A Blog From 1914: Kaiser Wilhelm and Attila the Hun

Kaiser Wilhelm delivers the infamous 'Hun' speech to German troops disembarking for China in 1900.

Throughout this week, André Deutsch will be celebrating the release of Terry Charman's comprehensive account of 'The First World War on the Home Front'. The book is an ambitious attempt to rediscover Britain during World War One, and features insight from a number of contemporary diarists. These were, for the most part, ordinary people caught up in a war that dragged on longer than anyone might have hoped. Over the next few days, we'll have one of these World War One diarists blog for us with extracts of his writing as featured in the book.

Charles Balston was 61 when war was announced, a former Indian civil servant who had retired to Dulwich. His diaries throughout the war paint vivid pictures of the home front experience, and of the ever-evolving public opinion of the war, the enemy, and life in war-torn Britain. Enjoy his first blog, as extracted from Terry Charman's 'The First World War on the Home Front':

"The men who do these things [German atrocities in Belguim] were rightly called Huns. But who gave them that name? Who was it that urged them to emulate Attila and his Huns?

Attila's proclamtions to his troops before battle sound as if they were falling from the lips of the Kaiser ... that the Kaiser sought to emulate his progenitor there can be no doubt. Even so far back as 1900 when he sent his brother Henry to China [sic] he enjoined them "to strike out with his mailed fist and spare not". To strike Attila and his Huns. Did he not also invoke the grace of God & did he not allow his armies to strike as the Huns did when he had the Belgians at his mercy. The term was not of enemy origin. It was the appellation expressly chosen for his troops by the Kaiser - and it suited them."

Charles Balston is one of dozens of everyday Britons whose stories come together to form a picture of life in Britain throughout World War One in Terry Charman's 'The First World War on the Home Front'. You can buy a copy here, and don't forget to check back tomorrow for more of Charles' war experiences!