'Journey's End' Context

Trigger:

• Archduke Franz Ferdinand (heir to Austrian throne) assassinated
• Assassin was Serbian - Austria declared war on Serbia
• Russia supported Serbia, Germany supported Austria and declared war on France and Russia
• Germany invaded France
• Britain declared war in August 1914 because of a treaty with France
• German advance stopped in the Battle of Marne, created the Western Front (a band of trenches)

Sides:

• Triple Alliance - Germany, Austria, Italy
• Triple Entente - Britain, France, Russia

• Many believed the war would be over in a few months but it lasted 4 years
• Casualties - 40 million
• 700,000 British troops killed
• About 250,000 underage men enlisted
• Conscription took place from 1916 -1918
  • January 1916 - Single men from the ages of 18-41
  • May 1916 - Single men from 18 up to 56 if needed

Pals Battalions:

• Politicians encouraged men to join with their friends
• People were optimistic at first

Jessie Pope - 'Who's for the Game?':

• Propaganda poetry
• Pro-war
• Engages with ideas of stereotypical masculinity
• Patriotism
• Civilian, female - no experience of the front line
• Links to Raleigh

Turning point for Stanhope in the play

• Battle of Arras
• Canada vs Germany
• 9th - 12th April 1917
• Fell under German control in October 1914
• In the week leading up to the battle, Canadian and British artillery pounded the enemy positions on the ridge, killing and tormenting defenders
• Improved and nearly unlimited supply of artillery shells
  • Easier destruction of hardened defences

Operation Micheal:

• Took place on 21st March 1918 
  • Play begins on 18th March (three days before)
• German attack
  • Attempt to win the war before Americans arrived
• Plan was to punch a hole through the British front line and force a retreat
• Many losses on both sides
• A failure overall for the Germans

• Enlisted after his 19th birthday in 1915
• Wrote many letters home during training
  • Felt lonely and introspective
• After four days of front-line duty, Sherriff’s letter indicated strain, partly due to lack of sleep
• He also wondered at the wrecked beauty of his surroundings.
• At the end of January 1917, Sherriff became unwell, suffering from neuralgia
• He participated in the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele), where he was wounded in the face and hand – a Blighty wound
  • Military slang - a type of wound received in combat which is serious enough to get the soldier removed from the fighting, but is not fatal nor permanently crippling
• Potential titles for the play included the following:
  • 'Suspense' - misleading
  • 'Waiting' - too commonplace
• 'Journey's End' was first performed in 1928

Brigadier - Senior rank

Colonel - Senior rank but below brigadier

Officer - Position of authority, had 3 divisions within that

• Commanding officer: an officer with command of a military unit
• First lieutenant: second lowest rank of commissioned officer – above a second
• lieutenant and below a captain
• Second lieutenant: junior commissioned officer

Sergeant Major - The highest ranking soldier, bridge between the troops and their commanders

Soldier - No authority

Less officers were drawn from the lower classes

It was believed that gentlemen were more suited for leadership

• British trenches were less developed than the German ones
• Disease - trench foot, rats, lice
• Prone to flooding
• Long days and lack of sleep
• Poor quality and quantity of food - rations
• Trenches were long
  • Difficult to transfer anything between different parts
• Harsh winters
  • Link to Wilfred Owen's 'Exposure'
• Dugout - protective holes dug out of the sides of trenches

• Ranged in size
• Feature of intimate combat
  • Lack of technology
• Heavily defended by riflemen, mortars, artillery and machine guns
• Filled with barbed wire, corpses and makeshift land mines
• Land was destroyed by warfare and chemical weapons
• Very risky to go over the top
  • Open to fire from the other side

• White feather - presented to men without a uniform

Executions:

• Desertion - 266
• Cowardice - 18
• Quitting a post without authority - 7
• Disobedience to a lawful command - 5
• Casting away arms - 2

Self-inflicted wounds were a capital offence - 3894 men served in prison

• Now known as PTSD
  • Symptoms - panic, fear, inability to reason, sleep, walk or talk
• Ill-defined
  • Believed it was due to lack of character
  • Variety of different believed causes
• By 1914, as many as 10% of officers and 4% of enlisted men were suffering from ‘nervous and mental shock’