Form and uses of language

# 1.5 Sassoon's ‘Protest’

If Sassoon had spelled out his meaning, he would have needed more words than he used in the poem. He did spell it out in the protest he wrote about the war. Although it is headed A Soldier's Declaration’, it is often referred to simply as Sassoon's ‘Protest’. Please read it now:

> ### Finished with the War

> A Soldier's Declaration

> I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.

> I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war, which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.

> I have seen and endured the suffering of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust.

> I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.

> On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practised on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realize.

> (Sassoon, quoted in Barker, 1992)

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