Siegfried Sassoon’s Poetry also shows hostility to those at home but also to those in high ranking military positions within the army. After being wounded at war in April 1917 and returning to England Sassoon had grown angry about tactics employed by the British Army and in July 1917 published a Soldiers Declaration which announced “I am making this statement as an act of willful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it”. Sassoon’s hostility to war can be seen in his poem ‘The Old Huntsman’ 1917 and ‘Counter Attack’ 1918. Sassoon’s poem ‘Glory of Women’ highlights his animosity towards the women at home. He believes the women have a romantic view of war, believing soldiers to be ‘heroes’. However to be classed as a hero in the eyes of women you had to be ‘wounded in a mentionable place’. The sarcasm throughout the poem highlights the ignorance of women. Sarcasm and hostility can also be seen in ‘Suicide in the Trenches’ 1917. The line ‘He put a bullet threw his brain , no one spoke of him again’ shows how people at home only remembered those who died at battle and not those who were mentally affected by the war. This shows the stigma attached with suicide and how it wasn’t heroic to die in this way. Sassoon calls the crowds that stand and cheer when the army marches by ‘smug faced’ and tells them to pray they’ll never know ‘The hell where youth and laughter go’. This again shows how the enemy was now people at home. Sassoon resented the crowds for not understanding what these young men faced in the trenches. He wanted them to understand that war takes away the youth and happiness of a man.
Charles Sorley was another poet who criticized the war effort. Sorely completed 37 poems in total and his book Marlborough and other poems were popular when it was published in 1916. Sorleys poetry showed the true reality of war. His poem ‘When you see millions of the mouthless dead’ provides the reader with an insight of what life was like at the war front. Sorely wants people to know the true reality of war when he says ‘say not soft things as other men have said’. Sorely showed his opposition to poems that portrayed the war effort as patriotic and romantic. Sorley had criticised Rupert Brooke’s poem ‘The Solider’ for being too generalised and not true to life. Sorely uses the words ‘gashed heads’ and ‘nor honour’ to help the reader get an insight into war conditions. Sorely also criticised those at home for pointlessly mourning for men who’s ‘blind eyes see not your tears’. Sorely goes on to state ‘It is easy to be dead’ meaning that conditions were so horrific that most men wished they had died instead of living on with the memories. Sorely wants the reader to realise that war is very impersonal. He portrayed this by showing how it was difficult to find ‘one face that you loved’ in the ‘o’ercrowded mass’. This sight contradicted what those at home believed war to be like.
Edward Thomas began writing poetry after enlisting with the artists rifles in 1915. Thomas like Wilfred Owens showed great hostility towards the English media. In his poem ‘This is no case of petty right or wrong’ 1915 he vowed not to ‘grow hot with love of Englishmen, to please the newspapers’. Thomas like many other poets believed the English media diluted the situation at the war front to keep the English public content. Thomas also showed his animosity towards the politicians by saying ‘This is no case of petty right or wrong that politicians of philosophers can judge’ meaning that the politicians couldn’t’t cast judgement about the war because they were ignorant to war conditions. Another of Thomas’s poems ‘Rain’ shows the separation between those at home and those at war. Thomas speaks of those at home as if he doesn’t’t love them anymore by saying ‘whom once I loved’. This indicates that he blames them for his suffering. However he does go on to indicate that those at home are helpless among ‘the living and the dead’, meaning there is nothing his family can do to help him as it’s out of their control. This emphasises again that Thomas lays the blame on the government. From the tone of this poem we can tell that Thomas was very low at this point in the war as he says he has no love except ‘the love of death’.
I will now go on to look at how the notion of changing relationships between those at home and those at war is depicted in ‘Birdsong’ by Sebastian Faulks. Before analysing the book Birdsong it is important to emphasis that this is a modern day novel and that Faulks had no experience of war life. However many critics believe this may make the book more amicable as Faulks was not affected by the war and so he might be able to give a better overview of the war. Faulks wanted to eradicate modern society’s ignorance of the war and this became his main aim whilst writing his book. Faulks gained some of his war knowledge from reading war poetry from poets such as Edmund Blunden, Ivor Gurney and David Jones. Birdsong like the various war poems above highlighted the ignorance of the English public. The diluting of wars true reality by the media is also seen in the book. This is seen when Weir returns from the war to find that the media have been leading the public to believe that war was heroic and patriotic. However Weir makes them aware of how ‘terrible’ the war actually was. This can also be seen when Stephen tells of how ‘there was no news of war on the front page’. This made the separation between those at home and those at war grow bigger as many soldiers felt abandoned or that no one cared anymore. Birdsong depicts the frustration soldiers felt towards their own families. They were angry at them for not knowing the true reality of war. This can be seen when Weir hopes ‘a great bombardment would smash down along Piccadilly’. Birdsong also highlights the difficulty soldiers felt when trying to integrate back into society when the war was over. This can be seen when Weir returns home from war and notices how the ‘denseness of silence pressed his ears’. This shows how soldiers grew to get used to the noise of constant bombing and shelling. However Weir himself knew that he should be glad of the peace and quiet and hoped that a ‘familiar wash of normality would come over him’. Faulks also highlights the ignorance of the English public again when the war is over. The soldiers themselves didn’t feel ‘any sense of belonging’ when they came home and this wasn’t helped by the response most of them received from the public. Many people were fearful of the ‘passive beings’ that returned from war. This indicates how the public failed to understand just how horrific war was and the lifelong effects it would have on the soldiers that experienced it. Instead of being helpful and understanding towards the soldiers many choose to steer clear of them. This inability to interact with the soldiers from the public lead to widespread paranoia. This can be seen in the chapter with Stephen and the store clerk. So yet again the English public failed those men who went to fight for King and Country. The drastic change to soldiers can be helped understood when Isabelle explains how Stephen has ‘changed almost beyond recognition’.
It is clear that as the war progressed the attitudes of many of the soldiers changed. The patriotism and high morale that was felt at the start of the war had soon turned into hate and angriness not towards the Germans but towards at home. Poems like Edward Thomas’s ‘This is no case of petty right or wrong’ and Wilfred Owens ’Apologia Pro Poemate Meo’ highlight the ignorance of the English public. They show how the public was so naive to believe the media. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks also highlights this issue. Birdsong also shows how the public failed to empathise with the ‘passive beings’ that returned from war and often distancing themselves from them. This issue is not highlighted in any of the war poems I studied and so Birdsong proved vital for my understanding of the war. After studying both it is difficult not to feel a sense of pity and sorrow toward these men and a sense of anger and disgust towards the English public. It is therefore easy to conclude that the public outbursts by Sassoon and Owens were justified.
Bibliography
∙ Penguin Book Of First World War Poetry by Jon Silkins, 1979
∙ Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks, 1993
∙ War Poems of Wilfred Owens by Jon Stallworthy, 1994
∙ The War Poems by Siegfried Sassoon
∙ In Flanders Fields and Other War Poems of the First World War by Brian Bushby, 2005
∙ Poems of The Great War:1914-1918, Various Others
∙ All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Remarque
∙ The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell, 1975
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Aine Clinton
12660043
110GGY326
Geographies of War and Public Memory
Due: 8/12/06
