Character guide

Unknown Narrator

major

Also known as Your, mine, ye, myself, Mine, your

He moves between the châteaux of generals and the mud of the front, translating what he sees into despatches that must be honest enough to matter and tame enough to pass. When the Commander-in-Chief dismisses his work as bright copy for Mary Ann in the kitchen, the insult lands like a blow, and he argues back with a quiet passion that surprises even the generals. His real struggle is interior: to record the slaughter without either sanitizing it or surrendering to despair, and to keep faith with the soldiers whose names the public never learns.

The Germans

supporting

Also known as Germans, The Germans, Some Germans, Silesian Germans, Isolated Germans, Other Germans, Thirty Germans, the last Germans

They are the war's other half: the artillery that tears up Delville Wood, the prisoners too ill to move, the Silesians and Würtemburgers whose treatment the narrator stops to ask about in their own language. The tension is between the abstraction of the enemy and the concrete, suffering individual, and the narrator refuses to let the abstraction win. Their presence shadows every British triumph and complicates every justification, making the book less a chronicle of victory than a reckoning with what the war did to everyone caught in it.

The Colonel

supporting

Also known as the colonel, The colonel, mine

He is the kind of colonel who has seen enough of the front to distrust the textbook, and his assertion that no man is killed by the bayonet unless his hands are up first lands like a grenade in the training establishment. Around him cluster the wider failures of British generalship: the narrow Tory mold, the Staff College's canary-brained products, the closed corporation that keeps able civilians out of command. He matters because he gives the narrator a voice inside the machine, a soldier willing to say aloud what the despatches can only imply.

The Boy

minor

Also known as The boy, himself, your, the boy

A young soldier often observed by the narrator.

The Officer

minor

Also known as The officer, himself, myself, the officer

A generic but recurring officer figure in various scenes.

General Haldane

supporting

Also known as XVI General Haldane, General Haldane, XVI, General

When a major swaps beds, leaves flowers, and begs to lead a squadron round Delville Wood, Haldane's reply is a flat "Get on with your job"—a small moment that reveals how the war grinds down individual initiative. He belongs to the layer of command where the Somme's piecemeal attacks are decided, and his presence in the narrative helps the narrator anatomize a system that spent lives in small, uncoordinated pushes. He is not a villain; he is the machinery, and the machinery is the problem.

Sir John French

supporting

Also known as French, the French, The French

He receives the war correspondents at St.-Omer with top-boots, spurs, and a speech about honor and the power of the press, pronouncing the town's name as though canonizing Omar Khayyam. Later, after the failure at Loos, he rides a white horse past wounded Highlanders who do not know or care who he is, and their verdict—"he's made a mess o' the battle"—hangs over him. He matters as the book's first portrait of high command: well-meaning, perhaps, but already outpaced by a war he cannot comprehend.

The Australians

supporting

Also known as VI, VI Australians, the Australians, Australians, The Australians

They arrive in the same endless stream as the English, Scots, and Canadians, but the narrator singles them out for the quality of their commanders—Monash, Hobbs, men who were civilians before the war and whose business minds cut through the rigid traditions of the Regular Army. Their presence is a quiet rebuke to the Staff College and the closed corporation of Sandhurst men. In the book's argument about how the war should be fought, the Australians are the evidence that the old school was not merely inefficient but replaceable.

Sir Douglas Haig

supporting

Also known as himself

Haig commands the Western Front from a remove so vast that the battle reaches him as telephone murmurs—'The Guards have been kicked off Fosse 8'—while Gibbs watches the same ground erupt in red flame. He is the unseen hand behind the timetable of attacks, the man whose judgment the narrator can neither fully defend nor dismiss. His presence haunts the book's middle arc as the question every soldier asks: who decided this, and did they see what we see?

Sir Herbert Plumer

supporting

Plumer commands the Second Army, but Gibbs is careful: the real brain, he suspects, is Sir John Harington, whose battle briefings reveal war as a science of gunfire, gas, and morale. Plumer stands as the steady figurehead of a command that, at its best, treats killing as calculation rather than theater. He matters because he represents the possibility—rare in this book—that generalship might be competent, even humane, in its clarity.

Madame Carpentier

minor

Also known as Madame, you

A French woman who hosts the narrator.

Sir Henry Rawlinson

supporting

Also known as Gen. Sir Henry Rawlinson, Rawlinson, Harry, Henry

Rawlinson is the general seen strolling buttercup fields with a joking aide while the men who will die learn to hate the staff. Gibbs grants him real quality—ribbons, a driving purpose, eventual triumph in open warfare—but never lets the reader forget the price. He embodies the book's central unease: that good generalship and enormous waste could live in the same man.

The Canadians

minor

Also known as VIII, the Canadians, VIII The Canadians, Canadians, The Canadians

Canadian Corps troops in the war.

The Scots Guards

minor

Also known as The Guards, the Scots, Scots, The Scots, the advancing Scots, the Guards, the Scots Guards

British Guards regiment serving on the front.

Sir John Harington

minor

A British general and staff officer.

Charles Geoffrey Vickers

supporting

Also known as Vickers, Charlie, himself, you

Vickers belongs to the intimate world of the trenches rather than the map rooms—the world of men wet to the knees, listening to 'God rest ye, merry gentlemen' while the wind howls across Flanders. He is the human counterweight to the distant staffs, a companion whose presence keeps the narrative anchored in ordinary endurance. His friendship with Gibbs gives the book its warmest thread through the cold machinery of the war.

Colonel Ronald Campbell

minor

Also known as Col . Ronald Campbell

A British colonel mentioned in the narrative.

Colonel Crosby

minor

Also known as your

A British colonel mentioned in the narrative.

Mademoiselle Carpentier

minor

Also known as Mademoiselle

Daughter of Madame Carpentier, a young French woman.

General Currie

minor

Canadian general commanding the Canadian Corps.

Corporal Cotter

minor

Also known as Cotter

A British corporal serving in the war.

Marshal Foch

minor

Also known as Foch, Marshal Foch

Supreme Allied Commander on the Western Front.

General Harper

minor

Also known as Harper, General Harper⁠—'Uncle Harper'

British general commanding the 51st Highland Division.

Beach Thomas

minor

Also known as Thomas

A war correspondent and journalist.

The Gordons

minor

Also known as the Gordons, Gordons, Young Gordons

The Gordon Highlanders regiment.

The French

minor

Also known as the French, the French poilus

French soldiers and allies.

The British

minor

Also known as the British, The British, British

British forces as a collective.

Ludendorff

minor

Also known as IX, Ludendorff, IX Ludendorff

German general and military strategist.

Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria

minor

Also known as Prince Rupprecht

German crown prince and army commander.

Lord French

minor

Also known as the French

British field marshal, former commander of the BEF.

General Gough

minor

British general commanding the Fifth Army.

Sir Neville Macready

minor

Also known as XVII Gen. Sir Neville Macready, Macready

British general and Adjutant-General to the Forces.

Death

minor

Personification of death, a recurring motif.

General Ludendorff

minor

Also known as Ludendorff

German general, key figure in German strategy.

President Wilson

minor

US President during the war.

Charlie Chaplin

minor

Also known as Charlie

Famous actor referenced in the text.

General Byng

minor

British general commanding the Third Army.

Nurse Cavell

minor

Also known as Cavell

British nurse executed by the Germans.

Percival Phillips

minor

Also known as Phillips

A war correspondent.

Mort aux Boches

minor

Also known as the Boches, Boches

French slang for Germans, meaning 'Death to the Germans'.

Captain Augrere Dawson

minor

A British officer mentioned in the narrative.

Margot

minor

Also known as the beautiful Marguerite, Marguerite

A beautiful woman referenced in the text.

Lord Kitchener

minor

Also known as Kitchener

British Secretary of State for War.

Hooge

minor

A location and château used as a command post.

Camerons

minor

Also known as the Camerons

The Cameron Highlanders regiment.

Young Paul Bensher

minor

Also known as Paul Bensher

A young officer mentioned in the narrative.

Charlie Lowndes

minor

Also known as Charlie

A British officer mentioned in the narrative.

Colonel Campbell

minor

A British colonel mentioned in the narrative.

Frederic Palmer

minor

Also known as Palmer, grave old Palmer

A war correspondent and journalist.

Hindenburg

minor

German field marshal and later president.

Poor Old Tommy Atkins

minor

Also known as Tommy Atkins

Slang for the common British soldier.

Kaiser Bill

minor

Also known as Bill, the Kaiser

German Emperor Wilhelm II.

Londoners

minor

Also known as The Londoners, the Londoners

Soldiers from London regiments.

Henri Barbusse

minor

Also known as Barbusse

French author and war novelist.

General Pilcher

minor

Also known as himself

A British general mentioned in the narrative.

Willie Woodbine

minor

Slang for a type of cigarette or soldier.

Kamerad

minor

Also known as your

German word for comrade, used as a surrender cry.

The Highlanders

minor

Also known as Highlanders, 51st Highlanders

Scottish Highland regiments.

Lord Cavan

minor

British general commanding the XIV Corps.

General Sixt von Arnim

minor

Also known as General von Arnim, Sixt von Arnim

German general on the Western Front.

Colonel Childs

minor

Also known as Presently Childs, your

A British colonel involved in military administration.

General Hull

minor

A British general mentioned in the narrative.

General Rawlinson

minor

Also known as Rawlinson

British general, possibly same as Sir Henry Rawlinson.

General Hunter Weston

minor

Also known as Hunter Weston, himself

British general commanding the VIII Corps.

General Nivelle

minor

Also known as Nivelle

French general who launched the Nivelle Offensive.

Tomlinson

minor

Also known as the great Tomlinson

A notable figure mentioned in the narrative.

Suzanne

minor

Also known as Mademoiselle Suzanne

A young French woman known to the narrator.

Red Indians

minor

Also known as The Indians

Indigenous soldiers or references to them.

Arry

minor

A character mentioned in the narrative.

Charles Lever

minor

Also known as Charlie

An Irish novelist referenced in the text.

Jack Johnsons

minor

Also known as Jack

Slang for German heavy shells, named after the boxer.

Old Fritz

minor

Also known as Fritz

Slang for German soldiers.

Old Thom

minor

Also known as Captain Thom

A captain and older officer.

Prince Max of Hesse

minor

A German prince mentioned in the narrative.

Desmond

minor

A character mentioned in the narrative.

Hullo

minor

A character or exclamation mentioned in the narrative.

Honest John

minor

A character or nickname mentioned in the narrative.

Little Jeanne

minor

Also known as Jean Jaurès

A young girl or reference to Jean Jaurès.

General Baker-Carr

minor

Also known as Baker - Carr

A British general mentioned in the narrative.

Lieutenant John Wood

minor

Also known as Wood, Lieut . John Wood, John Wood

A British officer mentioned in the narrative.

General Foch

minor

Also known as Foch

French general and Supreme Allied Commander.

Apply

minor

A character or name mentioned in the narrative.

France

minor

Also known as its, herself

Personification of the nation of France.

General Charteris

minor

Also known as Charteris

British general and intelligence officer.

General Macready

minor

British general, possibly Sir Neville Macready.

General Allenby

minor

British general commanding in Palestine.

Gentle Jesus

minor

A religious reference in the narrative.

Sir Philip Sidney

minor

Also known as mine

Elizabethan poet and soldier, referenced historically.