The General - Siegfried Sassoon Context Flashcards
Outline the context of ‘The General’
• The poem “The General” is from Siegfried Sassoon’s second collection of war poems which was published in the year 1918 and entitled “Counter Attack and Other Poems.”
• This very short poem bitterly satirizes the incompetence of a general commanding his soldiers during WW1
o The general being a staff officer would himself not go into the battlefield
o He would merely politely and cheerfully address his soldiers “as they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack” to meet their cruel and untimely deaths
• In this poem Sassoon directs his anger on those most directly responsible for the soldiers’ fate
o The root of this brief but highly effective satire seems to have come from an incident in Sassoon’s journey to Arras in Northern France when his regiment, the 2nd Royal Welsh Fusiliers, had passed their Corps Commander, Lt.-Gen. Maxse
o In the poem the unsuspecting soldiers’ praise of their General’s bluff heartiness - ‘He’s a cheery old card,’ grunted Harry to Jack - is contrasted starkly with the results of his incompetence, just as his speech is contrasted with the soldiers’ cheerful slang
o The use of generic names – ‘Harry’ and ‘Jack’ – which both personalizes and depersonalizes them, and the General’s breezily repeated greeting ‘good morning, good morning’ together with Harry’s ironic comment and the brutal ending, convey the situation far more vividly than a more elaborate and discursive piece
o The colloquial ‘did for them both’ - which implies that the general actually murdered them both - which follows unexpectedly on what appears to be the concluding rhyming couplet, is all the more shocking for its euphemisms
• Athough Sassoon was decorated for acts of bravery during the war, after a period of leave he decided that he could no longer support the war. He sent a declaration condemning the war and the government position to The Times, which was also read out in Parliament. Sassoon was subsequently sent to Craiglockhart Military Hospital to be treated for shell-shock. He eventually returned to fight in the war.
Explain the direction of the poem
• Pointedly anonymous in the poem, the general is a metaphor for the planning that led to massive loss of life during the attritional warfare on the Western Front, particularly at Arras
o The Second Battle of Arras, whilst initially successful saw over 150,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers dead
• “The General,” by the English poet Sigfried Sassoon (1886-1967), is one of many of this poet’s works prompted by World War I. Sassoon was a war hero who eventually became an outspoken opponent of the war. He used many of his poems to express his disgust with that wasteful conflict itself and with the men who were running the war effort. “The General” is clearly one such poem.
o As the poem opens, a British general is saying “Good-morning” (1) to troops who pass him on the way to the front. This phrase is ironic for various reasons. First, the greeting is so conventional as to be merely formulaic; it is often simply a thing to say, not an expression of genuine emotion.
o Furthermore, mornings were especially bad times for troops fighting the kind of trench warfare common in World War I. It was often in the mornings that troops were sent “over the top” of the trenches to try to attack enemy positions, which were often not very far away. Frequently these attacks involved mass slaughter: essentially defenceless men ran straight into walls of blistering machine-gunfire. The general, of course, is trying to be as cheerful and encouraging as possible, not wanting to dampen morale, but everyone involved in the battles of World War I knew that mornings were rarely ever truly “good.”
Outline the rhythm and metre of ‘The General’
• ‘The General’ is written with a distinctive and upbeat rhythm that reflects the General’s manner and which ironically contrasts with the deaths that result from his incompetence. This rhythm is anapaestic. An anapaest is a three syllable foot that comprises of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable. An anapaestic rhythm bounds and gallops forwards, with that third syllable in every foot being accentuated. There are four feet in every line of ‘The General’, meaning that this is as ‘Anapaestic Tetrameter’.
Explain the meaning of the poem
• Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ‘em dead,
o The soldiers are dying on the front line and the General does not seem to care; he doesn’t even seem to notice that some men are missing. He seems to have a blasé attitude about the soldiers; he does not care if they die as long as he does not have to see them die. He tries to remain unattached to his soldiers because he knows that statistically many will die and it is easier to not get invested.
• And we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
o It is the orders given by the General and his staff that are getting these men killed. The General, not ever going to the front line, has no real idea what is going on there and he is giving orders that are not in the soldier’s best interest.
• ‘He’s a cherry old card,’ grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.
o They are returning to the front line; following the orders of incompetent men. These lines celebrate the heroism of these men; even though they know that it is a futile mission they still go to the front line to defend their country. Arras is a city in northern France. This city was where the front line was located throughout much of WWI. The British’s attack on the Western Front was known as the Battle of Arras, which occurred on April 9, 1917.
• But he did for them both by his plan of attack.
o This line is the most bitterly ironic of the poem. Harry and Jack went back to the front line and were killed all because they followed the General’s orders.
