Stephen

=    = __ Robert Graves – Goodbye to all that. __

__Intro:__

Robert Graves was a young man at the time world war one broke out, heading straight into the war after finishing school. //Goodbye to all that// is his autobiography of his unhappy childhood in the school //Charterhouse// and his life as a soldier and young officer in the war. His autobiography provides us with Grave’s useful and broad cover of many aspects of the war and its effects both first hand and in-directly. //Goodbye to all that// also charts his personal struggle after the war to recover form his shell-shock and the horrors of what he saw, to re-integrate into society.

__What is Grave’s personal view of treatment of Germans living in Britain at the time of the war?__

Graves provides us with his own personal insight into the treatment of Germans in England during the war. He was himself in charge for a brief period during the war of an internment camp in which German people where imprisoned during the war. Graves cites them as being safer within the camps, given the increasing dislike of Germans within England during WWI, claiming “[German] women where made to feel personally responsible for the alleged Belgium atrocities…”, Graves also mentions continual attacks of German owned properties and shops throughout the war as further evidence of hostility against German people living the England during WWI. I regards to the inmates, Graves claims during his time at the camp, he had more difficulty controlling his own troops who constantly attempted to desert or escape, expanding to mention the only violence against the inmates where usually by German sailors to other German sailors.

__How does Grave’s portray the trenches in terms of positives and negatives?__

Graves mentions during the book that the trenches where not quite as horrific in some cases as they are sometimes portrayed to be. Grave’s discusses benefits of life in the Trenches, specifically the way in which trench activities kept the body very active, resulting in a lot of cases of very high immunity to diseases, claiming that colds and indigestion would disappear within “hours.” However, although he does cite benefits, Grave’s does not deny the war had many negative effects on people. In this case, he emphasise the officers, who he tells us where twice a likely as a normal troop to develop Neurasthenia (psycho-pathological condition characterised by symptoms of fatigue, anxiety, headache, impotence, neuralgia and depression.) this could also be linked to Grave’s note of officers who had served a long time on the front developing Dipsomania (an extreme form of alcholism where the victim has a tangable thirst for alchol).

__How does Graves describe his own experiances trying to fit back into society following the war?__ Upon returning to Britain at the end of the war, Graves points out many problems he encountered with re-adjusting to society. He suffered shell-shock during the war and was left emotionally unstable after the horrors he viewed in the war. He recalls to his reader, how, on his walks in the countryside, he had an in-ability to see the landscape for it’s beauty, instead, mentally assessing it for battle, for vantage points and ways in which it could be used. Other aspects of his experiences in the war also made his socially awkward, Graves recalls talking un-abashedly to strangers on the train as soldiers did in the war, which was not considered quite so ordinary in general society. Graves also recounts more extreme forms of his shell shock such as “strangers in the daytime would assume the faces of friends who had been killed.” Reflecting, to just how deep an extent the war mentally scarred the poet / historian.

Three Useful Weblinks

 * http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jgraves.htm, a well known, generally considered reliable site for history students, details basic information about Graves using extracts from several of his works including //Goodbye to all that//.
 * Link 2, with summary of why useful
 * Link 3, with summary of why useful