September 8, 1886– Siegfried Sassoon
Suicide In The Trenches
I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark
& whistled early with the lark
In winter trenches, cowed & glum
With crumps & lice and lack of rum
He put a bullet through his brain
No one spoke of him again
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by
Sneak home & pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth & laughter go
100 years ago, the grueling era of World War 1 brought a harsh education about the devastation & futility of war to 300,000+ young British men, including those who grew up in privilege. One of these was the gay “war poet,” Siegfried Sassoon.
Brought up in the leisured life of a country gentleman, Sassoon enlisted in the military just as the war was beginning. His poetry reflects the change of attitudes towards war, from a vision of combat as reflecting glory & nobility, to finishing with muddy, bloody realism & bitter grievance against the people who profited from the destruction of young soldiers’ lives. Sassoon’s poetry is filled with the ugly realities of the brutality & pointlessness of war between nations. His later work retains a rather romantic affection for the average soldier, who does his duty with bravery, even when he does not understand why.
With savage irony, Sassoon condemns the corrupt old rich men of the government, military & business, who made a profit from the war while sending young men off to die. In his poem Base Details:
If I were fierce, & bald, & short of breath,
I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
& speed glum heroes up the line to death
& when the war is done & youth stone dead,
I’d toddle safely home & die in bed.
Shortly after the start of WWI, Sassoon served with the British Army Royal, seeing action in trenches of France in late 1915. He received a Military Cross for bringing back a wounded soldier under heavy fire. After being wounded in action, Sassoon wrote an open letter of protest to the war department, refusing to fight any more:
“I believe that this War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.”
At the urging of British philosopher Bertrand Russell, that letter was read in the House Of Commons. Sassoon expected a court-martial for his protest, but famed poet Robert Graves intervened on his behalf, arguing that Sassoon was suffering from shell-shock & needed medical treatment. In 1917, Sassoon entered a sanatorium.
Always a loyal comrade, Sassoon could not stay away from the front-lines while others fought, & he returned to battle. In July 1918, he was sent back to England with a head wound & he remained there until the war ended.
Sassoon came of age during the first great period of modern homosexual culture. His friends & lovers were some of the best known writers, artists, & thinkers of the period (most have received #BornThisDay posts here on The Wow Report): Evelyn Waugh, Edward Carpenter, E.M. Forster, J.R. Ackerley, T.E. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy, Noël Coward, & members of the Bloomsbury Group.
He had a long sexual relationship with William Park Atkin, a British painter & illustrator. During the 1920s & early 1930s, he engaged in several affairs, including a romance with future Nazi, Prince Philip of Hesse, actor/songwriter Ivor Novello & Novello’s boyfriend, actor Glen Byam Shaw, plus he had a long significant romance with decedent gadabout Stephen Tennant.
Sassoon left this world in 1967, a week before his 81st birthday. In 1985, Sassoon was among 16 Great War poets commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner. The inscription on the stone was written by his former lover & fellow poet Wilfred Owen. It reads:
“My subject is War & the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.”
To learn more try Siegfried Sassoon: The Journey From The Trenches (2003) by Jean Moorcroft Wilson. Sassoon published more than 40 books, including novels & memoirs. The poems are available in volumes of selected works.
This photograph started my collection of vintage photos of men being affectionate. It was the opening night gift from a fellow cast member in 1985. This image started me thinking about the work of Sassoon. I wonder if these men made it home & possibly had a life together. It remains haunting.
The post #BornThisDay: Poet, Siegfried Sassoon appeared first on World of Wonder.