![](3D"http://www.kipling.org.uk/pix/rglogo.jpg") =
|
(notes edited by Lisa = Lewis and George Kieffer) |
![](3D"http://www.kipling.org.uk/pix/triangle_right.gif") =20
|
| =
|
(notes edited by Lisa = Lewis and George Kieffer) |
=20
|
The story has three main themes. First = in=20 literary importance, it contains a deep appreciation of Jane Austen=20 [1775-1817] which is made all the more pointed and piquant by being = put into=20 the mouth of a very simple-minded and uneducated man in the ranks who = has been=20 induced to study her works under the impression that her admirers form = a kind=20 of secret society which it pays to join. Secondly, the story gives a = good=20 account of the working of heavy artillery in France in 1918 and pays a = great=20 tribute to the men who manned the guns. The =9214-=9218 war was an = artillery war=20 like none before it, nor will any ever be like it again in that = respect, for=20 two great armies were pinned to one thin strip of ground in a = civilised well=20 mapped country for over three years. In consequence the surveying = departments=20 of both sides were able to provide their batteries with accurate maps = mounted=20 on boards showing every detail behind their enemy=92s lines. The = meteorological=20 departments could send frequent reports on the weather conditions as = they=20 affected the shooting, while main line railways delivered huge = quantities of=20 ammunition within a few miles of the battery positions. By 1918 all = but the=20 most senior officers were men in civil positions who had joined for = the war=20 only. Thirdly, there is the Masonic background against which the story = is=20 told.In March 1915, the Kiplings had visited Bath = and he=20 re-read the works of Jane Austen there. He wrote to a friend that
"was its power to transport the = infantryman from=20 a world of =93sergeants major and bayonet fighting, and trench digging = and lorry=20 cleaning and caterpillar greasing=94 into the fantasy of the novelist = =96 and none=20 was better at it than Jane Austen.Henderson=92s = character=20 emerges as nothing like the drunken con-man Macklin in Kipling=92s = story. His=20 papers were not an obvious source for The Irish Guards in the Great = War.=20 But that research had involved meeting a great many survivors, as well = as=20 reading the diaries and letters of soldiers on the western front. = Kipling was=20 acquainted with John Buchan and is known to have had at least one = conversation=20 with him at the Beefsteak Club. If there was really a tendency among = soldiers to=20 read Jane Austen, this could have emerged in such interviews and = conversations=20 and have piqued the author=92s imagination.