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1960
SIEGFRIED
SASSOON
1886-1967
Siegfried Sassoon was educated at Marlborough College and Clare College, Cambridge (which he left without taking a degree). His father came from a prosperous
family of Sephardic Jews, his mother from Anglican English gentry. As a young man
he divided his time between literary London and the life of a country gentleman.
These worlds and the brutally different one of the trenches, in which he found himself
in 1914, are memorably described in his classic Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man
(1928) and its sequel, Memoirs of an Infantry1 Officer (1930).
He fought at Mametz Wood and in the Somme Offensive of July 1916 with such
conspicuous courage that he acquired the Military Cross and the nickname Mad Jack.
After a sniper's bullet went through his chest, however, he was sent back to England
at the beginning of April 1917, and he began to take a different view of the war.
Eventually, with courage equal to any he had shown in action, he made public a letter
he sent to his commanding officer: "I am making this statement as an act of wilful
defiance of military authority, because I believe that the war is being deliberately
prolonged by those who have the power to end it." Sassoon continued: "I am a soldier,
convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war, upon which
I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and
conquest." (For the full text, see "Representing the Great War" at Norton Literature
Online.) T h e military authorities, rather than make a martyr of him, announced that
he was suffering from shell shock and sent him to a hospital near Edinburgh, where
he met and befriended Wilfred Owen.
Sassoon's public protest may have been smothered, but his poems, with their shock
tactics, bitter irony, and masterly use of direct speech (learned from Thomas Hardy),
continued to attack the old men of the army, Church, and government, whom he
held responsible for the miseries and murder of the young. His poems satirically play
on contrasts between the romanticization of war and the grim realities. They angrily
flaunt the grisly effects of violence: in "The Rear-Guard" a corpse is "a soft unanswering heap" whose "fists of fingers clutched a blackening wound."
Sassoon returned to the Western Front in 1918, was wounded again, and was again
sent home. An increasingly reclusive country gentleman, he continued to write poetry,
but his style never regained the satiric pungency of the war poems that made him
famous. His 1933 marriage failed because of his homosexuality; and after he became
a Roman Catholic in 1957, he wrote mainly devotional poems.
'They'
5
iu
The Bishop tells us: "When the boys come back
They will not be the same; for they'll have fought
In a just cause: they lead the last attack
On Anti-Christ; their comrades' blood has bought
New right to breed an honourable race,
They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.'
'We're none of us the same!' the boys reply.
'For George lost both his legs; and Bill's stone blind;
Poor Jim's shot through the lungs and like to die;
And Bert's gone syphilitic: you'll not find
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SASSOON: THE GENERAL
/
1961
A chap who's served that hasn't found some change.'
And the Bishop said: 'The ways of God are strange!'
Oct. 31, 1916
1917
The Rear-Guard
(Hindenburg
5
Line,
April
1917)'
Groping along the tunnel, step by step,
He winked his prying torch with patching glare
From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air.
Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too vague to know;
A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed;
And he, exploring fifty feet below
The rosy gloom of battle overhead.
Tripping, he grabbed the wall; saw some one lie
Humped at his feet, half-hidden by a rug,
10 And stooped to give the sleeper's arm a tug.
'I'm looking for headquarters.' No reply.
'God blast your neck!' (For days he'd had no sleep)
'Get up and guide me through this stinking place.'
Savage, he kicked a soft unanswering heap,
15 And flashed his beam across the livid face
Terribly glaring up, whose eyes yet wore
Agony dying hard ten days before;
And fists of fingers clutched a blackening wound.
Alone he staggered on until he found
Dawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted stair
To the dazed, muttering creatures underground
Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound.
At last, with sweat of horror in his hair,
He climbed through darkness to the twilight air,
25 Unloading hell behind him step by step.
20
Apr. 22, 1917
1918
The General
'Good-morning; good-morning!' the General said
W h e n we met him last week on our way to the line.
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead,
And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
!. In 1916 Field Marshal Paul von H i n d e n b u r g
(1847—1934) b e c a m e c o m m a n d e r in chief of the
G e r m a n armies and, for a time, blocked the Allied
advance in western F r a n c e with t h e massive d e f e n -
sive "line" n a m e d after him. Its barbed-wire entanglements, deep t r e n c h e s , and gun e m p l a c e m e n t s
ran from Lens to Rheims.
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1962
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s
VOICES
FROM
WORLD
WAR
1
'He's a cheery old card,' grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras 1 with rifle and pack.
But he did for them both by his plan of attack.
Apr. 1917
1918
Glory of W o m e n
You love us when we're heroes, home on leave,
Or wounded in a mentionable place.
You worship decorations; you believe
That chivalry redeems the war's disgrace.
5 You make us shells. 1 You listen with delight.
By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled.
You crown our distant ardours while we fight,
And mourn our laurelled 2 memories when we're killed.
You can't believe that British troops 'retire'
10 When hell's last horror breaks them, and they run,
Trampling the terrible corpses—blind with blood.
O German mother dreaming by the fire,
While you are knitting socks to send your son
His face is trodden deeper in the mud.
1917
1918
Everyone Sang
;
Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on—on—and out of sight.
Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away . . . O, but Everyone
10 Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.
Apr. 1919
1. A city in n o r t h e r n F r a n c e , in the f r o n t line
through m u c h of the war. T h e British assault on
t h e Western Front that began on April 9, 1917,
was known as t h e Battle of Arras.
1919
1. Many w o m e n were recruited into munitions
factories d u r i n g the war.
2. In ancient G r e e c e and Rome, victorious generals were crowned with laurel wreaths.
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SASSOON:
M E M O I R S OF AN
INFANTRY O F F I C E R
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1963
On Passing the New Menin Gate 1
5
10
W h o will r e m e m b e r , p a s s i n g t h r o u g h t h i s G a t e ,
T h e unheroic Dead who fed the guns?
W h o shall a b s o l v e t h e f o u l n e s s o f t h e i r f a t e , —
Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones?
C r u d e l y r e n e w e d , t h e S a l i e n t 2 h o l d s its o w n .
P a i d a r e its d i m d e f e n d e r s b y t h i s p o m p ;
P a i d , w i t h a pile of p e a c e - c o m p l a c e n t s t o n e ,
T h e armies w h o endured that sullen swamp.
H e r e was the world's worst w o u n d . And here with pride
' T h e i r n a m e liveth f o r ever,' t h e G a t e w a y c l a i m s .
W a s ever a n i m m o l a t i o n s o b e l i e d
As these intolerably nameless n a m e s ?
Well might the D e a d w h o struggled in the slime
R i s e a n d d e r i d e this s e p u l c h r e 0 of c r i m e .
1927-28
tomb
1928
From Memoirs of an Infantry Officer
[THE O P E N I N G O F T H E BATTLE O F T H E S O M M E ]
O n J u l y [ 1 9 1 6 ] t h e f i r s t t h e w e a t h e r , a f t e r a n early m o r n i n g mist, w a s o f
t h e kind c o m m o n l y called heavenly. D o w n i n o u r f r o w s t y cellar w e b r e a k f a s t e d
a t six, u n w a s h e d a n d a p p r e h e n s i v e . O u r t a b l e , a p p r o p r i a t e l y e n o u g h , w a s a n
e m p t y a m m u n i t i o n box. A t six-forty-five t h e f i n a l b o m b a r d m e n t b e g a n , a n d
t h e r e w a s n o t h i n g f o r u s t o d o e x c e p t sit r o u n d o u r c a n d l e u n t i l t h e t o r n a d o
e n d e d . F o r m o r e t h a n f o r t y m i n u t e s t h e air v i b r a t e d a n d t h e e a r t h r o c k e d a n d
shuddered. T h r o u g h the sustained uproar the tap and rattle of machine-guns
could be identified; but except for the whistle of bullets no retaliation c a m e
o u r way u n t i l a f e w 5 . 9 ' s h e l l s s h o o k t h e roof of o u r d u g - o u t . B a r t o n a n d I sat
speechless, d e a f e n e d a n d stupefied by the seismic state of affairs, and w h e n
he lit a c i g a r e t t e t h e m a t c h f l a m e s t a g g e r e d crazily. A f t e r w a r d s I a s k e d h i m
w h a t h e h a d b e e n t h i n k i n g a b o u t . H i s reply w a s ' C a r p e t slippers a n d Kettleh o l d e r s ' . M y o w n m i n d h a d b e e n w o r k i n g i n m u c h t h e s a m e style, f o r d u r i n g
that c a n n o n a d i n g cataclysm the following refrain was r u n n i n g in my head:
They come as a hoon and a blessing to men,
The Something, the Owl, and the Waverley Pen.
F o r t h e life o f m e I c o u l d n ' t r e m e m b e r w h a t t h e f i r s t o n e w a s called. W a s
it the Shakespeare? W a s it the Dickens? Anyhow it was an advertisement
w h i c h I'd o f t e n s e e n i n s m o k y railway s t a t i o n s . T h e n t h e b o m b a r d m e n t lifted
a n d l e s s e n e d , o u r vertigo a b a t e d , a n d w e l o o k e d a t o n e a n o t h e r i n d a z e d relief.
T w o Brigades o f o u r Division w e r e n o w g o i n g over t h e t o p o n o u r right. O u r
1. T h e names of 5 4 , 8 8 9 m e n are engraved on this
war memorial outside Brussels.
2. Protruding part of fortifications or, as here, line
of defensive trenches. Salients are particularly vul-
nerable, being exposed to e n e m y fire from the f r o n t
and both sides.
1. I.e., 5.9-caliber.
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VOICES FROM W O R L D W A R 1
Brigade w a s t o a t t a c k ' w h e n t h e m a i n a s s a u l t h a d r e a c h e d its f i n a l objective'.
I n o u r f o r t u n a t e role o f privileged s p e c t a t o r s B a r t o n a n d I w e n t u p t h e stairs
t o see w h a t w e c o u l d f r o m K i n g s t o n R o a d T r e n c h . W e l e f t J e n k i n s c r o u c h i n g
i n a c o r n e r , w h e r e h e r e m a i n e d m o s t o f t h e day. H i s h a g g a r d b l i n k i n g f a c e
h a u n t s my memory. He was an example of the paralysing effect which such
a n e x p e r i e n c e c o u l d p r o d u c e o n a n e r v o u s s y s t e m sensitive t o n o i s e , f o r h e
w a s a g o o d o f f i c e r b o t h b e f o r e a n d a f t e r w a r d s . I felt no s y m p a t h y f o r h i m at
t h e t i m e , b u t I d o n o w . F r o m t h e s u p p o r t - t r e n c h , w h i c h B a r t o n called ' o u r
o p e r a box', I o b s e r v e d as m u c h of t h e b a t t l e as t h e f o r m a t i o n of t h e c o u n t r y
allowed, t h e rising g r o u n d o n t h e right m a k i n g i t i m p o s s i b l e t o see a n y t h i n g
of the attack towards M a m e t z . A small shiny black note-book contains my
p e n c i l l e d p a r t i c u l a r s , a n d n o t h i n g will b e g a i n e d b y e m b r o i d e r i n g t h e m with
afterthoughts. I c a n n o t turn my field-glasses on to the past.2
7.45.
T h e b a r r a g e i s n o w w o r k i n g t o t h e right o f F r i c o u r t a n d b e y o n d . I
c a n see t h e 2 1 s t Division a d v a n c i n g a b o u t t h r e e - q u a r t e r s o f a m i l e a w a y o n
t h e left a n d a f e w G e r m a n s c o m i n g t o m e e t t h e m , a p p a r e n t l y s u r r e n d e r i n g .
O u r m e n i n s m a l l p a r t i e s (not e x t e n d e d i n line) g o steadily o n t o t h e G e r m a n
f r o n t - l i n e . Brilliant s u n s h i n e a n d a h a z e o f s m o k e d r i f t i n g a l o n g t h e l a n d s c a p e .
S o m e Yorkshires 3 a little way b e l o w o n t h e l e f t , w a t c h i n g t h e s h o w a n d c h e e r ing as if at a f o o t b a l l m a t c h . T h e n o i s e a l m o s t as b a d as ever.
9.30.
C a m e b a c k t o d u g - o u t a n d h a d a s h a v e . 2 1 s t Division still going
a c r o s s t h e o p e n , a p p a r e n t l y w i t h o u t c a s u a l t i e s . T h e s u n l i g h t f l a s h e s o n bayo n e t s a s t h e tiny f i g u r e s m o v e q u i e t l y f o r w a r d a n d d i s a p p e a r b e y o n d m o u n d s
of trench debris. A few r u n n e r s c o m e back and a m m u n i t i o n parties go across.
T r e n c h - m o r t a r s a r e k n o c k i n g hell o u t o f S u n k e n R o a d t r e n c h a n d t h e g r o u n d
w h e r e t h e M a n c h e s t e r s 4 will a t t a c k s o o n . N o i s e n o t s o b a d n o w a n d very little
retaliation.
9.50.
Fricourt half-hidden by clouds of drifting smoke, blue, pinkish and
grey. S h r a p n e l b u r s t i n g i n small b l u i s h - w h i t e p u f f s w i t h tiny f l a s h e s . T h e birds
s e e m b e w i l d e r e d ; a lark b e g i n s to go up a n d t h e n flies feebly a l o n g , t h i n k i n g
b e t t e r o f it. O t h e r s f l u t t e r a b o v e t h e t r e n c h w i t h q u e r u l o u s cries, w e a k o n t h e
wing. I c a n s e e s e v e n o f o u r b a l l o o n s , 5 o n t h e r i g h t . O n t h e l e f t o u r m e n still
f i l i n g a c r o s s i n t w e n t i e s a n d t h i r t i e s . A n o t h e r h u g e explosion i n F r i c o u r t a n d
a c l o u d of b r o w n - p i n k s m o k e . S o m e b u r s t s a r e yellowish.
10.5.
I can see the M a n c h e s t e r s down in New T r e n c h , getting ready to go
over. F i g u r e s f i l i n g d o w n t h e t r e n c h . T w o o f t h e m have g o n e o u t t o look a t
o u r wire gaps! 6 H a v e j u s t e a t e n m y last o r a n g e . . . . I a m s t a r i n g a t a s u n l i t
p i c t u r e o f H e l l , a n d still t h e b r e e z e s h a k e s t h e yellow w e e d s , a n d t h e p o p p i e s
glow u n d e r C r a w l e y R i d g e w h e r e s o m e shells fell a f e w m i n u t e s ago. M a n c h e s t e r s a r e s e n d i n g f o r w a r d s o m e s c o u t s . A b a y o n e t glitters. A r u n n e r c o m e s
b a c k a c r o s s t h e o p e n t o t h e i r B a t t a l i o n H e a d q u a r t e r s , c l o s e h e r e o n t h e right.
21 st Division still t r o t t i n g a l o n g t h e sky line t o w a r d La Boisselle. B a r r a g e going
s t r o n g t o t h e r i g h t o f C o n t a l m a i s o n Ridge. H e a v y s h e l l i n g t o w a r d M a m e t z .
1916
2. T h e extracts that follow are edited versions of
the actual entries in Sassoon's diary. (See Siegfried
Sassoon: Diaries 1915-1918, ed. Rupert HartDavis, 1983, pp. 8 2 - 8 3 . )
3. Men of a Yorkshire regiment.
1930
4. Men of the M a n c h e s t e r regiment.
5. Long cables, tethering s u c h balloons, prevented
attacks by low-flying aircraft.
6. Holes, m a d e by shell fire, in the long coils of
barbed wire protecting the trenches.