Tommy (soldier)

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British infantrymen in World War I - here members of the Lancashire Fusiliers serving food, taken in Flanders in March 1917.
"Tommies" rejoice after a successful attack in trenches in which Germans had previously holed up - in the shield here as Huns , ie "Huns" (photography by Ernest Brooks, 1918.)
Five wounded British and one captured German on the way to a first aid station near Bernafay Wood. Taken in July 1916 during the Battle of the Somme

Tommy Atkins, or Tommy for short, is a term for a simple soldier in the British Army that emerged in the 19th century and is particularly closely linked to the First World War in the collective memory of the British .

In the course of the war, Tommy also became part of the German soldier's and colloquial language (also into French, Dutch and other languages) and has since experienced a certain change in meaning : Whenever "Tommies" is used in German, it is less common today British Army meant rather than “the British ” (or “the English ”) in general, mostly with derogatory intent. The designation therefore represents an ethnophaulism in German . A very similar development can be observed with the word Limey , which was originally intended to refer to the sailors of the Royal Navy .

In English, however, the predominant meaning “soldier”; Tommy is more akin to Bobby as a police officer nickname in this regard . As a demonym , i.e. as an ethnic self-name or a foreign name for the British - or rather the English - Tommy encounters here at best in connection with or in contrast to the nicknames Jock , Taffy and Paddy , with which the English traditionally refer to Welsh, Scots and Irish , the residents of the three smaller parts of the United Kingdom .

etymology

The most common hypothesis about the origin of the nickname (which follows the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) ) traces it back to the fact that Thomas Atkins was used as a placeholder name in some of the sample forms published by the War Office in the 19th century (comparable to the “Max Mustermann “, Which haunted the German reporting system), especially and verifiably as early as 1815 in the pay books for infantrymen (titled Collection of Orders, Regulations, & c. ). The place where the soldier should make his cross or sign in order to acknowledge receipt of his wages was marked with the instruction “Received, Thomas Atkins, his x mark” over numerous editions and for several decades . From 1837 Thomas Atkins appears as a fictional model soldier in several editions of the King's Regulations (or from 1840 the Queen's Regulations) , i.e. in the relevant compilation of the service regulations for the British armed forces.

It is unclear, however, whether its use in the Collection of Orders and the King's Regulations represents the origin of the nickname Thomas Atkins or rather reflects a language that has long been established. For the latter, a letter cited as evidence by a reader of the Spectator in 1938 and whose author reported as early as 1743 on the course of a mutiny among the British stationed in Jamaica that “except for those from N. America ye Marines and Tommy Atkins behaved splendidly " (" Except for those from North America, all the sailors and Tommy Atkins behaved very well "). This quote is widely circulated to this day, including in John Laffin's bestseller Tommy Atkins: The Story of the British Soldier (1966), but it is probably forged; At least the OED expressly points out that its alleged source, i.e. the letter from 1743, could not be found until today. Equally questionable are the various strenuous attempts to trace the term back to a real bearer of the name Thomas Atkins , as is the frequently read claim that the Duke of Wellington himself coined it in memory of a foot soldier named Thomas Atkins who died in battle in 1794 succumbed to his injuries at Boxtel and is said to have impressed Wellington with his equanimity in the face of death. This version can be found in Robert Graves ' Good-bye to All That (1929) - one of the best-known works on the experience of the First World War, and not only in English literature - and still today in the renowned Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (the Corporal Thomas Atkins even dedicates a separate article to him and therefore lists him as a historical person), but she lacks both historical probability and contemporary evidence: the oldest source for the history of Wellington and the brave corporal dates back to 1908.

In any case, Thomas Atkins or Tommy Atkins or simply Tommy as a nickname for the British soldier only seems to have become widespread since around 1870 (although it may have been in circulation earlier in British slang ). Rudyard Kipling's poem Tommy (1892) contributed significantly to its popularization , but also the hit song Private Tommy Atkins from the revue A Gaiety Girl (1893). In the collective memory of the British today, the term is primarily associated with the experience of the First World War. From 1914 onwards the British soldiers were referred to as "Tommy" not only by the enthusiastic local press, but also by the German soldiers on the opposite side of the front, conversely, the British mostly called the Germans "Fritz," and sometimes "Jerry". The two sides often exchanged unkindnesses addressed to “Tommy” or “Fritz” directly by shouting appropriate curses into the no man's land between the trenches.

At least Tommy and Tom (but not Tommy Atkins ) are still sometimes used in Great Britain as nicknames for soldiers of the team ranks , although less often as a squaddie ; In British army jargon, Tom means in particular members of the Parachute Regiment , i.e. the paratroopers.

Etymologically by no means related: a Tommy and his Tommy Gun , here during an exercise in Chatham (Kent), November 1940.

The name Tommy cooker is derived from the nickname Tommy for " field cooker " which found its way into the German language during World War II as "Tommykocher" , but here it was turned into a mock name for the Sherman tanks of the British army, which were often under fire caught fire even with light hits. The Tommy gun , which became famous in the interwar period as the weapon of choice for American mobsters and was also used by the British armed forces during World War II, is named after its inventor, the American officer John T. Thompson , contrary to what is often assumed .

See also

  • Redcoat - a term used until the early 19th century for British foot soldiers, particularly in connection with the American War of Independence
  • Doughboy - slang term for an American soldier, especially during World War I.
  • Poilu - slang term for a French soldier, especially during World War I.
  • Landser - slang term for a German soldier, especially during World War II

literature

  • Philip Carter: Atkins, Thomas (d. 1794) , in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, 2004.
  • Peter Doyle and Robin Schäfer: Tommy and Fritz: Across the Barbed Wire . In: Julian Walker and Christophe Declercq (Eds.): Languages ​​and the First World War: Communicating in a Transnational War . Palgrave Macmillan, London 2016, pp. 79-97.
  • John Laffin : Tommy Atkins: The Story of the English Soldier . Casell, London 1966.
  • Harry Patch and Richard van Emden: The Last Fighting Tommy: The Life of Harry Patch, the Oldest Surviving Veteran of the Trenches. Bloomsbury, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-747591153
  • Julian Walker: Words and the First World War: Language, Memory, Vocabulary . Bloomsbury Academic, London 2017.

Web links

Wiktionary: Tommy  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ entry Tommy subst. masc. in the Trésor de la langue française informatisé , accessed on November 18, 2019.
  2. ^ Julian Walker: Words and the First World War: Language, Memory, Vocabulary . Bloomsbury Academic, London 2017, p. 188.
  3. ↑ Thomas Atkins, n. , In: Oxford English Dictionary (online edition), <www.oed.com/view/Entry/415443> (restricted access, accessed on November 18, 2019).
  4. ↑ Tommy Atkins, n. , In: Oxford English Dictionary (online edition), <www.oed.com/view/Entry/415503> (restricted access, accessed November 18, 2019).
  5. ^ Robert Graves: Good-bye to All That . Jonathan Cape, London 1929, p. 122: “Perhaps the most legendary item was Thomas Atkins. He was a private soldier in the First Battalion who had served under Wellington in the Peninsular War. It is said that when, many years later, Wellington at the War Office was asked to approve a specimen form for military attestation, he had ordered it to be amended from: 'I, Private John Doe of the blank regiment, do hereby, etc ., 'to' I, Private Thomas Atkins of the Twenty-third Foot, do hereby, etc. ' And now I am going to spoil the story, because I cannot for the life of me remember what British Grenadierish conduct it was that made Wellington remember. "
  6. ↑ Philip Carter: Atkins, Thomas (d. 1794) , in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online edition), Oxford University Press, 2004, doi : 10.1093 / ref: odnb / 77167 (restricted access, accessed November 19, 2019).
  7. ↑ Dave Wilton: Tommy, Tommy Atkins ; Article on wordorigins.org, January 12, 2016.
  8. ^ According to the almost contemporary assessment of the correspondent C. Field, published in the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research , Volume 2, Issue 7, January 1923, p. 8, online at < https://www.jstor.org/stable / 44219157? Seq = 1 # page_scan_tab_contents >.
  9. ↑ In South Africa, however, especially with the Second Boer War , cf. the entry tommie in GJ van Wyk: Etimologiewoordeboek van Afrikaans , Stellenbosch 2003.