Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori – The Truth or a Lie?

from wars before and during world war one. People have always, at some point in history, been at war for whatever reason and statements have been made to rally troops and encourage them for battle. But whether ‘it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country’ is debatable. My personal opinion is that war in itself may sometimes be needed, but people will always die in them and nothing will ever change that and so this I have to disagree with as it is always old men who start wars and young men die in them. All these poems that I am going to look at, have been written by different poets with different styles of writing and different opinions on war. The poems are either written by a poet who agrees that ‘it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country’, or by a poet who is against this statement. However some of the poems I am going to look at, have views for and against this statement.         The poem ‘The Charge of The Light Brigade’, was written in 1854 by the Poet Laureate at that time, Alfred Lord Tennison. It is about how the British Light Brigade, during the Crimean War, was accidentally sent to attack the furthest battery of cannons at the end of the valley; with other enemy batteries either side. It was a suicide mission, yet the Light Brigade still obeyed the orders even though they knew that the messenger, who had told them their orders, had made a mistake.     This poem has not been written with first hand evidence but in fact he has got his information from the war correspondent for ‘The Times’, William Howard Russell.