Tolkien's Great War

Tolkien's Great War

A half hour documentary on JRR Tolkien's experiences during the First World War produced for a centenary exhibition at King Edward's School, Birmingham. For more information, please visit www.kes.org.uk/great-war-exhibition

Produced & Directed by:
Elliot Weaver & Zander Weaver 2014
www.EllianderPictures.co.uk

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien,
was born on the 3rd January, 1892.

He and his brother Hilary,
experienced a difficult childhood.

When Tolkien was just four,
they lost their father, Arthur,

to rheumatic fever.

As a widow with low income,
his mother Mabel,

home schooled the brothers and played
a vital role in their early education

and development.

Tolkien was a smart young boy, with
a fascination and thirst for languages.

Tolkien sat the entrance exam for King
Edward's School, Birmingham and passed.

From the Autumn of 1900,
for a fee of 12 pounds a year,

Tolkien would be educated
in an environment

that would help fulfil
his academic potential.

John Garth: Going to King Edward's
was vitally important to Tolkien;

he was an exceptionally talented boy.

King Edward's offered him
a vast amount of scope

and also the company of other boys
who were similarly talented.

Which was probably quite
hard for Tolkien to find.

Simon Stacey: Not only did he play rugby
but he was a leading light

in the debating society
and the literary society.

He was the life and soul really,

and he missed the school a great deal,
I think, when he finally had to leave.

VO: At the age of just 11, Tolkien
and his brother Hilary

lose their mother Mabel to diabetes.

Grief stricken, he plunges
himself into school life

more energetically than before.
Academically he excels,

but in 1905 meets his intellectual rival,
Christopher Wiseman.

John Garth: Tolkien met his greatest
friend at King Edward's,

Christopher Wiseman on the rugby pitch.

A musician, a mathematician;
quite different from Tolkien.

They developed such a strong
bond on the rugby field

that they called themselves;
"The Great Twin Brethren",

which was a phrase from
"Lays of Ancient Rome" by Lord Macauley.

Simon Stacey: They also were
friendly rivals in the school,

both being very academic boys.
Wiseman had a formidable intellect

and he was interested
in a lot of the things

that Tolkien was getting interested in;

languages, I think he was looking at
Egyptian and was looking at hieroglyphics.

John Garth: Tolkien and Wiseman
must have helped define each other

through their teenage years
because they would argue;

they would argue strongly
about all their beliefs in life.

Simon Stacey: Wiseman was
a very talented musician;

Tolkien was supposed to be tone deaf
but that didn't stop them getting on!

VO: Tolkien also befriends,
son of the headmaster, Rob Gilson.

Tolkien, Wiseman and Gilson,
form a strong bond

which will last throughout
their school years and beyond.

Outside of King Edward's, Tolkien's life
is about to change, yet again.

John Garth: Tolkien was living
in lodgings with his brother, Hilary,

and when he was 16 he met fellow lodger,
Edith Bratt, who was 19 at the time.

And she was a beautiful young girl;
talented pianist and also an orphan.

And the two of them bonded
on their shared sadnesses

but also on their hopes and dreams.

The difficulty for Ronald,
as she called him, and Edith,

was that he was a Roman Catholic
and she was an Anglican.

VO: Tolkien's Guardian, Father Francis
Morgan, a Catholic Priest,

feels this is major divide; and also
believes that Edith will distract Tolkien

from his attempts to get
into Oxford University.

John Garth: Father Francis Morgan,
forbade them from seeing each other,

or even from communicating.

He was thrown back upon
his friendships at King Edward's

and it was this final phase of his time
here, that he began to flourish

and make the place his own;
he and his friends ruled the roost.

VO: Making the most of
his final year at King Edward's

and the friendships he has formed,

Tolkien and his peers create
an informal society.

These young intellectuals gather
in the school library

and do what they are
forbidden to do: brew tea.

Outside of school hours, they meet
in a cafe at Barrow's Stores in Birmingham

and so, self-mockingly, they call themselves
the "Tea Club and Barrovean Society"

or the TCBS for short.

(nostalgic music)

John Garth: The core of the TCBS was probably

Tolkien and Wiseman and the others

gravitated around them. There was Robert

Quilter Gilson, the son of the headmaster

here; Rob was a cultured and sociable chap,

he was perhaps the social glue of the group;

he would welcome anyone and find common

cause with them. A gentle artistic fellow

who loved to sketch.

Simon Stacey: He was a gifted artist and

had ambitions to be an architect.

There was a late arrival, Geoffrey Bache Smith,

who was fascinated by mythology, Celtic

mythology; so this gave him common ground

with Tolkien; it was another of Tolkien's

passions.

Simon Stacey: Smith was quite an accomplished

and advanced poet who recommended contemporary

poetry to Tolkien. When he started writing

poetry, Tolkien was to a certain extent,

inspired by Smith and the wider group.

And that was really the beginnings of

Tolkien as a writer.

John Garth: From the beginnings which were

mostly about fun, later on, during the war years,

this developed into a fellowship from which

each of them drew tremendous strength and

comfort.

VO: Later that year, Tolkien's time at

King Edward's comes to an end and he begins

his first term at Oxford, having successfully

gained entrance.

On the eve of his 21st birthday, and his

independence from Father Francis Morgan,

Tolkien writes to Edith and less than a

week later, they are re-united.

Edith is engaged to marry another man,

but despite almost certain ridicule,

she agrees to break the engagement to be

with her Ronald.

Over the next few months, a growing sense of

trouble brews across Europe and on the 28th

of June, 1914, everything changes.

(gun shot sound)

(solemn music)

Gavrillo Princip is arrested for the

assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

A diplomatic crisis ensues and within weeks,

Europe's major powers are at war.

Germany invades Belgium and Britain declares

war on Germany. Parliament issues a call

to arms from the British public.

Paul Golightly: There isn't a rush to the

colours straight away. It becomes much more

obvious that people are willing to join

up when atrocity stories start to emerge,

then you get a much more concerted rush

to join.

John Garth: There was an air of excitement

about the war, there was a naive sense that

this would allow young men to fulfil their

potential in a way that wasn't possible in

peace time. There was a tremendous sense

of patriotism and a sense of duty towards

whatever England, or Britain, stood for.

Paul Golightly: They are attracted to the

idea of a settling of accounts with the Germans,

or at least some of them will be. On the

whole, they thought they were going to give

the Germans a bloody nose.

John Garth: "The Germans has been dastardly"

and needed to dealt with and shown their place.

Paul Golightly: Men join up out of economic

necessity and you'll find that in any war.

Life is not very exciting and the romance

and colour of joining the army and being

part of something very big indeed, I'm sure

has some allure.

(solemn music) And they see things

in rather romantic ways, which of course is

doomed to fail; we all know what the First

World War turns into. It's not a war of

movement, of dash and élan; it's not cavalry

charges and distant trumpets; I'm afraid

it's the pitter-patter of machine gun fire

and the crump of artillery that's going to

dominate.

So they, I think, have expectations about what

the war will be like, and I think their main

emotion was, will it be over before I can

get to France.

John Garth: Tolkien, who's reading covered

ancient heroic literature, that is surprisingly

frank about what happens in war, went into

the war much more open-eyed. He described

himself as a "young man with too much

imagination" and so he did not relish battle

in any sense.

Paul Golightly: And I think that applies

to, not just men like Tolkien who fought in it,

but also the politicians and generals who

directed it; I think a lot of people

understood that this war could be terrible.

Simon Stacey: What you get in the letters

between Gilson, Tolkien and Wiseman and

then in Smith's poetry, is a serious

determination to do their duty and that they

should be prepared to give their lives.

A realistic appreciation that this is a dark time

and that they've got to come through it.

VO: G.B. Smith and Rob Gilson both join

the army in 1914, Tolkien's brother, Hilary,

signs up as a bugler and Christopher Wiseman

joins the navy. Tolkien however, faces a

dilemma.

Simon Stacey: Tolkien was in a difficult

position when war broke out; he had a year

of his degree at Oxford to run and Tolkien

needed a degree badly because he wanted to

pursue an academic career; he didn't have

any money in his family unlike Gilson and

therefore, having committed three years to

the degree it was very important that he

completed it. So he discovered a scheme

whereby he could undergo some training

in the Officer Training Core whilst

completing his degree, which he did triumphantly

with a first at Oxford.

VO: He follows good friend, G.B.Smith, into

the Lancashire Fusiliers in the hope of being

posted to the same battalion.

John Garth: Tolkien was looking for something

in the army through which he could use his

particular talents, and his particular talents

were languages and writing systems; he was

fascinated by codes and so forth. So it was

only natural that he would train up as a

signaller.

Paul Golightly: It would have meant that

Tolkien was exposed to the technology

available at the time and it must have

interested him; so the use of the radio, the

use of signals, of semaphore.

Simon Stacey: He learnt morse code,

he learnt how to use signalling lamps, field

telephones; which of course went on largely

to be ineffective or not to work.

John Garth: He became Battalion Signalling

Officer for his Battalion. Tolkien had to

oversee the communications of a Battalion

of between 600 and 1,000 men depending on

manpower at the time.

Paul Golightly: His basic job of course

was to act as a link between the various

layers of command, and that he would be

responsible for incoming orders and making sure

that the right people got those and of course

he'd be responsible for telling command further

up the line about the situation on his sector.

John Garth: So he was an absolute lynch pin

in a war which depended absolutely on how

much information you had about your enemies

position.

VO: In March of 1916 as his training nears

its completion, both Tolkien and Edith

become aware that he will soon be sent to

the Front. They marry and just over two

months later, Tolkien is shipped off to France.

The two of them part, not knowing if they

will ever see each other again.

(Loud battle sounds, Guns Firing, Shouting)

(ominous music)

VO: When Tolkien arrives at the Front, the

War has been raging for almost two years.

The cost of the War is clear;

the countryside is scarred and the casualties

high.

After a virtual stalemate of trench warfare

throughout 1915, and with a new wave of

thousands of freshly trained recruits, it is

clear the Big Push is imminent.

(marching feet)

Tolkien's Battalion remains in reserve, but

he fears for the lives of his old school

friends who are at the Front.

Within a month of his arrival in France

the Allies launch the Somme Offensive.

At 7.30am, on Saturday 1st of July,

the troops in the British Frontline,

go over the top.

(whistle sound echoes)

On the first day of the Offensive alone,

20,000 men are killed, 35,000 are wounded

and over 2,000 are reported missing.

Paul Golightly: The first casualty was

the plan. It started to fall apart very

rapidly. Tragically for the men caught out

in the open, it was a death sentence. 1 in 5

men who went into combat on the 1st of July

was killed.

John Garth: It was the most disastrous day

in the history of the British Army, and

a tragedy for the entire country. There were

villages that had lost all their young men.

Paul Golightly: It's marked as a loss of

innocence, that the 20,000 that were killed

represent a turning point in British

consciousness and the relationship perhaps

between those who make decisions and those

who are forced to carry them out.

(soft piano music)

VO: Among the many men that are lost on that

day, is dear friend and TCBS member,

Robert Gilson.

John Garth: He led his Platoon over the top

took charge of his Company, but was shot

in the middle of No Man's Land.

Paul Golightly: He was in the fourth wave.

He saw the first wave go in and fail,

the second wave go in and fail,

the third wave go in and fail.

And he, as a part of the fourth wave, had

to go in; and they still went. And that

I think is the most poignant and probably

the most tragic thing about the 1st of July

1916. That this generation, had so much faith

in their superiors, probably had so much

commitment to their fellows that they were

prepared to go, even though it meant certain

death.

John Garth: Tolkien heard about this

after his first action on the Somme a couple

of weeks later; and he was devastated.

It shook him to the foundations of his

beliefs. He had, as all of the members of

the TCBS had, built up their group as a

fellowship, with ideas and a spirit that had

something to give to the World. In which

all four of them were vital parts, and now

one of them was dead. So what did that mean

about their overall purpose? And also his

purpose.

Simon Stacey: Geoffrey Smith wrote him a

letter in which, clearly Smith experiences

feelings of devastation and a sense that the

fellowship had been broken. Rob would never

become an architect, he would never fulfil

his part in whatever they dreamed of.

John Garthm: And I think it took him quite

some time to recover from that. The other

two members, Wiseman and Smith, were

determined to persuade him that, no, the TCBS

purpose continued and I think eventually

Tolkien took heart from that.

VO: Tolkien writes to Rob's father, Headmaster

at King Edward's school to offer his

condolences. The TCBS lost a bright young

man, a talented artist and most painfully

of all; a dear friend.

Tolkien's war has well and truly started and

over the coming months he is subject to the

many hardships of trench warfare.

John Garth: He spent his time in and out

of the trenches. Battalions would be rotated

from the Frontline to the reserve trenches

to rest, as they laughably called it, but

it wasn't really rest, it was training.

Tolkien talked about the universal weariness

of all this war. But during this period he

was involved in three attacks, he was

very fortunate not to have to go through the

first day of the Somme; he was a few miles

back from the Frontline at that time.

His Battalion moved forward for a second

wave of attacks, they were launched against a

village called Ovillers; which had been the

German Frontline. One of the first things that

he encountered was, complete chaos in the

battlefield communications system. It was very

primitive. It was only partly built; damaged

by the fortunes of battle. He had signallers

going across No Man's Land carrying flares

to say, we have arrived. Further flares -

"we have taken prisoners", they carried

pigeons; pigeons were about the most reliable

method of communication. One of Tolkien's

signallers won a military medal for managing

to get his pigeons across No Man's Land and

do the job correctly.

VO: The attack is a success and many

prisoners are captured. Of all the combat

Tolkien encounters, one of the most significant

battles is also one of his last; an attack

on Regina Trench.

John Garth: This was in October, by which

time the battlefield had been reduced to mud.

The attack had been delayed by heavy rain

but on October 21st there was a cold snap

so the ground was frozen hard and the

attack was able to go ahead.

(Deep boom. Loud Artillery Fire)

(Gunfire, bullets zipping by)

(solemn music)

John Garth: He saw violent death, he also

saw and felt extreme terror.

He never, as far as we know, described at

length what trench warfare was like but he

summed it up in two words, in one of his

letters, and this was; "animal horror".

It would reduce you from humanity and

turn you into a retched beast desperate only

to cower and survive. And it's very

interesting if you look in The Lord of The Rings

whenever the characters are in situations of

extreme fear, they're always described as

stooping and stupefied, un-manned by terror.

Paul Golightly: A lot of British trenches

were deliberately uncomfortable because

the Generals wanted the men to believe

that they were only temporary, that they

would be advancing beyond this, that this

wasn't their home.

VO: Out on the Western Front, Tolkien feels

isolated from home and letters to, and from,

Edith are a lifeline. For reasons of

strategic importance Tolkien is forbidden

from sharing his location in his letters, so

he devises a code of dots to keep Edith

informed of where he is.

John Garth: He simply found the letters

of the alphabet within what he wrote to her

and put a dot above the relevant ones to

spell out the name of the place where he was

currently located. And Edith kept a map

on her wall and pins to show where he was

at that time.

VO: After the successful attack on Regina

Trench, the Battalion is withdrawn from the

front and paraded in front of the top brass.

Tolkien however, falls ill.

John Garth: It was trench fever. And this

was a louse born disease due to the unhygienic

conditions in the trenches.

Paul Golightly: It spread through contact

with lice and it symptoms aren't very pleasant

It gives you a headache, you can have stomach

cramps, you can have pain in you joints

and in your bones, you can get lesions on

your skin; it's not fatal but it can become

very debilitating. So debilitating you can't

be an effective soldier. Tolkien got a very

bad case, so bad that he had to be invalided

"back to Blighty" as they put it.

And in fact it was the end of his war.

John Garth: It saved Tolkien's life, it took

him out of the battlefield and back to Britain.

He was shipped home to Birmingham, to

The First Southern General Hospital as it

was called at the time, which was actually set

up in the grounds of Birmingham University.

And it was there that Tolkien was re-united

with his wife, Edith and where he began

writing the first stories of Middle-Earth.

His re-union with Edith was deeply emotional

and was an inspiration for various pieces of

writing in his mythology, notably the

story of Luthien and Beren; which features

in the Silmarillion and is mentioned in

The Lord of The Rings. A love story between

a mortal man and an immortal elf.

(Gentle Piano Music)

VO: However, Tolkien's respite is short lived.

Shortly after returning to Birmingham, Tolkien

learns from Christopher Wiseman, that

good friend G.B.Smith has been killed.

John Garth: The Battle of the Somme was

over, and Smith had been organising a

football match for his men about four miles

behind the Frontline, when a stray shell

exploded near him.

He was hit by shrapnel and developed what

they called Gas Gangrene, which killed

him within a few days. Early in 1916, while

Tolkien was still in training, he had a letter

G.B.Smith, who by that time was in the trenches

in France.

VO: Smith was about to go out on Night Patrol.

The officer who had led the patrol the night before

had been captured and most likely killed.

John Garth: It was about the most dangerous

activity that you could do on the Western Front

and Smith was about to go into it and he took

the opportunity to write to Tolkien, and

tell him; "I'm about to go out on Night Patrol,

I am a wild and wholehearted admirer of

what you've written and what you will write"

He told Tolkien, "you I'm sure are chosen,

and you must publish."

Smith was essentially the first Middle-Earth

fan.

Simon Stacey: Smith says in the letter that

death couldn't put an end to the TCBS, to

the "immortal four" as he put it, that Tolkien

may say the things that he had wanted to

say, long after he is there to say them.

That's very moving because Tolkien, although

very much his own individual artistic self,

I think did see his later career as an

attempt to fulfil the artistic dreams that

they'd shared.

John Garth: He was able to gather his strength

and perhaps see Smith as an ideal to be lived up to.

VO: In the summer of 1918, Tolkien and

Wiseman gather some of Smith's poems and

have them published in a small volume,

entitled; "A Spring Harvest".

Tolkien's war is over, but the impact of his

experiences will stay with him forever, and

will even feature in his future writings.

John Garth: The whole experience of the War

had an ongoing affect on much of Tolkien's

mythology. As soon as Tolkien returned from

the Somme he started writing a story called,

"The Fall of Gondolin" which was the first

element of his mythology that dealt with battle.

And the fascinating thing about it is that the

attacking forces use things that are termed

by Tolkien, "dragons" or "beasts" or "monsters"

but they're described as metallic and rolling

and they spout fire and some of them have

troops inside them, and it's pretty clear that

this is a kind of mythologising of the Tank.

Which was Britains secret weapon, which

had just been launched on the Somme while

Tolkien was there.

The Lord of The Rings focusses on a fellowship,

they're separated on different battlefronts,

much like the TCBS were.

Simon Stacey: It's almost unimaginable that,

in writing of the breaking of the fellowship,

in The Lord of The Rings, that Tolkien wouldn't

have been influenced by his own loss during

the First World War and the breaking of the

TCBS fellowship.

There is a late letter in which he mentions

that the dead marshes, through which Frodo,

Sam and Gollum travel, owe something to

northern France, in the area of the Somme

where he fought.

John Garth: Frodo and Sam are very much

the equivalent of an officer and his batman; his

servant. And Tolkien actually said that, "my

Sam Gamgee is inspired by the Privates and

Batmen I knew in the First World War".

Frodo represents really, the feelings of a young

man like Tolkien himself, thrown into a war

unwillingly and having to shoulder a terrible

burden; a burden of duty. You can see that

Frodo develops symptoms of what we would now

call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or

War Trauma, or what they called then,

Shell Shock. He becomes withdrawn from

the World, increasingly enclosed within himself

he says he can't remember what grass was like,

what sunlight was like.

When the war is over in The Lord of The Rings,

Frodo does not strut his stuff as a hero,

he is visibly traumatised by the whole

experience. This was very true of many of the

soldiers who returned from the Western

Front, unable to talk about the experiences

that had affected them so deeply.

(retrospective piano music)

Paul Golightly: The generation that fights

the First World War, should be called courageous.

Simon Stacey: The sacrifice of that generation

was extraordinary.

John Garth: It was a tragic loss not only for

families, for friends, but for civilisation as

a whole. It shook long-held beliefs and

assumptions in honour and glory.

Simon Stacey: It is the first thorough

going war of the machines. So many

thousands and ultimately millions of men

could be wiped out, could be destroyed without

necessarily facing their individual enemy.

Paul Golightly: These men don't have

the privilege of dying one at a time, they die

on mass; and it's those numbers that I think

traumatise us so much. That's why we have

the memorials at Thiepval and Menin Gate;

where it's just one long list of names.

These bodies have simply disappeared, and

they're all separate lives but they've all

vanished at once.

John Garth: When you read the King Edward's

School Chronicle, as I have to research

Tolkien's life here, you get to know the boys

with whom he grew up and you see their

achievements, you see what they were learning,

you see how wonderfully intelligent, potentially

creative and brilliant they were. And then

the First World War; and you see that they're

heading for this.

Paul Golightly: These young men, with their

whole lives in front of them, have, yes it's

a phrase that we all know, have been cut off

in their prime. They were full of potential,

full of life, full of vigour, full of plans,

full of ambition; wanting to do all kinds of

things with their professional lives and

their personal lives, and denied that opportunity.

John Garth: When you look at the fortunes

of war, it's quite astonishing that Tolkien

survived and went on to produce the great

works of literature that he did; works that

have shaped our culture. And one does

wonder how many others didn't survive,

what potential was locked inside them that

they never had time to bring out of themselves.

So there is an uncountable loss there.

Simon Stacey: G.B.Smith gives a brief glimpse

of a young life snuffed out and only very

incompletely communicating its dreams.

Paul Golightly: This is a generation that did

not talk about the way it felt. So in that

sense I think the psychological affect was

long lasting. A number of veterans surived

the war only to find that they couldn't survive

the peace.

VO: In the chapel at King Edward's School,

eight brass plaques hold the names of

245 Old Edwardians who lost their lives during

the First World War. Tolkien and his TCBS

friends, are just four of almost

fifteen hundred Old Edwardians who answered

their country's call and fought in The Great War,

and each of their stories is worth telling.

Paul Golightly: The graveyards that you can

walk around in northern France now have become

almost 21st century cathedrals; where some

really important questions need to be ask about

the nature of war and the nature of

sacrifice, and in the First World War's case,

the scale of that sacrifice. Whether any war

could be worth that.