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Generals Die in Bed is an anti-war novella by the Canadian writer Charles Yale Harrison. Based on the author's own experiences in combat, it tells the story of a young soldier fighting in the trenches of World War I. It was first published in 1930 by William Morrow.
This Canadian World War I narrative begins in Montreal, where an unnamed young soldier is among Canadian troops of a variety of ages preparing to deploy to France and the war. The story follows the soldiers into the Western Front trench lines where they begin to experience the war of attrition being fought there.
While he once thought of war as glorious, the narrator faces the reality of hard combat and his friends begin to die. Later, the narrator finds himself deeply disturbed when he bayonets a German soldier during a raid; this trauma is magnified by the narrator's subsequent camaraderie with the brother of the soldier he killed when together they endure shelling.
The narrator becomes further affected by the death of another friend; it is at this point he begins to become exhausted by the horrors of war. He goes on his leave to England, a 10-day period during which a prostitute does everything in her power to help him forget the war. However, everyday incidents –- such as a burlesque show that marginalizes the cost of war by adapting the imagery of war for public amusement –- remind the anonymous soldier of the separation between the "home front" and the trenches.
Upon his return to the trenches, the Canadians suffer heavy losses in a trench raid; at this point, Broadbent is the lone survivor of the narrator's friends. To motivate the troops for an offensive, a senior officer tells the troops of the Germans sinking a hospital ship; during this bloody confrontation, the narrator receives a wound, and Broadbent dies after his leg is nearly severed from his body. The narrator's wound takes him out of action, although the war continues. At this point, the soldiers learn that the ship sunk by the Germans was, in fact, carrying weapons. The illumination of the truth brings with it the realization that war is a game of strategy fought between generals, and soldiers are the ones who suffer.
The novel focuses heavily on the vanity of war and how many of the soldiers were naive, fighting for ideals. Generals and civilians spew patriotic slogans without ever truly understanding the horror of trench life. Like the poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, or such European novels as Henri Barbusse's Under Fire , or Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front , Generals Die in Bed attempts to strip war of its romance and glamour, to show the real experiences of men at war.
The story possesses a unique style in that we learn next to nothing about its main character and first person narrator. Therefore, it could be argued that his function is merely to serve as a surrogate for the audience.
Generals Die in Bed was an international bestseller upon its release, and was by far the most successful of Harrison's novels. The New York Evening Standard called it "the best of the war books". The reception was lukewarm in Canada, however, because of scenes depicting Canadian soldiers looting the French town of Arras and shooting unarmed Germans (which amounted to a war crime). There is no evidence to support Harrison's claim that the 14th Battalion Royal Montreal Regiment fired upon unarmed German soldiers, beyond his own claims, and, further, the regiment's diaries directly contradict this claim. There was also no evidence that the medical ship in question, the HMHS Llandovery Castle, was carrying anything other than medical supplies and wounded soldiers. Additionally, in one passage in the chapter entitled Vengeance, the narrator claims that the faces of the soldiers are "as red as the poppies of which the war-poets are writing about back home." This is a reference to In Flanders Fields, which was written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae. John McCrae was a surgeon in the Canadian Army, and participated in the Second Battle of Ypres. These falsehoods served to incense the general Canadian public, especially the remaining veterans of the 14th Regiment. It was also noted by several parties that, contrary to the title's claim, more than 200 British generals of the First World War died, captured and wounded on the front lines. [1] Many felt that the title dishonored their memory.
Former Canadian Expeditionary Force commander General Sir Arthur Currie, said that the novel denigrated the legacy of Canadians in the war. Harrison denied the allegation in a 1930 interview with the Toronto Daily Star , praising Canadian soldiers and justifying his novel as an attempt to depict the war "as it really was." There is a strong likelihood that Remarque's 'All Quiet on the Western Front' plagiarized sections of 'Generals Die in Bed', notably the bayoneting scene.
After its initial success as part of the "war book boom" of the late 1920s and early 1930s, Generals Die in Bed was largely forgotten, until the Hamilton, Ontario publisher Potlach Publications reissued it in the 1970s. In 2002, Toronto's Annick Press re-issued the original text of Generals Die in Bed packaged for young adults, and further editions by Penguin Books Australia and Red Fox in the UK followed. In 2007, Annick republished an edition intended for adult readers and course adoptions. The text generally states the horrific nature of World War I.
Generals Die in Bed is referenced briefly in the short story "A Natural History of the Dead" by Ernest Hemingway, primarily as a satirical commentary on its title.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I. The book describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental stress during the war, and the detachment from civilian life felt by many of these soldiers upon returning home from the front.
A bayonet is a knife, dagger, sword, or spike-shaped weapon designed to fit on the end of the muzzle of a rifle, musket or similar firearm, allowing it to be used as a spear. From the 17th century to World War I, it was considered a primary weapon for infantry attacks. Today, it is considered an ancillary weapon or a weapon of last resort.
Erich Maria Remarque was a German novelist. His landmark novel All Quiet on the Western Front (1928), about the German military experience of World War I, was an international best-seller which created a new literary genre, and was subsequently made into the film All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).
Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied fighting lines largely comprising military trenches, in which troops are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. Trench warfare became archetypically associated with World War I (1914–1918), when the Race to the Sea rapidly expanded trench use on the Western Front starting in September 1914.
The Gallipoli campaign was a military campaign in the First World War that took place on the Gallipoli peninsula, from 17 February 1915 to 9 January 1916. The Entente powers, Britain, France and Russia, sought to weaken the Ottoman Empire, one of the Central Powers, by taking control of the Turkish straits. This would expose the Ottoman capital at Constantinople to bombardment by Allied battleships and cut it off from the Asian part of the empire. With Turkey defeated, the Suez canal would be safe, and a year-round Allied supply route could be opened through the Black Sea to warm water ports in Russia.
The Battle of the Nek was a minor battle that took place on 7 August 1915, during the Gallipoli campaign of World War I. "The Nek" was a narrow stretch of ridge on the Gallipoli Peninsula. The name derives from the Afrikaans word for a "mountain pass" but the terrain itself was a perfect bottleneck and easy to defend, as had been proven during an Ottoman attack in June. It connected Australian and New Zealand trenches on the ridge known as "Russell's Top" to the knoll called "Baby 700" on which the Ottoman defenders were entrenched.
The Battle of Lone Pine was fought between Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) and Ottoman Empire forces during the Gallipoli Campaign of the First World War, between 6 and 10 August 1915. The battle was part of a diversionary attack to draw Ottoman attention away from the main assaults being conducted by British, Indian and New Zealand troops around Sari Bair, Chunuk Bair and Hill 971, which became known as the August Offensive.
During the First World War, the Second Battle of Ypres was fought from 22 April – 25 May 1915 for control of the strategic Flemish town of Ypres in western Belgium. The First Battle of Ypres had been fought the previous autumn. The Second Battle of Ypres was the first mass use by Germany of poison gas on the Western Front. It also marked the first time a former colonial force defeated a European power in Europe.
The Attack at Fromelles 19–20 July 1916, was a military operation on the Western Front during the First World War. The attack was carried out by British and Australian troops and was subsidiary to the Battle of the Somme. General Headquarters (GHQ) of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) had ordered the First and Second armies to prepare attacks to support the Fourth Army on the Somme, 50 mi (80 km) to the south, to exploit any weakening of the German defences opposite. The attack took place 9.9 mi (16 km) from Lille, between the Fauquissart–Trivelet road and Cordonnerie Farm, an area overlooked from Aubers Ridge to the south. The ground was low-lying and much of the defensive fortification by both sides consisted of building breastworks, rather than trenches.
Charles Yale Harrison was a Canadian author and journalist, best known for his 1930 anti-war novella Generals Die in Bed.
The Battle of Neuve Chapelle took place in the First World War in the Artois region of France. The attack was intended to cause a rupture in the German lines, which would then be exploited with a rush to the Aubers Ridge and possibly Lille. A French assault at Vimy Ridge on the Artois plateau was also planned to threaten the road, rail and canal junctions at La Bassée from the south as the British attacked from the north. The British attackers broke through German defences in a salient at the village Neuve-Chapelle but the success could not be exploited.
Passchendaele is a 2008 Canadian war film, written, co-produced, directed by, and starring Paul Gross. The film, which was shot in Calgary, Alberta, Fort Macleod, Alberta, and in Belgium, focuses on the experiences of a Canadian soldier, Michael Dunne, at the Battle of Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres. The film had its premiere at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival on September 4, 2008, when it also had the honour of opening the festival, and it was released widely in Canada on October 17, 2008.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a television film produced by ITC Entertainment, released on November 14, 1979, starring Richard Thomas and Ernest Borgnine. It is based on the book of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque. The film was directed by Delbert Mann. Most of the filming took place in Czechoslovakia.
Major-General Malcolm Smith Mercer was a Canadian general, barrister and art patron who practiced law in Toronto and led the 3rd Canadian Division during the first two years of the First World War before he was killed in action at Mount Sorrel in Belgium. Mercer was an experienced militia commander and had demonstrated a great flair with training and organising the raw Canadian recruits during the opening months of the war. He also demonstrated courage under fire, visiting the front lines on numerous occasions at the height of battle and personally directing his forces in the face of poison gas attacks and heavy shellfire.
The Crucified Soldier refers to the widespread atrocity propaganda story of an Allied soldier serving in the Canadian Corps who may have been crucified with bayonets on a barn door or a tree, while fighting on the Western Front during World War I. Three witnesses said they saw an unidentified crucified Canadian soldier near the battlefield of Ypres, Belgium, on or around 24 April 1915, but there was no conclusive proof such a crucifixion actually occurred. The eyewitness accounts were somewhat contradictory, no crucified body was found, and no knowledge was uncovered at the time about the identity of the supposedly crucified soldier.
The First World War, which was fought between 1914 to 1918, had an immediate impact on popular culture. In over the hundred years since the war ended, the war has resulted in many artistic and cultural works from all sides and nations that participated in the war. This included artworks, books, poems, films, television, music, and more recently, video games. Many of these pieces were created by soldiers who took part in the war.
The use of horses in World War I marked a transitional period in the evolution of armed conflict. Cavalry units were initially considered essential offensive elements of a military force, but over the course of the war, the vulnerability of horses to modern weapons such as machine gun, mortar, and artillery fire greatly reduced their utility on the battlefield. This paralleled with the development of tanks, would ultimately replace cavalry in shock tactics role. While the perceived value of the horse in war changed dramatically, horses still played a significant role throughout the war.
The Battle of Krivolak was a World War I battle, fought between 21 October and 22 November 1915. The battle was fought in the initial stage of the Macedonian campaign, in the Balkans Theatre. On October 21, Bulgarian troops attacked the French-held positions near the Strumica rail station, at the time part of the Kingdom of Serbia, starting the battle. Fighting continued until November 22, when two Serbian divisions failed to capture Skopje, thus rendering the continuation of Entente offensive operations dangerous and forcing the French to evacuate their forces from the region.
The Battle of Kosturino was a World War I battle, fought between 6 and 12 December 1915. The battle was fought in the initial stage of the Macedonian campaign, in the Balkans Theatre. On December 6, a Bulgarian troops attacked the French and British-held trenches in Kosturino, at the time part of the Kingdom of Serbia. The offensive was at first held in check, however on December 8, Bulgaria managed to infiltrate the Memesli ravine. Bulgaria then seized Crete Simonet, thus threatening to outflank the Allies. The Entente defeat at Kosturino led to the complete withdrawal of Allied forces from Serbia, thus enabling the Central Powers to build the Berlin to Constantinople rail line. The Allies in the meantime concentrated on solidifying their defenses in Greece.
Pyotr Ivanovich Kuznetsov was a Red Army junior sergeant during World War II and a Hero of the Soviet Union. Kuznetsov was awarded the title for his actions in the 1943 Battle of Kiev, where he reportedly killed 41 German soldiers. He was seriously wounded and discharged soon after. After the war, Kuznetsov lived in Kaluga.
