Her Privates We

by Frederic Manning, William Boyd (Introduction)

First published in 1930, 'Her Privates We' is the great book of World War I written from the ordinary soldier's point of view.

Called the "book of books" by Lawrence of Arabia, 'Her Privates We' is an expressionist classic that magnificently captures the horror of war.

Genres: Fiction, War, World War I, Historical Fiction, Classics, Historical, Military Fiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

Manning was born in 1882 in Sydney, Australia, and whose father was a one-time mayor. Educated privately, he was thereafter sent to England to complete his studies.

In the immediate pre-war years Manning established a reputation as a minor poet and critic among a small circle of intimates.

With the outbreak of war in August 1914 Manning enlisted as a Private with the 7th Battalion King's Shropshire Light Infantry, serving in the trenches in France among some of the more bloody battles of the war.

In 1929 Manning anonymously published in a private edition his novelised memoirs of the war, The Middle Parts of Fortune, in two volumes. In place of his name he simply listed his army serial number.

The following year, 1930, an expurgated edition of the book was commercially published as Her Privates We - without the strong language deemed likely to offend a wider readership.

Manning wrote no more fiction, retiring instead into scholarly seclusion. He died in London in 1935; it was a further eleven years before he was finally identified as the author of the war classic hailed by Hemingway as "the finest and noblest book of men in war I have ever read".

T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) observed that "no praise could be too sheer for this book ... it justifies every heat of praise. Its virtues will be recognised more and more as time goes on."

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

“On Fortune’s cap we are not the very button… Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favors? …Faith, her privates we. In the secret parts of Fortune? Oh, most true. She is a strumpet.” William Shakespeare – Hamlet.
Her Privates We is a psychological portrait of war seen through Private Bourne’s eyes… And a psychological portrait of soldier…

One had lived instantaneously during that timeless interval, for in the shock and violence of the attack, the perilous instant, on which he stood perched so precariously, was all that the half-stunned consciousness of man could grasp; and, if he lost his grip on it, he fell back among the grotesque terrors and nightmare creatures of his own mind.

We follow Bourne from hour to hour, from day to day and slowly we start feeling sympathy and compassion.
We follow the war from day to day and slowly it turns into a boring routine…

Men had reverted to a more primitive stage in their development, and had become nocturnal beasts of prey, hunting each other in packs: this was the uniformity, quite distinct from the effect of military discipline, which their own nature had imposed on them.

War may become a routine but it keeps killing and mutilating blindly and mercilessly… And death chooses the best comrades.

[Mike Robbins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frederic Manning is an oddly elusive figure. Born in Australia in 1882, he migrated to England as a teenager. A friend, at various times, of Ezra Pound, Richard Aldington, T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats and T. E. Lawrence, he was regarded by many contemporaries as a fine writer, and his literary ambition was considerable. But he was affected throughout his life by a weak chest. Also, he drank. In the end he was really only ever known for one book, and little else that he wrote is much read today.

That one masterwork was published in 1929 under the title The Middle Parts of Fortune; soon afterwards, an expurgated version was brought out as Her Privates We. Today it can be found as either. Both titles are taken from the same dialogue in Hamlet:

Guildenstern: On Fortune’s cap we are not the very button.
Hamlet: Nor the soles of her shoe?
Rosencrantz: Neither, my lord.
Hamlet: Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?
Guildenstern: Faith, her privates we.
Hamlet: In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet.

This quote explains itself, for Her Privates We is about the ordinary serving solder, tossed about by the fortunes of war.

The book concerns Bourne, a private soldier; although not in the first person, it is written from his point of view, and we mostly see no other. It is set in the second part of 1916, after the Somme offensive. The book opens with Bourne groping along, dugout by duckboard, away from the trenches as his unit is withdrawn; it finishes with the unit’s return. In between, they are marched from one place to another behind the lines, supposedly resting. The book is thus set mostly not in the trenches, but it does begin and end there. In any case, the fact that it is mostly not set in the front line does not decrease its value, as troops spent much of their time behind the lines.

The book’s first chapters are not always easy to read. Some of the early passages are wordy and philosophical. It begins well, as Bourne and his unit withdraw from the front line, but then runs into the sand as Bourne, awake while his fellows sleep, smokes and ruminates on the nature of their presence there. It doesn’t add much. If the whole of the book were like this, it would be a self-indulgent bore.

But it’s well worth persisting because, after that awkward beginning, it becomes a vivid portrayal of a soldier’s life. The book has a number of insights for modern readers curious about the war, including the attitudes of the solders themselves to it. A century on, we have a picture of wildly patriotic young men flooding to the colours, but reading Bourne, one wonders whether this was the whole truth. Almost nowhere in Her Privates We does anyone express support for the war; they just accept it as a fact. They are angry with a deserter, because he left them to fight without him; but his betrayal of the Crown concerns them little. More important are the commonplace stupidities of authority. A major training exercise, planned to perfection, is brought to a halt by the fury of a peasant woman because the troops are trampling her clover, and she will have no feed for the winter. On another occasion the unit is sent up the line as a work detail, but because someone has recorded their fighting strength as their pay strength, everyone must go, including the cooks, and there is nothing to eat in the morning. War and authority are quite random:

“There’s a man dead outside, sergeant,” he said, dully.
“Are you sure he’s dead?”
“Yes, sergeant; most of the head’s gone.”

The book is packed with petty incident in the life of a soldier. The men pick the lice off their bellies, avoid guard duty, and try to have “a bon time” at estaminets where the beer is poor. There is detail here that never made the history books. Planes communicate with troops on the ground using klaxons. When the weather turns cold the men are issues with fleece-lined leather jerkins and, as a result, the lice multiply. As Orwell wrote in Homage to Catalonia: “In war all soldieries are lousy, at the least when it is warm enough. The men that fought at Verdun, at Waterloo, at Flodden, at Senlac, at Thermopylae – every one of them had lice crawling over his testicles.”

The narrative is punctuated with dark events. The deserter is returned, perhaps to be shot; a popular officer dies on a work detail; a pointless parade leads to the death of several men when it is shelled. There is also an underlying, ugly, theme: class. In Her Privates We, the soldiers are reminded constantly that they are inferior. Bourne’s boot is split at the heel by a cart he is towing, and he is lucky to be issued with boots that are of a higher grade, being for officers. In the estaminets, the best booze is labelled “For Officers Only”. Towards the end of the book, Bourne and his fellows come across a Forces canteen with “hams, cheeses, bottled fruits, olives, sardines, everything to make the place a vision of paradise for hungry men.” Entering, he is refused service by a man who “turned away superciliously, saying that they only served officers.” Another attendant is friendlier and tells him he can get cocoa and biscuits at a shed in the yard. Bourne is incensed, knowing that the goods in the shop have been paid for by public subscription and were intended for them all.

But the class distinctions have more subtle dangers. Bourne is pressed to apply for a commission, because it is obvious that he is not from the same background as the others. Reluctantly, he does so. Meanwhile, in the trenches, thinking he has seen a sniper, he reports to an officer. The meeting is a tense one, for they are of different rank but the same class, and the officer therefore treats him coldly. Anyone brought up in the multi-layered jungle of the British class system will recognise this; someone who appears to have “slipped”, or to be playing an unexpected role, is treated with suspicion – the officer is not quite sure what to make of him, and responds with dislike. The tension between them ends with Bourne being sent on the patrol that ends the book. Yet at the same time, Bourne’s descriptions of the soldiers he serves with suggest that he himself had a wide, and class-free, sympathy with one’s fellows; his immediate companions include an urban Jewish soldier and a rural gamekeeper’s son, and the narrator appears at ease with, and attached to, both.

How much of this account reflects Manning’s real experience? One suspects, quite a lot. Bourne, the lead character, is a little different from the others; he is better educated, there is a hint that he is not 100% English (as mentioned above, he was born in Australia – though this distinction would not have been so important then). He is also under pressure to try for a commission, having turned one down on enlistment. Also, the period in which the book is set seems to cover the last few months of 1916, after the worst of the Somme offensive.

This does match Manning’s own life – up to a point. Already 32 in 1914 and in poorish health, he made several attempts to enlist before finally being accepted as a footsoldier in the King’s Shropshire Regiment. In Her Privates We, Bourne maintains to a superior that he turned down a commission on enlisting as he felt he did not know enough of men to command them. In real life, Manning, an aesthete, may indeed not have known enough of working men to have led them. However, he did not turn down a commission. John Francis Swain, who included a concise and informative biography of Manning in a 2001 doctoral thesis, reports that he was accepted for one – but was caught drunk during officer training, and was returned to his regiment as a private. He joined it on the Somme in August 1916. He had missed the bloody start to the battle but he did fight. At the end of 1916 he was again sent for officer training and this time was commissioned, into the Royal Irish Regiment. His time in France therefore corresponds to the book. Her Privates We is based, then, on just three or four months in France.

Frederic Manning never returned to the field. As John Francis Swain records, he did not settle to life as an officer, and took again to drink. Early in 1918, he was allowed to resign his commission on health grounds. Although he did try to pick up the threads of his life after the war, he never really recovered from his chest problems, and died in 1935 at the age of just 52. For all his ambitions and distinguished literary friendships, he would quite likely have left us little had it not been for his brief, undistinguished part in the war. But because of that, he has left us with a book that probably tells us as much about the real life of the soldier on the Western Front as any book ever written.

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name · Rating 4 out of 5]

"She was a very stubborn piece of reality..."
I myself am a very stubborn piece of reality

[Jamie Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most famous literary work to come out of World War I was the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, but for the most part the war is known through its poetry and memoirs. This book by Frederic Manning is the best known English language novel of the war, and is rightly remembered for its intimate look at the everyday lives of ordinary soldiers. There is no grand strategy on display here, and no heroics. Instead it is about cold, tired men marched from one place to another, always looking to find what little comforts their situation afforded.

The book was published under two titles, as Her Privates We, and The Middle Parts of Fortune. Both titles are taken from the scene in Hamlet where the prince speaks with Rosenkranz and Gildenstern, and the double entendres are deliberate, earthy references to the lowly, much put-upon soldiers. The Middle Parts of Fortune is the unexpurgated version of the book, and came out first, in 1929. It was printed in a small edition for members of literary society, and when it found great acclaim it was re-released the following year as Her Privates We, with the swearing and sexual references toned down or eliminated to appeal to a broader reading public. There was, at first, a mystery surrounding who wrote it, since it came out with the author named simply as Private 19022. The reason for the subterfuge was that Manning had made a minor reputation for himself in pre-war literary circles, and was concerned that his book would seem too coarse for polite society.

The main character is Private Bourne, a thinly disguised version of Manning himself. Older and better educated than his fellow soldiers, patient and long suffering, he observes and reflects on the madness of the war, the decency, pettiness, or cruelty of his fellow soldiers, and the absurdity of the Army’s class system. He is pressured to accept an officer’s commission that he does not want. Instead, his only goal is to get through the war with as little trouble as possible and return to his previous life.

The book begins with Bourne’s company being relieved in the trenches and heading to the rear for rest, but rest, as all British infantrymen knew, simply meant time spent behind the front line. Army doctrine held that soldiers needed to be constantly busy to avoid slackness, so there were long pointless route marches, rain or shine, frequent moves from village to village, and lectures, dummy attacks, working parties, and inspections. Most of the actual rest the soldiers got was when they slipped away from their units for a few hours, to sleep or visit the overcrowded, overpriced estaminets for bad beer or bad wine.

Wars are absurd. No one, least of all the generals, understands what is really going on, and by the time that ignorance filters down to the ranks it manifests itself as a series of pointless, contradictory orders and a pedantic fixation on things like rifle drill and shined buttons. Bourne’s days behind the front line are full of such activities, none of which help win the war or make the soldiers better at their jobs. Disillusionment had set in long ago, and they go through the motions of being soldiers because there is nothing else for them to do. They are no longer fighting for king and country, for democracy or world peace. They are just fighting, and their only goal is to stay alive.

Manning’s observations about the lives of privates echo the comments of Louis Barthas, whose memoir Poilu is about his service in the French army. In both books the basic unit is not the squad, much less the platoon or company, but three or four privates and their corporal. Even sergeants are a remote and unwelcome presence, their arrival usually signifying guard duty, work details, or disciplinary action. Officers are almost non-existent, and play only a small part in the lives of soldiers. Interestingly, Paul Fussell, who served in combat as a second lieutenant in Europe during World War II, made a similar point in his book Doing Battle. His observation was that junior officers were there to provide a measure of social stability, a reassurance to the soldiers that the war was not, as the age-old infantryman's complaint had it, a rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight (think about the useless and seldom seen second lieutenant in the Vietnam film Platoon). Many officers were so young and so inexperienced, or were killed or wounded so quickly, that soldiers had no trust in them anyway.

Bourne (and Manning) came from the same social class as the officers, which made for awkward and uncomfortable situations. Bourne himself was not bothered by it, because he did not care enough about class distinctions or officers in general to be affected by them. The officers, however, were unsure how to deal with a man who was more experienced, at least as well educated, and probably more competent than they were, so they responded with a coldness bordering on hostility that comes across to the reader as entirely believable. Clearly Manning had some interesting interactions with his officers while serving as an enlisted man. Unlike his avatar Bourne, Manning did accept a commission, but was not successful as an officer, and after being found drunk on duty he was allowed to quietly leave the Army in 1918.

And that is basically the book. It ends with the company going back into the trenches and a violent encounter in No Man’s Land, but it is not about combat. It is about the lives of ordinary soldiers and their daily routines and struggles. There was a lot more to the war than just the fighting, and this book is an excellent window into what the men thought and felt, how they coped with the harshness and insanity of war, and how they dealt with army life in general.

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the back cover of this edition: "The finest and noblest book of men in war that I have ever read. I read it over once each year to remember how things really were so that I will never lie to myself nor to anyone else about them." - Ernest Hemingway

I have a "thing" to read about World War One. This was different than All Quiet on the Western Front and I think not as good. It was less emotional, for one thing. Remarque writes more about the fighting itself and how it scars the individual psyche, while Manning focuses on the bond that forms between the men who do the fighting.

The writing is superior. Manning was obviously a scholar, and each chapter is headed by a quote from Shakespeare.

It was a cushy guard, without formality; and he liked the solitude and emptiness of the night. One bathed one's soul in that silence, as in a deep, cold pool. Earth seemed to breathe, even if it were only with his own breathing, giving consciousness a kind of rhythm, which was neither of sound nor of motion, but might become either at any moment. The slagheaps, huge against the luminous sky, might have been watchtowers in Babylon, or pyramids in Egypt; night with its enchantments, changing even this flat and unlovely land into a place haunted by fantastic imaginings.

Manning also uses some dialect to show the difference in classes between the privates and non-coms and the officers. One private, Bourne (who probably was sort of a fictionalized Manning), had no accent/dialect, was older than the others. The story is told predominantly from his perspective. Because Bourne was of a different class and age, he served Manning's purpose well to show how strong were the bonds formed between and among these men. It is unlikely they would not have come in contact with each other without the war, and most assuredly not have felt for one another as they did.

I did not like this as much as All Quiet, but I will remember it long, and thus the 5 stars.

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very historically interesting, with some powerful and moving passages, but for me the writing was fairly weak and unengaging.

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most authentic WW1 novel, not necessarily the best

Frederick Manning was born in Australia in 1882, son of the Mayor of Sydney. In 1898, however, he moved to England with the clergyman who had become his mentor, and remained there for most of the rest of his life. Although not physically strong, and at first rejected, he persisted in volunteering for the army. He finally joined up in late 1915, serving on the Somme and Ancre, first as a private and later, despite his own wishes, as a not-very-successful officer. Beginning to establish himself in literary circles after the War, he was encouraged by his publisher to write the novel that was issued privately in 1929 as The Middle Parts of Fortune, then republished in 1930 in an expurgated edition as Her Privates We. Both titles come from a scene in HAMLET, where Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern refer to the soldier as the private parts of Fortune. A point well taken in Manning's book, because the vernacular dialogue which is its chief strength is littered with sexual obscenities which give it an extraordinary authenticity. I cannot imagine how an expurgated version would work at all; fortunately, this Kindle edition* restores the original text.

I shall not quote these passages. Here, however, is a relatively clean paragraph of dialogue (A), followed on the next page by a reflection on it by the protagonist, Bourne, an obvious stand-in for the author (B). The juxtaposition of styles is typical:

A. You can't fool the men. You will get an officer sometimes full of shout an' swank, an' 'e'll put 'em though it, an' strafe 'em, an' then walk off parade feelin' that 'e 'as put the fear o' God into 'em. Well, 'e 'asn't. 'e thinks they respect' im, an' all they think is that 'e wears a Sam Browne belt, and they wear one waist, web, ditto.

B. Bourne appreciated Sergeant Tozer's point of view, because he understood the implications his words were intended to convey, even when he seemed to wander from the point. Life was a hazard enveloped in mystery, and war quickened the sense of both in men: the soldier also, as well as the saint, might write his tractate de comtemptu mundi, and differ from him only in the angle and spirit from which he surveyed the same bleak reality.

The contrast between the philosophical educated gentleman and the ordinary types among whom he chose to serve is the most fascinating thing in the novel; I suspect it was also the fascination of Manning himself. One thinks of TE Lawrence who, with his Lawrence of Arabia days behind him, twice reenlisted under a pseudonym in the ranks; the two men later became friends. There is probably no better account of the ordinary soldier in that war, because it is rare to find a chronicler with his ear so close to the ground and the objectivity and skill to set it down. It also gives a very fine account of the relationship between officers and men, although I am not sure that it is typical, since the better officers recognized a kindred spirit in Bourne/Manning, giving their dealings a puzzling ambiguity. It is also a little hard for the regular reader to follow, since the upper NCOs are referred to by ranks such as "regimental" and "colour-sergeant" making the pecking order unclear.

While this is a unique account of life in the trenches from the private soldier's point of view, I would not say that the book is equally effective as a novel. For one thing, there is virtually no story, and the book even becomes a little tedious. Partly this is because the worm's-eye view gives no perspective, partly it is because Bourne's comrades, though often coming through clearly as types, show little inner life. The same thing applies, actually, to Bourne himself. We hear his thoughts on men and warfare—too many of them sometimes. We are intrigued by his ambivalent attitude to authority, his competence in brief tasks but utter reluctance to assume true responsibility. Yet we search in vain for key to his ambivalence, which probably lies deep in his upbringing; the back-story is simply missing.

Somewhat surprisingly, the set-pieces that we have come to expect from other WW1 novels—the stinking conditions in the trenches, the chaos of battle, the obscenity of dismemberment—are all comparatively muted here. That is perhaps the book's strength. And when Manning really wants to make a point, his understatements can hit hard—as in this passage in which a younger soldier, moving ahead of Bourne through a captured German trench, is suddenly shot:

"Kid! You're all right, kid?" he cried eagerly. He was all right. As Bourne lifted the limp body, the boy's hat came off, showing half the back of his skull shattered where the bullet has come through it; and a little blood welled out on to Bourne's sleeve and the knee of his trousers. He was all right; and Bourne let him settle to earth again, lifting himself up almost indifferently, unable to realize what had happened, filled with a kind of tenderness that ached in him, and yet extraordinarily still, extraordinarily cold. He had to hurry, or he would be alone in the fog.

+ + + + + +

*Buyers of the Reinkarnation Kindle edition should be warned that the font varies unpredictably between huge boldface, small but regular type, and something quite miniscule. It does not prevent you from reading the text, but it greatly detracts from the smoothness of the experience. Despite the claims, it is also not annotated in any way that I can discern.

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hemingway stated that this book was, "The finest and noblest book of men in war" - although I have never been too enthusiastic about Hemingway, this really is a great piece of text. There is a lot of waiting around and little action.

[sslyb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Started kind of slow. I put it down a few times. By the time I'd finished I liked it better than All Quiet on the Western Front.

[Calzean · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was WWI's equivalent of WWII's The Thin Red Line. In lieu of Private Witt we have Private Bourne. Both men are real soldiers and find they come alive in combat. Both detest authority, love a drink and have needed skills (Witt is a bugler, Bourne can speak French).

Manning's book focuses on the period of soldering between two major battles. The book wanders a bit with tales of what happens during periods of rest. The book picks up the pace in the description of trench warfare and moves to a predictable conclusion.

I think there are better books on WWI but this one is worth reading.

[George P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 1929 novel seems to have been based on the Australian author's own experiences as a soldier in World War 2 in the British army. It tells a story that begins in the midst of the war in France and is very much from the viewpoint of the soldier Bourne.
It reminded me quite a bit of the much more widely-read novel Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War by Sebastian Faulks. A significant difference is that this novel is entirely set in a battle zone with brief visits to cheap cafe-bars (estaminets) or to be put up at homes in small French towns close to the front. It is very successful in immersing the reader in the environment of the war and the emotions of being a soldier there with the anxieties preceding going "over the top" (out of the trenches toward the enemy).
Occasionally I could not fathom what certain terms or slang meant. Eventually I figured out some, such at that "the regimental" is the head sergeant/ NCO of the regiment, and a 'kip" is a nap.
Highly recommended.
If you search in kindle books you can find a 99 cent version which I read and in which I noted only a couple errors with a line being transposed with the one before, so out of order.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every so often a book comes along that defines a generation in a certain time and place. This is just one of those books. Her Privates We tells the story of the ordinary men fighting for Britain in the trenches at Somme in the summer and fall of 1916. The language and events described are raw and unflinching. They are not the idealized, separate world of the officer corp, but the war as it was, filled with filth and muck, anger and apathy.

We are told this story through the third person narrative of a soldier identified only as Bourne. He is a little different from the rest of the men, clearly of a different class. It is evident in his age, his manners, his speech, and his education. It is clear to not only to the fighting men, but also the officers who both resent and respect him. He is told repeatedly to go in for an officer's commission, something which he tries to avoid but eventually accepts as his duty.

There are times when this book moves slowly. This can be hard on some readers, but I think it was intentional and used to show what war was like. It was filled with waiting, endless drilling and parades, and when they moved to the front, it was quick and violent, over almost before you knew what had happened, only to be replaced with more of the interminable waiting.

Bourne is modeled on the author himself and the book is loosely based on his own experiences. He wrote this book at the urging of a friend in 1929, when it was published anonymously under the name The Middle Parts of Fortune. At the time of publication it was considered vulgar and had to be edited and an expurgated version was released the following year, the original version all but disappearing until 1977.

This book was quite popular among leading literary figures and other personages of the time. Included among them are Lawrence of Arabia, who counted it among his favorites, and Ernest Hemingway who described it as "the finest and noblest book of war among men." I am inclined to agree with that sentiment.

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in the trenches during WWI, I would never have read this book had it not been on the 1001 Books list. I'm really glad I did as it was surprisingly moving. There is hardly any plot to the book and very little action or actual fighting - the soldiers are mostly moving from one French village to another, enduring constant mud, filthy conditions, bad food and cold. And lice - oh the lice parts were revolting, the idea of being infested with lice and unable to do anything about it is truly ghastly. It probably pales in comparison to the constant worry of how long until you are killed though. The book has some really interesting passages about the psychology of the ordinary soldier, how they made the best of the terrible conditions and how they managed to keep going without knowing when the war would end.

[Tommy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is just below All Quiet on the Western Front as my favorite WWI book. Not as epic as AQWF and the prose isn't as good, but it's a very poignant snapshot of a year in the life of a WWI private. I love Bourne (the protagonist) and I thought the ending was a bit predictable, but I couldn't see it ending any other way without it being hundreds of pages longer.

If interested in WWI, give this a read.

[zunggg · Rating 4 out of 5]

The First World War seems to have been too beastly for literature, or perhaps simply too efficient at killing the people who might have written novels about it. Other than the Poets (or to quote Blackadder, the "endless, bloody, poetry") and All Quiet on the Western Front which my not having read is rapidly becoming a mortal embarrassment, this seems to be the only significant work of literature produced by a combatant about the front line. Frederic Manning certainly wasn't your common-or-garden Tommy — he was a litterateur, an Australian, probably gay, and in his late thirties when he enlisted — but Her Privates We is a monument to the men who found themselves, through no fault of their own, entrenched in the Somme. What makes it live and breathe is the ventriloquism — the brilliantly rendered voices of a Britain where regional accents and vocab were yet unmuddied by mass media. I learnt fanti for "crazy", and snobs for a cobbler, and I was glad to see that "cunt-struck" has over a century of pedigree. The swearing is as fluent as can be. Very few writers can render accents convincingly in prose, and Manning is one of them. He was with the Shropshires (or "Westshires" in the novel), where I'm from, and some of the voices here reminded me of the codgers they brought into my primary school in the 80's to tell us first-hand what a terrific disaster the whole thing was for everyone involved.

Most of the story takes place behind — or between — the lines, as the Westshires are shunted from one desolated mining town to another, waiting to be shoved back into the meat-grinder. It's endless marching punctuated by pointless (and sometimes deadly) parading, office politics, raiding of estaminets, and attempts, successful or not, to have a "bon time" on smuggled whisky and vinegarish wine. The POV character, Bourne — a rough analogue of Manning — hangs around with a nondescript soldier called Shem and the 16 year-old Martlow, who's emblematic of Owen's "Doomed Youth", and whom I thought maybe Bourne/Manning was quietly in love with. But it's equally likely that that's the interpretation of a reader who's never been in a remotely similar situation, and for whom sentences like this will never be fully comprehensible:

They laid themselves down, as they were to get a few hours' sleep; and Bourne, dropping off between the two of them, wondered what was the spiritual thing in them which lived and seemed to grow even stronger, in the midst of beastliness.

[Yrinsyde · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, funny, sad and horrific. I'm even more a pacifist after reading this. All those Anzac myth makers should read this (and Australians often forget New Zealand was part of the Anzac response). War is nothing to celebrate. Australian soldiers have a very bad reputation overseas. I knew they weren't regarded well during the world wars - it was good to have this confirmed.

[Monty Milne · Rating 5 out of 5]

“All Quiet on the Western Front” was the finest writing on the first world war, at least I thought so until I read this. But, for me, this claims the victor’s laurel. Remarque, Barbusse, Graves, Junger, Cummings, Hemingway: all of them powerful and deservedly famous. But none of them quite like this.

One is immediately arrested by the oddness and mystery of the narrator. He is clearly highly educated, intelligent and capable. He is no ordinary soldier, and yet he lives and breathes as an “other rank”. Both officers and men are at times uncomfortable with this and feel he more naturally belongs as an officer, and yet we sense he won’t fit in with that either. There is a strangeness and an opacity about him which adds to the fascination of the narrative.

Most of the novel is not taken up with scenes of battle, but is an immersion in the lives of soldiers in and behind the trenches. No other novel of this war feels so utterly authentic. This is partly because the patterns of soldierly speech, with all their cursing and humour, are caught so wonderfully well. I found there was nothing boring about these scenes where no one is being shot at. On the contrary: the events described are not only fascinating in themselves, but more of the soldiers’ inner lives is also tantalisingly revealed, and – most effectively of all – the dread threat of the next battle hangs over the narrative. As the regiment gradually moves to the front and prepares for the coming battle, the tension becomes unbearable. I can’t think of any other novel about the war where I was actually longing for the action to be delayed.

I also read this as primarily a love story between the narrator and the young soldier Martlow. I am surprised that others don’t seem to see it as such. Of course, there is a deep reserve about the homoeroticism, but it is there nonetheless – in the description of a nonchalantly naked Martlow searching himself for lice, or in the narrator’s observation of him sleeping – apparently peacefully and dreamlessly – the night before the final battle. To me, this is at the heart of the mystery of Manning, and why he hit the bottle and never married and died sad and lonely: he had a strong, unspoken homosexual inclination for other soldiers in general and one in particular – on whom the fictional Martlow is doubtless based. But he also loved all those doomed young men with whom he served. And he knew that there was no happy outcome for any of them.

When I put down the book, I wept.

[Lysergius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps because it is a fictional account it reads a lot better than other works in the same genre. There is attempt to look below the surface and try to read the currents there. There is an attempt to flesh out the men as something more than mutilated corpses in no man's land. There is a genuine attempt to capture the sixth sense that men under fire develop and the intuitions the result. Altogether a worthy read.

[Chaimpesach · Rating 2 out of 5]

From contemporary impressions of this book, it appears to have accurately captured the essence of a soldier's life behind the lines in WW1, but the most exciting and interesting part (life at the lines) is only a fraction of the book. I loved the way Manning wrote, and the book contains some excellent passages. But often it seemed quite repetitive and dull.

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent novel about men in WWI. There are few battles, but we learn about Martlow, Shem, Sergeant-Major Tozer, Wetter Smart, and Bourne, who is the focus of the story. Their lives are lived out on a finely drawn canvas of mud, tedium and danger. I have recently read several novels about the ordinary man at the front in the Great War. This is one of the best.

[Rosemary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remarkable for its portrayal of the boredom and discomfort of war, as most of the book is spent with the characters resting or waiting to go into battle. The writing style is rather detached and aloof, and the main character is a bit of a misfit, popular but not quite one of the boys.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best WW1 novels, best read in the uncensored version in all its earthy glory.

[Kristel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reason Read: Reading 1001 BOTM, July 2022
A WWI story of trench warfare. No surprises in the story. I appreciated the character development of the various men. So sad.

[Nick H · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinarily complete picture of WWI warfare. It encompasses all forms of humanity within the trenches, from the common to the upper class soldiers, and all have rounded characters with real motivations. I was constantly surprised by how genuinely this treats its characters, never allowing anyone to become a mere trope.

The writing style itself is brilliant, often with bits of CATCH-22 style send-ups of the military system, sometimes switching to remarkably poignant philosophical ruminations, and the able to snap back to ultra-reality at any second. Or maybe it’s better to say that this unique blend of comedy, philosophy and brutality is a clearer picture of ‘ultra-reality’ in the WWI trenches than any entirely sober or entirely brutal portrayal could be.

I wonder why this book isn’t more highly talked about. I was surprised to see how good it was when I started reading it. Whatever the reason, I’m glad I found it.


意味深い、すごくリアルな。全ての人間の種類いる，コモンの人から金持ちの人まで，みんなは自分の考え方とかフルなキャラクターある。「キャッチ=22」のようなやばい軍隊のルールのコメディもあるけど急に本気にもなれる。よくなんか哲人的なセリフとか考えが出てきてめっちゃびっくりする、普段はもっと顧問のような人の喋るだから。これは本当に貴重な作品。なんで今まで聞いたことないのがわからないけど読んだことあるのが感謝してる

[Jyrki Parviainen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vaikuttava teos sotilaan vaiheista rintamalla ensimmäisessä maailmansodassa. Kirjassa pohditaan paljon miehen ajatuksia itsestään ja muista, sekä kaivaudutaan melko syvälle hänen ajatuksiinsa. Kirja pohjautuu Manningin omiin kokemuksiin rintamalla. Teoksessa on muutama todella ajatuksia herättävä kohta, jotka syntyvät perspektiivistä jatkuvaan kuolemanpelkoon.

Ei kevyttä iltalukemista, mutta aikamoisen positiivinen yllätys.

[Brenda Clough · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great example of the problem with first-person or journal point of view, which the author solves on the last page. I won't spoil it for you.

[Juli Rahel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Born in Australia in 1882, Manning moved to England in 1898 with a close friend and finally settled there in 1903. He started a career of writing reviews and independent fictional work here and there, becoming friends with the likes of Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington. He enlisted in 1915 and became Private 19022, which he used as a pseudonym later to publish Her Privates We. He was sent to the Battle of the Somme, the experience of which he recounts in his novel. Manning wasn't a healthy man and on top of that a heavy smoker and drinker, which prevented his chances of becoming an officer.

Manning's protagonist, Bourne, is modelled to a certain extent upon the author himself, although I think Manning is guilty of presenting himself more favourably despite not forgetting to mention his faults. Bourne is his own man, aware of both the camaraderie and isolation caused by War, and although he initially seems more than capable to survive cope, he slowly changes over the course of the novel. Written in third person, you don't get Bourne's internal dialogues to the same extent as if it had been written in first person like Under Fire or All Quiet on the Western Front, but the reader is still privy to his thoughts. Although the other novels and poems picked up on the sometimes ridiculous bureaucracy and rules of the army, none of the authors are as critical of it as Manning is. His independence also extends to his autonomy and his dislike for taking a commission and becoming an officer translates to a dislike of joining the system. The officers and sergeants that populate the novel are not automatically "superior" characters. Often they are vengeful, petty and unable to take independent initiative. More than in any other novel, the War seems absolutely hopeless and stuck.

Each chapter in this novel is preceded by a Shakespeare quote, which I naturally looked up immediately. The plays most quoted are the two Henry IV's and Henry V. Especially Henry V is a very military play, centering around the figure of King Henry V and his campaign in France. Especially the scenes around Harfleur are very interesting, where the true brutality of warfare is brought to the forefront. I can see how this play that tries to deal with the justness and effectiveness of war and the emergence of a good leader, would to some extent inspire Manning. The two Henry IV's show the growth of Prince Hal into a crown prince worthy of the throne and an old leader slowly declining. Bourne, and Manning, are both older soldiers in their thirties, surrounded by younger men and death. It must have been difficult to see 18 year-olds die besides you when you are still living. It's survivor's guilt and during the First World War they didn't recognize PTSD as an actual consequence of the fighting in the trenches.
One of my favourite quotes from the novel is
'They marched out of the village, past the stone cavalry at the end of it, and men who had known all the sins of the world, lifted, to the agony of the figure on the cross, eyes that had probed and understood the mystery of suffering.' p.129
I really like the way Manning compares and contrasts the soldiers to Jesus. The set up of the scene is quite reminiscent of Judgement Day, the sinners walking past Jesus in rows, being judged on their sins. The way Manning writes it, he compares the suffering of Jesus on the cross to that of himself and the other soldiers. Both of them are bearing the consequences for the sins of others. While others make decisions that control their lives, they risk their lives every single day. And yet there is an undertone of brutality and a bestial nature to the soldiers, very different from the saintliness that exudes from Jesus. And the soldiers aren't finished yet, but march on and on. This novel is, in many ways, darker and more tragic than the others because it is very unapologetic.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading fictional accounts of war and violence, I have often come across the sentiment that soldiers will spend most of their time waiting for a combat situation that lasts minutes, if not seconds. Frederic Manning's semi-fictional - the place and event are fact; the characters, fiction - account of British soldiers moving from one front to another during the early stages of World War I confirms this observation. The majority of the book is about the men who fought in World War I and what their experiences were like. Manning writes about meals and parade and the busy-work that officers devise to keep soldiers occupied between marching and fighting. The structure of the story is almost non-linear: Manning will focus on a march through the countryside for a few pages, then devote three times that amount to a conversation over the tea and rum ration, and then he will shuffle through numerous events on a single page.

This desultory movement only reinforced the sense of waiting for a huge and dreadful event. The combat that soldiers saw in World War I was horrible - whether or not you compare it to that seen in other wars - and the prospect of further action, while confirming their commitment to defending the country against "the Huns" and fulfilling one's patriotic duty, nevertheless placed a toll on a man's psyche.

It is obvious that Manning saw this war with his own eyes and heard voices and conversations like those he describes. The fact that he chose to tell of what he saw through fictional characters is interesting, and I wonder if he decided to do so through a sense of propriety; so many men died in World War I, and Manning may have decided to respect their true names and actions while honoring them by proxy. Regardless, Manning translates his memories into prose that acts upon all senses. I heard the men in their tents; I felt their anxiety under fire; I smelled the countryside; and I could feel the pull of mud underfoot during an attack across No Man's Land. To read this was to experience a time and place not my own.

[Anita Pomerantz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be both monotonous and beautifully rendered at the same time.

Set in World War I, the book focuses on the lives of ordinary soldiers in the trenches, mostly as seen through the eyes of one particular soldier, Bourne. The first three quarters of the book focuses on the every day lives of the soldiers as they wait for something to actually happen. There's a lot of obtaining of rations and going out for drinks. In addition, some soldiers speak in an uneducated dialect that's hard to follow. And there are whole paragraphs in French. My high school French was partially up to the task of translation, but if I hadn't had that, I never would have known what was said. Not that it really mattered.

You can tell Manning focused on writing and teaching poetry. His writing itself is really evocative of time and place. I credit him highly for that. There are numerous exquisitely rendered sentences that make you go "oh wow". But the rest of what makes novels great seemed a bit missing.

He isn't big on building suspense. Honestly, until the last quarter of the book, I just felt like I couldn't keep going at times. Oddly paralleling some of the sentiments of the soldiers. But when I am reading for pleasure, this feeling really isn't a plus.

The ending (which I won't elaborate upon), when battle finally came, was very well done, and you almost felt like you were in the war yourself. That part was five star.

All in all, I just don't think this is a book I'd recommend anyone read for enjoyment. If you enjoy literature about war and the military, you may want to read it. I think it would be a great book to teach in a literature class even just to expose students to the writing itself. But it is a book I'm glad to have read, but was really sorry I was reading while I was reading it. And it's a book I just wouldn't go around recommending to regular readers; but if you were an English lit major or read and love fiction about war, this one may be for you.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have never been to war, but from what I understand, it consists of short spasms of phantasmagoric violence separated by epic stretches of boredom. "Her Privates We" captures the boredom magnificently -- something mundane happens on every page, and Manning describes it in excruciating detail. The actual battles? Well, they're okay, the feeling is a bit glossy and cinematic, you'd never know why World War I induced shell shock in anybody ("I'm going stark staring mad because of the guns," wrote Siegfried Sassoon). Manning manages to romanticize war without sentimentalizing it per se. The cover blurb on the edition of "Her Privates We" I read featured a blurb from Hemingway describing it as "the finest and noblest book of war I have ever read," which signified that I was in for a lot of clipped manliness. Manning's reticence, though, prevents the book from reaching heights of ecstasy, despair, absurdity or brutality that we've come to expect from war novels. Everything is either just damned bad or just bearable ("cushy enough," in the book's lingo). He's also rather circumspect about being inside a human body undergoing the terrors and deprivations of war. The sexual appetites of his soldiers border on the prim -- the narrator kisses one peasant girl on the nape of the neck and afterwards both are too embarrassed to look at each other. The soldiers' language is nice and salty, full of profanities that refer to bodily functions that no one in the book needs to perform and sex acts that remain safely out of view. No use in getting too vulgar, now, is there? "Her Privates We" (the title is a Shakespeare quote) is supposed to be a portrait of heroism, but when the characters are all observed instead of realized, it's not that moving. (One more description of the reappearing deserter's "shifty face" would have had me putting my foot through the screen of my Kindle.)