On "Glory Of Women" by Siegfried Sassoon

Alex Lehr (29 September 1999): English 354/Finley

(See peer comments by Maikel O'Hanlon)

 
	One of the great ironies of the World War I experience was the difference in 
understanding of the conflict between soldiers and women still in England. Much has been 
made of the incredible ignorance which marked prewar England, following a century of 
relative peace. English society as a whole was grossly unprepared psychologically for total 
war, and the experience of the soldiers was first and foremost a loss of innocence. The 
fighting men matured quickly in the trenches, and gained a realistic and apocalyptic 
understanding of war. At home meanwhile, the evidence of the stark reality of war was 
kept hidden: bodies were left in France, reports from the front were little more than 
whitewashed propaganda, and the country was swept up in a mass labor mobilization 
which added pride to everyday work. Knitting became, for the women of England, a 
patriotic action, equal in importance to actually fighting abroad. True understanding of the 
war was sacrificed in favor of nationalism and optimism. In his brief, direct, and powerful 
poem, Sassoon presents and laments this veil of ignorance, beneath which the 
Englishwomen still live, and from which he and his fellow soldiers have been torn. 
 
	These women, Sassoon asserts, are in love with a dream. They "worship 
decorations" which their soldiers earn with suffering, because they believe that this 
suffering is honorable, the very "chivalry" which "redeems the war's disgrace". The war 
itself is, for Sassoon, a monstrous atrocity, and the simple act of memorialization through 
medals, honors, and manipulated stories of glory cannot counterbalance the horrific reality 
of the solders' situation. Physically, the women's role is to "make us shells". Ostensibly to 
help bring about a successful end to the war, this action in fact serves a different purpose in 
the poem. The shells (as a symbol, be they German or English) are the agents of the 
soldiers' suffering, and the women eagerly set themselves to ensuring a steady supply of 
shells, prolonging the conflict, killing and wounding more men, and thereby creating more 
heroes, whose "laurelled memories" they proudly mourn. 
 
	Interestingly, Sassoon chooses, in this poem, not to depict the harsh landscape of 
war very much at all. In fact, the poem has very little locality: there is no description of the 
filthy trench in which he writes, nor the shattering explosions of shells which punctuate his 
daily routine. On the contrary, his voice is more one of commentary than narrative. Only in 
the last few lines do we get a picture of the contrasting points of view of the soldiers and 
the women. He shows us the German soldier, killed in the field, being trampled by the 
retreating English. His mother sits comfortably at home, happily and proudly knitting him 
socks, while "His face is trodden deeper in the mud". What honor can be assigned this 
terrible death? Certainly none, and how can one romanticize the actions taking place? The  
English retreat, in a desperate flight following a failed offensive, stomping carelessly on the 
bodies of fallen soldiers- the same ones whose death has been memorialized honorably in 
the minds of the women back home. Rather than be terrified as the soldiers are, the women 
are "by tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled". Ultimately, the aspect of war which 
Sassoon rails against here is not so much the horror of battle itself, but rather the rift in 
understanding between the Western and the home front, and the subsequent lack of real 
support he receives from the women on whose compassion he relies.