Generals Die in Bed is an anti-war novella by the Canadian writer Charles Yale Harrison. Based on the author's own experiences in combat, it tells the story of a young soldier fighting in the trenches of World War I. It was first published in 1930 by William Morrow.
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The story starts in Montreal with an unnamed soldier of 20 years old who is getting ready to leave with the Canadian army to go fight the Germans in Europe, mostly in France and Belgium, during World War I. He already starts to build close relationships with some of the fellow soldiers: Brown, Cleary, Fry, Broadbent and Anderson. Soon after, the story shifts to the trenches, where the conditions are unsanitary with lice and fat rats. The narrator (which is still and will stay unknown) changes his perspective about war. When he thought war contained glory and glamour, he finds himself wrong when his comrades start to die, beginning with Brown. A while later, he is emotionally affected when he kills a German with his bayonet. His emotional status worsens when another of his friend dies. The narrator then goes on leave for 10 days in England, where a prostitute makes him forget about the war. When he comes back, an attempt to raid the Germans takes place where the rest of his friends, except Broadbent dies. The general tells the new team that the Germans sank a hospital ship, and organizes another raid, this time to kill everyone. The narrator has wounded his foot, and discover that Broadbent was mortally wounded too. Broadbent’s leg is hanging by a string of flesh, but then dies by blood loss. Then the war is over. The recruits are told that the general lied, the Germans didn’t sink a hospital ship. It was a ship filled with weapons. He then realizes war is basically a chess game for the generals, and the soldiers are just young boys, listening to the orders, with meaningless ideals
The novel focuses heavily on the futility of war and how many of the soldiers were merely naive young boys, fighting fruitlessly for meaningless ideals. Generals and civilians spew patriotic slogans without ever truly understanding the horror of trench life. Like the poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, or such European novels as Henri Barbusse's Under Fire, or Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, Generals Die in Bed attempts to strip war of its romance and glamour, to show the real experiences of men at war.
The story possesses a unique style in that we learn next to nothing about its main character and first person narrator, aside from the fact that he is eighteen years old. Therefore, it could be argued that his function is merely to serve as a surrogate for the audience.
Generals Die in Bed was an international bestseller upon its release, and was by far the most successful of Harrison's novels. The New York Evening Standard called it “the best of the war books”. The reception was lukewarm in Canada, however, because of scenes depicting Canadian soldiers looting the French town of Arras and shooting unarmed Germans (which amounted to a war crime). Former Canadian Expeditionary Force commander General Sir Arthur Currie, said that the novel denigrated the legacy of Canadians in the war. Harrison denied the allegation in a 1930 interview with the Toronto Daily Star, praising Canadian soldiers and justifying his novel as an attempt to depict the war "as it really was."
After its initial success as part of the "war book boom" of the late twenties and early thirties, Generals Die in Bed was largely forgotten, until the Hamilton, Ontario publisher Potlach Publications reissued it in the 1970s. In 2002, Toronto's Annick Press re-issued the original text of Generals Die in Bed packaged for young adults, and further editions by Penguin Books Australia and Red Fox in the UK followed. In 2007 Annick republished an edition intended for adult readers and course adoptions. The text generally states the horrific nature of World War I.
Generals Die in Bed is referenced briefly in the short story "A Natural History of the Dead" by Ernest Hemingway, primarily as a satirical commentary on its title.
Charles Yale Harrison wrote several other novels and non-fiction books before his death in 1954.