The value of blood

On All Saints' Day 1914, the vicar of Bradford preached a sermon entitled ‘Precious Blood’. His opening line betrayed a Yorkshire inflection that gives an immediacy to the published version: ‘Blood! An awful word is that. A solemn word.’ He continued: ‘A word that takes you straight to the sublime sacrifice of the Incarnate God. A word which reeks in our newspapers these days.’ On All Saints' Day, when, ‘we commemorate those who have given themselves, whether in life or in death for the Imperial cause of Christ’, then, ‘it is obviously fitting that we should think of those who during the last weeks – weeks which seem like years’, had given themselves for love of the country. The German Army had been thwarted, great things had been achieved: ‘To the noble army of Liberators we pay homage. But the moment we do so we are up against the stupendous fact … the power which achieved it was one and one only – Sacrifice.’

This was a particularly Anglican version of the universal language of wartime. The relationship between Christian rhetoric and wartime values was an intimate one. This was not accidental, and will be expanded upon later. For the moment it is the issue of this national language and local inflection which needs to be explored. If blood was the currency, how did the books balance?