Page 58 - Fyne summer 2014 low res v2

It has been 100 years since the Great
War tore Europe apart and devastated a
generation. The war included every sector of
the population, but was homosexuality more
common in the trenches of the Great War?
On August 4th 1914, what had started out
as a promising summer ended in Britain
declaring war on Germany. Within months,
thousands of men were in training to become
soldiers. As the war progressed, these men
found themselves living closer to each
other than they had to any other human
beings before. While the trench warfare of
World War I pushed men close together it
did not produce the den of opportunistic
homosexuality you might have thought. It in
fact, it had a greater, further-reaching effect
on the way men felt about each other.
When men were sent overseas to fight for
their country, the laws of Britain went
with them. In the Manual of Military Law
it was made quite clear that acts of ‘gross
indecency’ with each other would result in
punishment. In those early days of the war,
when recruits were busy fitting into hurriedly
created uniforms and learning to march, the
army was set against any affection between
men.
But there was also a racial element to
homophobia in the early days of the war. A
few years earlier, a very public sex scandal
involving members of Keiser Wilhelm’s
cabinet had meant that in the minds of the
British nation, homosexuality and Germany
were intrinsically linked. They country had
become so well known as a nation of gay
men that ‘do you speak German’ became a
coded chat-up line in public toilets!
The fact that Germany was the enemy did
nothing to improve the state of homophobia
that existed within the army. But there
was also a feeling that homosexuality was
linked to pacifism and that being gay was
‘unpatriotic’ as it would do nothing to help
re-build the nation, should the war produce
a vast number of male deaths.
Just a few months into the war and
homosexuality became the least of people’s
worries. The world of the Tommy was turned
upside-down by a daily onslaught of horrific
and life-threatening situations. Discomfort
was soon an everyday part of life and hard
physical struggles were a minute by minute
occurrence. In an environment such as
that, who cared if the man next to you was
gay or straight? In many cases, a blind-eye
was turned to gay sex or men displaying
Blood and love in
the trenches
SUMMER 2014
58