This week begins a major assault on our senses by the BBC as it begins its World War One Centenary programmes. “It is”, writes Adrian Van Klaveren, the “controller” of the series,

“the most ambitious season we have ever mounted – running for four years across television, radio and online and across national, international and local services. There are already well over 100 specially commissioned new programmes and, in total over the next four years, we expect there to be around 2,500 hours of output related to the centenary.”

Faced with this enormous threat, I began to think of Siegfried Sassoon, the poet famous for his declaration against the war.

Siegfried Sassoon’s declaration against the First World War[1] was not a pacifist statement. He had willingly entered the war because he believed it to be “a war of defiance and liberation”. Moreover, he was decorated during the fighting, receiving the Military Cross (MC) for

“conspicuous gallantry during a raid on the enemy’s trenches. He remained for one and a half hours under rifle and bomb fire collecting and bringing in our wounded. Owing to his courage and determination, all the killed and wounded were brought in.”[2]

But he eventually declared against the war because, he said, it was “being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it”. It had become “a war of aggression and conquest”, prolonged “for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust”. In this he is clearly descended from Williams in Henry V, who insisted that a war had to be a just cause if it was to be supported. An ordinary soldier in the trenches of Agincourt, Williams was unaware that he was speaking to the king himself when he warned:

“But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads chopped off in a battle shall join together at the latter day, and cry all, ‘We died at such a place’ – some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle, for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it …”

Sassoon’s declaration also pointed forward to the next century, when a prime minister would go to war on the basis of non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Said Sassoon:

“I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.”

His strong anti-war position can be seen in his amendments to the poem Anthem for Doomed Youth, by Wilfred Owen, a fellow patient in the Craiglockhart War Hospital in 1917. The amendments are in Sassoon’s handwriting on Owen’s manuscript and Pat Barker reconstructs the scene between them in her novel Regeneration:

“‘What minute-bells for these who die so fast? Only the monstrous/solemn anger of our guns’

“‘I thought “passing” bells’, Owen said.

“‘Hm. Though if you lose “minute” you realize how weak “fast” is. “Only the monstrous anger …”’

“ ‘Solemn?’

“‘Only the solemn anger of our guns. Owen, for God’s sake, this is War Office propaganda.’

“‘No, it’s not.’

“‘Read that line.’

“Owen read. ‘Well, it certainly isn’t meant to be.’

“‘I suppose what you’ve got to decide is who are “these”? The British dead? Because if they’re British, then our guns is …’

“Owen shook his head. ‘All the dead.’

“‘Let’s start there.’ Sassoon crossed out ‘our’ and pencilled in ‘the’. ‘You’re sure that’s what you want? It isn’t a minor change.’

“‘No, I know. If it’s “the”, it’s got to be “monstrous”.’

“‘Agreed.’ Sassoon crossed out ‘solemn’. So:

“‘What passing-bells for these who die … so fast? Only the monstrous anger of the guns.’

“‘Well, there’s nothing wrong with the second line.’

“‘In herds’?”

“‘Better.’”

Here is the finished poem:

“What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.”

(The Poems of Wilfred Owen, Chatto & Windus, London (2008), p. 76)

Yet Sassoon went back to the war. Had he changed his mind about it? W.H.R. Rivers, the hospital psychologist, seems to have told the Board considering his future that he had indeed changed his mind. The chair of the Board was Colonel Balfour Graham:

“Balfour Graham said, ‘This is the young man who believes the war is being fought for the wrong reasons, and that we should explore Germany’s offer of a negotiated peace. Do you think – ’

“‘Those were his views’, Rivers said, ‘while he was still suffering from exhaustion and the after-effects of a shoulder wound. Fortunately a brother officer intervened and he was sent here. Really no more was required than a brief period of rest and reflection. He now feels very strongly that it’s his duty to go back.’”[3]

But Sassoon told the Board he hadn’t changed his views at all:

“Major Huntley [a member of the Board] leaned forward. ‘Rivers tells us you’ve changed your mind about the war. Is that right?’

“A startled glance. ‘No, sir.’

“Balfour Graham and Huntley looked at each other.

“‘You haven’t changed your views?’ Balfour Graham asked.

“‘No, sir.’ Sassoon’s gaze was fixed unwaveringly on Rivers. ‘I believe exactly what I believed in July. Only if possible more strongly.’”[4]

So why did he go back? It looks as if  he felt a strong duty of solidarity with his comrades and guilt at not fulfilling it. He was in the comfort and security of the hospital, while they were in the dirt, stench and merciless danger of the trenches This is what he seems to express in his poem Sick Leave:

“When I’m asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm,–
They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead.
While the dim charging breakers of the storm
Bellow and drone and rumble overhead,
Out of the gloom they gather about my bed.
They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine.
‘Why are you here with all your watches ended?
From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the Line.’
In bitter safety I awake, unfriended;
And while the dawn begins with slashing rain
I think of the Battalion in the mud.
‘When are you going out to them again?
Are they not still your brothers through our blood?’”[5]

So “out to them again” he went. And he survived. Owen was killed in battle a few days before the armistice. Both struggled with ideas of war, peace, duty, solidarity. And they did what they thought was right.

As for me, I agree with Seumas Milne that the First World War was “an imperial bloodbath … not a noble cause” (see http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/08/first-world-war-imperial-bloodbath-warning-noble-cause?CMP=twt_gu ) I have opposed all our recent wars from Vietnam onwards. And I don’t look forward to the triumphalist accounts of the First World War that will mark this centenary. For the various justifications of it offered today will not only sanitise the history but will wrap themselves around the recent wars. Support one, support all, we will be told. I don’t support any of them.

Sassoon’s declaration can be read here: https://bobmouncerblog.wordpress.com/2014/01/03/the-first-world-war-a-soldiers-declaration/