In today’s Guest Post Douglas Fyfe explores why William Hirst – or a young man of any century – might choose to go to war.
In my last post I argued that William Hirst was likely an officer and not a member of the rank and file. He was
- literate,
- interested in mercantile matters,
- able to cross the Atlantic Ocean multiple times and
- communicated an overview of the activities of the military company to which he was attached.
Moreover, he had a wife and daughter. Being a common soldier would provide little money for their support and provided no exit plan. He appeared to have been more likely similar to Captain Fenton here …
than the poor souls depicted below in Rowlandson’s sketch.
Well, I was wrong.
What motivates young people of any century to join the military?
Chris has revealed Hirst was a common soldier, and yet with all the reasons for not joining why did he?
Chris offers a suggestion in her earlier post showing her father as a private in Flanders during the Second World War beside an image of a soldier of Hirst’s generation.
With a laugh, my Dad told me he joined up at 17 because he was “young and stupid.” I think there was more to it than that but age was certainly a factor.
https://wmhirstletters.wordpress.com/2020/06/16/helveotsluys-a-tale-of-two-soldiers-200-years-apart/
Other common reasons for joining the war effort were
- the actions of peers,
- the sense of joining a common cause and
- a feeling of moral superiority to the enemy.
All these factors all promoted in government publications of their day.
In both World Wars of the 20th century, there were many well educated Canadian men with family attachments who decided to join the military.
The French Revolution
In the 18th century the French Revolution attracted particular vitriol and provided a special inducement for young men to join “a war against tyranny.”
Some young men like the poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850) [see Robert Lapp’s Reply] and, much later, Canada’s William Lyon Mackenzie were initially attracted to the spirit of revolution. However, as the use of the Guillotine became frequent, Wordsworth and others renounced their previous views.
Britain split into a majority who became more conservative and inspired to send troops to fight Madame Liberty – and a minority who used protests to advocate for political change.
As someone born in 1961, it was tempting to look at economic reasoning as a fundamental motivation for joining the military. However, William Hirst did provide patriotic justification in his first letter for not staying in America, a clue I was too fast to put aside.
if I had stay’d in New York they would Oblig’d me to take up Arms against England,
https://wmhirstletters.wordpress.com/2020/04/30/letter-1-2-june-1787-transcript/
The Iraq wars and the heightened vitriol currently observable in the United States, serve as correctives for dismissing emotion and the influence of political commentators as powerful motivators that can draw people into actions not necessarily in their best interest.
Ah, the twists and turns of trying to understand the motivations of others, particularly when they live in a different cultural context and for whom the records are scant.
Although this journey has reminded me of my reticence during graduate studies to submit historical biographies in case another revelatory document come to light, I am enjoying following paths, true and false, and looking forward to more installments.
Douglas Fyfe has enjoyed working at 7 museums, exploring human experience through material culture, documents and interactions with the public.
The William Hirst Letters 1787-1798 
the use of visuals here from all eras offers a model for how a course might be taught online. The lovely open and readable WordPress formatting, and the brevity and point of these posts satisfies many of the recommendations for how to keep students engaged in asynchronous online learning. I always want to open these posts because I know they will be attractively readable, colourful, informative, and within a 21st-century attention span! 🙂
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Thanks for your continued support and participation, Rob! Your thoughtful feedback is so appreciated. I will be sure to share with Douglas Fyfe. Look forward to hearing more from you on literary affairs of the time, too!
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