Frank Percy Crozier

Transcription

Welcome to everybody to the first of a series of rather enticingly 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 wars and occasionally peace for many years. I'm delighted to welcome Dr Clare Makepeace who describes herself as a historian of modern warfare to talk about "Sex and the Somme". Clare has focused on two aspects of the two World Wars in her research: Visits of British soldiers to brothels in the First World War and prisoners of war in the Second World War. She's contributed immensely already to our understanding of 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 wrote in "Goodbye To All That" "Young British soldiers did 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 introduction and good afternoon everyone. A hundred years on and so entrenched is the First World War in British popular culture that certain images and ideas about 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 before they were ordered to go over the top. We might evoke the poetry of Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves or Siegfried Sassoon to imagine what those soldiers were feeling. We think of certain episodes of the war. Perhaps a Christmas truce or the slaughter of the first day of the Somme. Or representations of the casualties of 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 of the experiences of the men involved. Today's UCL Lunchtime Lecture is about an aspect of the First World War that the black and white photos don't capture that most post-war productions have chosen not to recognise and that, even among academic historians, is understudied. That is the Tommy and his officers' visits to brothels whilst they were serving overseas between 1914 and 1918. Rarely does the prostitute's punter speak in British history. Rarely has he recorded his experience of the brothel visit. But the extraneous circumstances of the First World War provided a handful of men with an excuse or a reason to write about these visits. The talk I'm giving today is based upon my findings from their first-hand testimonies: the letters, diaries, memoirs and oral histories they recorded. First I will uncover soldiers' reasons for visiting brothels. I will then go on to explore their reactions to them and how these visits varied between different groups of men. Finally, I shall turn to how soldiers dealt 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 man during the First World War. When British soldiers set off for the trenches in 1914 folded inside each of their pay books was a short message. It contained a piece of homely advice, written by the Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener. Kitchener reminded soldiers that the honour of the British army depended on their conduct and that it was their duty to both show discipline and steadiness under fire and to be courteous, considerate and kind to their allied comrades. Kitchener advised his men of how their duty could not be done unless their health was sound. "So keep constantly on your guard against any excesses," he warned. "In this new experience you may find temptations both in wine and women. "You must entirely resist both temptations "and while treating all women with perfect courtesy "you should avoid any intimacy." Kitchener's decision to issue this advice is unsurprising if we consider the culture of Britain's regular army before the war. At that time, men serving within the army were strongly discouraged from getting married. Only about six percent of enlisted men were eligible for marriage. However, a strong belief persisted within the British military that army morale was dependent on sexual activity and, as a result, sex with prostitutes was accepted as a common alternative to marriage. With much of the British army scattered over the Empire it has also become traditional for commanders to allow troops to follow the local sexual customs of where they were stationed. For those going to France, this meant the acceptance of a system of "maisons tolérées" or licensed brothels which had existed there since the mid-nineteenth century. Private Frank Richards was one of those on his way to France. He had seen service in India, was a reservist soldier and was called up the 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 Richards refers to is significant. Whilst only a handful of testimonies held 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 rates are typically drawn upon to offer some indication of sexual activity. In the British army, during the Great War 400,000 cases were treated. For a snapshot of the numbers actually purchasing sex we can turn to a medical history of the First World War. The history details how British medical authorities were involved in an experiment in Le Havre, to limit rates of infection. As a result they surveyed one street in the town over a 57 week period. They recorded 171,000 men attending the brothels there. Unlike Richards, most of the men whose testimonies I have looked at either volunteered or were conscripted into the wartime army. They reacted to this new environment with bewilderment and whether they readily accommodated it or not it contrasted with their previous life. Sex and women were now recurrent topics of conversation. Private Percy Clare remembered, in his memoir, this rude shock: The old soldiers who "revelled in all the wickedness possible" set out to corrupt the volunteer and conscript soldiers from "decent homes and womenfolk." These new recruits had "never in their experience come into contact with it "and now it was to be our daily, hourly portion. "There seemed no hope of ever being clean again." One of the reasons why this culture predominated, was the widespread belief that regular intercourse was necessary for a man's health. This idea had been dominant in the Victorian era creating a sexual double standard for men and women. It was still widespread during the war. Private Stephen Graham recorded in his memoir, written in 1919 that "sexual intercourse was regarded as a physical necessity for the men." The National Council for Combatting Venereal Disease felt the need to include on the syllabus of its lectures to troops the "denunciation of the idea that continence is ever harmful "and that incontinence is an essential attribute of manliness." And the report of the Cairo Purification Committee a civil military body appointed to recommend ways to reduce VD among troops, noted: "the entirely erroneous idea, still current that sexual intercourse is necessary to health." A corresponding assumption appears to have been that as duty was prolonged, the fulfilment of sexual needs would become more urgent. Generally, ordinary soldiers could expect to receive around two weeks home leave each year. At Port Said, however, over 9,000 men in the Mounted Corps Egyptian Expeditionary Force had been fighting and marching without leave for more than twelve months. Their army doctor believed they were most likely to "indulge in excesses." He estimated a third ultimately did. Other men linked their behaviour specifically to the conditions of war. For some, having intercourse was part and parcel of the fighting. Private Frederic Manning, an Australian writer 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 necessities of his nature: "food and women." This "was less desire than a sheer physical hunger "and could not feed itself on dreams. "In the shuddering revulsion from death "one turns instinctively to love as an act "which seems to affirm the completeness of being." Or as Lieutenant R. Graham Dixon put it "we were not monks, but fighting soldiers "and extraordinarily fit, certainly with an abundance of physical energy "and if bought love is no substitute for the real thing "at any rate it seemed better than nothing. "And in any case it worked off steam." Other soldiers similarly framed their indulgences within the conditions of war, but they visited brothels more as a refuge from the slaughter of the trenches and imminent death. Lieutenant James H. Butlin, who in 1914 swapped his place at Oxford University for one in the trenches, confided in a letter to his close friend, how he had found Rouen ruinous to both his purse and morals. "From what I heard out here I decided quickly "that life should be enjoyed to the full in Rouen "and so it has been with judicious selection and moderation." The war poet Captain Robert Graves similarly recorded how this particular life experience was more urgent for some. "There were no restraints in France; these boys had money to spend "and knew they stood a good chance of being killed within a few weeks anyhow. They did not want to die virgins." The horrific conditions British soldiers were facing also meant some loved ones back at home tolerated this behaviour. Autobiographer Gibson Cowan remembered an incident at Victoria Station when he met a woman who 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 one phrase again and again: 'I don't care' "'I don't care if he does go with French women. "'If only they will make him happy.'" And the writer Virginia Woolf recalled a lecture given to the Richmond branch of the Women's Co-operative Guild in 1917 on "Venereal diseases and moral risks for our sons." "Afterwards the audience remained silent. "Two women left the room and a third was in tears. "Another woman told the lecturer, 'it was a most cruel speech "'and only a childless woman could have made it "'for we mothers try to forget what our sons have to go through.' "The poor speaker said she was used to it." Under the conditions of warfare, therefore extramarital intercourse was tolerated, considered a necessity even. But to what extent did it make a boy a man? Undoubtedly, some soldiers came under pressure from their comrades. Private Stephen Graham also commented that "hundreds of thousands of men "who had led comparatively pure lives until they saw France "learned and were even encouraged to go with impure women." The Cairo Purification Committee noted "the abstainer from such intercourses "even at times taunted by his comrades for not having proved his manhood "jeering that became particularly acute if he was a virgin." However, many more of the men who speak of the subject attest to how they resisted this encouragement. Given the taboo nature of this behaviour one probably should expect little reticence from the men in avowing to their continence and their reasons for abstaining are varied. From having a more urgent need for food and sleep to staying faithful to their wives, to suspecting these women were spies. These men provide a diverse range of explanations, unlike those who indulged for whom there were just a few acceptable justifications available to explain their actions. This indicates that extramarital virility was not an unacceptable part of 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 section by letting Private Sidney Albert Amatt tell you about his first encounter with 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 pay we decided to go to Le Havre and it was about three and a half miles away and we walked all the way. There was no transport in those days. And our intention was to 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 places were 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 got into 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 lights in various houses and you could see a light coming out of doorways which are nearly always open. So we got into... the first one was called "The Garden of Eden". We decided to go in there. As we went in, there was a man seated at the door and you had to pay him so 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 Canadians and South Africans and French troops there but hardly any... because I think in those days our 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 we bought a drink and sat down and viewed the scene and it was really rather illuminating. There's about a dozen girls in there with hardly anything on. High-heeled shoes and they had little, I think what was called "chemises" then and they were sitting about on the troops knees and in all sorts of places. And apparently the idea was that if you fancied any girl you bought her a drink and then you took her upstairs. Well, before you went upstairs there was a woman which I afterwards found out was the madam of the establishment and you had to pay her, I think it was a franc, before you went upstairs and, of course, you had to pay the 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 and a look round before we came out again. [DR CLARE MAKEPEACE] Amatt's account provides us with a vivid picture of what a licensed brothel in a port town was like. Here professional prostitutes worked under a madam and were subject to regular medical inspections. By 1917 there were at least 137 such establishments spread across 35 towns in France. Yet this is not the only setting where we should imagine prostitution taking place. There are also many references in these first-hand accounts of sex being purchasable from French women in the "estaminets" or cafés of the local villages. Amatt also describes the brothel he visited as being out of bounds. Actually, licensed brothels were only officially 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 impression gained from other sources is that there was no secrecy surrounding these brothel visits. When Corporal Jack Wood was given a few hours of leave from the Western front he went to a nearby town and described in his diary, the scene "We had heard of the renowned red lamp with the big number three on it "but never thought of 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 waiting for a football cup tie in Blighty. "It was half an hour before opening time "so we had to see the opening ceremony. "At about five minutes to six the lamp was lit. "To the minute, at six the door was opened. "Then, commenced the crush to get in." Both Amatt and Wood refer to the red lamp brothel but the brothel visit varied according to the status of the client. Red lamps generally accommodated the other ranks and blue lamps were reserved for officers. Second Lieutenant Dennis Wheatley's commission which he received when he was just seventeen entitled him to patronize one of the most luxurious brothels in France. He wrote of how, upon arrival "the Madame took me to an eight-sided room "the walls and ceilings of which were entirely covered with mirrors... "The only furniture in it was a low divan "on which a pretty little blond was displaying her charms. "She welcomed me most pleasantly "and later we breakfasted off an omelette, melon and champagne." The professional soldier Brigadier-General Frank Crozier also described how officers' and other ranks' experiences starkly differed. "The officers are better off," he wrote in his memoir "Comparative luxury, knowledge and armour," meaning condoms "stands them in good stead. "It is one thing sleeping the night in Lina's arms "after a not too good dinner and minding one's p's and q's: "it is another making the best of it in a thorny ditch." In fact, according to Crozier, British officers were actually more ready to bed the prostitutes of their German enemy than share the same women with their own men. Crozier notes how British officers took over the high class prostitutes of the German army at the close of the war. It was also considered more acceptable for 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 men who were missing their wives." According to Private Percy Clare the brigade chaplain excused unfaithfulness to wives in such circumstances but advised the men to only use the "maisons tolérées" otherwise they might have contracted disease. This may seem perverse to us now, but this thinking reflects the idea that intercourse was a physical necessity for men. These men had become accustomed to sex in the marital bed and now, deprived of this regular satisfaction the brothel was regarded as an acceptable alternative. Meanwhile, British dominion and colonial soldiers all had differing levels of access to prostitutes. Amatt spoke of how British soldiers were 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 soldiers queued outside one door and got the younger women while the British formed a separate queue and got the older ones. Colonial soldiers, however, were prohibited entry to the brothels. Indian troops, when in France, faced severe restrictions on their off-base activity which aimed to prevent any sexual interactions with white women. Men in the South African National Labour Corps were housed in camps surrounded by a wire stockade and given limited leave. The lines of communication promptly repealed an order issued by the army Provost Martial at Dieppe that had allowed the Chinese to enter brothels. These soldiers were ranked below the white female prostitute suggesting the limits of even a licensed brothel as a patriarchal institution. Turning now to the final part of my talk and the potential consequences of the brothel visit. There were, as I said, 400,000 cases of venereal disease during the war. In 1916, one in five of all admissions of British and dominion troops to hospitals in France and Belgium was for VD. Venereal disease is more of a marker of extramarital behaviour than commercial sex itself but how men reacted to VD tells us about British manhood at this time. There appears to have been a strong belief that prostitution should be regulated in order to allow for safe, promiscuous male behaviour. Private James Dixon recalled in his oral history how the red lamps at Béthune "had just been inspected by a doctor "one of our doctors." A Private William Roworth also wrote in his memoir of how he was advised that the "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 found dirty." Company commanders informed their men that such brothels were controlled by the state and they should avoid the villagers of France. Indeed, Field Marshal Douglas Haig argued in June 1918 that the "maisons tolérées" should have been kept open to British troops since their prostitutes were cleaner than others. Checking for the disease appears also to have been a ritual of the brothel visit itself. Roworth also wrote of how he was checked on entry by the "usual old lady cock examiner" [LAUGHTER] and by a prostitute, who "took hold of my business and examined it very carefully" to satisfy herself that he was "clean and free from the Gonna." And I'll let Private George Ashurst tell you himself of how men were checked and treated for VD, once in the brothel. Again this interview was recorded by the Imperial War Museum this time in 1987. [RECORDING PLAYS] [INTERVIEWER] What did you think about the 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 you what it was like going in you know? She's there and the first thing she does is grab your five franc note. That's the first thing she does. Put it there. You know? And then she unfastens your flies and has a feel and squeezes it. See if there's anything wrong with it. And then she just throws this cloak off and 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 swill with 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 measures to limit the numbers contracting VD but these were far from rigorously applied. Firstly, British soldiers were 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 of potassium permanganate lotion cotton wool and calomel cream and in the last month of the war, when overseas. Secondly there was also no punishment for contracting VD, just concealing it. A 1916 order directed soldiers to get treatment within 24 hours but it was far from clear whether this meant they should go to the disinfecting station 24 hours after exposure or 24 hours after the first sign of the disease. A second letter in 1918 demanded that soldiers seek treatment after exposure but again there was no obligation, with the main deterrent resting on discovery of the soldier concealing the infection. The third measure, illustrating the army's muted response towards VD is the reversal, half-way through the war, of informing the next of kin when their loved one was 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 attributed to a Major's suicide on hearing that his wife had been informed of his venereal infection. Interestingly, this policy of notification was abandoned within weeks of conscription being introduced for married men at which point the typical profile of the next of kin might have changed from that of a parent, to that of a wife. One might expect it was even more imperative for a wife to be informed of the nature of her husband's illness since she and her future children were now at risk. But again, if regular intercourse was considered a necessity why should a solider be punished for indulgences which many regarded as natural behaviour consequential on his marital status but under the unnatural conditions of war? Therefore, whilst catching VD was not something that was immediately considered to be wrong it was still not something that men seemed to have discussed. No man in these testimonies admits to suffering from venereal disease nor, more significantly, is he aware of his fellow soldiers being afflicted. George Ashurst could not remember a single case of VD despite thinking that most men indulged in brothel visits. Butlin, amidst his discussion of his sexual escapades in Rouen where VD rates far exceeded infection rates of other French towns told his confidant in England that he was "feeling very fit "and so far from catching what you said." This silence is matched by a confidence that the disease could be easily 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 Mellerish remembered how the "Sandhurst pups" "spoke airily of ways to avoid it" whilst Butlin, writing from the famous Craiglockhart War Hospital believed that "no man need get venereal disease, unless he wants to." This seems to be optimistic thinking yet Butlin's words: "no man need get venereal disease, unless he wants to" are important. We should not think that contracting VD was unwelcome to every man. The few overt references to men infected with VD in these sources are to those who actively courted the disease to avoid further action Driver Rowland Myrddyn Luther observed in his memoir written some thirty years after the armistice that "a great many soldiers were prepared to chance venereal disease "rather than face a return to the front. "The total number thus infected must have been stupendous "both officers and men alike. "In fact contraction of such a disease seemed to be sought after "even if only to keep a man from the front during treatment." J.S. Wane, a YMCA Welfare Officer, also recorded in his diary a speech made by a colleague in which he referred to some men who "deliberately risked contracting one of the two diseases "hoping by this self-inflicted wound to win a respite from the trenches. "There was no protest from the men. "Perhaps they knew it was true of some of them. "The authorities certainly believed it." According to Miss Ettie Rout, Secretary to the New Zealand Volunteer Sisterhood who advocated the use of prophylactics during the war "the diseased prostitute got more money than the clean one. "Some men wanted to get diseased during the war." The contraction of an infection meant a hospital stay of about thirty days during an era when syphilis was treated with injections of mercury which usually did nothing to prevent the fatal progression of the disease years later. This behaviour provides an important insight into the lengths a man might go to have a respite from the carnage of the front line. And once men were permanently away from the front line once the war had ended, did this sexual behaviour continue into peacetime? Now that question is hard to answer because the first-hand accounts I have drawn from in my research largely end their narratives with the end of the war. However, if a couple of the observations from my sample of testimonies are any indication it seems that this behaviour was confined to the extraordinary circumstances of war. Private William Holt wrote of how "the Red Lamps amused and disgusted me "and then faded away completely when I left the towns." Similarly for Lieutenant Dixon, "the business was compartmentalised. "It was, as it were, shut off from normal human relationships "and belonged to this lunatic world of war and to nowhere else." To conclude, why is it important to remember as part of the First World War centenary this aspect of the "lunatic world of war"? A historian's job is 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 that surrounded soldiers' lives. For example, one event that has been singled 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 very positive message to capture But I also think it's important that that message is accompanied by, firstly an acknowledgement that there is no hard evidence that football was even played during the Christmas truce and secondly, the context which surrounded any truce. The high command issued stringent orders against such behaviour. Or to give you another example of an ongoing project the "Letter to an Unknown Soldier." There's a statue of a soldier standing on Platform 1 of Paddington Station and he is reading a letter. This project invites members of the public to write that letter he is reading. In this case we aren't even trying to achieve the more complicated task of understanding what those relatives went through whilst their loved ones were at the front. Instead, we are simply imposing our own emotions onto them. What I particularly like about the subject I've discussed today is that it complicates the terms in which we think of the First World War. As I said at the start of this lecture we readily think of soldiers going over the top or waiting in fear for that moment. What we don't think of is the very unidealistic or unsentimental way in which many men reacted to that prospect. They had sex with prostitutes. Or the ideas we have about fraternisation or comradeship are suddenly thrown askew when we think that different classes of brothels were created for British officers and British other ranks and when we remember that British officers were more prepared to share prostitutes with their German counterparts than with their own men. However, perhaps for me what is the most complex aspect of this particular history of the First World War is one I haven't even mentioned and that is what the prostitutes went through during the war. I haven't discussed these women at all for the simple reason that I can find no account produced by a prostitute on what she went through during the First World War. What, for her, this experience was like. I've only found one account from my various trawls of the archives in which a solider reflects upon what 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 silence on the prostitutes' experience means I think of them as some sort of passive or unfeeling objects. Also, I'm ending with this account because I find it very troubling. It troubles me because it is harrowing to listen to and also because I am not sure how to interpret it, or what to do with it because it sits so uneasily with so many of the narratives that are dominant today about life in the First World War. This extract is from the memoir of Lance 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 the girls in these establishments. "I was only 18 years of age at the time "not too interested in the opposite sex "but the stories that went around regarding those girls "were interesting enough. "The girls had never had so many customers before, it was said "and were completely done up by the end of each day. "They had to be sent home in cabs "as by that time most of the girls were unable to walk. "In some cases, it was whispered, they could not even close their legs "after the rough treatment from some of the more impertinent of the men." Thank you for listening. [APPLAUSE] Clare, thanks very much indeed. That was very illuminating and interesting. A couple of points I'll pick out but there's about 20 minutes of questions... On that rather amusing point of how doctors... Not doctors... Officers and men and the officers had different brothels and the officers preferred to go where the German officers went rather than where their own other ranks and men went. But the other point about how they struggled with their consciences and worked it out, squaring it with 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 the mike. So at the back, in the white. And then if you get my attention as we proceed. [MAN] Hi. Very enjoyable lecture. I was just wondering, I mean, so many men around you didn't mention anything about homosexuality and I would imagine at that time it 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 because it fell outside the scope of my lecture but actually there has been a certain amount of work more on homoeroticism of the trenches some on homosexuality, but much more on the wider area of homoeroticism and actually that has been much more tackled by the historians than heterosexual behaviour which is why I focused on this aspect. Who's next? I was going to ask while you're thinking about it: Kitchener. Was Kitchener unimaginative or did he mean what he said when he says you mustn't go to any brothels? Yeah, I think he meant what he said actually. Yeah. I mean, there was quite a difference of opinion both within the army and actually the government as well about whether brothels should be in or out of bounds and they were eventually put out of bounds in March 1918 after quite extensive lobbying by social purity organisations but that was still against the will of people like Douglas Haig. Oh yeah, right. Ok. All very quiet now... ok. [MAN] I've been reading accounts recently of GIs going back to... Can you hold on one sec, sorry. Thank you. I've been reading accounts recently of GIs going back to Vietnam to find children. Are there any accounts from the First World War of Tommy going back for a child? That's a very good question and not one I've got much evidence to answer with I would think there are but I can't... I can't say for sure. It's not something, again, that has come up in the sources that I've read. Um... Possibly not as common as the Vietnam War because there was less interaction between civilians and soldiers with trench warfare than there have been in subsequent wars to the First World War. But I'm sure there are examples of that happening. A former colleague of mine, a bit older than me, did national service in Korea. and he spent most of his time not on the front but actually in the back typing out VD instruction forms or warning forms for people before they had R&R, mainly in Hong Kong I think which was an easy place to go from Korea. Similar place to Vietnam maybe, but... - Yeah. Ok. There and then there. [WOMAN] Hi. You mentioned at the end of your talk about the remembrance of the First World War and how we create these narratives that create and make us remember a very simplified view of the First World War. I wondered if you had any suggestions about how we could complicate it more and how we can remember it in a more realistic way. Yeah. Ok. There are two aspects of remembering. I find the way in which we remember the centenary fascinating to explore today because I think it tells us much more about society today and our priorities than what happened in the First World War. Um... I think we could... I think we could do... If we want to actually remember what happened it would be quite easy not to sentimentalise it so much. I would prefer people to acknowledge the horror and the carnage a bit more or in more detail in a more realistic way. And I think, actually, it would be lovely if First World War historians could be more involved in things like the centenary and I've been quite surprised at how much celebrities are leading the way, who haven't worked on the subject. I think if more historians who specialise in this area could get involved, then one would have more accuracy and more projects which aim to understand what soldiers went through rather than focus on how we want to understand it. but I'm not sure... My way of understanding or looking at memory and history is always looking at what that tells us about a particular generation than what that tells us about the experience that generation claims to be remembering. Thank you. Over here. Yep, thanks. [MAN] Hi. We focused mainly on the Western Front. Do we know if that was atypical, the level of activity or was it similar on the Eastern or Italian Fronts, for example? Yeah, the only other area which came up a lot in the sources was Egypt and I actually referred to the Cairo Purification Committee. So where licensed or tolerated brothels existed I think it's fair to say that that sort of behaviour was quite common and representative of other spheres. I mean you might have noted that I said most post-war productions don't look at this aspect of the war. There is one exception which is the film "Gallipoli" where actually there is a visit of a soldier and a group of soldiers contemplating going into a brothel which I think probably shows that again for Australian and dominion soldiers this was actually more common than for British soldiers because they were far from home, they didn't have a chance to see loved ones and of course they had higher pay. [MAN] Once Tommy had reported himself to the MO what was actually done for him? The arsenicals had just been introduced against syphilis but what was his treatment actually like? Sorry, could you repeat that? [MAN] Oh. - Sorry Once the soldier reported to the MO that he had a dose, or whatever Yeah. - How was he treated? Ok, normally a stay in a hospital for thirty days in a specific part of the hospital. Again, I didn't talk about this but actually the VD treatment centres were also segregated and in one source it talks of there being treatment centres for other ranks and for officers at Le Havre. So they were treated and often had a stay in hospital of about thirty days. How were they treated? The arsenical drugs against syphilis were just coming in but other than that what passed for treatment because there were no effective antimicrobials? That's actually... The only reference is actually doses of drugs. Again, officers got more doses than the other ranks. Officers got twelve doses, other ranks got eight. That's the actual treatment I've read about. There are also actually some images of soldiers being treated for VD in the medical history I referred to which talked about soldiers being counted visiting the brothels in one street in Le Havre. If you're interested in that I can direct you to the pages. It's in the British Library. And yeah, fascinating. A rare, rare chance to see a photo of anything to do with this topic. I think it's really interesting because a lot of this simplistic view of people in the trenches black and white films, horror and all that. But actually there was a village round the corner. I mean they didn't have to go far to go find a brothel. No, no, and as I said men were often visiting prostitutes in the villages in which they were billeted. Exactly. - Yeah, so it wasn't um... Maybe more common behaviour... The licensed brothels existed in big towns. But yes, and again I didn't go into it in this talk but one can also explore the amateur prostitutes and 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 would go to the front to get rich? Or richer? To get clients which otherwise... - Yeah Er... I haven't read so much about women sort of following the troops round although I'm sure... It did happen. But more, women who were already resident in these villages. Behind you there's a mike. Yep. [MAN] Hello. I was just wondering if 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 memory of these brothels. Was there any effect? Or have you ever looked into that effect on the Second World War? Or lessons learned from what happened in the First World War? or any changes that were made because of it? Yeah, great question. As I said this is a very underexplored area amongst even academics. I think you've just come up with a couple of great projects there. When I was thinking of what to do for a PhD I did think I could just do this subject again for the Second World War because there's a gaping hole there as well. I think looking... If you could find the sources on how prostitution was remembered within families that would be incredible. I doubt very much there are many of them but I think... I think, again there isn't that much... there needs to be more history looking at how the Second World War and the First World War fit together and I think this would be a great way of looking at how the memory altered and comparing the two. On the Second World War, since it's your other special subject area. Mmm. It's a bit of a non-sequitur in a way, although dealing with the emotions or the physical proximity of men in a camp. Was there, sort of, developed relationships? Was there masturbation, homosexual relations? Was there any evidence of how they would relieve themselves? On prisoners of war in the Second World War, yeah. Well, officers were held in central camps separated from the other ranks who were often in working camps. Other ranks did have relationships with civilian women German and Polish women most commonly and that did happen quite a lot. Within the camps I looked at ideas around heterosexuality and I did find that actually it became a very, sort of, changing notion and quite a fluid idea of what was acceptable between different men. What sort of relationships were acceptable. And whilst I didn't find, in the sample of sources I looked at too much evidence of overt homosexuality there was definitely changing conceptions. For example, there were often cross-dressers in camps in theatre productions and men often speak in very, very admiring tones about how beautiful these women were and these narratives went beyond the stage, as it were. So there were, sort of, changing ideas. I concluded that notions of male heterosexuality became much more fluid in the central POW camp. Very good. There's a question over there I think, near the back. [WOMAN] Hi. You know when you did your research you didn't find any evidence or, like, any accounts of what the war was 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 end of the lecture you said you couldn't find any accounts of what the war was like from the prostitutes' point of view? Is that just because you 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 have looked in archives in France for evidence, any accounts of what prostitutes have written themselves and haven't been able to find any. And I would expect... I don't find that very surprising because they probably wouldn't have had the materials they might not have had the literacy rates to actually write down their experience and might not have wanted to write it down in a memoir. So for all those reasons, it doesn't surprise me but scholars have looked for those sources and they don't seem to exist. [WOMAN] So how come... Can you hear me? - Just about! So how come, you know, no historian has actually tried to find one and talk to one about their... Well, they wouldn't probably be alive any more and if you think about the changing nature of history historians have only recently started 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, historians haven't really explored very much. So I think by the time we've engaged with this topic I think the opportunity has passed to find any of these women even if one could, and carry out interviews. But, as I said, there are so few discussions 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 willing to speak on this. We're getting near two o'clock. Have you mined the archives at the Imperial War Museum? Yeah. You've seen them all? -Yeah I mean the Imperial War Museum has been my main source base and they've got brilliant sources. Mainly, I draw upon memoirs and oral histories but there were a few letters in there as you saw and a couple of diaries talking about this subject. But it often is one of those slightly frustrating subjects in that you probably have 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 rely on the superb cataloguing done by the archivists of the Imperial War Museum because there's only so much one can read with a hope that it will crop up. Absolutely. But that's definitely the main source base for this topic. Well, unless there are more questions... We thank Clare very much indeed. - Thank you very much. [APPLAUSE]