testament of youth: book review

Having first seen the ‘Testament of Youth’ film in my teens and retaining an eager interest in World War One after learning about it in school, I felt certain I would love this book. And I did! However, what I was not expecting, was just how much it would affect me, and change how I look at the world, history in general and reflect upon my own youth. While the COVID-19 pandemic restricts our lives in so many ways, I realised when reading this book, just how lucky I am and how much we take for granted.

Written as an autobiography from the years 1900-1925, Vera Brittain published her recount of those extraordinary times in 1933, when another World War was appearing on the horizon. At just 18 when war broke out in 1914, she was part of the generation that would later be called the ‘war generation’. They were the generation most severely impacted by the conflict.

Brittain begins by addressing the limitations of ‘provincial ladyhood’, the superficial role expected of and accepted by women in society, and the ridiculousness of chaperons. Young women were literally accompanied everywhere. Not only were women restricted socially, but academically as well, a tradition that Vera Brittain sought to destroy by attending Oxford University. She had spent months pestering her conservative, middle-class parents to let her go and join her brother. Finally they conceded. In a society that expected women to become wives and mothers not academics, just attending university is a demonstration of her sheer determination. She was motivated to pursue a passion for knowledge and to dismantle patriarchal norms in the process.  

Unfortunately, not long after her acceptance at Oxford, World War One began and her brother, her two best friends and her lover all enlisted. Wanting to share as much as she could in the pain and anguish of her male contemporaries, she began nursing in London, then Malta, and finally on the Western Front in France.  Her academic dream had given way to duty.

By early 1918 all the men she loved: her brother, two friends and fiancé, had been killed. On this she wrote: ‘Now there were no more disasters to dread and no friends left to wait for; with the ending of apprehension had come a deep, nullifying blackness, a sense of walking in thick mist which hid all sights and muffled all sounds. I had no further experience to gain from the war, nothing remained except to endure it.’

Four years of physical and mental exhaustion had finally caught up with her and, following the Armistice in 1918, she suffered from hallucinations and emotional trauma. Had it not been for her tireless work ethic and her passion for writing, she would have certainly suffered a nervous breakdown.

However, her life did not end with the war., She finished her studies at Oxford, where her interest in feminism and pacifism were rekindled, strengthened even. As such, she became heavily involved in international relations and spoke for the League of Nations across England and Europe, advocating for world peace and an end to global conflict. Brittain was equally vocal on the issue of female emancipation, so much so that she struggled to relinquish her newfound freedom to marry the man she had fallen in love with! Brittain was published in academic journals, and she had several novels published as well.

She tells her story with complete honesty, intense intelligence, and open-mindedness. It is no surprise she became the voice of the war generation, and why ‘Testament of Youth’ became one of the most revered war memoirs. Her incredible endurance, bravery and strength seem to have no bounds, as she persevered through four of the most traumatic years in human history.