About : standard furniture vietnam co. ltd
Title : standard furniture vietnam co. ltd
standard furniture vietnam co. ltd
welcome to everybody to the first of a series of ratherenticingly titled ucl lectures on aspects of the first world war,which are not often discussed at all or even noticed. i'm richard norton-taylor,a veteran guardian journalist from a military family actually writing about warsand occasionally peace for many years. i'm delighted to welcomedr clare makepeace who describes herself asa historian of modern warfare
to talk about "sex and the somme". clare has focused on two aspectsof the two world wars in her research: visits of british soldiers to brothelsin the first world war and prisoners of warin the second world war. she's contributed immensely already to our understandingof individuals' experience of warfare and was inspired partly,if that's the right word, inspired by the experience of her grandfather,who was captured in dunkirk. the lecture will be streamed live,with the hashtag ucllhl.
robert graves wrotein "goodbye to all that" "young british soldiersdid not want to die virgins" and they ignored instructions from the secretary of state for war,lord kitchener. over to you clare.- thank you. [applause] thank you for that kind introductionand good afternoon everyone. a hundred years on and so entrenchedis the first world war in british popular culture
that certain images and ideasabout the war instantly come to mind when those three words are uttered. we are likely, for example,to readily picture soldiers, waiting in fear in the trench moments beforethey were ordered to go over the top. we might evoke the poetryof wilfred owen, robert graves or siegfried sassoon to imaginewhat those soldiers were feeling. we think of certain episodes of thewar. perhaps a christmas truce
or the slaughterof the first day of the somme. or representations of the casualtiesof battle might come to mind the cenotaph in london, for example,or a poppy field perhaps the one into which"blackadder goes forth" faded. in other words,when we speak of the first world war there is no shortage of imagery,of words, of television or cinematic remakes to shape how we conceive ofthe experiences of the men involved. today's ucl lunchtime lecture is aboutan aspect of the first world war
that the black and white photosdon't capture that most post-war productions havechosen not to recognise and that, even among academichistorians, is understudied. that is the tommy and his officers'visits to brothels whilst they were serving overseasbetween 1914 and 1918. rarely does the prostitute's punterspeak in british history. rarely has he recorded his experienceof the brothel visit. but the extraneous circumstancesof the first world war provided a handful of menwith an excuse or a reason
to write about these visits. the talk i'm giving todayis based upon my findings from their first-hand testimonies: the letters, diaries, memoirsand oral histories they recorded. first i will uncover soldiers' reasonsfor visiting brothels. i will then go on to exploretheir reactions to them and how these visits variedbetween different groups of men. finally, i shall turn to how soldiersdealt with the potential consequences of the brothel visit:
venereal disease. throughout, i will be exploring what the tommy and his officers'brothel visit tells us about what it meant to be a british manduring the first world war. when british soldiersset off for the trenches in 1914 folded inside each of their pay bookswas a short message. it contained a piece of homely advice, written by the secretary of statefor war, lord kitchener. kitchener reminded soldiersthat the honour of the british army
depended on their conduct and that it was their duty to both showdiscipline and steadiness under fire and to be courteous, considerateand kind to their allied comrades. kitchener advised his menof how their duty could not be done unless their health was sound. "so keep constantly on your guardagainst any excesses," he warned. "in this new experience you may findtemptations both in wine and women. "you must entirely resistboth temptations "and while treating all women withperfect courtesy
"you should avoid any intimacy." kitchener's decision to issuethis advice is unsurprising if we consider the culture ofbritain's regular army before the war. at that time,men serving within the army were strongly discouragedfrom getting married. only about six percent of enlisted menwere eligible for marriage. however, a strong belief persistedwithin the british military that army moralewas dependent on sexual activity and, as a result, sex with prostitutes
was acceptedas a common alternative to marriage. with much of the british armyscattered over the empire it has also become traditionalfor commanders to allow troops to follow the local sexual customsof where they were stationed. for those going to france,this meant the acceptance of a system of "maisons tolã©rã©es"or licensed brothels which had existed theresince the mid-nineteenth century. private frank richards wasone of those on his way to france. he had seen service in india,was a reservist soldier
and was called upthe day after the war broke out. he remembered, in his memoir,men receiving kitchener's pamphlets and wrote: "they may as well have not been issued,for all the notice we took." the "we" that private richardsrefers to is significant. whilst only a handful of testimoniesheld in archives in britain, refer to this subject,there is good reason to believe that these men are representative of,at least a significant minority of soldiers.
venereal disease ratesare typically drawn upon to offer some indicationof sexual activity. in the british army,during the great war 400,000 cases were treated. for a snapshot of the numbersactually purchasing sex we can turn to a medical historyof the first world war. the history detailshow british medical authorities were involved in an experiment inle havre, to limit rates of infection. as a result they surveyed one streetin the town over a 57 week period.
they recorded 171,000 menattending the brothels there. unlike richards, most of the men whosetestimonies i have looked at either volunteered or were conscriptedinto the wartime army. they reacted to this new environmentwith bewilderment and whether they readilyaccommodated it or not it contrasted with their previous life. sex and women were nowrecurrent topics of conversation. private percy clare remembered,in his memoir, this rude shock: the old soldiers who "revelled inall the wickedness possible"
set out to corruptthe volunteer and conscript soldiers from "decent homes and womenfolk." these new recruits had "never in theirexperience come into contact with it "and now it was to beour daily, hourly portion. "there seemed no hopeof ever being clean again." one of the reasons why this culturepredominated, was the widespread belief that regular intercoursewas necessary for a man's health. this idea had been dominantin the victorian era creating a sexual double standard formen and women.
it was still widespread during the war. private stephen graham recordedin his memoir, written in 1919 that "sexual intercourse was regardedas a physical necessity for the men." the national councilfor combatting venereal disease felt the need to include on thesyllabus of its lectures to troops the "denunciation of the ideathat continence is ever harmful "and that incontinence is anessential attribute of manliness." and the report of thecairo purification committee a civil military bodyappointed to recommend ways
to reduce vd among troops, noted: "the entirely erroneous idea,still current that sexual intercourseis necessary to health." a corresponding assumptionappears to have been that as duty was prolonged,the fulfilment of sexual needs would become more urgent. generally, ordinary soldierscould expect to receive around two weeks home leave each year. at port said, however, over 9,000 men
in the mounted corps egyptianexpeditionary force had been fighting and marching withoutleave for more than twelve months. their army doctor believed they weremost likely to "indulge in excesses." he estimated a third ultimately did. other men linked their behaviourspecifically to the conditions of war. for some, having intercoursewas part and parcel of the fighting. private frederic manning, an australianwriter who settled in britain in 1903 described how each one of the"segregated males" on leaving the trenches,experienced the return
of "the two fundamental necessitiesof his nature: "food and women." this "was less desirethan a sheer physical hunger "and could not feed itself on dreams. "in the shuddering revulsion from death "one turns instinctivelyto love as an act "which seems to affirmthe completeness of being." or as lieutenant r. graham dixon put it "we were not monks,but fighting soldiers "and extraordinarily fit, certainlywith an abundance of physical energy
"and if bought love is no substitutefor the real thing "at any rateit seemed better than nothing. "and in any case it worked off steam." other soldierssimilarly framed their indulgences within the conditions of war,but they visited brothels more as a refuge from the slaughterof the trenches and imminent death. lieutenant james h. butlin, who in 1914swapped his place at oxford university for one in the trenches, confidedin a letter to his close friend, how he had found rouen ruinousto both his purse and morals.
"from what i heard out herei decided quickly "that life should be enjoyedto the full in rouen "and so it has been with judiciousselection and moderation." the war poet captain robert gravessimilarly recorded how this particular life experiencewas more urgent for some. "there were no restraints in france;these boys had money to spend "and knew they stood a good chanceof being killed within a few weeks anyhow.they did not want to die virgins." the horrific conditionsbritish soldiers were facing
also meant some loved ones back athome tolerated this behaviour. autobiographer gibson cowan rememberedan incident at victoria station when he met a womanwho was in violent hysterics over parting from her husband. he accompanied her home to whitechapel,and he wrote: "the whole of the way, she repeated onephrase again and again: 'i don't care' "'i don't care if he doesgo with french women. "'if only they will make him happy.'" and the writer virginia woolfrecalled a lecture
given to the richmond branch of thewomen's co-operative guild in 1917 on "venereal diseasesand moral risks for our sons." "afterwardsthe audience remained silent. "two women left the roomand a third was in tears. "another woman told the lecturer,'it was a most cruel speech "'and only a childless woman could havemade it "'for we mothers try to forget what oursons have to go through.' "the poor speakersaid she was used to it." under the conditions of warfare,therefore
extramarital intercourse was tolerated,considered a necessity even. but to what extentdid it make a boy a man? undoubtedly, some soldiers came underpressure from their comrades. private stephen graham also commentedthat "hundreds of thousands of men "who had led comparatively pure livesuntil they saw france "learned and were even encouragedto go with impure women." the cairo purification committee noted"the abstainer from such intercourses "even at times taunted by his comradesfor not having proved his manhood "jeering that became particularly acuteif he was a virgin."
however, many more of the menwho speak of the subject attest to howthey resisted this encouragement. given the taboo natureof this behaviour one probably should expectlittle reticence from the men in avowing to their continence and their reasons for abstainingare varied. from having a more urgent needfor food and sleep to staying faithful to their wives,to suspecting these women were spies. these men provide a diverse range ofexplanations, unlike those who indulged
for whom there were just a fewacceptable justifications available to explain their actions. this indicates thatextramarital virility was not an unacceptable partof being a british man but neither was it an essential part. moving on then,to the second part of this talk and the brothel visit itself. i'm going to introduce this sectionby letting private sidney albert amatt tell you about his first encounterwith the brothels
in the base port of le havre. and this account was recorded by the imperial war museum in 1985. [recording plays] [sidney amatt] one friday after paywe decided to go to le havre and it was about three and a half milesaway and we walked all the way. there was no transport in those days. and our intention wasto go to one of these, er... er... 'places of evil intent'(!)
when we got there,the place we wanted to see was... in those days all those placeswere out of bounds to troops and the redcaps who patrolled the area,keeping it out of bounds were easy enough to dodge through. we waited till we saw two of them go by and nipped round the corner and we gotinto a place called the rue des galions and this was the red-light district of...you want me to go on? [interviewer] mmm-hmm. ...of le havre.
it was all dark,but along the road was all the red lightsin various houses and you could see a light coming out ofdoorways which are nearly always open. so we got into... the first onewas called "the garden of eden". we decided to go in there. as we wentin, there was a man seated at the door and you had to pay himso many centimes to get in before you got to what was a bar. in the bar was... well lighted and there were plenty of troops there,but hardly any british troops
but there was canadiansand south africans and french troops there but hardly any... because i think in those daysour pay was not sufficient to visit these places very often. anyway, my pal and i we went in and... course you had to buy a drink and webought a drink and sat down and viewed the scene and it was really rather illuminating. there's about a dozen girls in therewith hardly anything on.
high-heeled shoes and they had little,i think what was called "chemises" then and they were sitting abouton the troops knees and in all sorts of places. and apparently the idea was that if youfancied any girl you bought her a drink and then you took her upstairs. well, before you went upstairsthere was a woman which i afterwards found out was themadam of the establishment and you had to pay her, i think itwas a franc, before you went upstairs and, of course, you had to paythe girl you took upstairs as well
so as i say these...our money was so small in those days that all we could buy was a drink anda look round before we came out again. [dr clare makepeace] amatt's accountprovides us with a vivid picture of what a licensed brothelin a port town was like. here professional prostitutesworked under a madam and were subjectto regular medical inspections. by 1917 there were at least137 such establishments spread across 35 towns in france. yet this is not the only setting
where we should imagineprostitution taking place. there are also many referencesin these first-hand accounts of sex being purchasablefrom french women in the "estaminets" or cafã©sof the local villages. amatt also describesthe brothel he visited as being out of bounds. actually, licensed brothels were onlyofficially put out of bounds to british troops in march 1918. and contrary to amatt's account,whereas his entrance to the brothel
had to be rather furtive the general impressiongained from other sources is that there was no secrecysurrounding these brothel visits. when corporal jack wood was given a fewhours of leave from the western front he went to a nearby townand described in his diary, the scene "we had heard of the renowned redlamp with the big number three on it "but never thoughtof the reality of the thing. "my first view i shall never forget. "there was a great crowd of fellows,four or five deep
"and about 30 yards in length, waiting "just like a crowd waitingfor a football cup tie in blighty. "it was half an hourbefore opening time "so we had to seethe opening ceremony. "at about five minutes to sixthe lamp was lit. "to the minute,at six the door was opened. "then, commenced the crush to get in." both amatt and woodrefer to the red lamp brothel but the brothel visit variedaccording to the status of the client.
red lamps generally accommodatedthe other ranks and blue lampswere reserved for officers. second lieutenant dennis wheatley'scommission which he receivedwhen he was just seventeen entitled him to patronize one of themost luxurious brothels in france. he wrote of how, upon arrival "themadame took me to an eight-sided room "the walls and ceilings of which wereentirely covered with mirrors... "the only furniture in itwas a low divan "on which a pretty little blond wasdisplaying her charms.
"she welcomed me most pleasantly "and later we breakfasted off anomelette, melon and champagne." the professional soldierbrigadier-general frank crozier also described how officers' and otherranks' experiences starkly differed. "the officers are better off,"he wrote in his memoir "comparative luxury, knowledgeand armour," meaning condoms "stands them in good stead. "it is one thing sleeping the nightin lina's arms "after a not too good dinnerand minding one's p's and q's:
"it is another making the best of itin a thorny ditch." in fact, according to crozier, britishofficers were actually more ready to bed the prostitutesof their german enemy than share the same womenwith their own men. crozier notes how british officerstook over the high class prostitutes of the german armyat the close of the war. it was also considered more acceptablefor married men to visit the brothel. lance corporal albert chaney,writing fifty years after the armistice remembered how, as an 18-year-old,he was told that brothels
"were not for young lads like me "but for married menwho were missing their wives." according to private percy clare the brigade chaplainexcused unfaithfulness to wives in such circumstances but advised the men to only usethe "maisons tolã©rã©es" otherwise they mighthave contracted disease. this may seem perverse to us now,but this thinking reflects the idea that intercourse wasa physical necessity for men.
these men had become accustomedto sex in the marital bed and now,deprived of this regular satisfaction the brothel was regardedas an acceptable alternative. meanwhile, british dominionand colonial soldiers all had differing levels of access toprostitutes. amatt spoke of how british soldierswere at "the garden of eden" and how few of them were there,because their pay was insufficient. another soldier bert ferns,also remembered in his oral history how disparate pay meant at one brothel
the australian soldiersqueued outside one door and got the younger women while the british formed a separatequeue and got the older ones. colonial soldiers, however, wereprohibited entry to the brothels. indian troops, when in france, faced severe restrictionson their off-base activity which aimed to prevent any sexualinteractions with white women. men in the south african nationallabour corps were housed in camps surrounded by awire stockade and given limited leave.
the lines of communicationpromptly repealed an order issued by the army provost martialat dieppe that had allowed the chineseto enter brothels. these soldiers were ranked belowthe white female prostitute suggesting the limitsof even a licensed brothel as a patriarchal institution. turning nowto the final part of my talk and the potential consequencesof the brothel visit. there were, as i said, 400,000 casesof venereal disease during the war.
in 1916, one in five of all admissionsof british and dominion troops to hospitals in france and belgiumwas for vd. venereal disease is more of a markerof extramarital behaviour than commercial sex itself but how men reacted to vd tells usabout british manhood at this time. there appears to have beena strong belief that prostitution should be regulated in order to allow forsafe, promiscuous male behaviour. private james dixon recalled in hisoral history
how the red lamps at bã©thune"had just been inspected by a doctor "one of our doctors." a private william roworthalso wrote in his memoir of how he was advised thatthe "whores" at the camp brothel were "clean and free from the pox.they were examined by our own doctors "and not allowed if they were founddirty." company commanders informed their men that such brothels werecontrolled by the state and they should avoidthe villagers of france.
indeed, field marshal douglas haigargued in june 1918 that the "maisons tolã©rã©es" should havebeen kept open to british troops since their prostituteswere cleaner than others. checking for the disease appears also to have beena ritual of the brothel visit itself. roworth also wroteof how he was checked on entry by the "usual old lady cock examiner" [laughter] and by a prostitute, who
"took hold of my businessand examined it very carefully" to satisfy herself that he was "cleanand free from the gonna." and i'll let private george ashursttell you himself of how men were checked and treatedfor vd, once in the brothel. again this interview was recordedby the imperial war museum this time in 1987. [interviewer] what did you think aboutthe women and the prostitutes? were you tempted? [george ashurst] oh, so common!
oh no. no, i didn't fancy 'em at all. i said to tom. tom said,"are you going up there?" i said no. never. not with them things! because, er... they were, you know,all sorts of ages, the women and fellows would probably tell youwhat it was like going in you know? she's there and the first thing shedoes is grab your five franc note.
that's the first thing she does.put it there. you know? and then she unfastens your fliesand has a feel and squeezes it. see if there's anything wrong with it. and then she just throws this cloak offand she's on the bed. you know? like this. ready for you. that's what happens. and then when you've finished,she has a kettle boiling there with some herbs in. she'd just give you a bit of a swillwith it. you know? safety's sake.
for disease. you know? but er... no, i didn't go up there.not with that lot. [audience chuckles] the british army did take measuresto limit the numbers contracting vd but these werefar from rigorously applied. firstly, british soldierswere denied possession of prophylactics for most of the war. it was only in august 1918,when the british soldier stationed in his home isles
would have received a bottle ofpotassium permanganate lotion cotton wool and calomel cream and in the last month of the war,when overseas. secondly there was also no punishmentfor contracting vd, just concealing it. a 1916 order directed soldiersto get treatment within 24 hours but it was far from clearwhether this meant they should go to the disinfecting station24 hours after exposure or 24 hours afterthe first sign of the disease. a second letter in 1918 demanded thatsoldiers seek treatment after exposure
but again there was no obligation,with the main deterrent resting on discovery of the soldierconcealing the infection. the third measure, illustrating thearmy's muted response towards vd is the reversal, half-way throughthe war, of informing the next of kin when their loved onewas suffering from vd. for the first two years of the war,the next of kin was told but in 1916,the army suspended this notification which was attributedto a major's suicide on hearing that his wife had beeninformed of his venereal infection.
interestingly, this policyof notification was abandoned within weeks of conscriptionbeing introduced for married men at which point the typical profileof the next of kin might have changed from that of a parent,to that of a wife. one might expect it waseven more imperative for a wife to be informed of the natureof her husband's illness since she and her future childrenwere now at risk. but again, if regular intercoursewas considered a necessity why should a soliderbe punished for indulgences
which many regardedas natural behaviour consequential on his marital status but under the unnaturalconditions of war? therefore, whilst catching vd was not something that wasimmediately considered to be wrong it was still not somethingthat men seemed to have discussed. no man in these testimonies admitsto suffering from venereal disease nor, more significantly, is he awareof his fellow soldiers being afflicted. george ashurst could not remembera single case of vd
despite thinking that most menindulged in brothel visits. butlin, amidst his discussionof his sexual escapades in rouen where vd rates far exceededinfection rates of other french towns told his confidant in englandthat he was "feeling very fit "and so farfrom catching what you said." this silence is matched by a confidence that the disease could beeasily controlled or avoided. according to private james dixon,in his oral history, despite vd being common in the army,"you kept yourself clean".
lieutenant harold mellerishremembered how the "sandhurst pups" "spoke airily of ways to avoid it" whilst butlin, writing from the famouscraiglockhart war hospital believed that "no man need getvenereal disease, unless he wants to." this seems to be optimistic thinking yet butlin's words: "no man need getvenereal disease, unless he wants to" are important. we should not think that contracting vdwas unwelcome to every man. the few overt references to meninfected with vd in these sources
are to those who actively courtedthe disease to avoid further action driver rowland myrddyn lutherobserved in his memoir written some thirty yearsafter the armistice that "a great many soldiers wereprepared to chance venereal disease "rather than facea return to the front. "the total number thus infectedmust have been stupendous "both officers and men alike. "in fact contraction of such a diseaseseemed to be sought after "even if only to keep a manfrom the front during treatment."
j.s. wane, a ymca welfare officer,also recorded in his diary a speech made by a colleaguein which he referred to some men who "deliberately risked contractingone of the two diseases "hoping by this self-inflicted woundto win a respite from the trenches. "there was no protest from the men. "perhaps they knew it was trueof some of them. "the authoritiescertainly believed it." according to miss ettie rout, secretaryto the new zealand volunteer sisterhood who advocated the useof prophylactics during the war
"the diseased prostitutegot more money than the clean one. "some men wanted to get diseasedduring the war." the contraction of an infection meanta hospital stay of about thirty days during an era when syphiliswas treated with injections of mercury which usually did nothing to prevent the fatal progressionof the disease years later. this behaviour provides an importantinsight into the lengths a man might go to have a respite from the carnageof the front line. and once men were permanently awayfrom the front line
once the war had ended, did this sexualbehaviour continue into peacetime? now that question is hard to answer because the first-hand accountsi have drawn from in my research largely end their narrativeswith the end of the war. however, if a coupleof the observations from my sample of testimoniesare any indication it seems that this behaviourwas confined to the extraordinarycircumstances of war. private william holt wrote of how"the red lamps amused and disgusted me
"and then faded away completelywhen i left the towns." similarly for lieutenant dixon,"the business was compartmentalised. "it was, as it were, shut offfrom normal human relationships "and belonged to this lunatic worldof war and to nowhere else." to conclude,why is it important to remember as part of the first world warcentenary this aspectof the "lunatic world of war"? a historian's jobis to understand lives in the past in all their complexity.
what troubles me about the centenary,is that many of the projects in my opinion,simplify our understanding of the war. they erase that complexity thatsurrounded soldiers' lives. for example, one event that has beensingled out for commemoration is the christmas truce football match. in prince william's words,it remains wholly relevant today as a message of hope over adversity,even in the bleakest of times. of course, that's a verypositive message to capture but i also think it's important thatthat message is accompanied by, firstly
an acknowledgement thatthere is no hard evidence that football was even playedduring the christmas truce and secondly, the context whichsurrounded any truce. the high command issued stringentorders against such behaviour. or to give you another exampleof an ongoing project the "letter to an unknown soldier." there's a statue of a soldier standingon platform 1 of paddington station and he is reading a letter. this project invitesmembers of the public
to write that letter he is reading. in this case we aren't even tryingto achieve the more complicated task of understanding whatthose relatives went through whilst their loved oneswere at the front. instead, we are simply imposingour own emotions onto them. what i particularly likeabout the subject i've discussed today is that it complicates the terms inwhich we think of the first world war. as i said at the start of this lecture we readily thinkof soldiers going over the top
or waiting in fear for that moment. what we don't think of is the veryunidealistic or unsentimental way in which many menreacted to that prospect. they had sex with prostitutes. or the ideas we have aboutfraternisation or comradeship are suddenly thrown askew when we thinkthat different classes of brothels were created for british officersand british other ranks and when we rememberthat british officers were more prepared to share prostituteswith their german counterparts
than with their own men. however, perhaps for me what isthe most complex aspect of this particular historyof the first world war is one i haven't even mentioned and that is what the prostituteswent through during the war. i haven't discussed these women at all for the simple reason that i can findno account produced by a prostitute on what she went throughduring the first world war. what, for her,this experience was like.
i've only found one account from myvarious trawls of the archives in which a solider reflects uponwhat these women went through. i'm going to end with this account,partly because the last thing i want is for you to assume that my silenceon the prostitutes' experience means i think of them as some sortof passive or unfeeling objects. also, i'm ending with this accountbecause i find it very troubling. it troubles me becauseit is harrowing to listen to and also because i am not sure howto interpret it, or what to do with it because it sits so uneasily
with so many of the narrativesthat are dominant today about life in the first world war. this extract is from the memoir oflance corporal albert chaney who we heard from earlier. and as i said,i shall end with his words. chaney writes: "i began to ask questions about thegirls in these establishments. "i was only 18 years of ageat the time "not too interestedin the opposite sex
"but the stories that went aroundregarding those girls "were interesting enough. "the girls had never had so manycustomers before, it was said "and were completely done upby the end of each day. "they had to be sent home in cabs "as by that time most of the girlswere unable to walk. "in some cases, it was whispered,they could not even close their legs "after the rough treatment from someof the more impertinent of the men." thank you for listening.
clare, thanks very much indeed. thatwas very illuminating and interesting. a couple of points i'll pick out butthere's about 20 minutes of questions... on that rather amusing point ofhow doctors... not doctors... officers and men and the officers had different brothels and the officers preferred to gowhere the german officers went rather than where their ownother ranks and men went. but the other point about how theystruggled with their consciences and worked it out, squaring itwith their conflicting emotions
the married ones and the virgins.that was really quite moving. deeply, obviously, deeply personal. thank you very much. now, questions?i think there's a mike going around. we have to wait for the lady with themike. so at the back, in the white. and then if you get my attentionas we proceed. [man] hi. very enjoyable lecture. i was just wondering,i mean, so many men around you didn't mentionanything about homosexuality and i would imagine at that timeit would be extremely furtive
and no one would probably admit to it but are there any sort of records as to whether gay sex was prevalent not necessarily in the trenches,but certainly elsewhere? yeah, i didn't touch on that becauseit fell outside the scope of my lecture but actually there has beena certain amount of work more on homoeroticism of the trenches some on homosexuality, but much moreon the wider area of homoeroticism and actually that has beenmuch more tackled by the historians
than heterosexual behaviour which is why i focused on this aspect. who's next? i was going to askwhile you're thinking about it: kitchener. was kitchener unimaginativeor did he mean what he said when he saysyou mustn't go to any brothels? yeah, i think he meantwhat he said actually. yeah. i mean, there was quitea difference of opinion both within the armyand actually the government as well about whether brothelsshould be in or out of bounds
and they were eventuallyput out of bounds in march 1918 after quite extensive lobbyingby social purity organisations but that was still against the willof people like douglas haig. oh yeah, right. ok.all very quiet now... ok. [man] i've been reading accountsrecently of gis going back to... can you hold on one sec, sorry. thank you. i've been reading accountsrecently of gis going back to vietnam to find children.are there any accounts from the first world warof tommy going back for a child?
that's a very good question and not one i've got muchevidence to answer with i would think there are but i can't... i can't say for sure. it's not something, again, that hascome up in the sources that i've read. um... possibly not as commonas the vietnam war because there was less interaction between civilians and soldierswith trench warfare than there have been in subsequent warsto the first world war.
but i'm sure there are examples of thathappening. a former colleague of mine, a bit olderthan me, did national service in korea. and he spent most of his timenot on the front but actually in the back typing outvd instruction forms or warning forms for people before they had r&r,mainly in hong kong i think which was an easy placeto go from korea. similar place to vietnam maybe, but...- yeah. ok. there and then there. [woman] hi. you mentionedat the end of your talk
about the remembranceof the first world war and how we create these narrativesthat create and make us remember a very simplified viewof the first world war. i wondered if you had any suggestionsabout how we could complicate it more and how we can remember itin a more realistic way. yeah. ok. there are twoaspects of remembering. i find the way in whichwe remember the centenary fascinating to explore today because i think it tells us much moreabout society today and our priorities
than what happenedin the first world war. um... i think we could...i think we could do... if we want to actually rememberwhat happened it would be quite easy not tosentimentalise it so much. i would prefer people to acknowledgethe horror and the carnage a bit more or in more detailin a more realistic way. and i think, actually, it would belovely if first world war historians could be more involvedin things like the centenary and i've been quite surprised
at how much celebrities are leading theway, who haven't worked on the subject. i think if more historians whospecialise in this area could get involved,then one would have more accuracy and more projects which aim tounderstand what soldiers went through rather than focus onhow we want to understand it. but i'm not sure... my way of understandingor looking at memory and history is always looking at what that tells usabout a particular generation than what that tells usabout the experience
that generation claimsto be remembering. thank you. over here. yep, thanks. [man] hi. we focused mainlyon the western front. do we know if that was atypical,the level of activity or was it similar on the easternor italian fronts, for example? yeah, the only other area which came upa lot in the sources was egypt and i actually referred tothe cairo purification committee. so where licensedor tolerated brothels existed
i think it's fair to say thatthat sort of behaviour was quite common and representative of other spheres. i mean you might have noted thati said most post-war productions don't look at this aspect of the war. there is one exceptionwhich is the film "gallipoli" where actuallythere is a visit of a soldier and a group of soldierscontemplating going into a brothel which i think probably shows that againfor australian and dominion soldiers this was actually more commonthan for british soldiers
because they were far from home, theydidn't have a chance to see loved ones and of course they had higher pay. [man] once tommy hadreported himself to the mo what was actually done for him? the arsenicals had justbeen introduced against syphilis but what was his treatmentactually like? sorry, could you repeat that? [man] oh.- sorry once the soldier reported to the mothat he had a dose, or whatever
yeah.- how was he treated? ok, normally a stayin a hospital for thirty days in a specific part of the hospital. again, i didn't talk about thisbut actually the vd treatment centres were also segregated and in one source it talks of therebeing treatment centres for other ranks and for officers at le havre. so they were treated and often had astay in hospital of about thirty days. how were they treated?
the arsenical drugs against syphiliswere just coming in but other than thatwhat passed for treatment because there were noeffective antimicrobials? that's actually... the only referenceis actually doses of drugs. again, officers got more dosesthan the other ranks. officers got twelve doses,other ranks got eight. that's the actual treatmenti've read about. there are also actually some imagesof soldiers being treated for vd in the medical history i referred to
which talked about soldiersbeing counted visiting the brothels in one street in le havre. if you're interested in thati can direct you to the pages. it's in the british library.and yeah, fascinating. a rare, rare chance to see a photo ofanything to do with this topic. i think it's really interesting because a lot of this simplisticview of people in the trenches black and white films,horror and all that. but actually there was a villageround the corner.
i mean they didn't have to go farto go find a brothel. no, no, and as i said menwere often visiting prostitutes in the villagesin which they were billeted. exactly.- yeah, so it wasn't um... maybe more common behaviour... thelicensed brothels existed in big towns. but yes, and again i didn't go into itin this talk but one can also explore the amateur prostitutesand the professional prostitutes. there's some work being done on that.there's probably scope for more. my focus was the professional...
were there a number of women who wouldgo to the front to get rich? or richer? to get clients which otherwise...- yeah er... i haven't read so much about womensort of following the troops round although i'm sure... it did happen. but more, women who were alreadyresident in these villages. behind you there's a mike. yep. [man] hello. i was just wonderingif there was any knock-on effect or comparison to the second world war? that, er... you know,that the age between them...
then, um... sort of,daughters of the prostitutes. there would be a memoryof these brothels. was there any effect? or have you ever looked into thateffect on the second world war? or lessons learned from what happenedin the first world war? or any changes that were madebecause of it? yeah, great question. as i said this is a very underexploredarea amongst even academics. i think you've just come up with acouple of great projects there.
when i was thinking ofwhat to do for a phd i did think i could just do thissubject again for the second world war because there's a gaping holethere as well. i think looking...if you could find the sources on how prostitutionwas remembered within families that would be incredible. i doubt very muchthere are many of them but i think... i think, again there isn't that much... there needs tobe more history looking at
how the second world war and thefirst world war fit together and i think this would be a great wayof looking at how the memory altered and comparing the two. on the second world war, since it'syour other special subject area. mmm. it's a bit of a non-sequitur in a way,although dealing with the emotions or the physical proximityof men in a camp. was there, sort of,developed relationships? was there masturbation,homosexual relations?
was there any evidenceof how they would relieve themselves? on prisoners of warin the second world war, yeah. well, officers were heldin central camps separated from the other rankswho were often in working camps. other ranks did have relationshipswith civilian women german and polish women most commonly and that did happen quite a lot. within the camps i looked atideas around heterosexuality and i did find that actually it becamea very, sort of, changing notion
and quite a fluid idea of what was acceptablebetween different men. what sort of relationshipswere acceptable. and whilst i didn't find,in the sample of sources i looked at too much evidenceof overt homosexuality there was definitelychanging conceptions. for example, there were oftencross-dressers in camps in theatre productions and men often speakin very, very admiring tones
about how beautiful these women were and these narrativeswent beyond the stage, as it were. so there were, sort of, changing ideas. i concluded that notions of maleheterosexuality became much more fluid in the central pow camp. very good. there's a questionover there i think, near the back. [woman] hi. you know when you did yourresearch you didn't find any evidence or, like, any accounts of what the warwas like in terms of from the... sorry. um... i'm just going to start again.- yeah, sure.
um, yeah. so, you know how at the endof the lecture you said you couldn't find any accountsof what the war was like from the prostitutes' point of view? is that just becauseyou just didn't look that much into it? or is there, like,no evidence whatsoever? i don't think there's any evidence. i know other scholars as well havelooked in archives in france for evidence, any accounts of whatprostitutes have written themselves and haven't been able to find any.
and i would expect...i don't find that very surprising because they probablywouldn't have had the materials they might not have hadthe literacy rates to actually write downtheir experience and might not have wantedto write it down in a memoir. so for all those reasons,it doesn't surprise me but scholars have looked for thosesources and they don't seem to exist. [woman] so how come... can you hear me?- just about! so how come, you know, no historianhas actually tried to find one
and talk to one about their... well, they wouldn't probablybe alive any more and if you think aboutthe changing nature of history historians have only recentlystarted to look at this area. masculinity in the first world war,is a relatively recent subject. sort of ten, fifteen, twenty...well, ten or fifteen years really. and, again, this subject, historianshaven't really explored very much. so i think by the timewe've engaged with this topic i think the opportunity has passedto find any of these women
even if one could,and carry out interviews. but, as i said, there are so fewdiscussions of this subject even in the oral histories by men that you're looking at such a small,unusual number of prostitutes who might have been willingto speak on this. we're getting near two o'clock. have you mined the archivesat the imperial war museum? yeah. you've seen them all?-yeah
i mean the imperial war museumhas been my main source base and they've got brilliant sources. mainly, i draw upon memoirsand oral histories but there were a few letters in thereas you saw and a couple of diaries talking about this subject. but it often is one of thoseslightly frustrating subjects in that you probablyhave to read an entire memoir and you come away with a couple of...- a few points. one of those.- it takes time.
and i have had to also relyon the superb cataloguing done by the archivistsof the imperial war museum because there's only so muchone can read with a hope that it will crop up. absolutely. but that's definitelythe main source base for this topic. well, unless there aremore questions... we thank clare very much indeed.- thank you very much.