Sadly Siegfried Sassoon’s powerful war poems are still shockingly relevant. Just change the enemy… but I did feel with this one, I have to complain about the universal ‘women’. They the ‘peacemakers’ too!

Glory of Women Siegfried Sassoon

You love us when we’re heroes, home on leave,

Or wounded in a mentionable place.

You worship decorations; you believe

That chivalry redeems the war’s disgrace.

You make us shells. You listen with delight,

By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled.

You crown our distant ardours while we fight,

And mourn our laurelled memories when we’re killed.

You can’t believe that British troops ‘retire’

When hell’s last horror breaks them, and they run.

Trampling the terrible corpses –blind with blood.

O German mother dreaming by the fire

While you were knitting socks to send your son

His face is trodden deeper in the mud.

Selected poems Faber and Faber 1968