And what is war?

Lt. Arthur Greg, Quarry Bank archive, NT

On April 23, 1917, 2Lt Arthur T. Greg was killed in aerial combat over St. Quentin, France. He was twenty-two. Assigned to the 55th Squadron Royal Flying Corps, Greg was returning from a bombing raid when his DH4 bomber was attacked by German Albatros DIII scouts (it is likely that one of the German pilots was Hermann Göring). Greg’s plane crashed behind British lines at Ervillers, but he had been fatally wounded, and his observer Robert William Robson died of wounds nearly a month later.*

Upon receiving the news of Greg’s death, his fiancée, Marian Allen, began to write of her grief and loss. In 1918, she published a short collection of poems, The Wind on the Downs, dedicating it to “A.T.G.” Her poem “And what is war” appears near the end of the volume.

 And what is war? one said; what of its story?
    A mustered host, a noble battle-throng,
A tale of valour, and a tale of glory,
    Of vanquished enemies and righted wrong?

That is war, we say, but not that only; 

    It is a rising water, deep and wide,
Which washes some away, and leaves some lonely, 

Greg's grave in France,
Quarry Bank archive, NT

    Like driftwood, stranded by the ebbing tide.

War is the passing gleam of eager faces,
    An understanding that makes young men wise
A growing stillness, many empty places,
   A haunted look that comes in women’s eyes;

Unquestioned duty, youthfulness and laughter,
    Sometimes a sudden catching of the breath,
A sure, swift knowing what may follow after—
   Withal a gay indifference to death;

The sound of laughing voices disappearing,
    The marching of a thousand eager feet,
Passing, ever passing out of hearing,
    Echoing, ever echoing down the street;

A sudden gust of wind, a clanging door,
And then a lasting silence—that is war.
              —Marian Allen

 Most of the poems in Allen’s The Wind on the Downs are melancholy and ache with loss, but they attempt to resolve grief into hopeful purpose with lines such as “Beautiful in death as life” (“May-flies”), “Crossing the silent river, there to find / Host upon host their comrades glorified, / Saluting them upon the other side” (“Charing Cross”), and “For you death was a sudden-passing glory” (“Beyond the Downs”).

But “What is war?” questions traditional reassurances that link combat deaths with courage and glory. War may be valorous and noble, but we are reminded that it is also a dark and drowning flood that sweeps all before it. War leaves in its wake empty places, haunted eyes, barred entries, and interminable stretches of silence.

In August of 1918, Irish poet Katharine Tynan, writing for the Bookman, offered a short review of Wind on the Downs, describing it as “a collection of poems of a wistful beauty. It has scarcely outstanding qualities, but it cries its sorrowful music at your ear and you are fain to listen. It is drenched with the colours and fragrance of English country.”**

For Marian Allen, the river gliding beneath the trees, the song of the lark, still pools of water, and winds from the sea were all reminders of the love she had lost.

Marian Allen and Arthur Greg,
Quarry Bank archive, NT

For more on Marian Allen and her poetry, see the post on this blog "Stronger than Death."

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* “Arthur Tylston Greg, Cross & Cockade International Forum, post by NickForder, 22 June 2009, https://www.crossandcockade.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=58&title=arthur-tylstOn-greg
** Katharine Tynan, “Songs in War Time,” Bookman, August 1918, pp. 152–153.