Now It Can Be Told · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in Now It Can Be Told by Philip Gibbs.
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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.