Sister Lantz's record books, especially the second and third ones, are full of art. Ranging from simple doodles and designs, to regimental insignias, to political cartoons, to portraits, the art in the record books speaks to the fact that, even in the midst of war, artists were still creating. Not only that, but they were drawing inspiration from the chaotic world around them. This can provide deep insight into the artists' states of mind.
Alfred Emile Cornebise states in his monograph, Art from the Trenches: America's Uniformed Artists in World War I,: "Although war has its uncounted tragedies and late in the twentieth century confronts humanity with cataclysmic dangers, fields of battle are charged with action, color, and dynamism that cannot fail to appeal to those with creative talent" (Cornebise, 3). The author notes that governments used artists for military work, commissioning them to design camouflage and capture war scenes in drawings and paintings for promotional and propaganda uses "to counter German efforts (Cornebise, 7)" of the same nature (Cornebise, 7). However, there were some leaders that saw the official art movement as useless or silly. Although official war art was well-received by many, others, such as Lieutenant Colonel Waldo of the 126th Infantry, believed that art "'was no way to win the war'" (Cornebise, 40).
Luckily, dissenting viewpoints did not stop the use of art as a mode of depicting the war for official and recreational purposes. As seen in the works below, artists skillfully and passionately captured the wartime world in which they existed. In these selections from the many works in Sister Lantz's record books, one can clearly see the influence of the war on the artists' works and psyches.
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| Lantz, Birdie Genevieve. Record Book Number 2, September 1916-1917. Diary. Camiers, France. |
In the above page spread by Hugh Cyril Boggis, the left side displays a portrait of Captain Kettle, the protagonist of the then-popular series of adventure novels by C.J. Cutcliffe Hyne. Also on this page there are some sketches of men in uniform. On the opposite side of the spread, Boggis has drawn a serviceman holding a version of the Canadian Flag used until the 1920s. (The Canadian Encyclopedia) The caption reads: "Canada-Ypres-1915," and Boggis has inscribed his signature and the date. One can see what appears to be a cannon in the background, as well as shells bursting in the sky. The subject of the image, who could be Boggis himself, lifts his rifle with a helmet balanced on the barrel into the air. The Battle of Ypres, Belgium, had several distinct stages which took place years apart. Because Boggis has dated the battle to 1915, it is most likely that he is referring to the Second Battle of Ypres. In this battle, Germans first used gas on the Western Front, against British and Canadian soldiers entrenched near the town of Ypres. The Allied forces who bore the brunt of these first gas attacks sustained heavy casualties. (firstworldwar.com)
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| Lantz, Birdie Genevieve. Record Book Number 3, December 1916-June 1918. Diary. Camiers, France. |
This cartoon, also by H.C. Boggis, shows two elderly men, Jan and Dan, conversing about an airplane sighting in what appears to be rural Great Britain. It seems that Boggis was making a comment about the apparent 'backwardness' of some of the rural folk with regard to the war and the separation of the war front and the homefront.
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| Lantz, Birdie Genevieve. Record Book Number 3, December 1916-June 1918. Diary. Camiers, France. |
Other art, as seen above, had obviously religious tones to it. Using Christian symbols, Rifleman T Bassett of the 34th London Regiment has left sentiments of "perfect peace" for Sister Lantz.
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| Lantz, Birdie Genevieve. Record Book Number 3, December 1916-June 1918. Diary. Camiers, France. |
The above watercolor painting of a delicate white fan is the only watercolor image in any of the record books. Although there does not appear to be any wartime or religious meaning in the work, there is obvious personal sentimental value when it is coupled with the caption "Just to remind you of our lunches" written by Charles A. Ilsley of the Royal Army Medical Corps. It suggests that Ilsley and Sister Lantz had had some good times together and that Ilsley wished to memorialize those times in the record books. Perhaps Sister Lantz had a similar fan.
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| Lantz, Birdie Genevieve. Record Book Number 3, December 1916-June 1918. Diary. Camiers, France. |
Private Henry Carlton of the 25th Battalion, Australian Imperial Forces, left a small vignette of a child and mother in the home. The mother asks, "what are you sighing for, Bobbie?" To which the child replies, "I was just thinkin' of the good old days before the war when ye used t'gimme a nickel once in a while." The image and dialogue suggest a melancholy longing for the normality before the conflict - specifically, traditional family values and happiness. Within his military paperwork, Private Carlton states that his profession was that of an "instrument maker." He was 34 years and six months of age when he enlisted in the AIF, and he went on to join the 2nd Machine Gun Battalion during the course of the war. He was discharged in 1919, after which he returned home to Australia, where he founded Carlton Glass in Brisbane, a company that is still in business today. He died on August 28th, 1951.
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| Lantz, Birdie Genevieve. Record Book Number 3, December 1916-June 1918. Diary. Camiers, France. |
Soldiers also used art to communicate the struggles and pain that they faced. In the image above, the artist depicted a man in a bed staring in fear as a plane drops a bomb on him. Accompanying the image are the words "will it ever come. I am dreaming of you." This suggests that, even in his sleep, the artist could not escape the fear that pursued him during the daytime. At any moment, soldiers were required to be ready for an attack, and oftentimes those attacks did happen, leaving soldiers with what was generally known as 'shell shock.' At the time, this was taken fairly lightly and compared to the jitters a man might get before proposing to a woman. However, this state of shock was a genuine post-traumatic stress response brought on by the intense and violent situations that servicemen had to face daily. Although the artist left no name, battalion, or service number, we can assume that this anonymous soldier, like countless others, experienced hypervigilance, fear, and trauma, which he then chose to depict in the above image.
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| Lantz, Birdie Genevieve. Record Book Number 2, September 1916-1917. Diary. Camiers, France. |
Other artworks in Sister Lantz's record books are political. The caption under the stylized image of the Kaiser features the German words "Gott Strafe England," which, in English, means "May God Punish England." The Kaiser holds a poster that reads "Peace and Goodwill by the Author of the Hymn of Hate." The contemporary culture references in this piece are directly related to the caption. The phrase "May God Punish England" was present on many pieces of German wartime propaganda, and became a popular slogan for German troops; it was also the subject of German Jew Ernst Lissauer's poem "The Hymn of Hate," written in 1914. The poem was strongly anti-British, as this part of the last stanza cries:
Hate by water and hate by land,
Hate of the head and hate of the hand,
Hate of the hammer and hate of the crown,
Hate of seventy millions choking down.
We love as one, we hate as one,
We have one foe and one alone--
ENGLAND!
The poem became so popular that it was issued to every member of the German military to boost morale and nationalism. Oddly, it also became popular for ironic reasons in England as well. Nevertheless, it was obviously anti-British and therefore represented the animosity between the two nations, as well as the would-be proof of the "'abominable'" Germans (source: Aronsfeld, C.C. "Ernst Lissauer and the Hymn of Hate."). The drawing above could be satirizing what the artist perceived to be duplicity and lies on the part of the German government.
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| Lantz, Birdie Genevieve. Record Book Number 2, September 1916-1917. Diary. Camiers, France. |
Some of the other art in Sister Lantz's books is more whimsical and representational, like the above drawing by Harry Newton of the 12th York and Lancaster Regiments. Although it still contains imagery of the war, it depicts something fairly simple and matter-of-fact and features a pun: "Drawing the Enemy's Fire." It is also something interesting to think about: a drawing of a soldier writing about a soldier drawing. The larger figure seems to be writing a letter that is transforming into a drawing entitled "My Trench Thought." Below the smaller soldier, another man peers out of a dug-out called "Hope Street" while shells burst in the distance.
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| Lantz, Birdie Genevieve. Record Book Number 2, September 1916-1917. Diary. Camiers, France. |
The above drawing by E. Dufoe features a wounded or sleeping soldier who seems to be dreaming about being in the hospital - perhaps the 22nd General Hospital - and being cared for by a nurse. The presence of the bursting shells in the distance shows the chaotic environment around the soldier as he dreams about a scene of peace and rest. In this way, many soldier artists drew the world they knew as well as the world they longed for.
The artists in Sister Lantz's record books captured the emotions and regular sights of the world around them: sadness, humor, sentiment, anger, indignation, stress, and yearning. They used art as the vehicle by which they channeled their experiences, and their artworks are an important thing to interpret within the record books.
Sources
Aronsfeld, C.C. "Ernst Lissauer and the Hymn of Hate." History Today 37, no. 12. December 1987: 48. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost. Accessed March 5, 2017.
Cornebise, Alfred E. Art from the Trenches: America's Uniformed Artists in World War I. College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2014.
Duffy, Michael. "Battles - The Second Battle of Ypres, 1915." First World War.com. August 22, 2009. Accessed March 03, 2017. http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/ypres2.htm.
Lantz, Birdie Genevieve. Record Book Number 2, September 1916-1917. Diary. Camiers, France.
Lantz, Birdie Genevieve. Record Book Number 3, December 1916-June 1918. Diary. Camiers, France.
Matheson, John Ross, and Auguste Vachon. "National Flag of Canada." The Canadian Encyclopedia. Accessed March 03, 2017. http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/flag-of-canada/.
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