BUT sure enough, a few years after, the soldiers thought, and talked, and expressed themselves exactly like Rudyard Kipling had taught them in his stories! He would get a stray word here, or a stray expression there, and weave them into general soldier talk, in his priceless stories.
Rudyard Kipling made the modern soldier. Other writers have gone on with the good work, and they have between them manufactured the cheery, devil-may-care, lovable person enshrined in our hearts as Thomas Atkins.* Before he had learnt from reading stories about himself that he, as an individual, also possessed the above attributes, he was mostly ignorant of the fact. My own recollections of the British soldier are of a bluff, rather surly person, never the least jocose or light-hearted, except perhaps when he had too much beer. He was brave always, but with a sullen, stubborn bravery. No Tipperary or kicking footballs about it.* To Rudyard Kipling and his fellow-writers the Army owes a great debt of gratitude for having produced the splendid type of soldier who now stands as the English type.
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* The origins of this generic name for the common British soldier are hotly debated: historian John Laffin summarised current thinking in Tommy Atkins: The Story of the English Soldier (1966, 2011). ‘Mr Tommy Atkins’ was selected by the War Office for use in specimen forms in 1815. It was surely given impetus by the dying words of one Thomas Atkins at the Battle of Boxtel in 1794, who told Arthur Wellesley “It’s alright, sir, it’s all in the day’s work”. Another brave Tommy Atkins was a popular toast during the Indian Mutiny of 1857. All these undoubtedly helped cement the name in military minds. But a letter dated to 1743 praised the conduct of troops in an attempted mutiny, saying that “except for those from N. America ye Marines and Tommy Atkins behaved splendidly”. So far the generic name has been traced back no further than this.
* ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ was a music-hall song originally written and performed by Jack Judge in 1915, and sung, whistled and hummed by ‘Tommy Atkins’ throughout the War, much to the chagrin of some. See My Heart’s Right There. ‘Kicking footballs’ is a reference to the Christmas Truce of December 24th-26th, 1914, during which many opposing forces spontaneously stopped fighting and in some cases even played football. The games seem to have been sparked and played chiefly by the British — only the British would take along a football to the trenches anyway — but to the immense credit of both sides Germans joined in.