In the trenches

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This article was published 24/09/2022 (1168 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Matthew Barrett and Robert C. Engen want to put you in the trenches of an oft-overlooked Canadian First World War victory: the Battle of Hill 70.

Through archival photos, letters and war correspondence dramatized in a graphic novel style, they strive to depict the commanders, order of battle and individual soldiers’ experiences in a factual, compelling way.

Barrett is a historian, illustrator and postdoctoral fellow at the Canadian War Museum. Engen is a lecturer in war studies at Deakin University and the Australian War College.

The volume was sponsored in part by the Battle of Hill 70 Memorial Project, which also supported the academic anthology Capturing Hill 70: Canada’s Forgotten Battle of the First World War (UBC Press, 2016).

Barrett and Engen take a critical look at images of the First World War. One well-known photo by Canada’s official war photographer, Capt. Ivor Castle, dubbed “Going Over the Top” shows Canadian soldiers charging out of a trench to attack. The image was actually taken during a training exercise, so its portrayal of the war was as constructed as any illustration.

Melding photographic elements, illustrations by Barrett and edited commentary by Castle’s successor, Lieut. William Rider-Rider, who disdained such staged scenes, the authors explicate the tension between the war’s reality and its contemporary and historical portrayals.

This frames their own depictions of the battle more academically than similar attempts to bring the First World War to life.

French artist Jacques Tardi’s visceral It Was the War of the Trenches was inspired by his great-grandfather’s experiences of the conflict, fictionalized as unconnected vignettes.

Australian-American Joe Sacco’s The Great War: July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme is a detailed panorama covering a single day, communicating its dizzying scope, but also implying the limits of art to encompass what became an infamous “meat grinder” of attrition.

Barrett and Engen also consider how art styles are received. Realistic 19th-century-style portrayals of battle were preferred by First World War audiences and critics. “For them,” writes Engen, “the seeming lifelike accuracy of a painter like (Richard) Jack better represented what they imagined a battle actually looked like. For this reason, in part, the public also remained fascinated by exhibitions of war photographers who claimed to show first-hand accounts of the action, whether the picture had actually been taken in battle or not.”

Barrett experiments with style to highlight contrasts between ideal and reality. One section shows the experience of Lieut. Brock Chisholm, who led a platoon at Hill 70. For his endurance and survival through many engagements, he was nicknamed “Nemo” by his fellow soldiers, after the hero of popular cartoon strip Little Nemo in Slumberland.

Barrett contrasts the dreamlike clarity of how that strip’s artist, Winsor McKay, might portray Chisholm in battle with a nightmarish account drawn from a letter Chisholm wrote to his father.

In another section, chronicling soldiers who earned the Victoria Cross at Hill 70, different art styles such as modernism, cubism, realism and that of German soldier-artist Otto Dix are used as inspiration to give each soldier’s letter of commendation its own vivid personality.

Adding greatly to the depth of work are detailed end notes about the events portrayed, including sources for the student or academic reader.

This is not a blockbuster graphic novel that tells a single story. It is, rather, an appropriately multifaceted and nuanced look at a complex battle in an incredibly complex war. It will have you looking at photos and paintings of “The Great War” in a new light, considering both what was shown and what was left out.

David Jón Fuller is a Winnipeg writer and editor who previously reviewed Capturing Hill 70: Canada’s Forgotten Battle of the First World War.