"If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,.
I'd live with scarlet majors at the Base.
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You'd see me with my puffy petulant face,.
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel.
Reading the Roll of Honor. 'Poor young chap,'.
I'd say- 'I used to know his father well;.
Yes we've lost heavily in this last scrap'.
And when the war is done and youth stone dead;.
I'd toddle safely home and die-in bed.".
In Siegfried Sassoon's "Base Details," the speaker, a young ordinary soldier, says that his life would be so much different if he was an older officer. During that war, only young soldiers were involved in the fighting; Sassoon was one of them. As a British soldier in World War I, Sassoon well understood the military life. Raised in the carefree, luxurious life of the British upper classes, Sassoon was at first a strong believer of war; however, his attitude completely changed as he became angered by those who profited at the expense of others. "Base Details" is an example of him expressing anti-war sentiment. The sarcastic tone of Sassoon reveals his true thoughts, developing the poem's central message that the officers' indifference unnecessarily leads their troops to death. Sadly, older officers had a lot of excesses; young soldiers were the ones facing their fate.
The narrator, speaking in first person in this dramatic monologue, states that if he was a major, he too would have a ""puffy, petulant face" (4) and would spend his time "guzzling and gulping in the best hotel" (5). The speaker believes the majors send young men to die in battles. Then, safe from the deadly bullets in their headquarters, they read the list of those who died, making ignorant comments like "Poor young chap," and "Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap" (6, 8). According to the speaker, these comments indicate that the officers do not seem concerned at all about any loss of soldiers' lives but more about their own indolent ones.