Edward Brittain

Edward Brittain, the only son of Thomas Brittain (1864-1935), a wealthy paper manufacturer, and Edith Bervon (1868-1948), was born at Atherstone House, Newcastle-under-Lyme on 30th November 1895. Vera developed a close relationship with his sister, Vera Brittain. According to her biographer, Alan Bishop: "As they grew up, tended by a governess and servants, in an environment of conservative middle-class values, close supervision, and comparative isolation, brother and sister formed a companionship that was to be a dominant force in Vera's life."

Thomas Brittain's two paper mills in Hanley and Cheddleton continued to prosper and in 1905 the family moved to the fashionable spa resort town, Buxton in Derbyshire. The Brittains lived at High Leigh House for two years before moving to an even larger house, Melrose in 1907. The following year Edward was sent to Uppingham School. While at school he became friends with Victor Richardson and Roland Leighton. They were described by Roland's mother, as the "Three Musketeers". The three men joined the Officers' Training Corps (OTC). A fellow student, C.R.W. Nevinson, described the mood of the school as "appalling jingoism". The headmaster told them on Speech Day that: "If a man can't serve his country he's better dead."

As Alan Bishop has pointed out in his book, Letters From a Lost Generation (1998): "The OTC provided the institutional mechanism for public school militarism. But a more complex web of cultural ideas and assumptions, some taken from the classics, some from popular fiction, some even developed through competitive sports on the playing fields, was instilled by schoolmasters in their pupils, and contributed to the generation of 1914's overwhelming willingness to march off in search of glory."

In December 1913 Edward Brittain sat the New College Entrance Examination at Oxford University. On the outbreak of the First World War, he decided not to take his place at university in order to join the British Army. He obtained a commission with the 10th Sherwood Foresters. During training he became friends with Geoffrey Thurlow. In a letter to his sister, Vera Brittain, on 30th November 1914 he explained what it was like in his camp. "I am getting on very well indeed here now and find some of the other subalterns very decent - one of whom I am sharing a tent at present is exceptionally nice. You needn't worry about me as we are really very comfortable; the tents keep the rain out well and we sleep on camp-beds in a sleeping bag with heaps of blankets... We each have a servant to make the bed etc. and attend to us in all ways. The food also is excellent and the officers' mess in a huge tent with boarded sides with two long tables down the middle. We also have an ante-room where we can write letters."

Vera Brittain became engaged to Roland Leighton, while he was on leave in August 1915. On his return to France he was stationed in trenches near Hebuterne, north of Albert. On the night of 22nd December 1915 Leighton was ordered to repair the barbed wire in front of his trenches. It was a moonlit night with the Germans only a hundred yards away and Leighton was shot by a sniper. His last words were: "They got me in the stomach, and it's bad." He died of his wounds at the military hospital at Louvencourt on 23rd December 1915.

On 3rd January 1916, Vera returned to First London General Hospital at Camberwell. In his book, Letters From a Lost Generation (1998), Alan Bishop argued that "nursing proved an intolerable strain while her grief for Roland was still so raw on the support" of Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow, who were both recovering in military hospitals.

Edward Brittain arrived on the Western Front at the beginning of 1916. On 27th February he wrote to his sister, Vera Brittain. "Ordinary risks of stray shots or ricochets off a sandbag or the chance of getting hit when you look over the parapet in the night time - you hardly ever do in the day time but use periscopes - are daily to be encountered. But far the most dangerous thing is going out on patrol in No Man's Land. You take bombs in case you should meet a hostile patrol, but you might be surrounded, you might be seen especially if you go very close to their line and anyhow. Very lights are always being sent up and they make night into day so you have to keep down and quite still, and you might get almost on top of their listening post if you are not sure where it is."

He suffered from heavy bombardment at Ypres and took part in the Battle of the Somme on 1st July 1916: The author of Letters From a Lost Generation (1998) has pointed out: "While his company was waiting to go over, the wounded from an earlier part of the attack began to crowd into the trenches. Then part of the regiment in front began to retreat, throwing Edward's men into a panic. He had to return to the trenches twice to exhort them to follow him over the parapet. About ninety yards along No-Man's-Land, Edward was hit by a bullet through his thigh. He fell down and crawled into a shell hole. Soon afterwards a shell burst close to him and a splinter from it went through his left arm. The pain was so great that for the first time he lost his nerve and cried out. After about an hour and a half, he noticed that the machine-gun fire was slackening, and started a horrifying crawl back through the dead and wounded to the safety of the British trenches."

Edward Brittain was sent to First London General Hospital at Camberwell where his sister was working as a nurse. According to Alan Bishop: "After receiving permission from his Matron to visit him, Vera hurried to Edward's bedside. He was struggling to eat breakfast with only one hand, his left arm was stiff and bandaged, but he appeared happy and relieved. Edward would remain in the hospital for three weeks before beginning a prolonged period of convalescent leave." On 24th August it was announced that Brittain had been awarded the Military Cross.

On 24th September, 1916, Vera Brittain received news that she was being posted to Malta. Edward wrote on the 5th October: "The night of the day you left London the Zeppelins dropped 4 bombs at Purley somewhere up that hill where we walked one afternoon when I was still bad only about 600yds from the house but it did no damage. A foolish woman came out into the road and therefore received some shrapnel in one eye from one of our own guns but otherwise there was no damage except windows and a pillar box."

Vera wrote to her brother that: "The chief disadvantages of Malta, as I can see already - though I like it ever so much better that I expected to - are 1. Flies; 2. Lack of water; 3. Glare of the sun. The third disadvantage of course can easily be mitigated, as, as soon as I leave here, I shall go into Valetta, where one can buy almost everything, and not expensively, and get a pair of green glasses!"

Edward Brittain received his Military Cross from George V on 16th December 1916. In a letter to Vera he wrote: "We were instructed what to do by a Colonel who I believe is the King's special private secretary and then the show started. One by one we walked into an adjoining room about 6 paces - halt - left turn - bow - 2 paces forward - King pins on cross - shake hands - pace back - bow - right turn and slope off by another door... The King spoke to a few of us including me; he said "I hope you have quite recovered from your wound", to which I replied "Very nearly thank you, Sir", and then went out with the cross in my pocket in a case. I met Mother just outside and we went off towards Victoria thinking we had quite escaped all the photographers, but unfortunately one beast from the Daily Mirror saw us and took us, but luckily it does not seem to have come out well as it is rather bad form to have your photo in a cheap rag if avoidable."

In February 1917 the Army Medical Board Brittain decided that Brittain was not fit enough for active service. However he was given orders to take a draft of 70 men from Folkestone to Boulogne. As he pointed out in a letter to Vera Brittain: "I had a medical board on February 7th and was very surprised to get another month's home service; the same afternoon I got orders to take a draft of 70 men to France and left at 7.30 pm. We stopped at several places to pick up other drafts and arrived at Folkestone without changing at 7 am. on Thursday the 8th. The men were put in the rest camp - 59 of the best houses on the front have been commandeered for this purpose - and I went to the Burlington for a bath and breakfast... We crossed about 3 pm. that afternoon closely escorted by destroyers and went to the rest camp at Boulogne that night; it was awfully cold because it was one of the coldest nights of this winter and the camp is right on top of the hill behind the town. We left there the next afternoon and crawled by train to Calais where after a 4 mile march in the snow I handed them over at the Base Depot."

On 20th February 1917, Edward received a very personal letter from his sister: "But where you and I are concerned, sex by itself doesn't interest us unless it is united with brains and personality; in fact we rather think of the latter first, and the person's sex afterwards... I think very probably that older women will appeal to you much more than younger ones, as they do me. This means that you will probably have to wait a good many years before you find anyone you could wish to marry, but I don't think this need worry you, for there is plenty of time, and very often people who wait get something well worth waiting for."

Victor Richardson was badly wounded during an attack at Arras on 9th April 1917. Vera wrote to her mother, Edith Brittain: "There really does not seem much point in writing anything until I hear further news of Victor, for I cannot think of anything else... I knew he was destined for some great action, even as I knew beforehand about Edward, for only about a week ago I had a most pathetic letter from him - a virtual farewell. It is dreadful to be so far away and all among strangers.... Poor Edward! What a bad time the Three Musketeers have had!"

Richardson was sent back to London where he received specialist treatment at a hospital in Chelsea. Edward Brittain, visited him in hospital, and then wrote to Vera, about his condition: "It is not known yet whether Victor will die or not, but his left eye was removed in France and the specialist who saw him thinks it is almost certain that the sight of the right eye has gone too... The bullet - probably from a machine-gun - went in just behind the left eye and went very slightly upwards but not I'm afraid enough to clear the right eye; the bullet is not yet out though very close to the right edge of the temple; it is expected that it will work through of its own accord... We are told that he may remain in his present condition for a week. I don't think he will die suddenly but of course the brain must be injured and it depends upon how bad the injury is. I am inclined to think it would be better that he should die; I would far rather die myself than lose all that we have most dearly loved, but I think we hardly bargained for this. Sight is really a more precious gift than life."

Geoffrey Thurlow was killed in action at Monchy-le-Preux on 23rd April 1917. Three days later, Captain J. W. Daniel, wrote to Edward Brittain, about Thurlow's death: "The hun had got us held up and the leading battalions of the Brigade had failed to get their objective. The battalion came up in close support through a very heavy barrage, but managed to get into the trench - of which the Boche still held a part... I sent a message to Geoffrey to push along the trench and find out if possible what was happening on the right. the trench was in a bad condition and rather congested, so he got out on the top. Unfortunately the Boche snipers were very active and he was soon hit through the lungs. Everything was done to make him as comfortable as possible, but he died lying on a stretcher about fifteen minutes later."

Edward wrote to Vera about Thurlow: "Always a splendid friend with a splendid heart and a man who won't be forgotten by you or me however long or short a time we may live. Dear child, there is no more to say; we have lost almost all there was to lose and what have we gained? Truly as you say has patriotism worn very very threadbare."

Vera Brittain decided to return home after the death of Geoffrey Thurlow and the serious injuries suffered by Victor Richardson. She told her brother: "As soon as the cable came saying that Geoffrey was killed, only a few hours after the one saying that Victor was hopelessly blind, I knew I must come home. It will be easier to explain when I see you, also - perhaps - to consult you about something I can't possibly discuss in a letter. Anyone could take my place here, but I know that nobody else could take the place that I could fill just now at home."

Vera arrived in London on 28th May 1917. The next ten days she spent at Victor's bedside. As Alan Bishop points out: "His mental faculties appeared to be in no way impaired. On 8 June, however, there was a sudden change in his condition. In the middle of the night he experienced a miniature explosion in the head, and subsequently became very distressed and disoriented. By the time his family reached the hospital Victor had become delirious." Victor Richardson died of a cerebral abscess on 9th June, 1917 and is buried in Hove. He was awarded the Military Cross posthumously.

Edward returned to the Western Front in June 1917. Vera decided she wanted to be as close to her brother as possible and in July she returned to duty with the Voluntary Aid Detachment and requested a posting to France. On 30th June 1917 Edward wrote to Vera: "The unexpected has happened again and I am in for another July 1st (Battle of the Somme)... You know that, as I promised, I will try to come back if I am killed. It is all very sudden and it is bad luck that I am here in time, but still it must be. All the love there is in life or death."

On 3th August 1917, Vera Brittain joined a small draft of nurses who were being sent out to the 24th General Hospital at Étaples. She wrote to her mother on 5th August: "I arrived here yesterday afternoon; the hospital is about a mile out of the town, on the side of the hill, in a large clearing surrounded on three sides by woods... The hospital is frantically busy and we were very much welcomed.... You will be surprised to hear that at present I am nursing German prisoners. My ward is entirely reserved for the most acute German surgical cases... The majority are more or less dying; never, even at the 1st London during the Somme push, have I seen such dreadful wounds. Consequently they are all too ill to be aggressive, and one forgets that they are the enemy and can only remember that they are suffering human beings."

In September 1917 Edward took part in a major offensive. He wrote to Vera on the 23rd: "We came out (of the front-line) last night... had about 50 casualties including one officer in the company - the best officer of course. I ought to have been slain myself heaps of times but I seem to be here still. Harrison has arrived back and it is quite a relief to hand the company over for a bit."

The following month Edward was sent to Ypres for the offensive at Passchendaele. He wrote to Vera on 7th October 1917: "My leave seems to have been stopped for the present for some reason or other and also we are probably going up to Ypres again tonight to provide working-parties etc. which is as unexpected as it is objectionable; it is filthy weather, cold and pouring with rain and I have just caught a bad cold and so am not particularly pleased with life."

In November 1917 Edward Brittain and the 11th Sherwood Foresters were posted to the Italian Front in the Alps above Vicenza, following the humiliating rout of the Italian Army at Caporetto. On 15th November 1917, he wrote to Vera: "We marched through the city yesterday - it is old, picturesque and rather sleepy with narrow streets and pungent smells; we have been accorded a most hearty reception all the way and have been presented with anything from bottles of so-called phiz, to manifestos issued by mayors of towns; flowers and postcards were the most frequent tributes."

On 15th June, 1918, the Austrian Army launched a surprise attack with a heavy bombardment of the British front-line along the bottom of the San Sisto Ridge. Edward led his men in a counter-offensive and had regained the lost positions, but soon afterwards, he was shot through the head by a sniper and had died instantaneously. He was buried with four other officers in the small cemetery at Granezza.

Alan Bishop, the author of Letters From a Lost Generation (1998), points out that his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Hudson, had ordered an investigation into Brittain's homosexuality: "Shortly before the action in which he was killed, Edward had been faced with an enquiry and, in all probability, a court martial when his battalion came out of the line, because of his involvement with men in his company. It remains a possibility that, faced with the disgrace of a court martial, Edward went into battle deliberately seeking to be killed."

Primary Sources

(1) Edward Brittain, letter to Vera Brittain (30th November, 1914)

I am getting on very well indeed here now and find some of the other subalterns very decent - one of whom I am sharing a tent at present is exceptionally nice. You needn't worry about me as we are really very comfortable; the tents keep the rain out well and we sleep on camp-beds in a sleeping bag with heaps of blankets... We each have a servant to make the bed etc. and attend to us in all ways. The food also is excellent and the officers' mess in a huge tent with boarded sides with two long tables down the middle. We also have an ante-room where we can write letters.

(2) Edward Brittain, letter to Vera Brittain (27th February, 1916)

As it is usually too cold to write in the trenches to which we return tonight I am writing a short note now... Most of the communication trenches are full of water and so we have to use emergency roads across the open when rifle and machine gun fire may open on us at any moment; there are many danger spots but they continually change and so we just take our chance; we shall be doing so tonight. Also when we are in the front line itself there are various danger places where the trench is open to enfilade fire...

Ordinary risks of stray shots or ricochets off a sandbag or the chance of getting hit when you look over the parapet in the night time - you hardly ever do in the day time but use periscopes - are daily to be encountered. But far the most dangerous thing is going out on patrol in No Man's Land. You take bombs in case you should meet a hostile patrol, but you might be surrounded, you might be seen especially if you go very close to their line and anyhow. Very lights are always being sent up and they make night into day so you have to keep down and quite still, and you might get almost on top of their listening post if you are not sure where it is...

The trenches surprised me so much because they are not trenches but breastwork made almost entirely of sandbags in millions, not dug in at all, and there is consequently no real system of communication trenches and the supports are in billets under shell fire but hardly close enough to prevent the Germans getting the front line any time they attacked... There are ruins all about the trenches and many places knocked about for some miles back. I do not hold life cheap at all and it is hard to be sufficiently brave, yet I have hardly ever felt really afraid. One has to keep up appearances at all costs even if one is.

(3) Victor Richardson, letter to Vera Brittain (11th June, 1916)

Edward told me what he said he told you about things at the Front... I think there is no doubt that he feels the terror and horror of it all most acutely. I am more than ever convinced that it is worse for him than it was for Roland. Edward entirely lacks any primitive warring side to his character, such as Roland possessed. One feels with Edward that he is sustained by duty alone. I do not think that the heroic and glorious side of war appeals to him as it did to Roland, and I think that this makes it much harder for him.

(4) Alan Bishop, Letters From a Lost Generation (1998)

Early on the morning of 1 July 1916, Edward led the first wave of the attack of his company in the great British offensive that was to go down in history as one of the most terrible days of slaughter in the annals of the British Army: the first day of the Battle of the Somme. While his company was waiting to go over, the wounded from an earlier part of the attack began to crowd into the trenches. Then part of the regiment in front began to retreat, throwing Edward's men into a panic. He had to return to the trenches twice to exhort them to follow him over the parapet. About ninety yards along No-Man's-Land, Edward was hit by a bullet through his thigh. He fell down and crawled into a shell hole. Soon afterwards a shell burst close to him and a splinter from it went through his left arm. The pain was so great that for the first time he lost his nerve and cried out. After about an hour and a half, he noticed that the machine-gun fire was slackening, and started a horrifying crawl back through the dead and wounded to the safety of the British trenches.

(5) Edward Brittain, letter to Vera Brittain (5th October, 1916)

The night of the day you left London the Zeppelins dropped 4 bombs at Purley somewhere up that hill where we walked one afternoon when I was still bad only about 600yds from the house but it did no damage. A foolish woman came out into the road and therefore received some shrapnel in one eye from one of our own guns but otherwise there was no damage except windows and a pillar box.

(6) Edward Brittain, letter to Vera Brittain (19th December, 1916)

I came up to town on Tuesday the 16th, went to Buckingham Palace on the 17th at 10.30 am. Mother came with me in the taxi from home and I dropped her just outside the gates and drove in alone; I ascended a wide staircase and deposited my hat and stick in a sort of cloak room, keeping my gloves (your gloves), went up more stairs, and asked by an old boy in a frock coat what I was to receive, was then directed to another old boy who verified my name etc and told me to stand on one side of the room - a large room with portraits of royal personages round the walls. There were 3 C.M.G.'s, about 12 D.S.O.'s and about 30 M.C.'s so it was a fairly small investiture. We were instructed what to do by a Colonel who I believe is the King's special private secretary and then the show started. One by one we walked into an adjoining room about 6 paces - halt - left turn - bow - 2 paces forward - King pins on cross - shake hands - pace back - bow - right turn and slope off by another door... The King spoke to a few of us including me; he said "I hope you have quite recovered from your wound", to which I replied "Very nearly thank you, Sir", and then went out with the cross in my pocket in a case. I met Mother just outside and we went off towards Victoria thinking we had quite escaped all the photographers, but unfortunately one beast from the Daily Mirror saw us and took us, but luckily it does not seem to have come out well as it is rather bad form to have your photo in a cheap rag if avoidable.

(7) Edward Brittain, letter to Vera Brittain (19th February, 1917)

I had a medical board on February 7th and was very surprised to get another month's home service; the same afternoon I got orders to take a draft of 70 men to France and left at 7.30 pm. We stopped at several places to pick up other drafts and arrived at Folkestone without changing at 7 am. on Thursday the 8th. The men were put in the rest camp - 59 of the best houses on the front have been commandeered for this purpose - and I went to the Burlington for a bath and breakfast...

We crossed about 3 pm. that afternoon closely escorted by destroyers and went to the rest camp at Boulogne that night; it was awfully cold because it was one of the coldest nights of this winter and the camp is right on top of the hill behind the town. We left there the next afternoon and crawled by train to Calais where after a 4 mile march in the snow I handed them over at the Base Depot.

(8) Vera Brittain letter to Edward Brittain (20th February, 1917)

You and I are not only aesthetic but ascetic - at any rate in regard to sex. Or perhaps, since "ascetic" implies rather a lack of emotion, it would be more correct to say exclusive - Geoffrey is very much this, and Victor, and Roland was. What I mean by this is, that so many people are attracted by the opposite sex simply because it is the opposite sex - the average officer and the average "nice girl" demand, I am sure, little but this. But where you and I are concerned, sex by itself doesn't interest us unless it is united with brains and personality; in fact we rather think of the latter first, and the person's sex afterwards... I think very probably that older women will appeal to you much more than younger ones, as they do me. This means that you will probably have to wait a good many years before you find anyone you could wish to marry, but I don't think this need worry you, for there is plenty of time, and very often people who wait get something well worth waiting for.

(9) Edward Brittain, letter to Vera Brittain (30th April, 1917)

I only heard this morning from Miss Thurlow that Geoffrey was killed in action on April 23rd - a week ago today - and I sent you a cable about noon... Always a splendid friend with a splendid heart and a man who won't be forgotten by you or me however long or short a time we may live. Dear child, there is no more to say; we have lost almost all there was to lose and what have we gained? Truly as you say has patriotism worn very very threadbare.