# Now It Can Be Told — Character guide

> Key figures in Now It Can Be Told by Philip Gibbs.

- [Unknown Narrator](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/unknown_narrator.md): 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
- [The Germans](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/the_germans.md): 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 
- [The Colonel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/the_colonel.md): 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
- [The Boy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/the_boy.md): A young soldier often observed by the narrator.
- [The Officer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/the_officer.md): A generic but recurring officer figure in various scenes.
- [General Haldane](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/general_haldane.md): 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 bel
- [Sir John French](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/sir_john_french.md): 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, 
- [The Australians](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/the_australians.md): 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 m
- [Sir Douglas Haig](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/sir_douglas_haig.md): 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 ha
- [Sir Herbert Plumer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/sir_herbert_plumer.md): 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 figurehea
- [Madame Carpentier](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/madame_carpentier.md): A French woman who hosts the narrator.
- [Sir Henry Rawlinson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/sir_henry_rawlinson.md): 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—b
- [The Canadians](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/the_canadians.md): Canadian Corps troops in the war.
- [The Scots Guards](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/the_scots_guards.md): British Guards regiment serving on the front.
- [Sir John Harington](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/sir_john_harington.md): A British general and staff officer.
- [Charles Geoffrey Vickers](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/vickers.md): 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 counter
- [Colonel Ronald Campbell](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/col_ronald_campbell.md): A British colonel mentioned in the narrative.
- [Colonel Crosby](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/colonel_crosby.md): A British colonel mentioned in the narrative.
- [Mademoiselle Carpentier](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/mademoiselle_carpentier.md): Daughter of Madame Carpentier, a young French woman.
- [General Currie](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/general_currie.md): Canadian general commanding the Canadian Corps.
- [Corporal Cotter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/corporal_cotter.md): A British corporal serving in the war.
- [Marshal Foch](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/marshal_foch.md): Supreme Allied Commander on the Western Front.
- [General Harper](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/general_harper.md): British general commanding the 51st Highland Division.
- [Beach Thomas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/beach_thomas.md): A war correspondent and journalist.
- [The Gordons](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/the_gordons.md): The Gordon Highlanders regiment.
- [The French](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/the_french.md): French soldiers and allies.
- [The British](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/the_british.md): British forces as a collective.
- [Ludendorff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/ludendorff.md): German general and military strategist.
- [Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/prince_rupprecht.md): German crown prince and army commander.
- [Lord French](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/lord_french.md): British field marshal, former commander of the BEF.
- [General Gough](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/general_gough.md): British general commanding the Fifth Army.
- [Sir Neville Macready](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/sir_neville_macready.md): British general and Adjutant-General to the Forces.
- [Death](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/death.md): Personification of death, a recurring motif.
- [General Ludendorff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/general_ludendorff.md): German general, key figure in German strategy.
- [President Wilson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/president_wilson.md): US President during the war.
- [Charlie Chaplin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/charlie_chaplin.md): Famous actor referenced in the text.
- [General Byng](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/general_byng.md): British general commanding the Third Army.
- [Nurse Cavell](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/nurse_cavell.md): British nurse executed by the Germans.
- [Percival Phillips](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/percival_phillips.md): A war correspondent.
- [Mort aux Boches](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/mort_aux_boches.md): French slang for Germans, meaning 'Death to the Germans'.
- [Captain Augrere Dawson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/capt_augrere_dawson.md): A British officer mentioned in the narrative.
- [Margot](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/margot.md): A beautiful woman referenced in the text.
- [Lord Kitchener](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/lord_kitchener.md): British Secretary of State for War.
- [Hooge](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/hooge.md): A location and château used as a command post.
- [Camerons](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/camerons.md): The Cameron Highlanders regiment.
- [Young Paul Bensher](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/young_paul_bensher.md): A young officer mentioned in the narrative.
- [Charlie Lowndes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/charlie_lowndes.md): A British officer mentioned in the narrative.
- [Colonel Campbell](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/colonel_campbell.md): A British colonel mentioned in the narrative.
- [Frederic Palmer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/frederic_palmer.md): A war correspondent and journalist.
- [Hindenburg](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/hindenburg.md): German field marshal and later president.
- [Poor Old Tommy Atkins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/poor_old_tommy_atkins.md): Slang for the common British soldier.
- [Kaiser Bill](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/kaiser_bill.md): German Emperor Wilhelm II.
- [Londoners](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/londoners.md): Soldiers from London regiments.
- [Henri Barbusse](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/henri_barbusse.md): French author and war novelist.
- [General Pilcher](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/general_pilcher.md): A British general mentioned in the narrative.
- [Willie Woodbine](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/willie_woodbine.md): Slang for a type of cigarette or soldier.
- [Kamerad](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/kamerad.md): German word for comrade, used as a surrender cry.
- [The Highlanders](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/the_highlanders.md): Scottish Highland regiments.
- [Lord Cavan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/lord_cavan.md): British general commanding the XIV Corps.
- [General Sixt von Arnim](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/general_sixt_von_arnim.md): German general on the Western Front.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters