Before Action: William Noel Hodgson and the 9th Devons
by Charlotte Zeepvat
published by Pen & Sword Military, 2015
ISBN 978 1 78346 375 6
Hardback 214pp plus notes, bibiliography, index, illustrated
Cover price £19.99
I am sure many readers of this review will have visited Devonshire Cemetery near Mametz on the Somme. It is one of the places on every bus tour of the battlefield and receives many visitors throughout the year. The cemetery is now sheltered by trees which grow almost all around it. It is physically small but very large on emotion, not least for memorial stone at its entrance: “The Devons held this trench; the Devons hold it still”. The text highlights the fact that of the 163 graves, all but two are of men of the 8th and 9th (Service) Battalions of that regiment who were killed in action on 1 July 1916, and all but ten are known and named. Among them is the grave of the subject of this book, the officer-poet William Noel Hodgson. The final stanza of his poem “Before Action” reads, “I, that on my familiar hill saw with uncomprehending eyes a hundred of thy sunsets spill their fresh and sanguine sacrifice, ‘ere the sun swings his noonday sword must say good-bye to all of this; By all delights that I shall miss, help me to die, O Lord.” It is hard to find a more poignant line, in this or any other physical setting and it is largely Hodgson that brings the crowds to this small hillside. But the cemetery encompasses another legend: that Captain Duncan Lenox Martin, who lies near to Hodgson, had made a plasticine model of the enemy defences that his battalion was to attack, and foresaw its destruction from certain German machine guns. He was ignored by the commanders. I have stood and heard battlefield guides and teachers tell this story: repetition has made it legend. But, like the arms waving to show the visitors an incorrect direction of attack, the legend is not quite right. At last, we have a detailed, brilliantly researched and excellently written corrective in Charlotte Zeepvat’s book.
The core of the book is a biography of Hodgson, from his childhood to his untimely death; the many moves made by his family as his Vicar father transferred from parish to parish, taking them to Thornbury, Berwick-upon-Tweed and Durham; to his education at Oxford; to a commission as an officer and ultimately to his fate on that slope near Mametz. The author has drawn on his family’s papers (although sadly his parents documents seem to have disappeared), local archives, school and university, regiment and national military archives to present his life in surprising and vivid detail. In some ways Noel was a typical product of his middle class upbringing; in his development as a writer and poet he stands out. He was writing long before the war: who knows what he may have gone on to produce had he not been killed in action? I found it a thoroughly interesting read.
It was however to the military aspects that I paid most attention. The biography takes us through the early days of Noel’s battalion and into the grim business of the Battle of Loos in 1915 before the move to the Somme. It is well researched and well explained, particularly in exploring the man and his relationship to fellow officers and the men. What is most impressive is the author’s exploration of the legend of Martin’s plasticine model and what actually happened to the battalion in its fateful attack. To some extent, events are reconstructed by the author explaining where the men’s bodies were found – and in doing so challenges many of our preconceptions about the action and indeed some of the descriptions of it that can be found even in quite recent publications. Her details of the state of the battlefield and the early civilian visits to Devonshire Cemetery are also an eye-opener. Read “Before Action” and you will see the attack at Mametz in something of a different light.
An excellent book and one of the best of the last couple of years.
It appears to have become somewhat de rigeur for revisionist historians to dismiss the war poets as unrepresentative and over-played in terms of our understanding of the Great War. “Before Action” is a reminder that at least one of them was a very good, reliable regimental officer.
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