Goodbye to All That

It's not the most evocative record of the horrors of the trenches that I've ever read, but the cold-blooded restraint in Graves's account--of a bourgeois British upbringing, public schooling, and commmanding a regiment of smarter and tougher men at 19 or whatever it was in France--carries another kind of meaning, cleverly encapsulated in the All That of the title, which binds school days and unimaginable human anguish together and ties a bow aroundthem, like no matter how inadequate the author realizes the general spirit is upon which war used to be metaphorized like a rugby match against a team for whom our lads had an especial grudge, he can't quite see his way through to doing it any other way. Which is of course the story of the show more Great War writ small--all those privates in their private hearts, and probably even most of their officers, could see that their model not only of warfare but of masculine virtue had become maladaptive, but just couldn't bring themselves to change it--to defect, to sue for peace--any more than they could let go of the dregs of religious faith, or than I could bring myself to abort a fetus (luckily, that's not likely to come up). So in short this is restrained to the point of bunged-up on the actual war experience, but nonpareil on the mindset that led to that war--which of course wasn't jingoism or fear of Spenglerian decline, but the human desire to do one's part and not be loathed and the Northern European need to treat one's life with contempt because it is a far far greater thing. And then, you come home and the greater thing doesn't bring anyone back or get rid of the bugs in your head and, although once again in an understated way, the story of Twenties careerflailment and modernist anomie and divorce and always landing on your feet really but not being able to feel that good about it is the story of a class of imperial worldbeaters who had discovered that beating the world is always a pyrrhic victory anyway and had no idea what the fuck next. As cultural time capsules go, though, I should say, this one is immensely well written and astute. show less

Goodbye to All That is a well-written and valuable account of World War I, particularly for its portrayal of the Battle of the Somme, one of the most devastating campaigns of the war. It provides insight into aspects of the conflict that are otherwise difficult to access, especially from the perspective of an officer navigating both the battlefield and the structure of command.

However, for me, it does not reach the same level of impact as All Quiet on the Western Front. Graves enters the war from a position of relative privilege, and although he is clearly affected by his experiences, he is ultimately able to leave the war behind and build a life supported by familial wealth. That distance—both social and material—creates a subtle show more but persistent layer between the reader and the full emotional truth of the experience.

The memoir is also written retrospectively, which further contributes to that sense of removal. There is less immediacy and less sense of events unfolding in real time. Instead, the narrative is shaped by reflection, memory, and interpretation.

This does not diminish its value. It remains an important and thoughtful account of the war. But for me, it feels slightly mediated—less like being inside the experience, and more like being guided through it from a position of hindsight. show less

Robert Graves is known for his love poems and had an almost comically distinguished pedigree, but you wouldn't know it from reading "Goodbye to All That," his wry, bitter, plainspoken, and ultimately moving memoir of his early life and experiences in the Great War. He hated the prestigious boarding school he was sent to, abandoned organized religion, married a committed feminist, and, most importantly, found himself in the middle of one of the twentieth century's greatest, most senseless tragedies. It's surprising how Graves's very personal account of the war gives a reader some of idea of the scope of the war's tragedy: his unit seems to have been re-staffed half-a-dozen times as the soldiers in it kept dying off, men prayed to be show more seriously wounded instead of killed, and the natural world, which Graves obviously felt a great deal of affection for, was reduced to ruin. Being from an upper-class background and having had a subtle, understated sense of humor, Graves also has a keen eye for the war's absurdities, or, as Paul Fussell would have it, its irony: we hear a lot about the social conventions of the British officer class, riding lessons, and valuable public-school connections, which provides a weird contrast with the war's endless bloodshed, as does the bucolic, nearly unscathed French countryside that the soldiers could find just a few miles from the front lines. "Goodbye to All That" is often as funny as it is terrible, and it has, as Fussell notes, a rather theatrical sensibility, but there's an unmissable undercurrent of anger running through it, too. Graves's critique of Britons on the home front, who felt themselves a part of the conflict without bothering to experience its conflict or comprehend its illogical premises, is scathing, as is his contempt for the army brass, who hardly seem to have seen a trench as they sent hundreds of thousands of men to unbearably painful deaths. He's also careful about noting that Britain's class divisions became more, not less, visible as the war dragged on. At one point, he wonders whether if the women who worked at officer's brothers (adorned with blue lights) were any different than the one who worked at establishments that serviced enlisted men, which had red lights by the door. There's a lot here for students of twentieth-century letters: Graves seems to have had the opportunity to know a lot of famous literary types, and he provides vivid, funny portraits of them. Still, it's the indifference of the army staff and the public that really powers the book: the contrast between their hidebound ideas and outmoded manners and the horror that Graves experienced first-hand gives the reader a good idea why the Great War transformed European society so completely. It plays out, at times, like some awful absurdist theater piece, but it was all too real. Though the author claims that the book's title comes from his decision to emigrate after the war wound up, one can't help wondering if he intended some larger meaning. Anyway, it's not hard to spot: between public school niceties, knee-jerk patriotism, and endless, mechanized, often pitiably unheroic deaths, it seems pretty clear that an entire worldview died on the fields of France. This one is sad, informative, and recommended. show less

This memoir from Robert Graves, written in 1929 when he was 34, covers his life to up to that point, and most notably has some of the best writing about the WWI experience for British soldiers I’ve read. Graves immediately enlisted in 1914 at just 19, remained patriotic throughout the war yet recognized the senselessness of it, and wrote about his experience with great candor, making him a valuable source of information. It was highly ironic that Graves would fight the Germans on the other side of the trenches, since his mother’s side was German and he still had family there, which he covers in his family history and childhood in the first part of the book.

Graves’ childhood was in an environment that was not only anti-German but show more anti-Semitic, and it was an awkward one. He writes honestly of things like wetting himself when forced to do arithmetic to a metronome, as well as being sexually attracted to boys, something that would lead to a small scandal. Years later after having been to war, he admits “I felt difficulty in adjusting myself to the experience of woman love.”

The war is where the book really shines tough, and there are many memorable bits:
…the Welsh company he was in often breaking out into Welsh hymns.

…the ineffectiveness of the gas helmets, and their evolution over time. He also recalls a time when the release of the gas cylinders was in a way that the thick cloud gradually just returned back to their own lines.

…unashamedly saying that many men, including himself, wanted to survive the war by getting wounded, which he ultimately was, and almost died from it.

…his accounts of the various horrifying ways men died, and sometimes by their own hand (including the first and last dead soldiers he saw in the war, which were suicides). He also describes the swelling and stinking of the corpses in a sober way.

…the popularity of the brothels behind the lines (“I had seen a queue of a hundred and fifty men waiting outside the door”), explaining that many got venereal diseases but that “they did not want to die virgins.”

…personally crawling through No Man’s Land on a reconnaissance mission. He doesn’t make himself out to be a hero at all, despite continuing to volunteer after being wounded and suffering from shell shock (neurasthenia as he calls it). He does describe the misery though, e.g. squatting in the trenches and trying to get an hour or two of sleep before battle, after having marched twenty miles in the rain that day.

…the idiocy of officers who were far too concerned about the men keeping the buttons polished and their uniform clean, and how one complained bitterly of cold when he had “only two blankets” and was behind the lines. He also describes the cruelty of policies such as cowardice being “punished with death alone, and no medical excuses could be accepted.”

…commenting on how good a fighting force the Germans were, and how both sides would sometimes not shoot at one another when they were collecting their dead. He also debunks the more outrageous of the propaganda reports of atrocities, as well as pointing out instances he knew of when the Allies had committed atrocities.

…how the French townspeople gouged the soldiers, raising prices without a shred of shame.

In general it seems like an honest, believable account, but he does sometimes seem to stretch the truth a bit for the purpose of making the story interesting, such as saying he saw the ghost of a man who had been killed earlier in the war.

As for his disillusionment and view of the war which evolved over time, it reminded me a great deal of what returning Vietnam vets like John Kerry would say after having served valorously with honor:
“We could no longer see the War as one between trade-rivals: its continuance seemed merely a sacrifice of the idealistic younger generation to the stupidity and self-protective alarm of the elder.”

It’s notable that his friend Siegfried Sassoon actually tossed his medals into the sea, similar to how Vietnam vets protested by throwing their medals at the Capitol Building. In stark contrast to this, he publishes the ridiculous letter to the editor of a paper supposedly from a woman claiming to be a mother, which hit back at pacifists and arguing for more war until victory had been achieved in her “message to the pacifists/bereaved/trenches.”

What’s remarkable to me is that he continued to do his duty to the fullest all the way through to the Armistice. He was also certainly wise in understanding the dynamic of the war and its outcome (“The Treaty of Versailles shocked me; it seemed destined to cause another war some day, yet nobody cared,” he writes, and remember, this was 1929).

As for his other views, it’s also interesting to read of the evolution of his consciousness of his family’s aristocratic class and how servants were to be treated as a child growing up, to becoming socialistic, aided by the views of his first wife Nancy Nicholson, who was a staunch feminist as well, and ahead of her time. “God is a man, so it must all be rot,” she says about religion, and reading about her from Graves made me wish that she had written a book as well. I have to say though, that while his chapters after the war ended are of some interest, they drag on a bit, and moreover are disingenuous in that they don’t describe at all his affair with the tempestuous Laura Riding, or that she was with him and his wife when they went to Egypt, and that he left his wife for her. A lot of that salacious material can be found in a new biography of him by Jean Moorcroft Wilson though.

As part of the wealthy class with connections, Graves also name drops quite a bit which held some interest, including being in the public baths with the future Edward VIII (the one who would abdicate the throne in 1936), meeting Lloyd George (“when I looked closely at his eyes they seemed like those of a sleep-walker”), T.E. Lawrence (his “eyes immediately held me. They were startlingly blue, even by artificial light”), Thomas Hardy (who told him that to avoid forgetting a story or thought that occurred to a writer, “always carry a pencil and paper”), and various others, e.g. Aldous Huxley, Bertrand Russell, H.G. Wells, A.A. Milne et al. Perhaps the most poignant of these was his account of mountain climbing with George Mallory before the war, who would go on to die near the summit of Mount Everest in 1924. This was something that I found all the more fascinating because his body was discovered and written about in 1999, and there still is great speculation as to what happened to him.

The book may sprawl a bit, possibly a result of it having been hurriedly written in Mallorca as Graves needed to generate income, but it’s still a solid, interesting read. show less

This autobiographical account by Robert Graves details his childhood with some tongue in cheek humour, siblings rivalry and admiration, with the next part shuffling between boarding schools for a better education and the entrenched class hierarchy within that microcosm. With war looming in the background our hero enlists in the army as it was what he was supposed to do.

Harrowing tales of trench warfare, military jargon, German manoeuvres on the western front, cowardly acts and violence, excruciating injuries and letters to loved ones are filled here in great details.

Finally as the war abates we see convalescent war heroes suffering from PTSD and exchanging the German Front with the Irish one.

Not as miserable as I make it to be, it’s show more a very sweet and honest admission of a great witters life. show less

Robert Graves was one of those well-educated British officers who reacted to the First World War with a kind of wise, Oxford-Book-of-Verse horror and had to expunge the experience as best he could through his writing – like Edmund Blunden, or Siegfried Sassoon. The three of them indeed fought near each other in France and knew each other well. It's a powerful and affecting vision, but it probably needs to be set against the rather different worldview of the private soldiers, as captured in Manning's The Middle Parts of Fortune or Barbusse's Le Feu.

Graves is less funny than Sassoon, more down-to-earth than Blunden – he writes with a dry, easy style which is witty but somehow also rather brittle. As in many similar memoirs, there is show more an awareness of the natural world which perhaps seems surprising to a modern reader (‘In March I rejoined the First Battalion on the Somme. It was the primrose season’), though the tendency here is nowhere near as pronounced as in Blunden's Undertones of War. There is a numbed sense of distance to many of the descriptions, and a sneaking suspicion that Graves may perhaps not have been the easiest person to get on with in real life. Nevertheless, the details of trench life are very fully evoked, from the boredom of waiting, to the strategy-less confusion of raids, to the desperate recreations available for men behind the line:

The Red Lamp, the army brothel, was around the corner in the main street. I had seen a queue of a hundred and fifty men waiting outside the door, each to have his short turn with one of the three women in the house […]. Each woman served nearly a battalion of men every week for as long as she lasted. According to the assistant provost-marshal, three weeks was the usual limit: ‘after which she retired on her earnings, pale but proud.’

When it comes to the gory realities of shelling and attrition, Graves adopts a chilly but effective matter-of-factness.

From the morning of September 24th to the night of October 3rd, I had in all eight hours of sleep. I kept myself awake and alive by drinking about a bottle of whisky a day. I had never drunk it before, and have seldom drunk it since; it certainly helped me then. We had no blankets, greatcoats, or waterproof sheets, nor any time or material to build new shelters. The rain poured down. Every night we went out to fetch in the dead of the other battalions. The Germans continued indulgent and we had few casualties. After the first day the corpses swelled and stank. I vomited more than once while superintending the carrying. Those we could not get in from the German wire continued to swell until the wall of the stomach collapsed, either naturally or when punctured by a bullet; a disgusting smell would float across. The colour of the dead faces changed from white to yellow-grey, to red, to purple, to green, to black, to slimy.

As with all of these First World War books, there is no animosity towards the enemy whatsoever. Graves's men shout friendly messages to the nearby Germans (reserving most of their hatred for the French) and have no concern whatever for the political currents that may be animating the conflict. Nor is religion a factor; given the old saw about how there are ‘no atheists in foxholes’, I'm surprised Graves isn't quoted more often, since he says exactly the opposite.

Hardly one soldier in a hundred was inspired by religious feeling of even the crudest kind. It would have been difficult to remain religious in the trenches even if one survived the irreligion of the training battalion at home.

In part this is what creates the enormous gulf that soldiers feel between themselves and those at home, who are keyed up with patriotic and religious fervour and who see the fighting men as the embodiment of all these feelings when in fact they share none of them. After the war, Graves falls in love delightedly with Nancy Nicholson, who as a feminist and socialist finds herself as set against conventional society as he now feels himself. Her précis of Christianity – ‘God is a man, so it must be all rot’ – was a huge relief to him.

Nancy sounds, indeed, in common with many women of that generation, completely fucking amazing. She read the marriage vows for the first time on the morning of their wedding, and was so horrified that she almost refused to go through with it – Graves's memory of the service is of ‘Nancy meeting me [on the aisle] in a blue-check silk wedding-dress, utterly furious’ and ‘savagely muttering the responses’ during the ceremony.

[C]hampagne was another scarce commodity, and the guests made a rush for the dozen bottles on the table. Nancy said: ‘Well, I'm going to get something out of this wedding, at any rate,’ and grabbed a bottle. After three or four glasses, she went off and changed back into her land-girl's costume of breeches and smock.

I love Nancy. Robert Graves I'm less sure about, but he is a joy to listen to – witty, anecdotal, and determined to bear witness to the collective stupidities that left half his generation dead in France. You can see why he'd had enough of England. They were lucky to have the use of him for as long as they did. show less

Brilliant, seemingly honest, and very bittersweet autobiography, written when Graves was still fairly young. Famous mostly for its harrowing depiction of World War I in all its horror, but also in its day-to-day ordinariness. Lets you understand just a little bit why men like Graves and Wilfrid Owen went about their duty despite their perception of the pointlessness of what they were doing. At least Graves lived to tell the tale and to write some more brilliant books.