Base Details by Siegfried Sassoon

C Quinn

Base Details

If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,

Id live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
Youd see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. Poor young chap,
Id say-I used to know his father well;
Yes, weve lost heavily in this last scrap.
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
Id toddle safely home and die-in bed.

Siegfried Sassoon

Base Details by Siegfried Sassoon

C Quinn

Base Details, by Siegfried Sassoon

The poem that I have studied that is concerned with the barbarity of war and
suffering is the poem entitled Base Details by Siegfried Sassoon. This poem is a
political satire undermining the Grecian concept of dulce et decorum est pro patri
mori- it is sweet and honourable to die for the fatherland. This was part of the
political propaganda of World War I in order to ensure the allegiance of the nations
youth to the cause. The ambivalent (obscure) word base that features in the title
refers to the base camp in which the senior officers were stationed but could also
connote the decadence (corruption) and profligacy (recklessness) of the majors in base
camp:
If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
Id live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
Youd see me with my puffy petulant face
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel
Sassoon derides (mocks) scarlet majors who have the audacity (cheek) to speed
glum heroes up the line to death. Sassoon uses alliteration and assonance to indict
the majors at base camp:
Youd see me with my puffy petulant face
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel
Though the suffering of the soldiers is not explicitly described, Sassoon refers to the
glum heroes who are sped up the line to death. The suffering of the soldiers is
implicitly referred to in relation to the indifferent complacency (couldnt care less
attitude) of the majors:
Reading the Roll of Honour. Poor Young chap,
Id say-I used to know his father well
2

Base Details by Siegfried Sassoon

C Quinn

The indifferent (couldnt care less) attitude of the majors is further reinforced in the
line Yes, weve lost heavily in the last scrap. The word scrap denigrates
(belittles) the horrific reality of war. The word refers to a childish schoolyard row
between two boisterous youths not to the heinous barbarity of war.
The majors are oblivious to the suffering of their men. They have no regard for the
lives of their men or the implications of war on their families. The peevishness of the
majors is indicated in the alliteration of petulant puffy faces.
The devastation reeked by war and the futility of war is powerfully evoked in the
last two lines of the poem:
And when the war is done and the youth stone dead
Id toddle safely home and die in bed.
The childishness of the majors is delineated again in the use of the word toddle and
it contrasts starkly against the phrase the youth stone dead. The injudicious actions
of the majors awkwardly juxtaposes against the inhumane suffering of the soldiers
which ultimately ended in death. It is a mordacious indictment of war and the
suffering it inflicts on innocent people.