Sassoon's General

Personally, when assigned the war poems I read only the war poems and forgot about the people behind them. The stories within the poems triggered my emotions and opened my senses to what experiencing a war would be like. -- A devastating, epic, life-changing event.

Siegfried Sassoon's "The General" is a short piece but when you look deeper into the words and potential message of the poem the reader has a better understanding of what it was like going off to war and having an "incompetent" leader. Lines 1 and 2 show the general’s optimism towards his ability to lead his men. This is evident because Sassoon ends the “Good mornings” with an exclamation point; this leads me to believe the general is saying this in an excited boisterous way.

Lines three and four are where the reader starts to get a different understanding of what Sassoon is portraying; here Sassoon turns on the general because the general has turned on his men. From these two lines I personally, developed a sick feeling in my stomach, now these men whom the general was so excited to bring to battle are gone, dead. The remainder of the men no longer trust his judgment, they are cursing his staff and when you read in-between the lines probably cursing the war. More importantly Sassoon calls the general and his men “swine,” a huge insult, an insult that further secures the concept of the generals men losing faith in him.

Lines five and six have a lighter tone, but again behind the words are another meaning, another way to comprehend what Sassoon wanted to convey. I am still not truly sure about what the meaning of the quotation “He’s a cheery old card” stands for. I believe it is British slang, standing for something insulting, another poke at the general in some sarcastic demeaning way. The reader does learn from the footnote that they are marching to a city in northern France, a front line during the war. So this could also be a scapegoat, something to defer their fears from what is to come.

The final line confuses me very much, “but he did for them both by his plan of attack.” I feel two different ways about this line, the first being that the general lead them, once again to defeat and misery. The second is that the general regained his respect among the soldiers in some romantic war story way.