Compare the poems from the First World War "In Flanders Field" by John McCrae, "The Hero" by Siegfried Sassoon, and "Into Battle" by Julian Grenfell.

From these comments, we can see that the trend of the theme become stronger throughout the poem. John McCrae presents a strong feeling that soldiers should be loyal and devoted to war; and that future generations should not be frightened by the brutality of war when it comes to their turn to fight.

“Into Battle” is an outstanding poem describing the Great War as it is written in a atmosphere of spring to recruit soldiers and relax their fear towards the war. The language it uses is fairly romantic, opening the first stanza with: “The naked earth is warm with spring…And quivers in the sunny breeze” which is hardly the way to describe a war. The first two verses describe the spring as it comes, bringing hope and warmth to the earth. In the next verse, Julian Grenfell depicts soldiers as being protected by heaven and being in a high position with the stars:” all the bright company of Heaven, hold him in their high comradeship, the Dog-Star, and the sisters Seven, Orion’s Belt and sworded hip”. In this way, it creates a psychological encouragement to soldiers and leads them to think that contributing in war is very dignified. In the next two verses, it portrays how nature supports the soldiers in war, leads them in the correct direction, provides them with energy and boosts their determination:

“The woodland trees that stand together,

They stand to him each one a friend;

They gently speak in the windy weather:

They guide to valley and ridge’s end.

The kestrel hovering by days…

As keen of ear, as swift of sight.”

The writer tries to calm the soldier’s fear before attack by saying that if this is their last chance to sing, they should sing it well. The ‘blackbirds’ calling ‘brothers’ in this verse gives a sense of family feeling. Even though the soldiers are at the battle ground, they still have family back home which encourage them.”The horses show him nobler powers; O patient eyes, courageous hearts!” The soldiers are also supported hours before the attack with patience and courage by their working partners, the horses.

When it comes to the outbreak of the war, the writer unlike other people is excited. He describes it as a ‘joy’ in spite of the fact that people may die: “ and only joy of battle takes him by the throat, and makes him blind”.

In his words: “nor lead nor steel shall reach him…” we can see his attitude towards death. He believes soldiers’ lives cannot be harmed by weapons and in the end even if                                                                                                                           they die, their soul will still be protected by the day and night, living in the world forever.

All these elements show that the writer is attempting to reduce the fear of war and to emphasize a sense of courage, making recruitment more appealing to people.

“The Hero” is a sarcastic poem and so is the title. It is an expression of how a mother feels when her beloved son dies at war. However, she has the wrong impression of her son’s death thinking that he has been very brave whereas he has in fact been a coward. The writer Siegfried Lorraine Sassoon, is a British officer at war, whose poem was shocking and was found to be insensitive as it could destroy a mother's faith in her son and give the wrong reason for his death. The style of language he uses is quite different in the third verse compared to the first two.

In the first verse which talks about the visit of the officer bringing the death report to the old woman, intelligible words are used in order to let everyone feel the sadness and the pride of the woman. In contrast, in the third verse where the writer depicts the truth of how the soldier, Jack, behaves at war the language is more poetic:

“He thought how ‘Jack’, cold-footed, useless swine,

had panicked sown the trench that night

the mine went up at Wicked corner…

at last, he died, blown to small bits.”

The writer aims not to comment on the fearful soldier in a direct and critical way because it might cause arguments and disappointment to many people at that time.

In the last sentence,’ and no one seemed to care except that lonely woman with white hair’ it is very ironic and cruel as we realise that the woman has been misinformed about her son’s death in order to protect her feelings. The irony here is that she thinks he has been a brave soldier but in fact he has behaved like a coward. Because of this, at the time of his dead, no one cared about him.

The writer’s attitude towards war is extraordinary as he was an officer leading soldiers to the front, but he could not bear to lead more men to their deaths. He wrote several splendid poems which all stand against common convictions. The case in the poem is not referring to any particular person at war, but it is pathetically true. This is his aim, to make us realise how ugly and horrible war is. No matter how enthusiastic and courageous the soldier is in the beginning, he would become increasingly frightened at the end by the terror of war.