If the first casualty of war is not truth, it is clearly optimism. As Europeans saw the destruction all around them, these themes flowed into their literature. I have a rendezvous with Death When Spring brings back blue days and fair. And the first meadow flowers appear. When Spring trips north again this year, And I to my pledged word am true I will not fail that rendezvous.
Students quickly note that it is easier to be brave about a battle that is, as yet, unfought.
The days go by and the incredible hours follow one another as a matter of course. Attacks alternate with counter-attacks and slowly the dead pile up in the field of craters between the trenches. We are able to bring in most of the wounded that do not lie too far off. But many have long to wait and we listen to them dying. For one of them we search two days in vain.