posted September 12, 2013 10:46 AM
The popular view of servants in war is that they are safe and sheltered from both the hardships and dangers of war. Because they accompany and serve the officers (or Knights or equivalents in armies), they are often shown as enjoying the same luxuries their masters do from the same nutritious food and the same type of shelter. Servants even are often portrayed in fictional historical portrayals as getting higher pay than the rank-and-file infantry!The only hardships servants supposedly face is they have to do every bidding their master tells them to do but other than that its a desirable job. When their master goes to war, they are just at home in the camps enjoying themselves and waiting for the outcome of the battle. I've read The Lord of the Rings several weeks ago and for the past few days have done more research on Tolkien. Apparently the character Samwise Gamgee is a composite characters of so many people Tolkien knew. He is summed up in a statement Tolkien wrote:
"My "Sam Gamgee" is indeed a reflexion of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognised as so far superior to myself"
I'm not surprised at all that the common English infantry is whom Sam was modeled after as Sam was himself a commoner who was thrust into a conflict he did not want to be in but he continued on in the mission because it was his duty to do so (even though he could have gone back home multiple times during the quest).
However I never even knew of the word batmen and when I researched more on Sam, I learned a batman was a servant of an officer in war and Tolkien had some of his own batmen during the war.
I am curious what was the dangers of being a batman in World War 1? Popular media has already desired being the servant of an officer or knight or such as being a desirable position because of the safe and easy nature of the job as well as the various benefits of working it.
However Tolkien's statement of the batmen being braver and superior than himself intrigued me. I mean not only was Tolkien an officer, he was well-educated at the time of the war and came from the upper classes of England!While many batmen from the same war came from the lower classes.
So if Tolkien dared praise such uneducated soldiers for their valor and loyalty, I am wondering is being a batmen more dangerous than popular history portrays them as? What were the dangers they faced?
Was being a servant in war not as glamorous and luxurious a desirable position as popular media and pop history portray it out to be? I know this isn't a history forum but seeing how Tolkien referred specifically to PRIVATES and BATMEN in his quote, I am very curious as to why Tolkien holds a strong respect to batmen (as servants are generally seen as living in luxurious conditions as rich as those of their masters in tents during war).
Topic Closed
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posted September 12, 2013 10:46 AM