Disenchantment

by C.E. Montague

Disenchantment was one of the first books written after the First World War to express a sense of liberal disillusionment with the way the war had been conducted. It had a considerable impact when it was first published in 1924, though it was overshadowed later by the angrier and more directly descriptive memoirs of Sassoon and Graves. Montague offers a unique perspective on the war in France. He joined up as a white-haired 47-year-old volunteer, as part of a unit of the Royal Fusiliers manned mainly by older sportsmen (he had been a keen mountaineer before the war). He was also a very senior journalist, a leader writer for the Manchester Guardian. After being wounded in action in early 1916, he became an intelligence officer, dealing with journalists and visiting writers and censoring their reports. His book is highly allusive, replete with references to classical literature, and recalls a pre-war kind of essayistic belles-lettres (the book first appeared as a series of essays in the

Genres: History, World War I, Nonfiction

163 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1922

About the author

Charles Edward Montague (1867–1928) was an English journalist, known also as a writer of novels and essays published in the Manchester Guardian.
Although forty-seven with a wife and seven children, Montague volunteered to join the British Army in 1914. He worked in Military Intelligence and for two years had the task of writing propaganda for the British Army and censoring articles.

After the war, Montague returned to the Manchester Guardian and stayed there until he retired in 1925. He wrote several books including the novels A Hind Let Loose and Rough Justice, and a collection of essays, Disenchantment (1922) about the First World War.

Reviews

[Michael Bully · Rating 4 out of 5]

Next to H G Well's 'Mr. Britling Sees It Through', 'Disenchantment' was one of the first books , along with certain war poetry, to shape a powerful view of Britain's involvement in World War 1 that seems stronger than ever :Vast numbers of people seem to feel that either Britain should have avoided taking part in the war, or that our involvement began with some quite idealistic aims but was artificially prolonged by politicians who refused to negotiate peace and/or generals who either ruthlessly or stupidly squandered the lives of countless young men in vain. Or perhaps the cost of being on the winning side was simply to high in casualties.
Revisionist historians such as Peter Hart, Gordon Corrigan, Dr. Gary Sheffield have countered this view by maintaining that the war was necessary to curtail German aggression and a ultimately a high military achievement for Britain, a country that entered the war with such a small army.
'Disenchantment ' appeared in 1922 and has a modernist approach. Montague was a journalist with and reports on his time in uniform. There's no central story which one finds in fictionalised autobiography such as in Sassoon's George Sherston series, or Richard Aldington's 'Death of A Hero' or in more direct war memoir such as Graves' 'Goodbye to All That'.

Montague started with 'The Vision' ....drawing on Rupert Brooke 'Now God be thank'd who has match'd us with His hour/ And caught our youth and wak'd us from sleeping' . The volunteers are men combined from all different classes in the New Army, keen to fight the war . But in the author's words " But they were (keen) , and they imagined that all their betters were too. That was the paradise that the bottom fell out of ."
What starts as the 'imp of frustration' developed into the' first shiver of disillusionment'.

Montague then demonstrated parallels with Shakespeare's portrayal of soldiers fates in 'Henry IV' and 'Henry V' and the New Army on the Western Front. Followed by a chapter on the tedium of war. Then the problem of maintaining Christian belief during warfare " It is not sense to hope reattain at will that deflowered virginity of faith'. Wartime propaganda is also denounced, and the highlighting of how "Lying becomes a duty ", and "Chivalry Ends" during the course of World War 1. To this writer Britain "won the fight and lost the prize." He attacked the "shabby epidemic of spite" demonstrated by both the British and the French towards Germany, though largely instigated by non-combatants and well educated officers.

Striking work from 1922, when a League of Nations was emerging. The only hope Montague offers is that "Ex-soldiers will be a peace party."
'Disenchantment' does not go into great explicit depths of the horrors of war by any means, yet stresses the suffering experienced by both sides of the conflict.

A strangely overlooked book, Ahead of its time. It really took until 1928 onwards to see a whole wave of war memoirs appearing that tackled the horror of the World War 1. Ex-soldiers who were determined to write about their experiences. Maybe not a peace party, but their views helped to shape how the War is viewed today.

[Chaimpesach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Montague is an excellent writer. He vividly depicts the sense of frustration and disappointment British soldiers had had in their leadership and some of their countrymen during the Great War.

For those interested in what Montague wrote about (and how), I suggest these passages:

"All the wise men were not in the east. It was the fault of the war, the outlandish, innovatory war that did not conform to the proper text-books as it ought to have done; an unimagined war of flankless armies scratching each other's faces across an endless thorn hedge, not dreamt of in Staff College philosophy; a war that was always putting out of date the best that had been known and thought and invented, always sending everyone to school again; unkind, above all, to us who, if well-to-do, bring up our young to have a proper respect for the past and to feel that if yesterday's parasol will not keep out the rain of to-day, then it ought to, and no one can blame them for using it."

and

"Long ago, perhaps, the commons of England may, on the whole, have accepted the view that while they were the fists of her army there was a strong brain somewhere behind, as good at its job as the fists were at theirs; that above them, using them for the best, mind was enthroned, mind the deviser, adapter, foreseer, the finder of ever new means to new ends, mind which knew better than fists, and from which, in any time of trial, all good counsels and provident works were sure to proceed. If so, the faith of the general mass of the English common people in any such division of functions was now pretty near its last kick. The lions felt they had found out the asses..."

[Len Knighton · Rating 3 out of 5]

So many words

In a scene from the motion picture AMADEUS, Mozart is glowing in the triumph of his first opera before the Emperor. His Royal Highness, a lover of music without understanding, is asked for his critique. While praising the opera and Mozart, he concludes that the piece had “too many notes.”
There is brilliant writing throughout this book but, unfortunately, much of it I did not understand. That, I confess, is due to my deficiencies, at least in part.
The Centennial observance of The Great War is now past. The War brought out the best and worst in humankind, or at least we thought it did until the next war exceeded both in many ways. Montague reflects on both in a style largely and regrettably forgotten.
For those steeped in British culture, this book would be an unalloyed treasure. As one from the western shores of The Pond, much of it was confusing. What was not brought delight to every nerve.

Three stars.

[Faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

everything well done.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of essays, written in 1922, that attempts to explain the thoughts of the British Army during the war and afterwards. It's gradual disenchantment with it rulers, its army, its church, its politicians and its press.

It is written with a certain degree of what one might now call snark. Very educated snark. It is full of quotes and references from and to literature. There are quotes from Virgil untranslated. Montague was the Chief Leader Writer* for the Manchester Guardian and the war's impact preyed on his mind. He was, politically, an old school English liberal.

This is a book that isn't without hope though. He constantly explains that despite being let down by pretty much all their pre-war illusions of the pillars of their society the average British soldier reacted in a sane and sensible fashion. They were to be let down again by a society that renaged on the promise to make a 'home fit for heroes.' Something that was to echo down into the Second World War - and perhaps played a part in the 1945 Labour landslide. It still echoes a little now when people talk about how veterans of our more modern wars are treated.

This has flashes of anger in it, but isn't as angry as some of the works that was to come later. Indeed, on its publication it was much disapproved of outside liberal/left circles. A little too much too soon for the ruling classes perhaps. And after his death he seems to have been seen - because of its title I think more than its actual content - as a 'disenchanted writer'. Grouped with memoirs written by people like Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon and Frederic Manning who came afterwards. It has been seen as one of the reasons why World War One is seen as futile.

But that seems wrong to me.

Keith Grieves in War in History, Vol. 4, No.1, 1997 writes - in an article entitled - C.E. Montague and the Making of "Disenchantment", 1914-1921 says: "His moral engagement in the national emergency was universalised as the experience of everyone who enlisted and trained in the period up to March 1916."

However I think Montague makes valid points about how the industrialisation of warfare effected the relationship between Generals and their men, for example. And I think that however it was perceived previously it isn't book about hopelessness. Montague makes suggestions of how to deal with this disenchantment.

Interestingly some of this book feels really contemporary, particularly how once cherished expectations of society have been proved less strong in the face of shocks on a national or international level and I heard echoes of our current government in some of his talk of politicians and their promises.

A fascinating read written in a fine style I highly recommend it. I've highlighted lots of passages.





*Does that need all capitals? Whatever.

[EndeavourPress4 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is published by Endeavour Press.