The first world war was a time of glory and gloom. Mechanized warfare, for the first time, met prehistoric combat. The lives of glory wanting youth came to fight a war that would inevitably lead to most of their death. The Australian troops mowed down, yet kept charging and charging, falling to the ground as destiny told. A poet, by the name of Siegfried Sassoon, used this time as a way to create aphoristic pieces for the people to understand what really happened. The poems "suicide in the trenches " and "prelude: the troops, " both travel a significant way in history and provide insight into the war.
Sassoon, based on his knowledge of the events and being there, speaks on the hidden truths of war. The heart-wrenching euphemism, " He put a bullet in his brain. No one spoke of him again " creates a atmosphere of displeasure and contempt. Life is one of the most valuable commodities and it is being thrown away in such a worthless way. The youthful souls going to war believed it to be a quick and easy way to seek glory but it turned out to be much more than that. Even the veterans returning from the wars struggled to cope.
In "prelude:the troops " the vivid use of tactile imagery, "disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boot " along with the symbol, "Turn dull, sunken faces to the sky, " expresses the side of war most do not know. War is not easy-It takes time and lives are lost. The hope was non-existent and the spirit of mate-ship and brotherhood was gone. They were deprived men looking for a spark which nothing could light. This in conjunction with the title "Prelude:the troops " could mean that the men continued on a day to day basis without any hope, and this could make all the heroic memories of war vanish.
The innuendo that war was a heroic act of bravery and courage instead of death nullified its greatest risk . The closest representation of what the war actually was can be summarized in the meanings of the 2 poems; Suicide in the trenches and the acceptance of fate.