The war needs to be wrestled back from literature, restored to and anchored in history, one infers. But of course, this would be impossible. One of the reasons for this is that the single powerful story itself falls apart on interrogation. Hynes is right that the war was a great imaginative event, but we need to re-approach the nature of that imagination, and its results in print. F S Brereton might not be represented on school syllabi, but he wrote 48 novels, some of them about the war, in which he served as a surgeon.
Heroes, heroines, and evil spies populate his fiction, not war-ravaged trauma victims or alcoholics. What these examples demonstrate is that to an eager readership in the s the story of war was very far removed from disillusionment. More than that, it was varied, and simply became more so once the now dominant novels and poetry found their way into print. And even these dominant examples reward scrutiny. Historical narratives are no more singular. And the routine and boredom of the frontlines are as integral to some accounts as the trauma is to others.
A dominant narrative, once you train the gaze to look farther back, or wider afield, or explore the edges of the book tables, emerges as unattainable.
A dominant narrative should also be thought to be undesirable, whether or not it affirms what we think we know, or helps to sell books. It is only through acknowledgement of the multiplicity of stories, and the maintenance of an educational system that equips readers of all ages to interpret them, that World War I can come closer to being known and understood.
The centenary cannot offer a complete picture of the Great War, but it does offer the opportunity to deepen and broaden our knowledge of the many stories that war tells. If you are an academic or researcher with relevant expertise and would like to respond to this article, please use our pitch facility. By the standards of trench warfare, with gains measured in yards, this advance was remarkable.
Three weeks earlier, a powerful French-led counteroffensive the Second Battle of the Marne had halted a major German attack. Having decisively seized the initiative, at Amiens the Allies exercised it to devastating effect.
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