First World War Commemoration

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Keith Simpson (Broadland) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure, Mrs Riordan, to serve under your chairmanship. We are witnessing today a strange reversal of life, in that I am doing a presentation to the Minister, whom I taught some 20 years ago when he was an officer cadet. It will be interesting to see whether he is as critical of me as I perhaps was of him.

May I begin by declaring three interests—not pecuniary ones—that I have in relation to the subject? The first is that for many years I taught military history at the military academy of Sandhurst and at the staff college, and I wrote or edited several books to do with the British Army and the first world war. Secondly, I am one of two parliamentary commissioners representing the House of Commons on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Thirdly, I am a member of the Prime Minister’s advisory board on commemorating the first world war.

We cannot get away from the fact that the first world war is a controversial subject. It was controversial at the time. When the Liberal Government decided to declare war on Germany, following the German invasion of Belgium, several Liberal Ministers resigned from the Cabinet. During the war, there were the conscientious objectors, and those, such as Lord Lansdowne, who wanted at different times to reach a peace settlement.

The subject has also been controversial since then. Many veterans felt that they were betrayed. In the 1960s, during the anniversary of the first world war, an enormous debate went on. Films and programmes such as “Oh! What A Lovely War” and “Blackadder Goes Forth” probably have a bigger impact on public perceptions of Britain and the first world war than all the memoirs and history books, and we can see that today.

The Government are in a difficult position, trying to organise a commemoration that reflects the general feeling of the British public, which is that this is something to commemorate in a positive way. It is about not only remembrance and reconciliation but pride. However, looking in the newspapers, I can see that my old friend Max Hastings has written a story asking whether the Government are sucking up to the Germans—“Don’t mention the war!” That is not true.

I happen to be in the historical camp that believes that Britain was right to go to war in 1914, by the end of which we had beaten imperial Germany. Many Germans of the current generation and German historians agree with that. Equally, a whole group of artists and others, including one Labour MP, wrote to The Guardian expressing an opposite view. They believe that this is all about the worst kind of patriotic interpretation of the first world war. We have two different opinions. It is not up to the Government to lay down the law on this, but we will have a discussion over the next five years, and perhaps the younger generation will engage in it.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there were two main consequences of the first world war? One was that 16 million were dead and the second was the second world war.

[Mr Simpson]

With the greatest of respect to the hon. Gentleman, I am not here to debate that. It may well be that at some later date we will have a full-scale debate about commemorating the first world war, either through the Backbench Business Committee or in Government time. I am merely giving two interpretations, and I happen to believe that one of them is correct.

My purpose in introducing this short debate today is to reflect the fact that there has been considerable interest in both Houses in the commemoration. Two of my hon. Friends, here today, have already secured short debates on the subject. On 6 March, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) introduced a debate entitled, “Youth participation: first world war commemorations”, and, on 13 March, my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) introduced a debate on the first world war centenary. Folkestone will be one of the commemorative points next August; it was from Folkestone that many tens of thousands of soldiers went by cross-channel steamer to Belgium and France. There have been oral questions and debates in the House of Lords as well.

The Government have outlined a six-year programme of events around the themes of remembrance, youth and education. I do not intend to go into any details, as many colleagues here will be aware of it. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the Imperial War museum are central to the commemoration, but I also want to flag up the role of the National Archives, which have hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of documents and photographs relating to the first world war, specifically to the war service of men and women, and a lot of other things such as operational diaries. People now can get easy access to such information.

The importance of the commemoration is not just the fact that the Government are going to set an overview, but that it will be bottom up. It is the work done already over many decades by individuals and local communities who wish to look at the people behind the names, particularly on things such as war memorials. We have a wide range of interest groups such as the Western Front Association and the War Memorials Trust, which have already done very good work—hon. Members will know that from their constituencies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

This is the first time that I have spoken under your chairmanship, Mrs Riordan, and I am sure that it will be a great pleasure to do so.

It is a delight to be here and to hear the authoritative words of the hon. Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson), who secured this debate. I am slightly alarmed that he has shaved off his moustache. The feminisation of politics has given us many great benefits, but Mrs Thatcher never appointed anyone with facial hair. There is great danger if we start to shave off our facial hair: what male appendages might be under threat next?

The first world war is not an occasion to celebrate. I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for soothing out some of the jingoistic overtones in the original speech that suggested that we might celebrate the end of that war. I have a different tale to tell, but it is relevant and true, about a young man who volunteered at the age of 15. He was full of optimism and a great patriot, and went to war believing that it was going to lead to dignity, glory and honour. It did not; it led to disease, degradation, bitterness and early death at the age of 43.

That young man was a machine gunner. The belief on both sides was that machine gunners were never taken prisoner, because they were responsible for killing hundreds and possibly thousands of people. He found himself in a machine gun nest—a foxhole—gravely injured, and the others were dead. That was in April 1918, when the Germans broke through on the Messines ridge. His life was saved. He heard a German patrol coming to him and took out his rosary beads to pray, waiting for the bullet to blow out his brains. He could not get out of the hole, where he was identified as a machine gunner because the machine gun was lying across his body. However, he was not shot. The German officer, and two others, carried him across no man’s land and his life was saved. He was ever grateful to the Germans for the rest of his life.

He went there to serve the cause of his country that he loved and to kill the Hun, who were slaughtering Belgian babies. Other small nations had a different army experience at the time. He returned to civilian life and found that he was on a pension. He could not do what he called a man’s job ever again. In the mid-1930s, his pitiful pension was reduced by an ungrateful Government, who changed the reason for his pension from saying that his ill health was attributed to his war wound to saying that it was aggravated by it, although he went in as a perfectly fit 15-year-old.

The man was my father. Bitterness against war is justified in many of his generation. He was not killed by his wounds, but by his war experience. Two of the stories that he and his brothers told me about the war were that they did not have strawberry jam, but they had alcohol and cigarettes in abundance. He died of lung cancer at 43, because he was hopelessly addicted to tobacco. Others were addicted to alcohol, because of the way that alcohol was cynically used, an element that the hon. Member for Broadland did not recall.

We have to look at that war, which resulted in 16 million dead, with 900,000 British dead. Anyone who believes that is a matter for celebration is deeply wrong. The hon. Gentleman quoted Kipling, a great advocate for glory:

“I lied to please the mob.”

Others lied to please the mob. The lesson that we should take from the first world war, which led to the second world war, inevitably, because of what happened at Versailles, is, how do we understand war in our own age, these days?

There is a debate on Thursday on the Iraq war. It will be fascinating to recall the decisions made in this place in 2003, when because of the wishes of one man, we did not pull out of that war, as the Prime Minister was invited to, but went ahead on the basis of a misunderstanding, or possibly a lie. The consequence for this country was 179 dead. That is a hell of a price to pay for one man’s vanity. If we wish to commemorate the true lessons of that war, I suggest we do something that is now forbidden in this House and read out the names of the current war dead from Iraq and Afghanistan. I have done it twice and it is now forbidden. We are not allowed—it is out of order—to read the names of the war dead. We could not possibly do it for those who died in the first world war, who died in their hundreds of thousands, like cattle, but we can at least honour those who have recently died because of our decisions, taken in this House, on Iraq and Helmand, which have resulted in many other deaths.

The great lesson of the first world war was its abject futility and the way it led to unnecessary suffering and death, without solving any of the problems that existed at the time. I am grateful that there has been a change in the Government’s attitude and that they are talking about commemorating the war’s full horrors. That must be our emphasis and our message to young people. We could go back not only to Kipling, but to the other poets who said that we must not repeat

“The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est

Pro patria mori.”