The Englishman of Fifty

Category

Library Item

Item no

33434

Title

The Englishman of Fifty

Description

"Just let me see if I can't do for my country what that Boche is doing for his."

"We are not a military nation, but it has been proved again and again that an army can be raised from among us that fears nothing by comparison with the professional armies of the Continent. When the call to all youth came in August 1914, no one dreamed but that it would be a young man's war. The intensity of the struggle, its great duration, and the enormous number of men absorbed in the auxiliary services soon began to drain the resources of this country, and it became increasingly clearer that the demand for men would not stop with the calling up of all under forty. When the age limit was increased to fifty there were already many who in their high patriotism had defeated old Anno Domini and gone to make things a little more difficult for the German. You encountered them behind the lines, in the hospitals, the canteens, concert parties, and Red Cross organizations. They were affectionately called 'Uncle' or 'Dad.' But despite their willingness, the War Office would not recognise them as fighting units. Later, necessity enforced the recognition, and as these men had always believed, they proved that them of fifty had still the reserve of strength sufficient to give the enemy uneasiness in his simple theory of wearing us down. In France the man of fifty was a redoubtable fighter. He marched alongside his sons and proved that when France goes to war the whole family takes up arms for La Patrie."

Artist / maker

Raemaekers, Louis

Date

1919

Size

31 x 26.5 cm

Type

Chromolithograph

Location

Art and Design Library

Copyright

Louis Raemaekaers' drawings are reproduced by kind permission of the Louis Raemaekers Foundation.