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EAL Nexus resource
Base Details
Poem analysis
Subject:
English
Age groups:
12–14, 15–16
Topic:
World War I: Poetry
Licence information | This resource is free to use for educational purposes.
Source | This resource was originally developed by Nerissa Lea and has been adapted by EAL Nexus.
©British Council 2015
Base Details
by Siegfried Sassoon
If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I’d live with scarlet majors at the Base.
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You’d see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel.
Reading the Roll of Honour. ‘Poor young chap,’
I’d say – ‘I used to know his father well;
Yes we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap’
And when the war is done and youth stone dead;
I’d toddle safely home and die - in bed.
If I were fierce, and bald,
and short of breath,
The poet is a soldier and thinks
the majors are unfit.
The poet is one of the soldiers
and describes the majors as
unfit due to their lifestyle.
I’d live with scarlet
majors at the Base.
The majors do not live with the
soldiers on the front line.
The majors live in better
conditions and do not fight
alongside their men.
And speed glum heroes
up the line to death.
The heroes go to the frontline,
knowing that they are likely to
die there.
When soldiers die, others are
sent to replace them.
You’d see me with my
puffy petulant face,
The majors are angry because
they are losing.
The majors are unfit. When
they are angry, their fat faces
puff like spoilt children.
Guzzling and gulping in
the best hotel.
The majors eat and drink like
animals, at the nice places
where they live.
The living conditions of
soldiers and the majors are
very different.
Reading the Roll of Honour.
‘Poor young chap,’
I’d say- ’I used to know his father well;
Yes we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap’
The majors have nothing to say
about the men who have lost their
lives.
The majors show no genuine concerns.
They only think about sending more
soldiers to replace the lost ones.
And when the war is done
and youth stone dead;
I’d toddle safely home and
die - in bed.
The soldiers died young in the war,
but the majors will grow old and die
at home in comfort.
Sassoon shows his anger in this poem,
about how lives can be so different
for men serving the same country.