World War One was "the people's war", the first conflict fought
not between professional armies but between entire nations and
their people. 'Duty', 'Patriotism', 'Heroism' were words with
which ordinary men were called to arms. However, they soon
realised that this glamorous and ancient ideal of warfare which
attracted them was not matched by their experience when they got
to the battlefield.
The
generals and commanders fought World War One as if it was an
old-style cavalry war, with heroic en
masse charges over enemy lines. However, this was the first
modern war, fought with modern weapons of mass killing --- tanks,
machine guns, bombs, artillery. The old tactics did not work and
resulted in horrific casualties and four years of stalemate. This
conflict between the glorious, self-sacrificial style of war, and
its harsh, aimless reality partly inspired the poetry and
literature of the First World War.
In addition, the First World War was unique because of the Elementary Education Act, passed thirty years before in 1880. This meant that it was the first conflict in which generally literate middle and lower-class men were caught up. The voice their new education and experiences provided them with was different to the traditional one.
The old idea that poetry was written for poetry's sake - for the joy of writing of beautiful and emotive verse - was shifted as the poets realised that they had an additional responsibility to report events. Wilfred Owen explained:
Above all I am not concerned with Poetry.
My subject is War, and the pity of War.
The First World War poets were reporters and journalists as much as creative writers. They were not to enforce the traditional image of physical heroism, but to question our admiration of it. It indicates how far the old chivalric opinions of conflict had turned, when Owen insisted that, contrary to the ancient argument of the Latin poet Horace, it is not "sweet and meet to die for one's country":
My friend you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.From Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen
World War One, then, set a new standard in the way writers wrote about war, and offered new perceptions of fighting. Whilst admiring the heroism of the soldiers, people unanimously hoped that World War One was the 'war to end all wars'. But after the end of World War Two, the relationship between writers and warfare would shift again in what has become known as the post-war period.
Continue with next section on the post-war period.
Navigate this theme:- Introduction | Chivalric viewpoints | World War One | Post-war period | Further information
Page created 10 August 2004 and last updated
21 August 2004
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