In contemporary times, much criticism has been placed upon Rudyard Kipling for
his support of British Imperialism; George Orwell went so far as to call him the
"prophet of British Imperialism during its expansionist phase." To be
sure, a considerable portion of Kipling's works were written in celebration and
support of Imperial expansion, but it is short-sighted to simply label him as an
Imperial propagandist or apologist. Two of his most oft-condemned poems,
Recessional and The White Man's Burden, actually were used by both sides of the
colonial issue at the time.1 A reading of Recessional, taken in the context of
the prevailing attitudes of the time, seems to indicate that it is a piece about
hubris rather than a promotion of the Empire. And the "burden" that
Kipling writes on, while patronizing, was indeed a genuine burden.2 The fact
that the British Empire went far in alleviating famine and disease in the
conquered territories should not be ignored. It is beyond a doubt, however, that
Kipling was convinced of Britain's superiority in the world. In For All We Have
and Are, for instance, the reader is convinced with the last two lines,
"What stands if Freedom fall?/Who dies if England live?" Kipling was
not by far the most vociferous of the jingoists; having been somewhat of an
outsider all for his life, he showed great sympathy for those whose lives were
wasted in the expansion of the empire, and criticized the Imperial machinery
that used them. His poetry as told by the common British soldiers show his
ability maintain his status as poet laureate of the Empire while telling the
stories of its victims, and at times, condemning it for the way it treated those
soldiers. Kipling published Barrack-Room Ballads in 1890, and it immediately
gained him great success in England. A collection of poems written in the voice
of a London cockney, they display Kipling's remarkable breadth of understanding
of soldiers and soldiering during the Victorian era. While reading The Young
British Soldier one can perfectly picture a group of such men belting out the
words of the song over mugs of beer: When the arc-made recruit goes out to the
East 'E acts like a babe an' 'e drinks like a beast, An' 'e wonders because 'e
is frequent deceased Ere 'e fit for to serve as a soldier, Serve, serve, serve
as a soldier, Serve, serve, serve as a soldier, Serve, serve, serve as a
soldier, Soldier of the Queen! Here Kipling echoes the fatalistic humor that
seems to infect every soldier in every war. More fatalism and the unwillingness
to speak directly of the horrors of battle surface in The Widow's Party: ...For
half my company's laying still Where the Widow give the party. ...We broke a
King and we built a road-- A courthouse stands where the regiment goad. And the
river's clean where the raw blood flowed When the Widow give the party. Not only
does Kipling create a brutal contrast between the soldier's description (a
party) and the battle that actually took place, he injects a small amount of
disgust that good young men died, all for the purpose of expanding the Empire
into some godforsaken land that few in England had ever heard of. More of this
veiled disgust surfaces in The Widow at Windsor, written as a British soldier
who does not see the Empire as any kind of divine design: Walk wide of the Widow
at Windsor, For half of Creation she owns: We have bought her the same with the
sword 'an the flame, An we've salted it down with our bones. (Poor beggars! --
it's blue with our bones!) Take 'old of the Wings o' the Mornin', An' flop round
the earth till you're dead; But you won't get away from the tune that they play
To the blooming' old rag overhead. (Poor beggars! -- it's not overhead!) The
theme that overrides in much of Kipling's poetry, however, is his sympathy for
the common soldier and his treatment by those he is serving. Tommy endures to
this day as the best commentary on the relationship between the soldier and the
non-combatant public: I went into a theatre as sober as could be, They gave a
drunk civilian room, but 'hadn't none for me; They sent me to the gallery or
round the music-'alls, But when it comes to fighting', Lord! They'll shove me in
the stalls! ... We aren't no thin red 'heroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barracks, most remarkable like you; An' if sometimes our conduct
isn't all your fancy paints, Why, single men in barracks don't grow into plaster
saints; ... For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the
brute!" But it's "Savior of 'is country" when the guns begin to
shoot; An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please; An' Tommy isn't
a blooming' fool - you bet that Tommy sees! Kipling moves from this somewhat
lighthearted complaint to outright scorn with The Last of the Light Brigade:
There were thirty million English who talked of England's might, There were
twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night. They had neither food nor
money, they had neither service nor trade; They were only shiftless soldiers,
the last of the Light Brigade. The parallel between the plight of Kipling's
troopers and the homeless veterans in the United States today rings too true to
overlook. In English society, enlisting in the army had generally been a last
resort before going to the poor-house, and, as such, soldiers were not held in
high esteem. With Barrack-Room Ballads, and with later writing, Kipling
established himself as the "friend of the soldier," and brought new
insight to the public into the life of the soldier. Kipling also brought a novel
view in regard to the enemies of the Empire as well. He often portrayed the
indigenous peoples that fought the British in the same manner as the "noble
savage" as in The Ballad of East and West, or as unfortunate victims of
circumstance. Referring to the Sudanese, Kipling writes in Fuzzy-Wuzzy: Then 'ere's
to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, an' the missing an' the kid; Our orders was to break you,
and of course we went and did. We sloshed you with Martinis, an' it wasn't
hardly fair; But for all the odds aging you, Fuzzy-Wuz, you broke the square. He
also introduces the concept of respect for the enemies of the Empire, going so
far as to state, "If we 'hadn't lost some messmates we'd help you to
deplore," implying that, from the soldier's view, respect for valiant
conduct on the battlefield transcends any loyalty to the Crown. Another piece,
Piet, also carries with it the idea that the British soldiers did not carry with
them a great deal of loyalty to the Empire, rather, they were simply paid to do
a job, and set about doing it. Along the way, they were impressed by the manner
in which their adversaries performed their jobs: ...'E does not lose 'is rifle
an' 'e does not lose 'is seat. I've known a lot o' people ride a dam' sight
worse than Piet. Kipling moves from admiration to compassion as well, in a scene
that could have come from our own Civil War: I've heard him crying from the
ground Like Abel's blood of old, An' skirmished out to look, an' found, The
beggar nearly cold. I've waited on 'till 'e was dead (Which couldn't help him
much), But many grateful things Piet said To me for doing such. Not only does
Kipling write on respect for the Empire's adversaries, but also for the
"lesser breeds" that he refers to in Recessional. Gunga Din, arguably
the most famous of all of Kipling's poetry, describes a saintly water-bearer,
who gives his life tending to the wounded. Kipling even compares him to Lazarus,
sent down from Heaven to comfort the souls of the damned.3 Kipling does receive
criticism for his poetry, and much of it is well-deserved. From a Twenty-first
Century viewpoint, many of his ideas seem absolutely barbaric. It is true that
much of his poetry does indeed espouse the ideals of Imperialism, subjugation,
and racism, ideals that, even in Kipling's time, had manifold opponents. Kipling
would not have received the honors that he did from the Empire had he not
furthered its ideology, so the reprobation he has received as Imperial
propagandist is at least somewhat deserved. To completely condemn him as a relic
of the past, however, is to deprive ourselves of the truly outstanding work that
he has to offer. Kipling has given us a unique gift in his stories and poetry of
the Victorian-era soldier. If the literary world can learn to look beyond the
surface of Kipling as Imperial apologist, it can gain a great deal of insight
into the experience of the colonial soldier.

Bibliography
Fitzgerald, Edward P. "Did France's Colonial Empire Make Economic
Sense?" The Journal of Economic History. V. 48, n. 2, pp. 373-85. Howe,
Irving (ed.) The Portable Kipling. New York: Penguin, 1982. Kipling, Rudyard.
Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads. New York: Doubleday,
1917. Newsome, George. "'Recessional' and 'The White Man's Burden,'"
Kipling Journal. September, 1990, pp. 13-27. Rice, Elizabeth T. "Fuzzy-Wuz,"
Kipling Journal. December, 1990, pp. 24-6. Whitehead, John. "The
'Barrack-Room Ballads' as Treasure-Trove," Kipling Journal. March, 1995,
pp. 21-5. 1Newsom, p. 23, states that "The White Man's Burden" was
included in a pamphlet distributed by the Boston Anti-Imperialist League.
2Fitzgerald, p. 73, does a complete economic analysis of colonial empires and
concludes that, at least economically, they were a losing proposition for the
colonial masters. 3Whitehead, p. 25.