Writer, World War I soldier, journalist, poet.

His collected papers are archived at John Rylands University.

`Irish on both sides'. His father, Francis Montague, was from County Tyrone, Ireland (b. 1815); his father renounced the priesthood to marry Rosa McCabe; they married and lived in England; the children never knew any of their Irish relatives but had a rich intellectual home life:

`... we grew up under conditions unlike those of the ordinary home. Our parents ... were in a real sense people of leisure, yet people almost out of society. We lived with them far more than most children live with their parents.'

Journalist; author of a number of acclaimed books; 24th Battalion Royal Fusiliers, 1914; full sergeant (grenadier-sergeant), 1915; lieutenant; captain (intelligence); press-officer; after the war one of the authors in the 20's that wrote devastatingly of WWI. Disenchantment was his rather philisophical book about World War I combat.

If even a fraction of what people have written about him is true, he seems to have been a rare natural soldier. In the early years of the war, he was a combat engineer fighting in the trenches. Later he was promoted into intelligence, and finally an escort for battle-field VIPs.

Although intellectually horrified of war, he was an emotional `combat junkie'; recognizing and reconciling these two forces within him makes his writing of interest. Remarkably, Charles was 47 when he went into the trenches, and had no prior military experience. Unlike many of the younger men who survived (and wrote about) the experience of WWI trench warfare, he does not seem to have been personally shattered by the war. He must have had a good ear for artillery to survive all the shelling in which people describe him.

Among numerous other VIPs, he escorted H.G. Wells, Bernard Shaw, Clemenceau, and Loyd George at the front (the last 2 were the leaders of France and England).

Haig (the British general in command of the Western Front) once described him as `our white-haired lieutenant'.

Among his more famous works are A Hind let Loose, Disenchantment, and The Morning's War. A collection of infantry combat short stories, Fiery Particles, includes such stories as The First Blood Sweep and All for Peace and Quiet.

A bibliography of utopian science fiction lists his little book, Right Off the Map, (1927) as "Recreated British industrial feudalism -- dystopia". [BAUL]

An extensive written record exists. Some of his WWI observations (many in letters to his wife):

`... war is a thing first to be avoided by every honorable means and then to be won by every honorable means.

It isn't men that are wanted most - it's rifles and training materials and teachers and some sort of system in managing things, and some humble-mindedness all round in believing that unless we try harder all round this time than our army ever had to do before, we shall be smashed. Heaps of soldiers of all ranks... can't frame the tremendous idea that it's not sure we aren't going to be smashed.

I had the rotten luck to be blown up while instructing our Grenade company in bombing; and a month in hospital, spent in growing a nice new skin...

(In WWI, grenades were hand-loaded by combat engineers in the trenches; it was a very dangerous business with a lot of powder lying around)

... but most of our casualties were from rifle-grenades, of which the Germans have a detestably good brand... Ordinary trench warfare, apart from actual attacks over the parapet, is not thrilling, but is always interesting and not really trying to healthy nerves. What people write about the sinister and malign and nerve-shattering sound of artillery is all rubbish. The water and mud are the real horrors of this war, and it would take some eloquence to do justice to them.

... I have been in hospital, and rather knocked out... I am not wounded - have never been touched by anything but a bit of falling shrapnel... I think perhaps the hottest place was in a crater which we had got hold of and were holding against the Germans in trenches 20 yards away. As platoon sergeant I had to patrol our little holding 20 or 30 times a day, to post and visit our sentries; and there was one point on my beat at which an enemy sniper used to take either one or two pots at my head almost every time I passed. Sometimes the bullet would go in front of my face, sometimes behind my head, sometimes just over, but he always missed; and it was a deep mystery to me and my platoon officer ... we lost several other men and a fine officer...

... It's curious how one's standard of horribleness changes with circumstances. ...

I have been out all day visiting cemeteries and isolated graves along half our front...

Sept. 17 - ... Many of our dead on ridge. More Germans in sunken lane under trees. Millions of flies black on them. Blackened faces. Open eyes staring up at the sky as if asking whether there is any god anywhere.

... I know what to look for - half the officers killed, perhaps, and half the sergeants and a third of the men. It feels almost like treachery to be away from them when the time comes.

Sept. 22 - ... Bombs dropped on Amiens from German aircraft about 3 A.M. I sleep through it, having had a long day in the air.

... meet Japanese general... The Japs all bespangled twinkling with orders and medals, very beautiful.

I feel a kind of grudge against the mere sightseer who comes out to see the war as a sort of show, accompanied by all sorts of luxury and petting... I think we all feel in out hearts that the sightseer's only chance of saving his soul alive is that he should get a taste, if only for a few minutes, of the kind of thing that our soldiers are bearing all day.

... I do find it a little perplexing that one can't cast out Satan except with his own instruments... But all the more because of the moral puzzle, I feel very keen on keeping to the cleanest methods...

... If the Germans used all their strength now, ... our men could not save our generals - the asses would go down with the lions they had tried to lead.

... Therefore I will try, ... to win the war, not pretending meanwhile that I am obeying Christ, and after the war I will try harder than I did before to obey him in all the things in which I am sure that he was right. Meanwhile, may God give me credit for not seeking to be deceived, and pardon me if I mistake.

... Still, we may win. The multitude of men who think of nothing but serving hard... may carry the world into safety and a new life. Hundreds and thousands of them will die... more painfully than on a Cross. Our hope is that in them ... a worse world may die into a better... and mankind be ennobled by losing its noblest men - the old mystery of the Cross and of evolution.'

Bernard Shaw:

`Finding him just the sort of man I like to get on with, I was glad to learn that he was to be my bear-leader...
The standing joke about Montague was his craze for being under fire... War is fascinating even to those who, like Montague, have no illusions about it...'

Muirhead Bone:

`He was a familiar figure at Haig's Headquarters ... it was quaintly funny to see perhaps the best journalist in England standing stiffly to attention as second lieutenant...

To my mind the whole man brings up nothing but the happiest thoughts. He was the rarest king of man, and he attained the uncommon kind of success he valued.'

Sir Percival Phillips:

`...Very gallant, undeviatingly conscientious, with a great scorn for anything like trickery or lack of candor, he must have won respect and honour in any company anywhere... remained an incomparable companion when going to unpleasant places... we were `badly shelled'... A day with Montague was always likely to be hectic.'

Sir W. Beach Thomas, K.B.E

`Montague may well go down to history as one of the romantic figures of the war... a word he would have hated... He once said, meditatively and with quiet truth, that shell-fire gave him a mental stimulus that nothing else did. ... There can be no doubt that he definitely liked shell-fire at one time, through his nerves were a little frayed towards the end, largely because he was responsible for other people's safety.

...

We went to see the colonel of a Labour battalion... The Colonel was one of those who so hated things... that he actually wished to be killed. His mind sank further and further... He took us to the crown of the ridge: his Major, Montague, and me. ... and said, "If we stand here a minute they will begin to shell us." ... they did, and very accurately. The Major... wisely retired... I followed... The Colonel and Montague continued to stand talking on the ridge, stiff, obstinate silhouettes against a gray sky... Montague did not stir. He was ideally happy... but being very careful of other people, he induced the Colonel to retire slowly. Poor Colonel, he had to wait another month before the desired shell struck him.'

De Witt Mackenzie, American AP combat reporter:

`Fierce fighting was going on... there was a good deal of pessimism in the air. Somebody remarked:

"The whole world has gone crazy with the war lust."

Nobody answered excepting Montague, who looked up with a whimsical smile and a questioning, "Yes?"

"Yes", affirmed the other. "Mankind has sunk below the level of swine and is glorying as it wallows in the mire. Christianity is as dead as a door nail, and men are going out to slaughter one another for the pure joy of killing. There isn't a spark of mercy left in the human breast."

"Apropos of nothing in particular", responded Montague, "I saw an incident ... to-day that might interest you. ... a wounded Tommy came trudging in... He was leading a German prisoner, who was also wounded - just a boy of seventeen or so... Tommy had been in a hot fight and had already accounted for three of four of the enemy when he came upon the youngster. The boy was frightened, but managed to shoot Tommy through an arm ... Tommy undoubtedly was ... as near to the brute stage as he would ever get... He had been fighting hand-to-hand ... But instead of using his own rifle... he closed on the German lad and disarmed him. Somebody asked him why... 'You see, sir', apologized Tommy, `e was such a little beggar I didn't 'ave the `eart to do it.'"

That was all; there was no further argument... It was Montague's way of handling a situation.'

...

... it seems strange to me, almost paradoxical, that any man should be able to inspire both deep affection and reverence in everyone he met. ... One finds difficulty in summing up Montague's complex characteristics... Never have I known another man who so loved to thrust himself into danger for the sake of the thrill he got from it. ...

... Everywhere was death and destruction ... I had troubles of my own, but I watched him in fascination. ... He was in a state of ecstasy - a man in a trance. Montague in the flesh was ... beside me amidst those screaming shells, but... I was certain that his spirit was soaring on the wings of adventure. The real Montague didn't come to earth until we encountered a crisis. ... I rocked about on my feet, wondering what had happened to me. ... He was gazing at me with troubled eyes; he had come to earth again at last. ... He was thinking entirely of me.'

Oliver Elton, his biographer:

`... he chased the war, vibrating between Flanders and the Somme...'

Colonel Lee, his commanding officer, on a superior, unaware of Montague's writing or repute, mocking something he had written:

`never turned a hair, accepted the criticism, raised no argument, promised to re-write the article, and having duly saluted, went quietly out of the room. I watched him go, but he never showed a sign. To all outward appearance, he was the most wooden thing in the universe. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have just glanced at me as they went out; he didn't and I never want to see a better exhibition of self-control. Some time afterwards I mentioned the incident ... but he only smiled and would make no comment.

I have never known a man of note, with a right to be such, who was so reticent. Nor have I ever met any person who said so little and `looked' so little, but from whom one could learn so much. One learned almost as much when with him, by reason of what he did not say, look, or do, as if he had given vent to all his feelings.'

Much of his writing was not about World War I, and seems deeply thoughtful:

On politics (although a liberal intellectual in the old sense, he seems to have been of a very worldly school):

`A lot of our fellow Liberals ... seem to me rather to doom themselves to futility in public affairs because the won't recognize that there's a zone of natural affection midway between the inner, or family one, and the outer, or all-humanity one. I suppose the are somehow short of a zone themselves and they seem to get vexed... The common man knows better, just as he'd know better if some philosopher told him he ought not to make invidious distinctions by feeding his own children in preference to others. But of course he can't explain; he just ... goes on feeding the kids.'

It may surprise some, but for all his efforts to abet the British war effort, there can be no mistaking Montague's feelings regarding Ireland. H.W. Nevinson, in his war remembrance Last Changes, Last Chances writes:

`... (he) never entered into a dispute, except once, when one of us insulted Ireland. Then indeed his blue eyes glared a deeper blue, and he seemed to tear the wretched victim to pieces and spread him on the floor. Next minute he turned to me with a quiet apology, "You see", he said, "I've suffered this a long time".'

Almost as if directed to readers of The Montague Millennium (some historians might say that the following 2 excerpts contain somewhat of a Norman attitude itself):

Sources:
C. E. Montague, A memoir.
British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1975, Sargent.