Tolkien's Application for War

So, yesterday Janice sent me a link to an interesting document now available online, courtesy of the National Archives: Tolkien's application to become an officer in World War I.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/people/p_tolkien_app.htm
It's chilling to see this form, knowing how many men who filled it out discovered later that it'd been an involuntary suicide letter, condemning them to a horrible death in an unnecessary war.
That aside, a few details do stand out, almost a century later, about how things were done back then:
First, that this was an application for a "temporary" commission, one to last only until the end of the war.
Second, the question about whether he cd ride a horse: a relic from an earlier day and a different kind of war.*
Third, the curious question (v. high up on the list) asking for assurance that he's "of pure European descent". I assume this requirement is to screen out 'half-castes', as they were called in those days -- British citizens who had a parent or grandparent among the colonial peoples the British had conquered and subjugated. I know that in such a deeply racist society as prewar (and postwar) Britain such folk faced all kinds of societal ostracizing, but had not realized their background precluded their serving as officers as well.
Still, a remarkable document. A good example of how context and foreknowledge affects the effect of what we read and see, how something as simple as a form letter can be weighted with sinister forboding when we know what all awaited him in the next few years.
--John R.

*though in point of fact being able to ride in training camp turned out to be just about the only thing Tolkien enjoyed about his military service.