Kitchener's Mob: The Adventures of an American in the British Army

by James Norman Hall, Norman James Hall

James Hall begins his story of Kitchener and the men who fought with him on the Western Front as follows. "Kitchener's Mob" they were called in the early days of August 1914, when London hoardings were clamorous with the first calls for volunteers. The seasoned regulars of the first British expeditionary force said it patronizingly, the great British public hopefully, the world at large doubtfully. "Kitchener's Mob," when there was but a scant sixty thousand under arms with millions yet to come. "Kitchener's Mob" it remains to-day, fighting in hundreds of thousands in France, Belgium, Africa, the Balkans. And to-morrow, when the war is ended, who will come marching home again, old campaigners, war-worn remnants of once mighty armies? "Kitchener's Mob."

Genres: History, World War I, Nonfiction, Military History

112 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1916

About the author

An American author best known for the novel Mutiny on the Bounty with co-author Charles Nordhoff.

Reviews

[JD · Rating 3 out of 5]

First published in 1916 after the Battle of Loos, this book is well written and describes how an American came to be one of Kitchener's volunteers at the beginning of World War 1. The book contains his chance enlistment, training and everyday life in the trenches and he gives good descriptions how things worked in the trenches, which I liked about the book. The book does at times feel like a recruiting tool, as could be expected from the time and still bears some romantic notions of going to war, as the slaughter at the Somme was yet to happen. Still a solid and informative bit of reading.

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author of this short autobiographical description of life in the trenches during World War I is James Norman Hall. He went on to team with Charles B. Nordhoff and write some of the most successful works of historical fiction of the 1930s, including Mutiny on the Bounty, The Hurricane, and Botany Bay. But in this book he describes how he, as an American, managed to volunteer for duty in France and fight with the British Army (so-called "Kitchener's Mob," because it comprised of volunteers during the first year of the war in 1914).

The organization is simple yet enormously effective. It covers Hall's chance enlistment, his training in Britain, his deployment to France, and culminates in the Battle of Loos. For the most part, Hall even manages to keep some of his initial romantic visions of the war intact. Yes, he describes the slaughter at Loos in graphic detail, but always underscores it with the sense of mission and optimism he says British troops maintained.

All the while, Hall makes extensive use of notes he took and captures the speech, slang, and unique accents of Britain's volunteers. In so doing, he gives a flavor to the war that is immediate and honest. At this point, I remembered my own grandfather's journal of his deployment to France during World War I. I was struck with the identical imagery, common complaints, and the sameness of the description of the landscape. I suppose that sealed Hall's authenticity in my mind. This is a much neglected book of enormous importance, as we have just slipped into an age where all the participants in the Great War have died.

[Phil Clymer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well written account of an American soldier serving in the British army in the early days of The Great War. He recounts experiences from enlistment through training and into the trenches. His accounts of the combat are particularly well done and deliver an appreciation for both the physical and psychological wounds that the survivors carried home. I highly recommend this book.

[Dorothy Himberc · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Disclaimer: a few of the details below may be wrong, as I didn't take the time to check all of them.)
An account of an American man who pretended to be British so that he could serve in a London army regiment during the first 2 years of the First World War.

The British Expeditionary Force that had been sent to the continent at the outset of the war was exhausted, and 'Kitchener's Mob' was sent as reinforcements. The Mob was a bit of a gamble, and was only sent out after long and detailed training, as the soldiers were generally inexperienced, often city men. Hall describes his 9 months preparation in England, the slow improvement in equipment as the war supply chain gears up, and then finally his journey through Normandy to the first, 'quiet' trenches he fights in.

-Hall's account is full of admiration for the soldiers with whom he serves, whom he generalizes into a frankly propagandistic 'Tommy Atkins' figure, supposed to be representative of the ordinary British hero. His prose is sometimes almost too good, detailed and novelistic to seem strictly factual, but he says that he took notes to get the dialogue right and I believe this might mostly explain it. And the passages about the futility of war are a bit of a relief to his habit of putting an enthusiastic face on his experience.

As the famous German novel All Quiet on the Western Front suggests, even when there was 'nothing new to report' and the trenches were 'quiet,' men still died on them. But James Norman Hall's book breaks off quite abruptly in the middle of the next set of trenches where his regiment serves: in a brutally bloody slaughter field where the British have conquered a line of German trenches, but are still being mowed down by heavy explosives, so that his comrades die left and right.

At some point, per Wikipedia or another source I read, he was revealed as an American and was kicked out of the British army. Who knows if that was in 1916, when he published the book?

[John McNair · Rating 4 out of 5]

All in all, a pretty good read! Written a very long time ago, 1916 to be exact, but the language was not at all "dated". Nor the sentiment, although the narrative did tend to highlight those aspects of trench warfare that people would want to read: high morale, smiling through adversity, carrying on (nearly) uncomplainingly. There were some darker aspects, especially during the Battle of Loos, when it was difficult for the author to disguise the horror or trench warfare. The respect "the Tommies" had for"Frtitz's" fighting abilities was clearly evident too. There was disappointingly no real introduction and no ending to this story. But there was, in reality. Only by reading of the author's life - and I hadn't known how famous he was to become - does one realize the full story. Namely, he claimed he was Canadian, not American, in order to join the British Army in 1914. Yet he writes how his mates all made a big dea lof his being American . . . how did his Company or Battalion Commander not know? Only when that fact was discovered in late 1915 was he discharged, but that is not part of the conclusion of this book, as I thought it would be. And how did it come out? Did he use that reason for an ipso facto "Blighty"? That would be understandable, now, but of course looked on as cowardly then. Of course, in 1916 there was no knowledge of the incredible events the author would undertake later in the War, and later in life. And what a life!

[Malachi Cyr · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very real, first hand account of the face of the British soldier in WWI

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

A poignant memoir of daily life in the trenches of WW1 by the co-author of Mutiny On The Bounty. He joined the British Army in 1914 and went on to serve in the militaries of three Western allies: Great Britain as an infantryman and then flying for France and later the United States. Kitchener'sMob was the all-volunteer portion of the British Army named for the British Secretary of War. I gave it 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 because I can't help but compare it to All Quiet On The Western Front. All other WW1 novels pale by comparison.