Hist470 Garbarino

Pro Patria Mori: A Comparison of British and German Poetry from the Great War
Memorial at Pontypool, South Wales
Natalie Garbarino
History 470: Senior Seminar
December 10, 2017
1
Introduction
In April 1914, British writer Thomas Hardy wrote and published a month later an ominous
poem entitled “Channel Firing.” In it, the dead buried in a church yard are suddenly awakened by
the sounds of gunfire, and they rise from their graves in alarm. The poem begins with these lines:
“That night your great guns, unawares/Shook all our coffins as we lay…/We thought it was the
Judgment-day,”1 creating an eerie setting that, when taken out of the context of the date, seemingly
refers to the startling events of the First World War. It is interesting to note here how memory of
the war has since changed; at the time, readers would have likely interpreted the work for what it
was: a description of a midnight military exercise taking place on the English Channel. However,
reading the poem with the benefit of hindsight makes it appear to be the world’s response to World
War One.
The poem was unintentionally prophetic in a number of ways. First, it spoke to the shock
many felt when war came suddenly to all corners of the European continent and to everyone’s
attention, as the firing exercise did for the characters in the poem. Next, the lines “It’s gunnery
practice out at sea…/The world is as it used to be/All nations striving to make/Red war yet
redder,”2 showed a society disillusioned with militarism, as it came to be following the war. The
final stanza of the poem, which described the echoes of the cannons reaching across the nation,
has since resonated with the way the impact of the war, nationalistic fervor, and disenchantment
with the enormous losses spread across the country of Great Britain and the European continent.
1
Thomas Hardy, “Channel Firing,” in World War One British Poets: Brooke, Owen, Sassoon, Rosenberg, and
Others, ed. Candace Ward (New York: Dover Publications, 1997) p. 52.
2
Hardy, “Channel Firing,” p. 52.
2
With complicated alliances threatening the stability of European politics, many undoubtedly
recognized the possibility of war, though whether Hardy realized he was writing about the
inevitable is unknown. Certainly his words can be interpreted as such in the wake of one of the
most devastating wars in human history.
This particular poem and others from the time period represent a movement of written
response to the First World War. Many historians regard World War One as the beginning of the
Modern Period in literature, with new styles and themes of poetry as the foundation for this
movement. It is characterized by a stark and sudden deviation from traditional values; many of the
themes in Modern writing are dark, blunt, and pessimistic, in contrast to the idealization of the
previous period. World War One is largely responsible for this radical evolution of thought. In
addition to journals and memoirs, poetry was one of the earliest cultural responses to the war, and
its widespread use led to this drastic shift in literature from romanticism to nihilism, from heroic
epics to cynical expressionism. Although the war itself may not arguably be the only building
block for the Modern Period, it is certainly the most notable and had the strongest influence.
Hardy’s work was a sign of what was to come, both militarily and culturally.3
Only a few months after the publication of “Channel Firing,” the world was indeed at war.
A number of factors—including rapid
industrialization, imperialism, nationalism,
militarization, and complicated alliances—
combined to launch continental Europe into
total warfare, bringing the brutality of war into
personal lives in a way that had never before

A headline from an American newspaper the day the war
began.
3
Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 7.
3
happened on this scale. The Industrial Revolution provided a launching point for the capitalist
system, encouraging wealthy nations to seek further wealth, resources, and markets around the
world. This led to a systematic division of territory across the globe among the wealthiest European
powers, who built their empires quickly and competitively in order to prevent the rise of rival
nations. In the midst of this imperialism was a growing movement in nationalism that had long
been festering and was ever increasing in influence and scope, with nations everywhere demanding
their own borders, sovereignty, and international recognition. One of these new countries, often
blamed for singlehandedly causing World War One, was Germany.
Unified in 1871 through years of nationalist movements, Germany was a newcomer to the
global political scene; its industrialization happened rapidly and thoroughly, putting it in
competition with and eventually surpassing the economy of Great Britain within a few short years.
Other previously dominant European powers saw the efficient industrialization and militarization
of Germany as a threat to their global and economic interests. What resulted from this perceived
threat—though there is little evidence to prove Germany ever intended the world domination so
many accused it of attempting—was a series of tentative, complicated, and overlapping alliances.
Somehow, the world was surprised when these alliances erupted in the summer of 1914 with the
assassination of the Austrian Empire’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife by Serbian
nationalists. Countries quickly took sides, and as Germany rushed to support its only notable ally—
Austria—Europe judged aggression as the only possible motive of this move. Nation declared war
on nation, and by the time the fighting was over, the war had claimed over fifteen million civilian
and military lives, leaving the Germans looking responsible for causing it, and the British
responsible for ending it.

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Regardless of who was responsible, one sentiment that could not be avoided on either side
was that of a profound loss of innocence. The turn of the century had begun optimistically and
naively, yet by the time war began, industrialization led to new, increasingly violent and efficient
ways to kill larger numbers of enemies than ever before, forcing soldiers to dehumanize one
another and become desensitized to the atrocities they committed in the name of honor, glory, and
patriotism. There was no one in Europe left unaffected by the war and its losses. Many found that
some manner of response was required in order to make sense of the tragedy, learn to cope with
it, and potentially move on. Some did this through art, some through literature, and some through
poetry.4 It is the poetic response in particular that merits the attention of this document.
Poetry had the widest variety of answers to the sudden loss of innocence brought on by the
war, among them nostalgia, sadness, cynicism, resentment, and irony. German and British poets,
which will here be compared, had some notable similarities and differences in their writing. This
paper will explore both these similarities and differences, as well as the message the poets hoped
to spread through their work. During and immediately following World War One, British and
German writers attempted to develop a means of coping with the tragedies of the war, and both
did so through poetry. In the midst of the war, the British expressed resentment and cynicism about
the national cause and the sudden loss of innocence through antiwar sentiment, simultaneously
echoing and influencing public perception at home. The Germans expressed a deeper sadness in
their writing, and many German poets criticized the war the way the British did, despite national
opinion and political appearance largely to the contrary. These observations are reflected through
the poetry from both sides.
4
Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, p. 12.
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Historiography
Much of the secondary writing about First World War poetry revolved around style and
methods, but included some level of interpretation of symbolism. This symbolism—how the war
was portrayed through its poetry, and how the poets experienced it—is the primary focus of this
paper. Two sources provided the most significant amount of information on these personal
responses to World War One and the cultural context surrounding them: The Great War and
Modern Memory by Paul Fussell, which focuses on the British viewpoint; and The German Poets
of the First World War by Patrick Bridgwater.
The Great War and Modern Memory, originally published in 1975, dealt with the harsh
reality of warfare through British writings from the trenches, discussing such writers as Robert
Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, and Wilfred Owen. These writers, among others Fussell mentioned in
his work, pioneered the Modern Period through their brutally honest messages about the horrors
of the war. In addition to dissecting the nuances of style unique to these writers and the period as
a whole, Fussell, as the leading scholar on the topic, also spent a great deal of time illustrating uses
of irony, heroism, pessimism, resentment, and myth in these works. It is these sometimes
contradictory characteristics that have allowed British World War One poetry to make such a
lasting impact on the literary world. According to Fussell, these works influenced perception of
the war, both during and after it in Great Britain, launching a new literary movement. Fussell also
devoted time to evaluating these works as historical sources; poems, in addition to letters and
photographs, are some of the only available forms of information about the front lines.
Undoubtedly, the authors sought to add their own personal interpretation, calling into question the
accuracy of some of these poems, though the public at the time of their publication accepted their
accuracy. With so much loss and devastation, Fussell argued, it was easy for many—though not
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all—to accept dark portrayals of the war. In his view, these works led to a movement of nihilism
in both the literature and culture of British society.
The most notable scholar for the German poets discussed in this document is Patrick
Bridgwater in his book The German Poets of the First World War. His book cited both biographical
and analytical information about the poets and their works, especially within the historical context
of the impacts of the war. For the purpose of this work, his book provided the most information
about the personal lives of the German soldiers, particularly Stramm, including some of his
unpublished letters, and translations of a number of poems mentioned in this document. He
examined these authors and their work within the context of German society, culture, and history.
Another notable scholar on the experience of war, Daniel Hipp, wrote The Poetry of Shell Shock,
which will be used in this paper similarly to the two mentioned above. The book said much about
the psychological impact of the war, so it will primarily relate in this work to poetry and personal
accounts written during the fighting. Bitter Wounds by George L. Mosse continued in this vein by
focusing primarily on German experience, covering the glorification German soldiers received
from the public in addition to the pain and trauma they suffered in private. It began by noting the
striking changes brought on by World War One in German culture before discussing the way the
war was remembered by Germans from its immediate aftermath until the Second World War.
These three scholars have studied the progression of war memory, similarly to Fussell, by focusing
on emotional experiences and perception of the war. Used in conjunction with these are personal
accounts of the front lines and Robert Weldon Whalen’s Bitter Wounds, which addressed the
progression in German consciousness toward postwar resentment.
In addition, each poet mentioned has been studied in some depth by one or more
biographers. Jean Moorcroft Wilson wrote an extensive biography of Siegfried Sassoon called
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Soldier, Poet, Lover, Friend which addressed specific details of his life and his personal reactions
to the war. A number of similarly themed biographies have been written about Wilfred Owen,
most notably Guy Cuthbertson’s Wilfred Owen. Fussell provided additional personal information
about the British poets. The German poets also have their notable biographers such as J. M Ritchie
and Bryan Grenville who wrote about Gottfried Benn and Kurt Tucholsky respectively. The most
accurate information about these poets, however, can only be seen in their own words.
Beyond these secondary sources, and in addition to the poems themselves, memoirs from
the poets and from the personal experiences of the soldiers have said much about the personal
impact of the war. Some of these, including memoirs from Sassoon and Graves, letters from Owen,
and memoirs from soldiers at the front gave detailed, firsthand accounts of the war which
substantiate scholarly interpretations of these poems. This personal evidence has supported what
the authors mentioned above claim about World War One poetry, including the impact it had on
those involved.
Ultimately, interpretation of these poems has remained relatively static. The scholars
mentioned above have provided similar analyses of these works, agreeing that the most prominent
themes were antiwar sentiment and sadness over the loss of innocence. The major change occurred
in interest. While the poetic movement was initially slow to gain momentum, it eventually became
wildly successful as the war progressed, especially in Great Britain. However, after the war,
interest in this poetry declined slightly as people began to accept the harsh new world around them
and had less need for coping mechanisms. David Reynolds mentioned in The Long Shadow how
this interest did not reemerge until the Vietnam War because of sympathy for the plight of the
common soldier. The experiences of the Vietnam War were reminiscent of those from World War
One. Since then, scholars such as those mentioned above have started a resurgence of interest in
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war poetry, emphasizing the relevance of these poets and preserving them as important voices of
their time.5 This paper will therefore focus on what scholars have said about these works since the
Vietnam War in the context of primary sources from the poets themselves.
Methodology
The common themes of British and German poetry from the First World War discussed in
the introduction—loss, resentment, cynicism, and romanticism—were exemplified most strongly
in the works of the poets chosen for this analysis. The British poets selected are Robert Graves,
Siegfried Sassoon, and Wilfred Owen. The German poets are August Stramm, Gottfried Benn, and
Kurt Tucholsky. Each of these poets will be discussed within a specific timeframe with specific
research questions in mind. Addressing these questions will require the use of secondary sources
that provide historical context of the war itself, literary criticisms from scholars who have studied
closely these poets and their work, biographies of the poets, and sources such as The Great War
and Modern Memory that explore the writing from a psychological and personal perspective. A
number of other secondary sources will also be vitally important, including biographies of the
poets, translations, and criticisms from both British and German writers to provide adequate
context and supporting evidence. The primary sources involved are the poems themselves, in
addition to memoirs, letters, and diaries from these writers, though these are harder to find for the
German writers. As mentioned previously, these personal records are instrumental in supporting
the claims literary critics make about the poets and their works. They provide evidence for the
motivation behind the themes so commonly used.
5
David Reynolds, The Long Shadow: The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century (New York: W. W.
Norton & Company, 2014), pp. 369-371.
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The following are the research questions that will be answered in this document, in addition
to what has previously been mentioned about the similarities and differences between German and
British war poems already. What were the societal changes brought on by the war? How were they
reflected through poetry? What were the motivations of the poets? Are their works accurate
representations of how these nations felt about the war? What do these poets and their works say
about the legacies of the war? These questions will be answered in the context of each poet
mentioned above by analyzing a selection of their works and looking for evidence of the themes
of cynicism and loss. Answering these questions will partially involve interpreting symbolism, for
which literary criticism is important, as this can provide historical and personal context for each
work; as previously stated, the criticism used here will be primarily from the more recent period
of interest in World War One poetry. The questions will also be answered in the context of a
specific timeframe, focusing on works that were written between 1914 and 1918, from “Channel
Firing” to the Armistice, regardless of when they were published.
Many historians tended to focus on Great Britain and Germany as the main players in
World War One, which is not entirely unfounded. Both nations had significant military
involvement, and both had a tendency to think of each other as opposites, exacerbating the enmity
between them. In addition, they both had historically popular and influential literary movements.
For these reasons, these two countries have been selected for comparison. Famous war poetry was
produced by both of these nations, as they were both impacted by the war in similar magnitudes.
This analysis will provide an opportunity to explore the scope of the impact through the lens of
poetry. Additionally, the final research question—what do these poets and their works say about
the legacies of the war—certainly has a strong answer in regards to Great Britain and Germany.
German resentment in later works reflected the foundation upon which Nazi Germany was built,
10
and British romanticism about the war reflected their appearance in World War Two as the
defenders of good. Many historians, when approaching this topic, tended to overlook the societal
and psychological significance of the poetic response from World War One, placing it in other
categories beyond history and devaluing its importance to the war as a whole. This document will
show that the way war is perceived is a historical matter, regardless of how this perception
manifests itself; the words of these poets have much to say about life during the war and responses
to it.
British Poets
One of the most common forms of artistic response to the war in Great Britain was
undoubtedly poetry. Having a long and prominent literary history, featuring names such as
Shakespeare, Dickens, and Chaucer, it is unsurprising that the British chose the written word to
confront the war personally and emotionally. According to historian David Reynolds in his book
The Long Shadow, over two thousand people during the war published a poem about it in Great
Britain alone.6 The surge of writing from the war brought English literature from outdated
Romanticism to true Modernism and all it entailed: reactionary nihilism and a blunt perspective
on the harsh nature of the new world. The
soldiers so well known today for their war
poetry incorporated an interesting balance of
nationalistic fervor, heroism, and cynicism
throughout the war. It is impossible to make

British soldiers in the trenches.
any chronological distinctions between these
themes given the timeframe; some of the poets saw the importance of rallying the nation to the
6
Reynolds, The Long Shadow, p. 183.
11
cause, while others believed the cause was pointless, some even exhibiting this contradiction from
one poem to the next. Contrasting subjects of antiwar sentiment and heroic nationalism prevailed
throughout the First World War and the postwar period with equal popularity. Part of this stemmed
from a common British belief, even among the soldiers at the front, that their cause was divinely
blessed. They had good reason to believe God’s favor was upon them: until challenged by
Germany, Great Britain was the world’s strongest superpower, unparalleled in industrialization,
military might, and global reach. As a result of this belief, many were surprised when the war did
not immediately turn in Britain’s favor.7 In response to this, British poems were published by the
thousands during the war, and though Britain’s movement was significantly greater in scale than
Germany’s, the two still contained many similarities, such as nationalism and descriptions of
trench life overall.8 The poets studied in this section, however, were more likely to align with
antiwar sentiment, and any nationalism they expressed was mostly satirical. The first example of
this mentioned here is Robert Graves, known for his brutally honest, cynical, and often depressing
depiction of war, if somewhat dramatized in a number of examples. Graves was one of the only
notable British poets to express any discernable pride in the national cause, though he modified
much of his writing to fit the more common antiwar themes of his fellow writers and countrymen.9
Robert Graves: Cynical Dramatist
Born in Wimbledon in 1895, Robert Graves enjoyed a comfortably middle-class childhood
with a solid education and the freedom to travel; he and his family often spent summers vacationing
with his mother’s family near Munich. Despite this upbringing, he was lonely, bullied at school,
7
8
9
12
and relatively unchallenged academically, leading to boredom.10 Thus, when war broke out,
Graves willingly enlisted in the British Army at only nineteen years old, joining the ranks of the
Royal Welch Fusiliers.11 His unit was involved in some of the most brutal fighting of the war,
including the Battle of Loos along the Western Front which was an early attempt by the British to
break the stalemate in France by using poison gas for the first time. This battle, in addition to the
heavy trench warfare Graves endured, shaped his
perception of the war for the worse, leading him to a
cynical approach in his poetry. However, according to his
autobiography, Good-bye to All That, this lack of faith in
the British cause and general sense of negativity was not
always the case.
Because of these challenging experiences, Graves
was hesitant to publish the majority of the poetry he wrote
during the war, though much of it was published during his
lifetime in the interwar period. By the time he came to

Robert Graves in uniform.
terms with his experience, writing had become for him
simply a means of making money, and he even claimed aspects of Good-bye to All That, originally
published in London in 1929, were dramatized to increase popularity and profit. Graves published
a follow-up to this memoir in which he admitted “that he wrote the book to make ‘a lump of
money,’” as Fussell noted.12 His goal was to be a successful writer, and he certainly achieved that,
through somewhat theatrical means in this case. This was unsurprising given that Graves was born
10
11
Candace Ward, World War One British Poets, p. 39.
12
13
into a theatrical and literarily-inclined family: his father was both a poet and a playwright.13 He
recalled both of his parents fondly, claiming to have had a healthy childhood, with a strong
religious upbringing and a good education, though he stated his father had a stronger influence on
his literary career than his education ever did.14 He also mentioned early in the memoir that his
mother was of German descent, and they often visited his grandfather in Germany throughout his
childhood.15 Likely, this familial affinity for both literature and German culture influenced Graves’
rapid conclusion that the war was a senseless slaughter of brothers, leading to his subsequent
responses. He often made this point by the use of drama, both in his memoir and in his poetry.
Dramatization, however, has presented a difficult challenge to address in war poetry. It is
impossible to know exactly what Graves exaggerated or downplayed, despite his admittance to
theatrical tendencies. Fussell made the point in The Great War and Modern Memory that war
poetry should be read with caution, as it was often subject to artistic license; however, these works
were often the only firsthand accounts of warfare available to historians.16 Graves’ poems
represented a common sentiment among soldiers during the war, given the sheer amount of war
poetry available that detailed these feelings. For example, one work in which he illustrated the
irony nationalism has become, a commonly cynical theme among British war poets, was “Goliath
and David,” written in 1917 and published shortly thereafter. In this work, Goliath represented the
German threat and David represented the Biblical righteousness the British often used to defend
their cause. Some of the early lines in the poem referring to David read,
…He swears
That he’s killed lions, he’s killed bears,
And those that scorn the God of Zion
Shall perish so like bear or lion.
13
Robert Graves, Good-bye to All That (London: Anchor Books, 1929), p. 9.
14
Graves, Good-bye to All That, p. 9.
15
16
14
But… the historian of that fight

Had not the heart to tell it right.17
In these lines, Graves questioned the illusion of his nation’s infallibility and strong military history
given the German threat. As the poem continued, it became apparent that the traditional methods
of fighting that have provided “David” with his successes were useless against the giant, just as
the British were surprised the scope of the German threat. David cried out for divine help, but the
final lines of the poem read,
(God’s eyes are dim, His ears are shut.)

One cruel backhand sabre-cut—
‘I’m hit! I’m killed!’ young David cries,
Throws blindly forward, chokes… and dies. 18
With this description, Graves illustrated how utterly unprepared he felt the British were for the
war, fearing defeat was looming over the army like a giant, and scoffing at the nationalistic beliefs
that made young David think he could face an impossible threat. He used this work to express a
common resentment for the British cause that was prevalent among its soldiers.
Graves found himself occasionally sympathizing with the enemy, as evident in some of his
works. He mentioned in his memoir that he and his fellow soldiers in the Royal Welch Fusiliers
were more likely than others to save a wounded enemy soldier, remembering the humanity of the
Germans and blaming instead the futility of the cause itself and the nature of warfare for their
situation: “The Royal Welch were gentlemanly: perhaps a one-in-twenty risk to get a wounded
German to safety would be considered justifiable.”19 He and his fellow Fusiliers often considered
the welfare of the enemy, reminding themselves that the institution of war was responsible for their
suffering. Graves redirected his hatred from the enemy to war and its causes most clearly in his
17
Graves, “Goliath and David,” in World War One British Poets, p. 40.
18
Graves, “Goliath and David,” in World War One British Poetry, p. 41.
19
15
poem “The Next War.” It was a warning to young boys who grow up with heroic ideals of fighting
that are not so glorious in reality; in his opinion, there was no glory in killing one’s fellow man for
the sake of national loyalty. He cautioned the boys that from the moment they begin to play at war,
they will be “bound… / To serve your Army and your King / Prepared to starve and sweat and
die,”20 and he wondered when they would realize that no cause is worth such suffering, regardless
of whose cause it is. The next fight, he claimed, will be worse than this one:
Another War soon gets begun,

A dirtier, a more glorious one;
Then, boys, you’ll have to play, all in;
It’s the cruelest team will win….
And new foul tricks unguessed before
Will win and justify this War.
Kaisers and Czars will strut the stage
Once more with pomp and greed and rage.21
To Graves, it did not matter who sent out the call to arms, if only soldiers would remember that
those against whom they might one day fight are their brothers.
Following the Battle of the Somme in 1916, British newspapers reported Graves dead from
injuries acquired during the battle. Contrary to this report, he survived both the battle and the war.22
When the Armistice ended the war in November 1918, two years after his supposed death, Graves
found himself recalling the names of his dead friends and being unable to participate in the
celebration: “The news sent me out walking alone… cursing and sobbing and thinking of the
dead.”23 He returned home shortly thereafter to the birth of his daughter, moving his family to an
area of Oxford known for its literary scene while he pursued his English degree. The area was one
in which a number of notable poets resided, including Robert Nichols, Edmund Blunden, and Poet
20
Graves, “The Next War,” in World War One British Poetry, p. 45.
21
Graves, “The Next War,” in World War One British Poetry, p. 45
22
23
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Laureate Robert Bridges.24 Graves devoted this time following the war to his writing career,
working toward his degree in literature and publishing “a volume of poems every year from 1920
to 1925.”25 He associated with a number of influential writers, including T. S. Eliot and Virginia
Woolf, and attempted to cope with his memories of war by writing and comparing his experiences
with other poets and writers of the day. A job offer moved him and his family to Egypt, straining
his marriage and leading to a separation in which Graves expatriated himself from both Egypt and
England, inspiring the title of his memoir.26 The war haunted him throughout the rest of his life,
leaving him with an illness called neurasthenia which manifested itself similarly to depression. It
haunted him with a cynical impression of his life, one that was by his side until his death in 1985.27
The above examples of Robert Graves’s works showed how he represented his experience
in the First World War: at times a source of pride, but often one that he believed was misplaced.
Fussell commented, “As a memoirist, Graves seems most interested not in accurate recall but in
recovering moments when he most clearly perceives the knavery of knaves and the foolishness of
fools,”28 representing these moments in his poetry by portraying war as unnecessary and a waste
of both time and life. This cynicism aptly placed him within the contradictory themes of
nationalism and skepticism among British writers during World War One.
Siegfried Sassoon: The Contradiction of Memory
According to historian Elizabeth Marsland, Siegfried Sassoon had the greatest influence
on public perception of the war in Great Britain, primarily during it, but also extensively in the
interwar period. His writing had a profound impact on the collective memory of the British people
24
Graves, Good-bye to All That, pp. 294-295.
25
26
Graves, Good-bye to All That, p. 321, 343.
27
28
17
during and after the war; historians and literary critics still
refer to him as a vital voice of the day. Toward the beginning
of the war, the cohesion of sentiment on the homefront and the
battle lines mentioned in the introduction was a nonentity.
Much of Sassoon’s work focused on bridging this gap in
understanding, and his writing had a profound impact on
public impressions of the war. Marsland mentioned that
Sassoon’s poems were examples of a contradiction between
civilian perception and the reality of warfare, though his

Siegfried Sassoon during the war.
personal writings were somewhat less intense in their war
depictions.29 Sassoon, like Graves, dramatized some of his works to appeal to a wider audience
and increase his popularity, but also to show the great divide between the perception of the war at
home, and the true experience of it at the front. He accomplished this through emotional insights
into the mind of a soldier in one of his autobiographical writings, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer,
and in a number of his most popular poems, such as “Blighters,” “They,” and “Repression of War
Experience.” Consistent with the common themes among British war poets, Sassoon’s writing was
a strong example of antiwar sentiment and cynicism.
By the time the war began, Sassoon had already been serving in the army for a number of
years. The war was for him a purpose, as it was for so many other British soldiers at the time. It
was a chance for him to make his own path and guide his literary career toward a clear subject. 30
He gave a few examples of this in his fictional autobiography, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer. The
29
Elizabeth A. Marsland, The Nation’s Cause: French, English, and German Poetry of the First World War
(London: Routledge, 1991), p. 160.
30
Jean Moorcroft Wilson, Siegfried Sassoon: Soldier, Poet, Lover, Friend (New York: Overlook Duckworth, 2013),
p. 103.
18
work was in fact an allegorical one: though it focused on a character named George Sherston,
historians and critics considered it an autobiography given how closely it paralleled Sassoon’s life.
A large portion of the beginning of this series of memoirs detailed Sassoon’s somewhat luxurious
life before joining the army, and Fussell made the point that this gave Sassoon a unique perspective
when comparing life at the front with life at home; he was able to see clearer than most the stark
contrast between the two. Additionally, war was an active choice for Sassoon given his
socioeconomic standing; this willingness to enlist afforded him an opportunity to write about the
war almost objectively, though the longer it progressed, the more this objectivity changed.31 Once
the memoir began to address his life during the war, Sassoon borrowed from his own experiences
much more often and in greater detail than in other parts of the story. For example, Sherston in
Memoirs received an injury in battle similar to one Sassoon received himself. The book stated in
Sherston’s perspective, “The doctor says that I am a lucky man as the bullet missed my jugular
vein and spine by a fraction of an inch.”32 Sassoon recorded his own injury in a diary entry that
sent him to convalescence. The entry described how he received “a bullet through the shoulder
and [he] was no good for about a quarter of an hour. Luckily it didn’t bleed much.” 33 With the
similarities between the memoir and Sassoon’s journals, it was clear that he drew heavily from
personal experience in his written works, especially in regards to cynicism. There is further
evidence of this in his poetry.
“Blighters,” a poem written in 1917 during a convalescence at home, illustrated Sassoon’s
perception of the views of war away from the front. Though drafts and notes of this work cannot
be located in Sassoon’s journals, the work itself gave a detailed description of his feelings on the
31
32
Siegfried Sassoon, The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston (London: Faber and Faber, 1937), p. 449.
33
Siegfried Sassoon, Sassoon Journals, 11 April 1917 – 2 June 1917, 16 April 1917, University of Cambridge
Digital Library.
19
juxtaposition between life on the homefront and life in the trenches. The poem was a brief
depiction of how civilians at home used the war for entertainment and to garner national support
of the cause. Sassoon’s biographer Jean Moorcroft Wilson observed that the work is a violent and
vividly malicious response to the fear Sassoon and his fellow soldiers experienced at the front in
contrast to ignorance and apathy among civilians, especially when considering the cruel image he
created of the audience.34 In response to the total lack of understanding on the audience’s part in
the persona’s observation, the poem said,
The House is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin

And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks
Of harlots shrill the chorus; drunk with din
‘We’re sure the Kaiser loves the dear old Tanks!’
I’d like to see a Tank come down the stalls,

Lurching to ragtime tunes, ‘Home, Sweet Home,’—
And there’d be no more jokes in Music-halls
To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume. 35
Sassoon gave a brutal depiction of the audience, using harsh words like “cackle” and “harlots” to
illustrate his distaste for their callousness and lack of understanding. In his eyes, this misperception
was so profound that he felt the only way to bridge the divide would be to bring the war home.
This poem showed his obvious disillusionment with the British cause, calling this performance
and other propaganda pieces like it “jokes.” Wilson noted that this poem was evident of “his loss
of belief in the War [which] had shaped itself from a ‘ferment of disturbing and disorderly ideas’
into a more coherent form,”36 voicing the increasingly popular antiwar sentiments among the
soldiers at the front. As Marsland mentioned, this sentiment eventually reached and permeated the
homefront primarily through Sassoon’s writing.37
34
Wilson, Siegfried Sassoon, p. 196.
35
Sassoon, “Blighters,” in World War One British Poetry, pp. 33-34.
36
37
Marsland, The Nation’s Cause, p. 160.
20
Sassoon expressed another distinct contrast between the reality of the war and its portrayal
at home in “They.” The poem was written before “Blighters,” but significantly addressed not only
the commercialized version of the war, but also the religious movement surrounding it. This was
another relatively short work, but said much in few words. It was one of his most well-known
poems, based on a true event, and confronted the question of faith in the face of the horrors of
World War One.38 Many soldiers questioned God’s presence, and Sassoon intended “They” to
mock the church’s feeble attempts to answer impossible questions brought on by the violence of
the conflict. Wilson described its blunt language as a response to the insufficiency of faith in the
face of an unexpectedly brutal war, and Sassoon hoped to enlighten his readers to the ways in
which the church exacerbated the divide in understanding.39 The first stanza described a bishop
addressing his congregation and explaining the change his parishioners will notice in their loved
ones as they return from the front, that they will somehow be tangibly blessed by performing God’s
holy will. The second stanza, from the perspective of the soldiers, agreed that they certainly have
changed:
‘We’re none of us the same!’ the boys reply.

‘For George lost both his legs; and Bill’s stone blind;
Poor Jim’s shot through the lungs and like to die;
And Bert’s gone syphilitic: you’ll not find
A chap who’s served and hasn’t found some change.’
And the bishop said: ‘The ways of God are strange!” 40
His language mocked the common idea that war is a glorious endeavor, one that would, according
to the bishop, bless those who follow God’s cause. Instead, Sassoon attempted to illustrate the
reality of war which no one seemed to comprehend, and to which not even the representatives of
God could answer. The longer the war dragged on and the bloodier it became, the more soldiers
38
Sassoon, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, p. 631.
39
40
Sassoon, “They,” in World War One British Poets, p. 34.
21
began to question the old ways of thought, including faith, leading to deep disillusionment and
resentment. As previously mentioned, this poem is based on a similar personal encounter with a
bishop mentioned in Memoirs. Sassoon recorded the bishop “speaking with stimulating heartiness,
as one having authority from a Higher Quarter… ‘Our lads feel that they’d rather die than see their
own land treated like Belgium. It is religion which keeps the morale of the British so high.’”41
Obviously his impression of this sermon was not a favorable one and led to the inspiration for
“They.” Sassoon addressed this rejection of previously held truths in an earlier entry from his diary
dated December 1917. In this entry, he discussed his own feelings on the lengthening of the war
and how it became increasingly harder to comprehend, with no sufficient reasons for these
atrocities: “I will try and be peaceful… it is the only way by which I can hope to take the horrors
of the front without breaking down completely. I must try to think as little as possible. And think
happy poems. (Can I?)”42 He used poems and thoughts like these to show his protest for the
continuation of the war and the pointlessness of the war itself by contrasting homefront opinions
with his own feelings, both privately and publically.
Sassoon continued in his great showcase of contradictory perception in one of his later
works, “Repression of War Experience,” which was published in 1918. Sassoon wrote it a year
prior while he was convalescing away from the front, trying to recover from shell shock while
constantly being subjected to the audible echoes of the gunfire from across the English Channel.
Memories of the war would not leave him, and it prompted him to compose this particular work.43
The poem used a unique writing method that was new to literature called stream of consciousness,
and was often used by writers and poets to give realistic depictions of human thought progression.
41
Sassoon, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, p. 631.
42
Sassoon, Sassoon Journals, 26 November 1917- May 2018, 11 December 1917, University of Cambridge Digital
Library.
43
Wilson, Siegfried Sassoon, p. 238-239.
22
Though not one of his more popular works, “Repression of War Experience” attempted to explain
to readers Sassoon’s own interpretation on the concept of shell shock and returning from the war
changed. Resuming normal life after war was often a near-impossible task for many soldiers.
Civilians who had been relatively unaffected by the war expected a quick recovery and could not
comprehend the emotional effects of such devastation. Sassoon himself was hospitalized for this
emotional trauma, and wrote “Repression of War Experience” to try to express this challenge.44
Professor Daniel Hipp described Sassoon’s battle with shell shock as a contradiction
between national loyalty and a survival instinct; however, this instinct referred not only to life
itself but to public image. In Sassoon’s view and the view of many others at the time, returning
home without noticeable signs of trauma implied a lack of courage and a detrimentally decreased
desire for glory.45 “Repression of War Experience” illustrated this conflict in vivid, despairing
detail:
Now light the candles; one; two; there’s a moth;

What silly beggars they are to blunder in
And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame—
No, no, not that, —it’s bad to think of war
When thoughts you’ve gagged all day come back to scare you;
And it’s been proved that soldiers don’t go mad
Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts.”46
The halting writing style symbolized the equally halting progression of the persona’s thoughts as
he attempted to distract himself from remembering the war. His only method of coping with the
trauma was ignoring the experience altogether. He continued by reassuring himself of his sanity,
but as his thoughts persisted, he could not restrain the memories any longer by distraction. The
final stanza of the poem read:
You’re quiet and peaceful, summering safe at home;
44
Daniel Hipp, The Poetry of Shell Shock: Wartime Trauma and Healing in Wilfred Owen, Ivor Gurney, and
Siegfried Sassoon (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2005), p. 156.
45
Hipp, The Poetry of Shell Shock, p. 157.
46
Sassoon, “Repression of War Experience,” in World War One British Poetry, p. 37.
23
You’d never think there was a bloody war on! …

O yes, you would… why, you can hear the guns.
Hark! Thud, thud, thud, — quite soft… they never cease—
Those whispering guns— O Christ, I want to go out
And screech at them to stop—I’m going crazy;
I’m going stark, staring mad because of the guns. 47
In the first line of this stanza, Sassoon once more blamed the national cause for this trauma,
illustrating how many who heroically served their country were rewarded by constantly reliving
the experience. One must wonder if any cause is worth such consequences.
Heroic action in his first real taste of battle at Mametz earned Sassoon a Military Cross and
a Distinguished Service Order, the first of which he supposedly threw into a river after the war to
express his disgust for such bloodshed.48 Like Graves, Sassoon outlived the war. An injury in July
1918 again brought Sassoon to England, and he had every intention of returning to the front,
despite his antiwar sentiment; loyalty to the men with whom he served called him back, though
his recovery lasted longer than the war. During this recovery, Sassoon was in close contact with
both Robert Graves and Wilfred Owen, the three of whom inspired each other’s writing and
antiwar sentiment.49 Toward the end of his recovery, this sentiment evolved into outright
bitterness; the Germans had made an attempt at armistice in 1917 which the Allies did not take
seriously until 1918. In the time between when the Germans requested armistice and when it
actually took place, the unnecessary waste of life continued, and Sassoon lost a number of close
friends to the war, including Owen. Since he believed the war had gone on longer than it should
have, the patriotic celebrations following the Armistice sickened him, although he resolved to
move on as peacefully as he could.50 Sassoon continued writing throughout the rest of his life,
using literature in the interwar period to cope with memories of war. These memories plagued his
47
Sassoon, “Repression of War Experience,” in World War One British Poetry, p. 38.
48
49
Wilson, Siegfried Sassoon, pp. 312, 317.
50
Wilson, Siegfried Sassoon, p. 334-335.
24
mind for years, and he felt that he still had not found any concrete answers for the questions the
war forced upon him.51 Sassoon published Memoirs in the 1930s with resounding success,
furthering his literary career and popularity; his focus from this point was mainly books based on
his personal experiences, all of which were well received and reviewed. His antiwar sentiment
continued throughout the Second World War, along with his success, and he died of cancer in
1967, having reclaimed good spirits that were with him through the end.52
Wilfred Owen: Dissimilarity of Experience
Perhaps better than either of the poets mentioned above, Wilfred Owen portrayed the cruel
reality of trench warfare and its subsequent cynicism, in part because he had more experience with
it than Graves or Sassoon. His family was not particularly wealthy or privileged, giving him a
unique perspective of the experience. In contrast to Sassoon who went to war willingly with an
objective perspective in mind, Owen enlisted, but was not happy to do so. Before the war began,
Owen was an English tutor, and he had always aspired to be a poet.53 He was twenty-one years old
when war broke out, and had already been composing poetry for years, a habit that continued
throughout the war until his death only one week before the Armistice in 1918.54 He participated
in the single bloodiest encounter of the war, the Battle of the Somme, which permanently shaped
his antiwar sentiment and inspired a recurring theme in his writing of the contrast between the
reality of war and its perception at home, particularly between the classes. Soldiers of Owen’s
station were involved in some of the harshest fighting, giving them less of an opportunity to form
objective opinions. Some of his personal letters attempted to make this divide clearer, though most
51
52
Wilson, Siegfried Sassoon, pp. 506, 527, 568.
53
54
Helen McPhail and Phillip Guest, On the Trail of the Poets of the Great War: Wilfred Owen (South Yorkshire:
Pen Sword Books Limited, 1998), p. 18.
25
of them omitted certain harsher realities for the sake of his family. The truest expression of his
sentiments occurred in his poetry, particularly “Anthem for Doomed Youth,” “Strange Meeting,”
and “Dulce et Decorum Est.”
Owen had one of the darkest experiences of World
War One recorded in writing, in part, perhaps, because of
the impact of his initial reluctance to enlist. In the summer
of 1917, he arrived at a convalescent home due to a severe
case of shell shock. This case resulted from a series of
violent war experiences, the most recent of which had been
a shell that exploded nearby his position during battle on
the Western Front.55 In his letters home, most of which
were addressed to his mother, he often tried to refrain from
A portrait of Wilfred Owen included in his first providing honest details, but one sent home a few months
published volume of poetry.
before the Battle of the Somme read, “‘I can see no excuse
for deceiving you about these 4 days. I have suffered seventh hell. I have not been at the front. I
have been in front of it.’”56 Other detailed descriptions he allowed included the surest companion
to trench warfare: mud. Another letter written about the same time described it thus: “It has
penetrated now into that Sanctuary my sleeping bag, and that holy of holies my pyjamas. For I
sleep on a stone floor and the servant squashed mud on all my belongings; I suppose by way of
baptism.”57 He wrote optimistically in later letters, particularly in one describing success in battle:
“Twice in one day we went over the top, gaining both our objectives…. I had some extraordinary
55
Guy Cuthbertson, Wilfred Owen (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014) p. 178.
56
57
Wilfred Owen, letter to Susan Owen, 4 January 1917.
26
escapes from shells and bullets.”58 His depictions here were somewhat heroic, attempting to keep
his mother from dismay, but he expressed the truth quite differently in his poetry.
“Anthem for Doomed Youth,” written in 1917 during Owen’s convalescence, explicitly
mocked the ways war was praised in Great Britain, showing resentment over the divide between
civilian and military perception. It did so by contrasting the stereotypical sounds of glory—bells
and choirs—with the rhythm of gunfire, and the imagery of home with the imagery of the trenches.
Marsland described how Owen showed in this poem that what might have once been an acceptable
memorial for the dead no longer applies in this gruesome situation, as he felt they were only
remembered through the continued sounds of warfare; if Europe truly wanted to remember her
fallen, he believed, she would have ceased the sounds of gunfire and returned to bells and choirs.59
The poem opened with these lines:
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. 60
Owen used this poem to illustrate his cynicism about the cause, and that, in his opinion, the only
element of war deserving of blame was war itself.61 As the poem progressed to imagery at the
homefront and the uselessness of revering war, Owen’s resentment for the cause became
increasingly obvious. Even the title suggested this resentment over the public perception of war in
contrast to its reality. “Anthem” represented the heroic ideals of the war at home, while “Doomed
Youth” revealed the truth of the situation.
58
Wilfred Owen, letter to Susan Owen, 25 April 1917.
59
Marsland, The Nation’s Cause, 153.
60
Owen, “Anthem for Doomed Youth,” in World War One British Poetry, p. 25.
61
27
If “Anthem for Doomed Youth” contrasted war at the front with war at home, “Strange
Meeting” gave a more detailed description of that frontline war, including the paradox between
national and personal responsibility for the horrors of war. One historian described it as a unique
perspective that allowed the persona to shift effortlessly between hero and villain, blurring the
lines between the two in both the reader’s mind and the persona’s perception of his own identity.62
The poem told the story of a soldier in the trenches having an unusual encounter with another
soldier which made him question his own role in the war. The lines that illustrate this most clearly
were,
‘Strange friend,’ I said, ‘here is no cause to mourn.’

‘None,’ said that other, ‘save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also….’63
The conversation continued, with the stranger, identified by scholars as an enemy soldier,
reminiscing about his former life before the darkness of the trenches and tunnels. Though the
persona has no further lines in the poem, the reader can tangibly perceive his impression of the
conversation, including how much he personally related to it, even the extent to which he seems
to absorb it as his own experience. Trench warfare had this effect on Owen; it made him question
why he and his fellow soldiers were fighting at all, when the enemy was so similar to themselves.
This was a common struggle among soldiers in the trenches: accepting their own contributions to
the war’s brutality. “Strange Meeting” was a metaphor for Owen’s experiences and those of his
fellow soldiers as he came to realize through the horrors of trench warfare the role he played in the
war’s continuation.64
62
63
Owen, “Strange Meeting,” in World War One British Poetry, p. 25.
64
28
Not only Owen’s most popular poem, but also arguably the most renowned poem to emerge
from the First World War, “Dulce et Decorum Est” made a profound illustration of the reality of
war. Literary critics and historians have long been fascinated with this work, analyzing it for its
accuracy and harsh display of both antiwar sentiment and mental illness. The work was born of
his own experience with shell shock during convalescence at Craiglockhart War Hospital, where
he met and briefly worked with Siegfried Sassoon.65 He wrote this reactionary poem to express
the suddenness with which attacks occurred, using language that suggested the grotesque nature
of the human condition during war.66 The first stanza described this condition, illustrating a
company retreating dejectedly from the front lines, desensitized to their experiences. The second
stanza interrupted this description with a sudden:
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.67
Whether these lines refer to a specific incident or a generalized occurrence in Owen’s experience
was unclear, but the context resonated with other experiences of the war, especially the subsequent
lines that described how this face he saw drowning in gas continued to haunt him. This section of
the poem established his sense of helplessness and feeling that the war would never end. The final
stanza returned to Owen’s recurring theme of resenting the divide between civilian and soldier as
he addressed the reader directly:
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in…
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
65
Cuthbertson, Wilfred Owen, p. 206.
66
67
Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est,” in World War One British Poetry, pp. 21-22.
29
Pro patria mori.68
In vivid, harrowing detail, Owen shattered the illusions of war. The final lines, a common phrase
in Latin, translate to “it is a sweet and fitting thing to die for your country.”69 These lines were
inscribed on the chapel wall at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst where Owen spent a brief
period of his service. He made this reference to mock institutionalized warfare, drawing from his
own experiences.70 With this, his most profound work, Owen decisively denounced the national
cause, illustrating that nothing was worth such emotional and physical detriment, not even an old
lie once revered as a profound truth.
Only a day after the Allies agreed to Germany’s request for an armistice, Wilfred Owen
died in battle, seven days before the Armistice was officially signed and the war ended. In his last
letter to his mother, dated October 31, 1917, he wrote:
It is a great life. I am more oblivious than alas! yourself, dear Mother, of the ghastly glimmering of
the guns outside, and the hollow crashing of the shells. There is no danger down here, or if any, it
will be well over before you read these lines. I hope you are as warm as I am, as serene in your room
as I am here…. Of this I am certain you could never be visited by a band of friends half so fine as
surround me here.71
He also mentioned in a prior letter that his mother should expect his return home by February
1919. His death occurred on November 4 when his battalion crossed a canal near Ors, France to
confront the Germans stationed on the other side.72 Only a week later, Europe was at peace. After
the war, Owen was one of several British poets memorialized in the Poets’ Corner at Westminster
Abbey, his name inscribed in stone there among the names of numerous other world-renown
British poets, speaking to his success and popularity. His works were published posthumously with
68
Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est,” in World War One British Poetry, p. 22.
69
Ward, World War One British Poetry, p. 22.
70
71
Wilfred Owen, letter to Susan Owen, 31 October 1917 (Harry Ransom Center: The University of Texas at
Austin).
72
30
the help of friends: Sassoon introduced the first published volume of Owen’s poetry in 1920, and
Edmund Blunden introduced another in 1931. His friends and family ensured his words were not
forgotten, knowing that his voice would be relevant for years to come.73
German Poetry
Arthur Boer, a member of the German army who fought against Russia—ally of Britain
and France—on the Eastern Front, wrote these words in his memoir: “We were still boys. We still
regarded such a manly life in the military as an adventure… It is only when… we lack the
possibility of giving our feelings expression through uncontrollable weeping, then and not before
the true, serious man is awakened.”74 Victor’s justice following the Armistice made many forget
that the Germans had suffered just as greatly as the British had, as exemplified in his memoir. They
too sought to express their feelings about the war through the written word. German culture has a
rich, well-known literary history, gaining its earliest popularity in Medieval writing and
culminating in the Modern writers mentioned here, comparable in skill and popularity to those of
Great Britain.75 Especially in the years leading up to the First World War, Germany became
increasingly militaristic and nationalistic, preoccupied with strengthening its standing on the world
scene. Some of this strict militarism led to attempts—and often failures—to suppress the poetic
movement during the war. Thus far, this document has discussed the impact of World War One on
the British literary movement. Whereas that movement had no clear distinction between
nationalism and antiwar sentiment, the progression is somewhat clearer in German war poetry.
Much of the early writings at the start of the conflict contained a sense of profound loss, and from
73
Cuthbertson, Wilfred Owen, pp. 298-299.
74
Arthur H. Boer, The Great War from the German Trenches: A Sapper’s Memoir, 1914-1918 (Jefferson:
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2016), p. 62.
75
Judith Ryan, The Cambridge Introduction to German Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), p.
16.
31
that point, readers can follow the progression from sadness to resentment, partially influenced by
censorship regulations. National pride among Germans was arguably comparable to that of the
British, but many of these writers were adamantly critical of war and brutal in their descriptions
of it, regardless of whether or not this represented common national sentiment. This was evident
in their poetry, specifically works by August Stramm, Gottfried Benn, and Kurt Tucholsky. This
rapid evolution in writing occurred because of the rapid evolution of the world around these poets.
Throughout the course of the war, the Germans suffered the deaths of nearly two million soldiers,
not including injured or prisoners of war. These high casualties resulted in both the loss mentioned
above and nihilism, a rejection of previously-held truths and faith. Historian Robert Whalen quoted
writer Heinrich Mann’s interpretation on the war, describing how soldiers became increasingly
desensitized to these feelings: “‘I do now know if anyone can actually help his fellow-men to live,
but for God’s sake don’t ever allow our literature to help them die.... The time will come, I hope,
in which you will see people, not shadows.’”76 German poets predominantly used their writing to
both memorialize their fallen and protest the war, showing an interesting balance between sadness
and cynicism. August Stramm was one of the German poets who exemplified this.
German Soldiers in the trenches.
76
Robert Weldon Whalen, Bitter Wounds: German Victims of the Great War, 1914-1939 (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1984), p. 21.
32
August Stramm: Literary Innovator
In the German literary world, August Stramm was known as the pioneer of Modern poetry.
His blunt style showed an attempt to, according to historian Patrick Bridgwater, give the reader a
sense of the persona’s experiences as they occur, almost through the persona’s very perspective.77
This was an experiment unique to Modern writing which became known as stream of
consciousness, a method that poets such as Siegfried Sassoon employed only a few years later and
one which set the standard for Modern writing as the period progressed. This technique resulted
from his war experience, culminating in his war poetry. Stramm lived in a society that glorified
war, and he found this attitude morally and factually lacking when he arrived at the front. This
society focused on military and civilian achievements, categorized life by these achievements, and
emphasized manliness, discipline, and brutality.78 Stramm was disillusioned by the truth of warfare
when he experienced it first hand, and developed this style of writing to convey his message. It
was a method not entirely uncommon among other war poets, particularly those in Great Britain:
he approached his writing like an artist, seeking to show rather than tell his personal response to
the horror of war. Bridgwater continued by saying that Stramm felt incapable of adequately voicing
what he experienced, and that these moments were beyond words in Stramm’s eyes. He tried
instead to force feeling on his readers. He felt many of these experiences could only be described
through raw emotion rather than eloquent speech.79
Stramm was involved in the war from its earliest beginnings, fighting on the Eastern Front
until he was killed a year after the start of the war. His antiwar sentiment was no secret, even early
in the conflict, and he expressed it in equal parts sadness and bitterness, although he was not
77
Patrick Bridgwater, The German Poets of the First World War (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985), p. 39.
78
George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1990), p. 166.
79
Bridgwater, The German Poets, p. 40.
33
blatantly critical.80 His writing epitomized the way German soldiers felt the heroic promises they
had heard before the war were lies.81 The poems discussed in this section, “Guard-Duty,”
“Battlefield,” and “Injury,” all exemplified the reality of war as Stramm saw it: an ambiguous
monster that desensitized rational human beings to the worst violence, contrasted starkly to the
portrayal with which he was familiar before the war. These works displayed his unique style and
use of disjointed language to convey impressions rather than descriptions. All of them were
harrowing examples of the war from the German perspective, showing that both sides were equally
appalled by the new world into which they had been thrown.
“Guard-Duty,” a mere ten lines, bore
almost no resemblance to the poetry of
Stramm’s predecessors, but this was exactly
what Stramm hoped to accomplish. Just as the
war sundered the past from the present, and
the elite from the common man, his style of

August Stramm in uniform, ca. 1914.
writing divided poetry as it used to be from
poetry as it must be to cope with the realities of this new world. This world in Stramm’s view was
harsh, militaristic, violent, and cold, perpetuated by German society’s emphasis on manliness and
brute progress, as mentioned above. The poem was written during the war, presumably in 1914,
although exactly when is unknown; it was published posthumously since Stramm did not survive
the war. The poem read thus:
A star frightens the steeple cross

a horse gasps smoke
iron clanks drowsily
mists spread
80
Bridgwater, The German Poets, pp. 41-42.
81
Mosse, Fallen Soldiers, p. 57.
34
fear
staring shivering
shivering
cajoling
whispering
You!82
The poem devolved from imagery to expressionism as the fear of the persona’s—presumably
Stramm’s—experience increased. The star mentioned in the first line represented a bomb or a flare,
setting the scene for the horror that ensued. Although it was intentionally difficult to determine
exactly what this horror was beyond a general impression of war itself, the poem ended with a
dreaded confrontation. Interestingly, it was not specific about either friend or foe; the “You!”
mentioned in the last line could have been anyone. The point he was trying to make was that war
becomes an ambiguous event in which every aspect of one’s surroundings could potentially be a
source of fear. Another German soldier from the Eastern Front described it similarly in his memoir,
when his company was awaiting orders to carry out an attack—waiting, as Stramm described in
“Guard-Duty,” to confront the face of fear. He wrote, “This waiting period was the most tension-
filled for us young soldiers. How would things go? We had no idea of the real, serious
situation.…”83 This fear of confronting the unknown was exactly what Stramm portrayed in
“Guard-Duty,” a feeling that haunted so many soldiers throughout the war and one that
permanently altered the perceptions of those who had once been innocent, both at the front and at
home.
German historian Scott Denham further reinforced the novelty Stramm’s writing style by
contextualizing it with the timeframe of Stramm’s death. He argued that even with Stramm’s
limited experience of warfare, what he witnessed was enough to help launch a new literary
82
August Stramm, “Guard-Duty,” in The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry, ed. Jon Silkin (London:
Penguin Books, 1996), p. 250.
83
Arthur H. Boer, The Great War from the German Trenches, p. 63.
35
movement for the Germans—one that was not afraid to reveal the truth about war—and still
permanently alter his perception of warfare.84 “Battlefield,” written in January 1915, confirmed
how quickly Stramm realized the realities of war and altered his response accordingly. Another
short work, only eight lines, “Battlefield” confronted loss of innocence in a scene typical of the
war:
Yielding clod lulls iron off to sleep

bloods clot the patches where they oozed
rusts crumble
fleshes slime
sucking lusts around decay.
Murder on murder
blinks
in childish eyes.85
Compared to “Guard-Duty,” this work followed a similar pattern of devolving from description to
impression, comparing soldiers to innocent children as they beheld a scene for which they were
wholly unprepared. The bleak devastation of the battlefield, particularly the sheer amount of loss,
was difficult and disturbing for Stramm and his fellow soldiers to comprehend. The war suddenly
awakened them to a brutal new reality. One historian, in an essay on Stramm’s work, described
his approach to writing as a reflection of the inner man, particularly during extreme responses to
environmental or external traumas.86 Patrick Bridgwater further commented on this work,
addressing the imagery of the first few lines in which both the mud and the weapons, he claimed,
presented equal danger. The word choices represented highly personal impressions of the war
while simultaneously criticizing the normality of this battlefield scene across Europe. 87 Stramm
addressed his heavy focus on the inner self and its experiences with these words from a personal
84
Scott D. Denham, “Visions of War: Ideologies and Images of War in German Literature Before and After the
Great War,” Germanic Studies in America, no. 64 (1992): p. 100.
85
Stramm, “Battlefield,” in The Penguin Book of First World War One Poetry, p. 250.
86
Michael Hamburger, “The Expressionist Mode,” in Modern German Poetry, ed. Harold Bloom (New York:
Chelsea House Publishers, 1989) p. 62.
87
Bridgwater, The German Poets of the First World War, p. 44.
36
letter: “‘I’m living in a deep, deep frenzy. Inwardly. Not outwardly…. They call me brave. And I
am brave too and have to clench my teeth when tears threaten to unman me.’”88 Stramm paralleled
the image of the battlefield with the inner struggle of a soldier: one of a child facing the destruction
of his world, a struggle which soldiers felt across the continent.
In “Injury,” Stramm provided with gripping emotion the sensation of a wounded soldier.
This poem was not only an example of antiwar sentiment, but an expression of a soldier’s sadness
and an attempt to create understanding about the reality of war. Its nine lines were as follows:
The earth hemorrhages beneath your helmet.

Stars plummet.
A universe gropes around.
Shivers thud
and lonelinesses reel.
Fog
sweats
your eyes
distant.89
Bridgwater commented that Stramm showed through impressions the experience of being
wounded in battle by comparing the soldier’s wound to the earth itself bleeding and mourning.90
Upon receiving this injury, the soldier found his world reordered around the pain, showing his
disorientation most clearly in the line “A universe gropes around.” As the soldier lay dying, he
realized how completely alone he was, both in the depth of his experience and the physical
separation from his home and family. Bridgwater noted that in the soldier’s final moments, he lost
his individuality and was reduced to a number, merely one of millions who had died in a similar
manner.91 The poem was a cold and blunt response to an unsympathetic and unfair event, one
which clearly expressed Stramm’s antiwar sentiment and his sadness at the state of the world. In
88
Bridgewater, The German Poets of the First World War, p. 42.
89
August Stramm, “Injury,” in The Last Drop: Versions of August Stramm, ed. Alistair Noon (Colchester: Alistair
Noon, 2009), p. 5.
90
91
37
another personal letter, Stramm wrote about this personal devastation: “‘There is so much death in
me death and more death. Inwardly I weep and outwardly I am hard and tough… Everything is so
contradictory, I cannot find a way through the enigma…. I belong to the living dead. I need to
murder murder then I shall at least be at one with the murder all around.’”92 Thus, so much death
occurred around him that he had lost his ability to describe it with mere words.
When reading his personal writings, one can clearly see how Stramm’s antiwar sentiment
was not simply a marketing ploy to gain popularity or an attempt at literary innovation. In a letter
to his wife dated May 20, 1915, Stramm gave a disturbing description of battle along the Eastern
Front, an illustration which resonated with the theme of constant fear in “Guard-Duty” and which
was a clear inspiration for “Battlefield.” He wrote, “… there is no word for it! Shooting, slashing,
stabbing, bashing…. There were no more Russians, only corpses, a few ragged, dreadfully
trembling prisoners, otherwise all dead! Heaps!... I have never experienced such a thing, never
want to experience it again, and will never speak of it again.”93 Even in this personal response, one
that he never expected would reach the public eye, he told of his inability to express what he faced.
In Stramm’s day, the brutality and militarism of German politics normalized war and desensitized
people to its effects, ruthlessly militarizing at the cost of great human life, something Stramm
hoped more people would understand through his writing.94 He attempted to remedy this in his
poetry the only way he felt was adequate: by evoking feelings readers had never attempted to
comprehend. Only one month after taking leave from the Eastern Front to visit his family, Stramm
died in battle from a head wound on September 1, 1915, at Brest-Litovsk, ironically the site of
peace between Russia and Germany on the Eastern Front only two years later.
92
93
August Stramm, letter to Else Stramm, 20 May 1915 (CBC.ca).
94
Mosse, Fallen Soldiers, pp. 159-160.
38
Gottfried Benn: The Dispassionate Observer
German poet Gottfried Benn began writing poetry and prose in college. In 1912, he became
a doctor and served in the German army two years later when the war began.95 His medical work,
initially involved with diseases of the mind, lent him a critical and often cold approach to his
writing, most well exemplified in his poetry about the loss of innocence generated by the war. He
spent only two months serving at the front before being assigned to oversee the medical needs of
a military base in occupied Belgium. There, he was subjected to both isolation and a profound
sense of being misunderstood, while also enduring the hatred of Belgians in the area. 96 The
majority of his most successful works were written after the war, but what he published during it
was an excellent example of Modern writing, particularly the nihilism that resulted from the war’s
later years. Though not all of his works addressed the war directly, the echoes of his experiences
in it were evident. The works that most exemplified this are those contained in a volume published
in 1917 called Fleisch. Although much of Benn’s popularity occurred after the war, he launched
his career with the dark and indifferent works from this period. Those studied in this section will
be “Cocaine” and “Mother.”
By the time he published this volume, Benn was already quite popular. Much of his poetry,
particularly in this period, seemed to have a fascination with self-awareness and exposure,
stemming from his background in psychiatry, although this particular focus challenged his
popularity abroad.97 “Cocaine” described one such example of self-awareness in the form of a
criticism of the world the war created. Benn illustrated an experience using drugs as a coping
mechanism. This work did not mention the war by name, but some of the imagery in it pointed to
95
J. M. Ritchie, Gottfried Benn: The Unreconstructed Expressionist (London: Oswald Wolff, 1972), p. 15.
96
Ritchie, Gottfried Benn, p. 17.
97
39
the impact the war had on his life; one such line was as follows: “… out of steel beats, sunk into
the heather / Where hilts of hardly revealed forms are resting…”98 The persona illustrated the way
addiction had warped his perception of the horror he experienced: the “hardly revealed forms”
represented the dead strewn across Europe, plaguing the poet’s memory even as he abused drugs
to attempt to forget. From that point, the poem became increasingly more gruesome, describing
one of these forms rising from the earth in the vivid detail of its decomposition. One apt description
of this blunt imagery and use of a coping mechanism, by historian Robert Whalen, was that the
war shocked so many so profoundly that they needed to make order of the new disorder. Just as
the British, the Germans too were searching for answers to questions forced upon humanity by the
war.99 Through this work, Benn illustrated the heavy psychological impact of the war on German
consciousness and the ways it had forced them to cope with such horrific memories.
Germans were not initially as traumatized by and opposed to war as Benn painted them. In
fact, public sentiment in his day was that war was a necessary institution to strengthen and unify a
nation not against an external enemy, but against internal division, as historian George L. Mosse
pointed out.100 As a result of this mentality, young German men enlisted in droves at the beginning
of the Great War, though many were also conscripted. Legends of war from German history
inspired them to pursue a life of adventure and glory which had previously only been available to
the educated elite. With the advent of the war, this pursuit of glory became an opportunity for the
average German, particularly among the youth. As a result, many of the popular German writers
of the time were in their mid to late twenties at the start of the war, including Benn. Their
98
Gottfried Benn, “Cocaine,” in Fleisch: Gessamelte Lyrik, trans. Geraldine Suter (1917), p. 62.
99
Whalen, Bitter Wounds, p. 31.
100
40
perspectives quickly shifted, however, from idealization to realization.101 Benn showed the latter
side of this shift.
“Mother” was a slightly more personal response to the war, but it contained a twofold
message: the first impression Benn intended was of a soldier fondly remembering home,
specifically his mother, and carrying these memories with him. The underlying theme and second
impression however, was that of the overall departure from traditional values when the war began,
in what his biographer described as a “universal nihilism.”102 Only six lines, the poem read:
I carry you like a wound

On my forehead, which is not healing
It isn’t always painful
And it does not bleed enough to kill me
Only sometimes am I suddenly blind and feel
Blood in the mouth.103
The poem, dedicated to the persona’s mother, spoke of a soldier’s desire to return home while
simultaneously mourning the past. Not only did the average soldier, as shown here, carry the
memory of his mother with him like a wound, he also carried with him the memory of the world
as it used to be. This memory often choked him, as explained in the last line, with the feeling that
what had been done could not be undone, and that this impression would never leave him.
Commenting on the dark use of imagery to convey this message, his biographer noted that Benn
was drawn to the societal backwardness inflicted by the war.104 He used this imagery, specifically
the primordial themes of blood and wounds, as a symbol for a response to a problem that defied
explanation, one that was rampant in German culture. This problem, which many saw initially as
a virtue, grew into resentment and hatred of the enemy by the end of the war. Benn berated this
101
102
103
Benn, “Mother,” in Fleisch, trans. Geraldine Suter, p. 29.
104
41
ideology by using its own themes of blood and glory against it, as seen in “Mother.”105 He also
used this imagery to respond to the memories resulting from this ideology that haunted ceaselessly
and changed life as these soldiers knew it.
Although his prewar work was quite popular, Benn’s World War One poetry and literature
was received by the general public with mixed reviews; it did, however, grant him a significant
amount of attention that aided his career in later years. As quoted in his biography, one newspaper
had this to say about his work, specifically a volume published shortly before the war in 1912: “‘If
you intend to read these… poems,
get a stiff drink ready beforehand, a
very, very stiff drink!!!’”106
However, a review from the Berlin
Gottfried Benn in the early 1950s, at the height of his popularity. Post took a different approach to his
poetry from 1914: “‘At last a poet has been found to lift our future out of triviality and point us in
the direction of high goals,’” claiming his work would replace that of the legendary German poet
Goethe.107 The “triviality” which the Berlin Post review mentioned referred to the rejection of
traditional values by society during and following the war; this particular review showed how
many Germans believed Benn’s blunt approach was necessary in the new world. In fact, one
historian mentioned that following the war, in the age of the Weimar Republic, the Germans had
a brief period of emphasis on freedom of discussion and thought, into which Benn fit well.108 His
work called attention to these new horrors which made some quite uncomfortable, but helped
105
106
107
108
42
others make sense of the war and its resulting societal loss of innocence. Despite some criticism,
his popularity only increased following the war. He continued writing throughout his life and
became a somewhat respected commentator on political and social issues, particularly surrounding
the Second World War, culminating in his highest popularity in the late 1940s until his death in
1956.109
Kurt Tucholsky: Paradox of Perception
Kurt Tucholsky had an illustrious career in the literary field. According to his biographer,
although the majority of the works he published were poems, “Tucholsky [also] worked as a
political publicist, satirist, song-writer, as a lyric and political poet, a writer of aphorisms and
monologues, and as a literary critic.”110 It is the political poetry that will receive the attention of
this section, given its relation to the First World War and the related themes about which Tucholsky
wrote extensively. His early writing involved primarily newspaper articles, giving him a strong
foundation in social and political issues that would later be useful in his poetry, particularly those
poems that criticized war and German militarism.111 When the war began, Tucholsky was almost
immediately conscripted, and he found the first year rather unimpressive, if enlightening about the
state of the world. He did not serve long before requesting a transfer to a library away from the
front, gaining a position there in military record keeping. During this period, he became intimately
familiar with German war policy to the point of disenchantment with the war effort.112 Some of
this disenchantment, particularly in reference to the loss of innocence, reflected itself in his poetry
from the war period.
109
110
Bryan P. Grenville, Kurt Tucholsky: The Ironic Sentimentalist (London: Oswald Wolff, 1981), p. 5.
111
Grenville, Kurt Tucholsky, p. 10.
112
43
Once the war began and throughout 1915,
Tucholsky published very few works aside from
some literary criticism in order to avoid strict
censorship regulations calling his writing into
question. He did not resume publication of his
poetry until the end of 1915, having resolved to
charge forward regardless of censorship.113 In
“Memento,” written in 1916 under the pseudonym
Kurt Tucholsky the journalist. Theobald Tiger, Tucholsky frankly addressed the
facets of the new world. Most of his poems were published under various pseudonyms like this
one, according to one historian, to protect Tucholsky’s identity and to discourage the idea that the
majority of the paper’s political commentary came from the same source which, in fact, it did.
Regardless, his writing was quite popular.114 Thus, even a mere two years after the war began,
Tucholsky was widely received by the German public. Given the impact the war had on him, the
two most common themes in his works were antiwar sentiment and shock.115 “Memento”
displayed both. The first three stanzas read:
It threw us boys quite for a loss—

we’re standing out there in the field,
thinking to hold on and to know—
and then the world around us fell apart.
‘The world is false!’ It is not just a problem

For which the teacher has a ready answer—
it is real, and brought down all the temples,
and everything we loved, — just like a playing card.
You tell the young man, to be brave, hang on.
113
Harold L. Poor, Kurt Tucholsky and the Ordeal of Germany, 1914-1935 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons,
1968), p. 29.
114
Noah Isenberg, “Rediscovering Kurt Tucholsky,” in Prayer After the Slaughter, The Great War: Stories and
Poems from World War I (New York: Berlinica, 2015), p. 9.
115
Isenberg, “Rediscovering Kurt Tucholsky,” in Prayer After the Slaughter, p. 9.
44
And that, it seems, would be his duty clear.

But does the good inside him from before,
not have a place in what is yet to come? 116
His language in these verses was quite clear: German soldiers experienced a reordering of reality
that was slow to resonate with the civilian population. The first lines of the third stanza referred to
the homefront response in a similar manner to Sassoon’s “They.” It reflected how preconceived
ideas of war at home did not align with the truth of the war, and that it was not as glorious as
people thought it was, especially the German people. The last two lines of that stanza questioned
what aspects of the past would be carried into the present, and if those aspects had any place in the
new world order, as the following lines addressed. In the final stanza, Tucholsky suggested that a
balance was necessary to learn to cope with this new reality:
Tell your youth of all the warrior’s virtues,

But tell him, too, amid the clashing steel,
that all his youthful dreams as well
must have their due, if he would be a man!117
With these words, he mourned the loss of innocence in the Modern Period and implored readers
to preserve whatever innocence they could in the face of a war-torn world.
Another poem written in 1916 under the same pseudonym reflected antiwar sentiment in a
different way: in contrast to the mournful tone of “Memento,” “The War Contractor” instead
blamed faulty leadership and civilian indifference for Germany’s situation, blaming the rich elites
for starting the war. Tucholsky began by describing the stereotypically wealthy man who
comfortably survived the war, even profited from it, while millions died for his comfort. Some of
the most poignant, accusatory lines were as follows:
But when the world from dreadful fear stops breathing

You bet it all on your brand…
Your ships came in! In your wife’s stylish locks now
sparkle baubles on a silken band….
116
Kurt Tucholsky, “Memento,” in Prayer After the Slaughter, p. 21.
117
Tucholsky, “Memento,” in Prayer After the Slaughter, p. 21.
45
You’ve quickly grabbed the stuff you need.

And when at last the peace bells ring for others:
What price, Berlin? You’ve got it made, old friend!118
Only a few lines before this, Tucholsky argued that part of this man’s wealth came from exploiting
the war. Wealthy men like him did this by manipulating the German attitudes that praised war,
appealing to this sentiment and disregarding the truth of the war to support his own luxurious
lifestyles.119 Regardless of the outcome, the author was embittered that so many must die for the
wealthy and the leaders to continue their lavish lifestyles. He envisioned that at the end of the war,
the rich man and others like him would claim Germany has no cause to complain, even if “the
peace bells ring for others,” because their personal perspective was so different from that of the
soldiers. This was indicative of one sentiment among civilians that created such a wide disconnect
between them and the military: their belief that society’s survival was more important than
personal wellbeing led to resentment among these soldiers. As one historian noted, the elites
dictated societal norms; in Germany’s case, these elites were wealthy landowners, members of the
church, the educated, and members of the upper class.120 These groups largely controlled the
workings of society, often to the detriment of veterans and victims, as Tucholsky rightly observed
in this poem.
One final Tucholsky poem to address is “August First,” written in 1918. By the end of the
war, the new world order was firmly in place, and German poetry, specifically Tucholsky’s at this
time, began to show symptoms of resentment and nihilism most clearly. “August First” was one
of the best examples of this, specifically the aspect of nihilism: previous traditions and lifestyles
had been irrevocably replaced by war and violence. The language of “August First” criticized
118
Tucholsky, “The War Contractor,” in Prayer After the Slaughter, p. 31.
119
120
Whalen, Bitter Wounds, p. 96.
46
scripture to represent how these themes replaced faith, providing cynical answers to questions
religion could only ever answer ambiguously, again drawing unconscious connections to British
works. According to Peter Appelbaum and James Scott, it specifically parodied Psalm 90, which
described Moses’ devotion to God.121
Lord War, you are our refuge now and forever.

Before the mountains were brought forth and the lands and the world created, you, war, were from
everlasting to everlasting.
You who allow other people to die, all the while saying: be gone, children of men!
Four years are to you like one yesterday, like standing watch for a single night….
Your rage is the reason they perish thus, and your fury, that they, they, they must pass away….
Show your slaves your works and your honor to their children.
And may WAR, our God, be friendly and bless the work of our hands; yes, the work of our hands
may he bless!122
One of Tucholsky’s biographers, Bryan Grenville, noted that this particular work came on the four-
year anniversary of the beginning of the war in Tucholsky’s most profound show of antiwar
sentiment. Grenville described it as Tucholsky’s criticism of an unnecessary fight, one which he
used as a deliberate assault on the German cause as the nation began to accept defeat.123 This poem
was fittingly written at the close of the war; Tucholsky hoped it would be a warning to future
generations to avoid worshipping and glorifying war, especially considering the scope of hardship
it wrought on German souls. Two months later, he wrote of his fear for postwar Germany: “‘the
worst is yet to come…. an evil patchwork of petty states begins which will cast Europe centuries
into the past…. In such manner, it all comes crashing down.’”124 He foresaw the dark path
Germany and the rest of Europe would eventually take.
By the time the war was over, Romantic themes of faith and the natural world had been
replaced by Modern themes of nihilism and triviality. This was especially evident in Germany’s
121
Peter Appelbaum and James Scott, Prayer After the Slaughter, p. 33.
122
Tucholsky, “August First,” in Prayer After the Slaughter, p. 33.
123
124
Poor, Kurt Tucholsky, p. 41.
47
postwar culture. The Germans used triviality in particular to confront memories of the war without
returning to previous habits of glorification: in short, without thinking about it too deeply. War
memory consumed German consciousness in the interwar period, even leading to an attempted
republic as the people showed their distaste for monarchy and autocracy. In addition to a shift in
government, Germans tried to memorialize their war experience through leisure, using board
games and post cards to fulfill a moral obligation to the fallen without confronting the true issues
of the war.125 Tucholsky was utterly disgusted with this approach. His writing continued to show
criticism for German mentality long after the war.
Tucholsky survived the war, and his literary career continued prosperously through the
interwar period. He wrote about the war well into the 1920s, although his work focused mainly on
social and political commentary for newspapers and other publications, much as it had before the
war. His leanings tended toward communism, and this coupled with his Jewish descent made his
work pariah with the rise of Nazism in Germany. Fortunately, Tucholsky and his family had
already moved to neutral Sweden by the outset of the Second World War, although his writing
was continually slandered and suppressed throughout Nazi rule.126 Having lost his popular
standing in Germany, Tucholsky attempted to gain popularity in other nations, through other
languages, but found his dedication lacking; his true muse was Germany. He continued his political
commentary by writing against Hitler’s regime, although his poetic career declined at this point.127
By 1935, he had lost hope that the Germany he criticized but deeply loved would ever be restored
to its pre-World War One glory and had grown tired of endangering his family by his past and
present writings. In a suicide note to his former wife, quoted in one of his biographies, he begged
125
Mosse, Fallen Soldiers, pp. 127-128
126
Poor, Kurt Tucholsky, pp. 89, 203.
127
Poor, Kurt Tucholsky, pp. 205, 209.
48
her forgiveness and mentioned that he had lost the will to continue: “‘… the end… is of no
consequence to me—as is everything which happens around me and to which I no longer have a
connection. The reason to struggle, the bridge, the inner force… is gone. I did not understand.’”128
With those final words, he committed suicide by poison and died in December 1935, a victim of
postwar Germany even after trying so desperately to save it through his writing. 129
Conclusion
In his memoir, Good-bye to All That, Robert Graves recalled an article he read at the close
of the war which summarized his feelings about it in these words: “‘The conscientious objector is
a brave man. He will be remembered as one of the few noble actors in the world drama when the
impartial historian of the future sums up the history of this awful war.’”130 By the time the smoke
had settled over Europe, millions on both sides were dead, and many like the author of this article
believed those most deserving of honor were those who believed the war was an unnecessary waste
of life from the beginning. This thought process challenged the traditional ideologies about the
glories of war, illustrated by the British poets discussed above. Graves used his work to ridicule
British officials for leading their soldiers to slaughter, and as a warning to future generations, lest
they fall victim to the same beliefs. Sassoon illustrated the dichotomy of this belief in the
differences between civilian perception of the war and its reality. Owen provided these criticisms
by offering vivid descriptions of life and death at the front. All of these were various methods used
often among British poets to illustrate their resentment for the war and the loss of innocence it
caused.
128
129
130
49
The Germans responded similarly, but whereas the British blamed the war on their leaders
and civilian misunderstanding, the German poets pointed more directly to the war itself as the
enemy, placing greater emphasis on mourning the loss of innocence. Stramm took a similar
approach to Owen’s and Sassoon’s styles by presenting vivid imagery of the war to force
confrontation with the reality of it. Benn showed through his work the ways memory haunted
veterans, forcing them down dark paths. Finally, Tucholsky attacked the ways of the old world
and those who wished to apply those traditions to the world the war created. While so many used
poetry as a response to the meaningless violence, much of this writing still only focused on
senseless slaughter without addressing the big question: why were they fighting at all? 131 These
writers attempted to lay blame and offer answers where none could be found. It is difficult to
determine if they truly did.
After the war, the Modern Period continued to focus on confronting and accepting the way
the world was, but largely ignored the horrific event that made it that way. Modern writers
abandoned everything that came before the war, including the war itself, in some cases. The poets
and other war survivors were left with the weight of the tragedy and their misunderstood words.
Daniel Hipp came to their defense, however, when he said that these poets attempted to make sense
of the senseless in their own ways which became meaningful for them personally and for others
publically.132 He argued that, as so many forgot in the years following World War One, the voices
of these poets were the most important response to the war and should never be ignored. As Fussell
wrote, “The effect of the war in Britain was catastrophic: a whole generation was destroyed,”133
but poets like Graves, Sassoon, and Owen left their work for future generations to remember those
131
132
133
50
who were lost. The Germans confronted similar losses, but also received the brunt of victor’s
justice, having been accused of starting the war from the beginning. While the British were able
to memorialize their voices, the Germans were trampled by guilt, leading them to resentment in
the years following the war. George L. Mosse discussed the ways the war was remembered on
both sides when he wrote that many in Germany were unable to memorialize their dead at all, and
that the war had not truly come to a close for them.134 Indeed, many realized the truth of this when
Germany launched the Second World War. The British used their poetry to remember the heroism
and sacrifice of their soldiers. The Germans used it to mourn their losses.
In closing, the words of Robert Graves in “The Next War” held truth for the precedent
World War One set. The violence that followed in the Second World War and others since has
held echoes of his warning when he asked future generations to understand the truth of warfare
and to never glorify it. The final lines read,
By the million men will die

In some new horrible agony;
And children here will thrust and poke,
Shoot and die, and laugh at the joke,
With bows and arrows and wooden spears.
Playing at Royal Welch Fusiliers.135
Thus, though both the British and German poets remembered the war somewhat differently, they
both sought to preserve the voices of their generation to provide wisdom and guidance for the next.
134
135
Graves, “The Next War,” in World War One British Poets, p. 46.
51
References
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1997.
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1997.
Hardy, Thomas. “Channel Firing.” In World War One British Poets: Brooke, Owen, Sassoon,
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Pro Patria Mori: A Comparison of British and German Poetry from the Great War

Memorial at Pontypool, South Wales

most devastating wars in human history.

A number of factors—including rapid

industrialization, imperialism, nationalism,

militarization, and complicated alliances—

combined to launch continental Europe into

total warfare, bringing the brutality of war into

personal lives in a way that had never before

blamed for singlehandedly causing World War One, was Germany.

many accused it of attempting—was a series of tentative, complicated, and overlapping alliances.

responsible for ending it.

the poetry from both sides.

of the First World War by Patrick Bridgwater.

in both the literature and culture of British society.

unpublished letters, and translations of a number of poems mentioned in this document. He

progression in German consciousness toward postwar resentment.

the introduction—loss, resentment, cynicism, and romanticism—were exemplified most strongly

motivation behind the themes so commonly used.

Firing” to the Armistice, regardless of when they were published.

on the harsh nature of the new world. The

soldiers so well known today for their war

poetry incorporated an interesting balance of

nationalistic fervor, heroism, and cynicism

throughout the war. It is impossible to make

Robert Graves: Cynical Dramatist

Born in Wimbledon in 1895, Robert Graves enjoyed a comfortably middle-class childhood

heavy trench warfare Graves endured, shaped his

perception of the war for the worse, leading him to a

cynical approach in his poetry. However, according to his

autobiography, Good-bye to All That, this lack of faith in

the British cause and general sense of negativity was not

always the case.

Because of these challenging experiences, Graves

was hesitant to publish the majority of the poetry he wrote

during the war, though much of it was published during his

lifetime in the interwar period. By the time he came to

Dramatization, however, has presented a difficult challenge to address in war poetry. It is

But… the historian of that fight

final lines of the poem read,

(God’s eyes are dim, His ears are shut.)

Another War soon gets begun,

Siegfried Sassoon: The Contradiction of Memory

refer to him as a vital voice of the day. Toward the beginning

of the war, the cohesion of sentiment on the homefront and the

battle lines mentioned in the introduction was a nonentity.

Much of Sassoon’s work focused on bridging this gap in

understanding, and his writing had a profound impact on

public impressions of the war. Marsland mentioned that

Sassoon’s poems were examples of a contradiction between

civilian perception and the reality of warfare, though his

personal writings were somewhat less intense in their war

a strong example of antiwar sentiment and cynicism.

evidence of this in his poetry.

“Blighters,” a poem written in 1917 during a convalescence at home, illustrated Sassoon’s

the persona’s observation, the poem said,

The House is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin

I’d like to see a Tank come down the stalls,

homefront primarily through Sassoon’s writing.37

‘We’re none of us the same!’ the boys reply.

with his own feelings, both privately and publically.

Now light the candles; one; two; there’s a moth;

final stanza of the poem read: