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The Sword of Honour trilogy was a set of novels by Evelyn Waugh. It consists of three novels Men at Arms (1952), Officers and Gentlemen (1955) and Unconditional Surrender (1961).
Plot
The central protagonist is Guy Crouchback the scion of a aristocratic English Catholic family. Guy had spent his thirties in Italy shunning the world after a bad marriage. He decided to return to England after the Second World War was declared in the belief that the alliance between Germany and the Soviet Union was a genuine "axis of evil" and modernity.
He attempted to join the British millitary, being rebuffed for having no millitary experience. He eventually managed to find a place in the fledgeling Commando brigade training in Scotland under Brigadier Ben Ritchie-Hook. This involved him going to witness the evacuation of Crete and he was then present in North Africa. At this time he meets Corporal Ludovic who is a Communist. Ludovic saves his life, although later becomes an enemy.
He gets home to England, where he is reconciled to his wife - who then dies but not before having a son by one of Crouchback's comrades' (whom he loathes), Trimmer. Despite being constantly, and incorrectly, suspected of pro-Axis sympathies because of his time in pre-war Italy and his Catholicism Guy stumbles gets to Yugoslavia where he condemns the Partisans and finds out that Ludovic's loyalties are with Communism rather than with England.
After the end of the war Guy meets the daughter of another Catholic family and marries here. He does not have any children, but Trimmer's son is set to inherit the Crouchback lands - setting the scene for the final defeat of the resilliant Catholic gentry.
Themes
The novels have obvious echoes in Evelyn Waugh's unsuccesful wartime career, for instance his stint in the commandoes, his time in Crete and his role in Yugoslavia (where he condemned Tito's partisans). Unlike Crouchback, Waugh was a Catholic convert from the upper middle class - although Waugh believed that the recusant experience was vital in understanding the Catholic experience.
Waugh's writing becomes darker through the novels as it becomes clearer that the world that Guy Crouchback was fighting to defend was being eroded by the 1960s and the Catholic faith which the Crouchbacks suffered for was arguably being diluted. That being said, Waugh was not an apologist for the upper classes in toto, as some of the worst characters in the book are vapid socialites from the upper classes.
Waugh also comes across as a sceptic about the Second World War's effect.
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