Arthur Guy Empey is not a name well-known today, but if you had been around in 1917 then his name would have been on your lips and those of everyone you knew. Empey was one of the original 'All American' heroes that Hollywood; in its early days, lauded, supported and nurtured into a figure of great standing and repute among the American people.
Empey's fame rested primarily on his somewhat reckless decision in 1915; after the sinking of the Lusitania, to travel to England and join the British army to fight against the Kaiser and the German Empire. In 1916; at the start of the battle of the infamous first battle of the Somme, Empey was badly wounded during a trench raid gone wrong (he was shot twice in the left arm and once in the face) and received a medical discharge from the British Army.
Arthur Guy Empey
After this he traveled back to the United States and wrote an autobiographical account; titled 'Over the Top', relating his experiences; and focusing particularly on the comradeship, in the trenches. An anglophone version of Ernst Junger's later; and latterly more famous, 'Storm of Steel' and 'Copse 125' if you will. 'Over the Top' was a runaway success when it was published in 1917 selling 250,000 copies within the first few months in the United States alone and then; as before intimated, causing a Hollywood film version; starring Empey as himself, to be made in 1918.
Empey followed this up with several other books on a similar theme in regard to his experiences, which were 'First Call: Guideposts to Berlin' (1918), 'Tales from a Dugout' (1918), 'The Madonna of the Hills' (1921) and 'A Helluva War' (1926).
In all his works; other than 'The Madonna of the Hills', Empey recounts his experiences and lets be honest: the man; even if allowing for retrospective gloss and the fact that he strongly believed in the righteousness of the Allied cause, was as brave as they come and a hero by any reckoning. Whether or not we approve of the cause that he fought for is simply irrelevant in appreciating his courage and valour, which are qualities that should be emphasized and worked for in every individual who is part of European civilization.
It is difficult to read Empey without thinking of Ernst Junger's similar accounts as well as Manfred von Richthoven's (aka the infamous 'Red Baron') lesser known; but no less popular, account of his experiences. Like Junger; although unfortunately we'll never know with von Richthoven, when we read Empey's work it is evident that his time risking his life time and time again at the front caused him to acquire a deep antipathy for those who shirked their responsibilities to 'pick a side' and fight for it come victory or death.
This attitude began to focus Empey's; much as it did Junger's, ire on the jews who were popularly believed; rightly as it turns out as I have elsewhere documented for both the British (1) and German (2) armed forces in the First World War, to be shirking their responsibilities to 'do their bit' for their side and also; when they were part of the armed forces, deliberately not serving at the front itself, but rather behind the lines in the 'safe and cushy' positions that; to paraphrase Empey, 'Tommy was desperate for'.
Like Junger when Empey came to write about his experiences in the trenches he adopted a vitriolic attitude towards the jews as is demonstrated when he writes about a theatrical character that he created during a rest period in the trenches for the entertainment of his fellow soldiers.
Empey describes him thus:
'IKEY COHENSTEIN (an East Side Jew, New York City, Dealer in Second hand Clothes and a Moneylender)'
And describes the first scene in which 'Ikey Cohenstein' occurs as follows:
'While they are talking, an old Jew named Ikey Cohenstein comes along, and Abe engages him for cashier. After engaging Ikey they meet an old Southern Negro called Sambo, and upon the suggestion of Ikey he is engaged as porter. Then the three of them, arm in arm, leave to take possession of this wonderful palace which Abe had just paid $6,000 for. (Curtain.)' (3)
Clearly 'Ikey Cohenstein' is; to Empey, a stereotypical jew that would have very familiar to many soldiers in the trenches as he is a city dweller (i.e. he is from New York), a peddler in a particularly jewish line (old clothes) (4) and also a (small-time) moneylender willing to handle the money of anyone who will pay him well to do so (hence his acceptance of the position of cashier to a wealthy but idiotic entrepreneur who he knows he can fleece).
Cohenstein's first name 'Ikey' may well also be a reference to the English slang term 'Icky' which came into use around the same time as Empey's books were being published and could be construed as a reference to common stereotype of jewish skin being of a slimy, pallid and/or sweaty (i.e. generally unhealthy and alien) nature.
This clearly suggests that Empey; and the British soldiers in the trenches, were thoroughly distrustful of jews and regarded them as scheming city-dwelling unfit and unhealthy foreign shysters who spent their lives making those of others an absolute misery.
The emphasis Empey placed on the proclivity of jews to (attempt to) cheat all those around them is found shortly after describing the origin and content of the theatrical production in which he created 'Ikey Cohenstein'.
He explains concerning the gambling habits of the British soldiers that:
'The croupier places his hand in the bag and draws forth a numbered square and immediately calls out the number. The man who owns the card with that particular number on it, covers the square with a match. The one who covers the fifteen numbers on his card first shouts "House." The other backer immediately comes over to him and verifies the card, by calling out the numbers thereon to the man with the bag. As each number is called he picks it out of the ones picked from the bag and says, " Right/' If the count is right he shouts, "House correct, pay the lucky gentleman, and sell him a card for the next school." The "lucky gentleman" generally buys one unless he has a Semitic trace in his veins.' (5)
In above excerpt from his memoirs we can see that Empey believed that if someone has jewish ancestors; or is jewish themselves, then that means that they are far less likely to be magnanimous in victory and altruistically contribute to the next game by 'buying a card'. This is a related to Empey's point about the mercantile and selfish nature of the jew as a moneylender and old clothes merchant: he lives off the sweat of others and hordes whatever money he can make off of them, while refusing to give back to the society that he makes his parasitic living off of.
In the essence the jew is to Empey an alien exploiter who is living off the sweat of the workers and; more recently, the blood of the Tommies.
This latter point is more developed in Empey's partially fictional 'Tales from a Dugout' when he relates as follows:
'When I came to the Agency, there was a long line of bums, two and three deep, trying to ship as horsemen for France. It would be impossible to get a rougher and more unkempt gathering of men.
It looked as if some huge giant had taken a fine comb and carefully combed the gutters of New York.
I fell into this line and waited my turn.
When I reached the desk, in front of me sat a little fat, greasy Jew. To describe his manner of handling the men as being impolite would be a great exaggeration. The way he handled that line of human cattle would have done the Kaiser's heart good.
It came my turn, and this conversation ensued:
'What do you know about horses?'
I answered: 'Six years in the U. S. Cavalry.'
The Agent: 'What Regiments?'
'Eleventh and Twelfth.'
'You 're a liar. You never saw the Cavalry.'
I felt like punching him in the nose but did not do so. I wanted to ship as a horseman. I showed him my discharges. He said: 'They 're faked. What did you do, desert, or were you kicked out?'
I was getting sore, and answered: 'Deserted the Twelfth; kicked out of the Eleventh.'
'What 's your name?'
'John Smith.'
'You 're a German.'
This was too much for me, and I answered: 'You 're a damned liar.' I saw my chances of shipping vanishing in smoke.
The Jew grinned and rubbed his hands, and said : 'You 're all right. Go into that room and get a card made out, and come back at two o'clock.'
I received a card and went to a beanery across the street and had a wonderful meal of corned beef hash, muddy coffee and huge slices of bread, minus butter. This cost me fifteen cents.' (6)
In the lengthy passage that I have reproduced above we should note that the story centres around the attempt of the main character to sign on for active service in France; and is loosely based on an American rancher who signed up to fight with the British Army in 1915 who he described in 'Over the Top', and the interaction he has with an unfit, unhealthy city-slicking bureaucrat who is a jew.
We can see that the poor health and foreign nature of the jew is emphasized by Empey via his reference to him being a 'little, fat and greasy jew behind a desk' when compared to the hardy well-muscled, intimidating but fundamentally honest and patriotic men who are from the 'gutters' of New York City. The implication of this is the jew is a foreigner who is given more priority by the American government than the native, hard-working and patriotic Americans and it is he who is on top and decides who can fight for his country and who can't.
This power is demonstrated by the fact that the jew tries to browbeat the main character into 'admitting' he is a German spy and that his references are forged so as he can obtain bureaucratic/legal/moral power over him and it is this power he seeks, because he is inherently weak and cowardly. Since he could sign on to fight if he so wished, but he instead wants to be an 'armchair patriot' and sit back and let the non-jews do the dying, while he stays at home to reap all the benefits.
This cowardliness is reinforced by the fact that when the main character challenges the jew outright then the jew backs straight down, because he does not want a fight since he is physically weak and cowardly. Thus the jew; via the medium of treating non-jews as human cattle (which is a reference to the common belief of the time that the Babylonian Talmud explicitly refers to non-jews as cattle), tries to exert bureaucratic/legal/moral power over non-jews, because he is too unmanly and cowardly to fight his way to the top.
Hence to Empey the jew is a cowardly sneak who is profiteering; socially, politically and economically, from Tommy being in the trenches. The very opposite of everything that Empey; and his Tommy mates, believed in and felt they were fighting for.
So when we talk of the veterans of the First World War this anniversary year we should remember them as they were: brave and courageous men who fought died for what they believed in and who identified the jews as the principle enemy of Western civilization.
References
(1) http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot.co ... nking.html
(2) http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot.co ... ng_12.html
(3) Arthur Guy Empey, 1917, 'Over the Top: By An American Solder Who Went', 1st Edition, G.P. Putnam and Sons: New York, p. 138
(4) On this see Michael Srivener, 2011 'Jewish Representation in British Literature: 1780-1840: After Shylock', 1st Edition, Palgrave MacMillan: Basingstoke, pp. 77-78
(5) Empey, 'Over the Top', Op. Cit., pp. 147-148
(6) Arthur Guy Empey, 1918, 'Tales from a Dugout', 1st Edition, The Century Company: New York, pp. 239-241