War poem to go on display

Handwritten work by Sassoon condemns leaders’ incompetence

A handwritten poem by Siegfried Sassoon is to go on display for the first time as part of a major exhibition on anti-war protest, the ImperialWarMuseums (IWM) said.

The manuscript of one of Sassoon’s most famous war poems, TheGeneral, will be onshowatIWMLondonas part of the People Power: Fighting For Peace exhibition.

More than 300 exhibits from paintings to posters, banners and music stretching fromWorldWar I to the present day will explore stories of anti-war protest and the creative expression used to campaign against conflict, the IWM said.

The General was written in April 1917 fromSassoon’s hospital bed in London, where he was recovering from a shoulder wound he received while leading an assault.

The manuscript in the exhibition is a later handwritten version dated February 7, 1919, and is angrier than the one published in his second poetry collection, Counter-Attack, in 1918.

In this version of the poem, which contrasts the common soldiers and the incompetent military leaders who sent them to their deaths, he changes the last line from “did for them” to “murdered them”.

Sassoon enlisted at the start ofWorldWar I but became increasingly opposed to the conflict in the light of his experiences of trench warfare and the death of his brother at Gallipoli, and a close friend in March 1916.

Serving on the Western Front, he was known by his men as Mad Jack for his reckless bravery, and was awarded theMilitary Cross for gallantry, bringing back wounded and dying comrades during a raid on enemy trenches in 1916.

After convalescing from his wound in 1917, he refused to return to duty. He wrote to his commanding officer, claiming “the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it”, which was later read out in parliament. But rather than court martial a national hero, the authorities sent Sassoon to Craiglockhart Hospital, near Edinburgh, to be treated for shellshock. He later returned to the front, and died aged 80 in 1967.

BITTER: The poet accuses The General of murdering infantrymen by his incompetence in mounting an attack

Siegfried Sassoon