and on Italian prisoners of war (quite a big political issue out here, and one, incidentally, that confirms the suspicion that Germany also will get cotton-wool treatment).
He distrusts industrial authority. He is convinced big business is making a n'ce thing out of the war. He has read some ugly reports of certain English firms charged in America with trading with the enemy. He suspects that the war may be no bad thing for the firm employed on munitions during the war and on the reconstruc- tion after it. He knows that his fortunate comrades in England are often earning as much in a week as he used to earn in a month. He believes the financier was largely the cause of this war. and is already thinking of the next.
He has read about the miners on strike and he wants the nationalisation of the mines—and other public services. He wonders how, after five years of war, he will be able to compete with the civilian for skilled jobs. He is earning relatively good money in the Army now, but he expects to earn more in " civvy street." Men of twenty-five now earning, perhaps, £250 a year (taking food and clothing into account) wonder whether they will have to return to unskilled jobs that brought them in 3os. a week when they were twenty, before the war.
(3) He is frantically tired of the war, but he is willing to do any- thing to finish it. It makes him angry when he hears that England is beginning to slacken off and think that it is all over bar the fight- ing. He knew we should be faced with a winter campaign when all the papers were gaily screaming "over by Christmas." He does far more than his share ; he expects the civilians to do theirs. Too often he has read of safe hotels, black markets, wire-pulling and phoney exemption. In his gloomier moments he wonders how deep the rottenness has got.
(4) He distrusts the B.B.C.. and the daily Press. Frequently he reads reports of events in which he has taken part wrongly reported. Too many of the things he was told about Europe he has seen for himself were not true. He is right, then, to be distrustful about facts he cannot check.
(5) Religion scarcely touches the fringe of his life. Many have kept their faith untarnished, few, I suspect, have newly found it. There is not, I think, any reason to suppose that Army life has either increased or diminished the number of the faithful.
In short, then, the British soldier is fighting for the future of the world and does not believe in that future. He is tough, hard, honest, intelligent, cynical, kind, soft-hearted, sentimental and com- pletely disillusioned. He is fighting not for any ideal—although he hates his enemy and the ways of the enemy-but because he knows that Germany must be utterly defeated before he can get home to his family, his football, his beer and bis fireside. He asks a lot of the future, but he doesn't expect to get any of it. He does expect a bit of fun when first he gets back home. And in the next war he expects to be in the Home Guard while his son bears the burden of the day.
That represents within my own narrow experience (may I be forgiven for speaking when others better qualified hold their peace) broadly what the British combatant foices—the salt of the earth— are thinking. It is, perhaps, encouraging that Tommy, io44, will not be foozled by facile talk of a land fit for heroes. He wants deeds, not words. It is up to the citizens of England to see he is not disappointed.
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