The Lion and the Poppy: British Veterans, Politics, and Society, 1921–1939 (review)

Niall Barr, a British military historian, has produced a lovely book detailing the interwar years of the British Legion (1921–39), the predominant British veterans’ organization following World War I.

Giving credit to previous histories of the organization, Barr sets out to correct what he believes has been a general underestimation of the extent of the Legion’s “political, social, and cultural significance” in British society. In doing so, he has made use of new (or newly available) primary sources, including personal correspondence of several of the Legion’s national leaders, and government papers from the Ministry of Pensions and Foreign Office.

Putting these sources together, Barr makes three significant arguments. First, he shows that Legion leadership, particularly at the national level, was heavily skewed toward ex-officers and men who moved in the upper circles of Britain’s still highly class-conscious system. Taking what Barr calls a “Victorian and Edwardian” approach to their responsibilities, these leaders tended to identify with (in some cases to occupy positions in) the government, and were much less likely than their working class, socialist, or Laborite comrades to directly challenge British authorities. This limited their field of action in protesting aspects of official veteran policy, and probably limited Legion membership as well.

Barr next narrates the unhappy history of Britain’s pension policy and legislation in the interwar period. His thesis is that the government was greatly concerned, especially as the Great Depression produced serious fiscal problems, not to legislate a system that would be difficult to sustain financially. Although the Legion did have minor success in improving disabled veterans’ access to needed funds (and generated funds of its own), it was never able or willing to develop much political clout among Members of Parliament. These are sad chapters; Britain’s “lost generation” of World War I became lost again, to the sympathies and ministrations of its own government.

Finally, Barr argues that toward the end of the period under examination, as war clouds gathered in Europe, the Legion’s leadership became intensely involved in the arena of foreign policy, hoping to bring the moral authority of ex-servicemen to bear on issues of peace. These efforts, toward which the government had understandably mixed feelings, culminated in a bizarre episode in 1939, as Hitler fomented international crisis by demanding to annex part of Czechoslovakia. The British Legion, without clear direction from its own government, offered to Germany to intercede with thousands of its own members, planning to transport them to the Czech Sudetenland to act as peacekeepers during the transfer of territory. (Apparently, no serious thought was given by either government or Legion leadership to condemning Hitler’s demand.)

The book is well-organized and written in straightforward prose; it avoids jargon and unrealistically large claims. I personally found the concluding section of the book, dealing with the Czechoslovakian project and the Legion’s (doomed) foray into promoting peace and international brotherhood among veterans, the most fascinating. I would have liked to learn more about the experience of rank-and-file British Legion members, who apparently enjoyed an active fraternal life in their branch houses and drinking clubs, one that existed at some remove from the concerns of regional and national leadership. Perhaps this will be Barr’s future project.