LIEUTENANT COLONEL JOHN HAY MAITLAND HARDYMAN DSO MC
SOMERSET LIGHT INFANTRY
24TH AUGUST 1918 AGE 23
BURIED: BIENVILLERS MILITARY CEMETERY, FRANCE
Have you registered John Hardyman's age and his rank? It's not a mistake; he was a lieutenant colonel, in charge of the 8th Battalion Somerset Light Infantry, at the age of 23. This despite the fact that he had only been in the army four years, since enlisting straight from university in August 1914.
Hardyman's father chose his inscription. The description of his son is true - but it appears it wasn't the epitaph he would like to have had. Hardyman was a scholar having won an open scholarship to Edinburgh University in 1911. He was a poet - a volume of his verse, A Challenge, having been published in 1919. The reference to orator is probably a reference to the fact that Hardyman was a member of council and a keen advocate of the Union for Democratic Control, a British pressure group formed after the outbreak of the war that made its criticism of the war very clear. Among its members were the names of many well-known opponents of war - E.D. Morel, Norman Angell, Bertrand Russell, Ramsay MacDonald ... and John Hay Maitland Hardyman who was a lieutenant in 1916, promoted captain and then major in April 1917, awarded a Military Cross on July 1916, promoted lieutenant colonel in May 1918, awarded a DSO on 11 August 1918 and killed in action on the 24th. His friend, Norman Hugh Romanes, in a brief memoir published in the front of A Challenge, wrote:
"It must not be forgotten that during the whole of his military career he was in constant correspondence with those at home whom it was most dangerous for him, from a military point of view, even to agree with, which he did openly, with no regard for consequences."
How did he square these beliefs with his military career? According to Romanes:
"He always professed strongly that his actions were absolutely consistent with his beliefs. While admiring the moral courage of many conscientious objectors, he was convinced that their attitude as a whole was tantamount to a refusal of the Cross."
A fervent Christian, as the second part of his inscription makes clear, Hardyman's poem, On Leave, expresses his belief, "That through sacrifice the soul must grow". Mankind must face the cross - but expect nothing on earth in return. In answer to the question in Australia's Prayer, "Is it in vain Lord, is it in vain?"
Out of the rending silence God replied:
'You ask the triumph I My Son denied.
Have faith, poor soul. Is not all history
Triumphant failure, empty victory?'
So what was the epitaph Hardyman would have chosen for himself? According to Romane it would have ended as follows:
"He died as he lived, fighting for abstract principles in a cause which he did not believe in."