Siegfried Sassoon Blesses Their Hearts; Edward Brittain’s Secret is Out

Siegfried Sassoon writes doggedly on, determined to bring us all the way back to the front with him.

June 14

I have seen a lot of soldiers at the war, but I have never seen a more well-behaved crowd than my present Company. They are living now in good billets, in a fairly good village. They are well fed. Their mental attitude is far less abject than is the case with the 1917-18 conscripts…

The notes of the bombardments—miles away—as I lie awake at night sounds like heavy furniture being moved in a room overhead. Every night I come back to my large empty room, where I sleep alone; and from 8.30 till 10.30 I read and write and do my day’s thinking…

While I’m reading, someone drops in for a talk, and I must put down my book and listen to someone else’s grievances against the War (or Battalion arrangements). And outside the wind hushes the huge leafy trees. Usually I awake early and hear the chorus of birds through the half-dissolved veils of sleep. But those songs have ceased to thrill me as of old…

So much for diaristic updates and simple “trench scenes–“he wants to write, by Jove!

Next, Sassoon plays himself off of himself by writing in two distinct personas…

‘Damn it, I’m fed up with,all this training!’ I exclaimed, in a loud voice, pushing back my chair on the brick floor and getting on to my feet. ‘I want to go up to the Line and fight!’ said I, with a reckless air. ‘Same here’ agreed handsome boy Jowett in his soft voice. J. always agrees with me…

See the young Captain seeing himself… now see him having second thoughts:

…I shivered and walked quickly up to the Chateau—to the quiet room where I spend my evenings with one candle,
scribbling notes on the monstrous cruelty of war and the horrors of the front line. ‘I want to go and fight!’ Thus had I boasted in a moment of folly, catching my mood from the lads who look to me as their leader.

How should they know the shallowness of those words? The dark and secret pools of my mind are hidden from their understanding. They see me in the sunshine, when I must acquiesce in the evil that is war, building my pride of its bravery and brief jollity. But in the darkness of the night my soul goes down into the valleys of death, and my feet move among the graves of dead youth…

How maudlin! And condescending… and honest.

‘I want to go and fight!’ That was an hour ago; and they are still in the mood of flushed confidence and ardour. And I with my one candle in the gloom; and the wisdom of my books; and the knowledge that my years have given me. ‘Whom the gods love’. Bless their little hearts; and bring them safety.^[1]

Sassoon, lately, is a rather extreme example of fervent, attentive, (self-)idealized leadership. And then there is the half-coincidence that he sometimes expresses not just admiration but desire for enlisted men of the Italian (but does not approach them.) There is an erotic element to his leadership that would be only slightly less noticeable, given the strenuous intensity of this man-leading-men situation, if Sassoon weren’t gay.^[2] But this is a hopeless attempt at a meaningful segue to another sad story.

Two days ago, a century back, Edward Brittain’s Commanding Officer had learned of a military investigation–stemming from an intercepted letter–into sexual misconduct by officers with enlisted men. Col. Hudson was forbidden to inform Brittain (and the other officer involved) of the investigation, but, according to his own unpublished account, he found a way to work into an ordinary conversation the pointed observation that “I did not realize that letters written out here were censored at the Base.” At this, “Edward turned white and made no comment. But it was clear that he understood.”^[3]

But it’s not at all clear what he thought might happen. The Pemberton Billing case has been filling the London newspapers, but that should not necessarily be assumed to influence the actions of military police in Italy. There’s a tangle of ironies for us here, a century on. The homophobia of a century back–and the cynicism which has characterized the ways in which this ever-present minority was oppressed–is deplorable. But then again the specific problem here is not the acceptance of a minority but the abuse of power: what could be a more clearly defined case of a power disparity making real consent impossible? This is a man who can give another man orders that he cannot refuse, on pain of death; he can give him a safe and easy job or send him to dig latrines–or carry messages in the open under fire… literally life and death power… And there’s the rub: a class-ridden society has created an army which boils the class system down to its essence (just two classes: officers/gentleman, and the “other ranks”) isn’t as much interested in policing abuse of the system (would it be too left-wing to note that the system is built on abuse?) as maintaining that separation. For, of course, the good of all concerned.

Yes, gay sex was illegal, but the British army, like other all-male institutions, often allowed homosexuality to exist relatively openly, if quietly. It seems likely that in many army social milieus only prudes and religious zealots would be thought to object to the fact that some officers and gentlemen sought out working class lads for their pleasure; other straight officers who wanted to consider themselves knowledgeable men of the world would roll their eyes and enact their prejudices in the social sphere rather than seeking out legal action that would embarrass the Regiment. (There is an echo of the pre-Christian morality of Rome in finding mild titillation at members of the privileged classes acting on homosexual desire but–in normal political times–making no real objection as long as the power differential is maintained. Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy explores class and sex in convincing, fascinating, and explicit detail.)

So: the (laudable) instinct to protest that Edward Brittain shouldn’t be punished for being gay is out of place–and so too, but in a different way, is the unhistorical objection that the army of 1918 must root out the scourge of workplace sexual misconduct…

But all reasonable parties must, again, agree that an officer in a combat unit of any army pretending to any sort of democratic/egalitarian principles at all^[4] cannot have a sexual relationship with a subordinate. Few things could be more detrimental to the morale of the army, and “the army” has shown, on occasion, its willingness to shoot even young officers for nothing worse than being slow to carry out orders and/or making enemies in their unit… it can’t let officers play favorites in this way.

Would Edward Brittain assume, now, that he would be prosecuted, imprisoned, or publicly humiliated? Probably: he would have no reason to assume that the bureaucracy would keep the secret–it was not a Regimental matter, or something his apparently sympathetic colonel could hush up. So he knew, today, a century back, that he has made a terrible mistake, that he had betrayed the implicit trust and explicit rules of military command–and that he has, in all likelihood, brought public shame and lasting embarrassment upon his family.

And while these memoranda and hints are passing to and fro, the Germans are making the final preparations for their new offensive on the Asiago plateau.