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Siegfried Sassoon
was born on 8th September 1886 at Weirleigh, near Paddock Wood in Kent.
After Marlborough College he went to Clare College, Cambridge, but left
without a degree. For the next eight years lived the life of a country
gentleman. He spent his tie hunting, playing sports and writing poetry.
Published privately, Sassoon's poetry made very little impact on the critics
or the book buying public.
On the outbreak of the First World War Sassoon enlisted as a cavalry trooper
in the Sussex Yeomanry. In May 1915 Sassoon became an officer in the Royal
Fusiliers, and was posted to the Western Front in France. Considered to
be recklessly brave, he soon obtained the nickname 'Mad Jack'. In June
1916 he was awarded the Military Cross for bringing a wounded man back
to the British lines while under heavy fire. While in France he met the
poets Robert Graves and
Wilfred Owen.
After being wounded in April 1917, Sassoon was sent back to England. Sassoon
had grown increasingly angry about the tactics being employed by the British
Army and in July 1917 published a Soldier's Declaration, which announced
that "I am making this statement as an act of willful defiance of
military authority, because I believe that the war is being deliberately
prolonged by those who have the power to end it."
Sassoon's hostility to war was also reflected in his poetry. During the
war Sassoon developed a harshly satirical style that he used to attack
the incompetence and inhumanity of senior military officers. These poems
caused great controversy when they were published in The Old Huntsman
(1917) and Counter-Attack (1918).
Despite his public attacks on the way the war was being managed, Sassoon,
like Wilfred Owen and Robert Graves, agreed to continue to fight. Sassoon
was sent to Palestine and France before further injuries forced him to
return to England.
Over the next thirty years Sassoon wrote three semi-autobiographical works,
Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (1928), Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930)
and Sherston's Progress (1936). This was followed by three volumes of
autobiography, The Old Century (1938), The Weald of Youth (1942) and Siegfried's
Journey (1945). Siegfried Sassoon died in 1967.
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