Criticisms of ww1.... HELP?

Question

How can I assess Siegfried Sassoon's criticisms of WW1? What does it mean?

Answer 1

Sassoon was a poet as well as a soldier for England during the war. Although he demonstrated great bravery as a soldier, he grew disillusioned with the war and eventually refused to continue fighting.

His main criticism of the war was that it was nothing but pointless slaughter, that the old men of Europe were sacrificing a whole generation because they did not have enough creativity or intelligence to end the war, and that propaganda kept civilians from recognizing the truth of what was happening on the Western Front. Thus his poetry stresses the horrors of modern warfare, gas attacks, shellings, barbed wire, and that--in order to force readers to understand the reality of war.

Answer 2

I hope this is for a history class and not one in poetry. If you have read his poems and just a little about him the criticism he offered
was against everythinh about war, the military and the society that forced war upon men.

As to a poetry class; many of the poems require some explanation of terms and such. I provide one short poem below.


The film "Regeneration" 1997 (UK) BBC deals with his days in a psychiatric hospital and relationships with the army, the medical staff and other poets: Wilfred Owen. It is a powerful film. Also known as "Behind the lines". The film also depicts the treatment of "shell shock" which we now term Post Traumatic stress Disorder.

Arms and the Man


Young Croesus went to pay his call
On Colonel Sawbones, Caxton Hall:
And, though his wound was healed and mended,
He hoped he’d get his leave extended.

The waiting-room was dark and bare.
He eyed a neat-framed notice there
Above the fireplace hung to show
Disabled heroes where to go
For arms and legs; with scale of price,
And words of dignified advice
How officers could get them free.

Elbow or shoulder, hip or knee,
Two arms, two legs, though all were lost,
They’d be restored him free of cost.
Then a Girl Guide looked to say,
‘Will Captain Croesus come this way?’

Siegfried Sassoon

Sassoon, an officer, is talking about enlisted men having to purchase artifical limbs whist the officers get them for free.
No bs, was that bad. His highest award the "MC" Military Cross was an "officers only" award.

The film is on DVD.

Answer 3

When considering his work, in addition to the obvious, one must remember two things about SS and WWI: first, it was not old men destroying the flower and stem of a generation, rather that generation ran full-tilt with so much enthusiasm into it that, like our own Civil War government, all governments in Europe had to turn away volunteers in the first months of the war for lack of equipment, uniforms, officers and plans for using them and second, in at least the first 40-50 years of his life, SS tipped into things fast and hard, then became disenchanted, disappointed and disaffected about them (that included Great Wars, male lovers, any passing whim). I do not mean to say he was in any way wrong about the horrors of a horror-filled war, just to point out that when he did so, he saw only worthlessness in whatever he was now rejecting. Then facts were used and made up to fit his mental needs. His poetry is the revealed wisdom of that mental process, not the revealed wisdom of God. But gritty in the "see every drop of sweat on the cowboy's face" way that wouldn't overtake movies, for instance, until the 60's.

As for his mental foundation, one might easily think the insane chances he took (as a company commander, he took them with men who perhaps wished they had a choice to not take insane chances!) (and which earned him a nickname with "Mad" in it and several decorations) were not so much bravery or outright madness as perhaps a morbid series of attempts to end up like so very many around him. A man unable to notice the harm inflicted on others under his care and leadership in doing so and unable to fulfill such a deseperate desire might easily be the sort of man for whom facts eventually mean nothing. Including facts related to his own conduct being exactly the sort he reviled the old men of Europe for. It seems like the thing a man unable to conciously self-loath yet desperately desiring to loath himself might do, not so much to lash out at the subjects of the poetry, but at himself.