The Battle for Middle Earth and the Battle for Europe: J. R. R. Tolkien and The Great War.
When
one is either at a loose end, hungover, or succumbing to feelings of disdain
and anger typical of Brexit, Theresa May, and Wales’ grand-slam victory, one should
look no further than The Lord of the
Rings. Only Tolkien’s world of high fantasy can help an England fan remove
Alun-Wyn Jones’ smug, grand-slam winning face from his or her immediate
thoughts – enough praise alone for Tolkien’s mythology.
This is
where I have found myself recently; in a dingy Hyde Park living room, mulling
over Brexit, procrastinating a dissertation, and weighing up England’s chances
in Japan – all the while The Lord of
the Rings streams in the background. My mind haplessly wandering, I began
to question how a man could dream up and write such a condense, detailed, enchanting
story, so far removed from reality its unrecognisable, and yet be so immersive
at the same time. I then began to read about Tolkien himself, and in
particular, his ‘Great War’.
In 1911
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, a scholar at King Edward’s School in Birmingham,
formed the Tea Club and Barrovian Society (TCBS) with fellow friends and pupils
Robert Gilson, Christopher Wiseman, and Geoffrey Bache Smith. The TCBS was an
exclusive union of elite students of the school, meeting to discuss art,
literature, politics, and all with the ambition of influencing the world tremendously.
After losing both his mother and father at a young age, the TCBS became Tolkien’s
family.
Undoubtedly
destined to do great things, the lives of the four founding members changed on
the 28th June 1914 when Black Hand member Gavrilo Princip assassinates
Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, starting what became known as the ‘July
Crisis’. A month later Britain declares war on Germany and all TCBS members
offer their service, albeit, in Tolkien’s case, reluctantly. Two years into his
degree at Oxford, a prospective career in academia loomed ahead, but he also
so-desired the experience of war and to serve one’s country. Yet the TCBS’s
excitement was tempered. Their education and background told them this would be
a deeply haunting experience.
In 1915
Tolkien completed his degree at Oxford whilst training with the OTC and
eventually went on to follow G. B. Smith’s footsteps and joined the Lancashire
Fusiliers. Tolkien craved a position in which he could use his talents in
languages and coding systems, so he began to train as a signaller. Making use
of the most modern technology of the time such as signalling lamps and (largely
ineffective) field telephones, Tolkien became battalion signalling officer.
Deployed in 1916, he controlled the communication of information across a force
of 600 to a 1000 men, acting as a link between various layers of command,
relaying information from the front to the rear. The importance of Tolkien’s
role in a slow-moving war of attrition was of vital importance.
Although
initially kept in reserve, the cost of war was immediately clear to Tolkien.
Two years of war had left the countryside scarred and the casualties high. The
apocalyptic landscape reflective of the atmosphere.
Within
a month of his arrival the Somme offensive began – a campaign that needs little
introduction. The first day saw 20,000 British & Commonwealth soldiers killed,
35, 000 wounded, and 2,000 reported missing. One of those dead was Tolkien’s
dear friend and TCBS member, Robert Gilson who led his platoon over the top and
was shot crossing no man’s land. Gilson was in the fourth wave to go over;
watching the previous three do the same and be slaughtered – and yet they still
went over. A poignant act of selflessness so typical of that generation of
young men.
A late
letter from Tolkien suggests that the dead marshes which Frodo, Sam and Gollum
travel across is owed to the terrain on which the Battle of the Somme was fought.
Tolkien
became deeply upset upon hearing of Gilson’s death, and quickly withdrew within
himself. The TCBS was built upon a fellowship of ideas and a spirit of ambition
to which all four founding members were an intrinsic part of, and now one was
dead. Shaken to his core, Tolkien began to question his purpose and whether the
TCBS could continue. One can be excused to think that Boromir’s death in The Fellowship of The Ring as being
inspired by the tragic death of Gilson. The other two members, alike to those
remaining in The Fellowship,
succeeded in convincing Tolkien that the TCBS was not dead. Despite being separated
on different battlefields much as the TCBS was, The Fellowship (of The Ring) endures.
The
most brutal action Tolkien saw was the fight for Regina Trench in October 1916.
A battlefield reduced to mud hosted untampered, violent death. Tolkien referred
to it as ‘animal horror’ – men reduced from humanity in instances of extreme
terror. Interestingly, when characters in The
Lord of the Rings are overwhelmed by fear and death, they too are
illustrated as being unmanned by their terror.
Tolkien’s
war is ended prematurely after he falls ill with trench fever. On his return to
Britain he is reunited with wife and soulmate, Edith. In his letters during the
war Tolkien writes of Edith as an enduring source of purpose, as if she were
immortal and her love, eternal. Many have compared Tolkien and Edith’s
relationship to that of Aragon and Arwen. A minor character in the book, Arwen
the half-elven daughter of Elrond, consistently serves as an inspiration and
motivation for Aragon in times of anguish.
Shortly
after his return, Tolkien learns of the death of another fellow TCBS member G.
B. Smith. Struck by a stray shell four miles behind the front line, Smith later
developed gangrene and dies.
Early
in 1916, when still in training, Tolkien received a letter from Smith who which
at that point was on the frontline. Smith was to go out on night patrol – one of
the most dangerous activities on the Western Front. The very night before the
officer who had led the same patrol had been captured and presumed killed.
Smith
chose to write to Tolkien.
He
wrote of how he wholeheartedly admired what Tolkien had already written, and
what he would go on to write. He said Tolkien was ‘chosen’ and that ‘he must
publish’. Smith arguably became the first fan of middle earth. Movingly, he wrote
that death could not put an end to the TCBS, ‘the immortal four’, and that
Tolkien had the power to say the things that Smith had wanted to say, long
after he would be there to say them. After Smith’s premature death, he gathered
himself and began to see his friend as an ideal to be lived up to, and in some way
or form, must have had seen his later career as an expression of the artistic
feelings he, Smith and the rest of the TCBS shared.
Inevitably,
inspired by the TCBS, Tolkien’s vision of middle earth was shaped by his
experiences and observations of war. The relationship between Frodo and Sam is
equivalent to that of an officer and his batman (an officer’s military
servant). Frodo represents the feelings of a young man like Tolkien: plunged
into a war unwillingly and shouldering a terrible burden – in his case, the
burden of duty. Whereas Sam, similar to a batman, serves ‘Master Frodo’
selflessly and loyally. Always by their officer’s side, many accounts of the war
recall great bonds of friendship between officer and batman.
Equally,
throughout The Lord of the Rings Frodo
becomes increasingly withdrawn from the world. In the latter stages of his
quest, tormented by the ring’s grip, Frodo recalls how he can’t remember what
grass and sun was like. We then bear witness to Sam’s ‘the tales that mattered
speech’ which speaks of hope and life back in The Shire. Undoubtedly, these
feelings were akin to those felt by the soldiers at war.
Finally, like many, Tolkien struggled with life after the war – Frodo the same.
There is a poignant link between how Frodo feels once the ring is destroyed and
those men who suffered from PTSD after the war.
At the
end of The Return of the King, Frodo declares
that “there is no real going back. Though
I may come to The Shire, it will not be the same; for I shall not be the same.
I am wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden.” Tolkien does
not parade Frodo as a hero. Rather his experiences remain with him, and he is
not the same person - alike to those who survived the war, only to
find that they could not survive the peace.
