ABSTRACT
Biographers and others have written much about Wodehouse’s misadventures during the Second World War, when he was caught unawares in the South of France by the German invasion, was interned in Upper Silesia as an enemy alien, and then in Berlin made ill-advised broadcasts for German radio, treating his captivity lightly, so that he was accused of betraying his country by giving comfort to the enemy. The angry response to these broadcasts in Britain severely damaged his reputation; it was hurtful enough to ensure that he never again made his home in England. What is less well known is that 20 years earlier, during the First World War, Wodehouse had also been out of step with his country’s mood, a disparity that becomes the more striking when what he wrote during these years is set beside the wartime writing of his older brother, Armine.
