Siegfried Sassoon Siegfried Loraine Sassoon ( 8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967 ) was an eminent English poet , writer , and soldier . Decorated for bravery on the Western Front , he became one of the leading poets of the First World War . His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches , and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who , in Sassoon ' s view , were responsible for a jingoism - fuelled war . He later won acclaim for his prose work , notably his three - volume fictionalised autobiography , collectively known as the " Sherston trilogy " . Early life and education . Siegfried Sassoon was born and grew up in the neo - gothic mansion named " Weirleigh " ( after its builder , Harrison Weir ) , in Matfield , Kent , to a Jewish father and an Anglo - Catholic mother . His father , Alfred Ezra Sassoon ( 1861 – 1895 ) , son of Sassoon David Sassoon , was a member of the wealthy Baghdadi Jewish Sassoon merchant family . For marrying outside the faith , Alfred was disinherited . Siegfried ' s mother , Theresa , belonged to the Thornycroft family , sculptors responsible for many of the best - known statues in London — her brother was Sir Hamo Thornycroft . There was no German ancestry in Siegfried ' s family ; his mother named him Siegfried because of her love of Wagner ' s operas . His middle name , Loraine , was the surname of a clergyman with whom she was friendly . Siegfried was the second of three sons , the others being Michael and Hamo . When he was four years old his parents separated . During his father ' s weekly visits to the boys , Theresa locked herself in the drawing - room . In 1895 Alfred Sassoon died of tuberculosis . Sassoon was educated at The New Beacon Preparatory School , Sevenoaks , Kent ; at Marlborough College , Marlborough , Wiltshire ( where he was a member of Cotton House ) , and at Clare College , Cambridge , where from 1905 to 1907 he read history . He went down from Cambridge without a degree and spent the next few years hunting , playing cricket and writing verse : some he published privately . Since his father had been disinherited from the Sassoon fortune for marrying a non - Jew , Siegfried had only a small private fortune that allowed him to live modestly without having to earn a living ( however , he would later be left a generous legacy by an aunt , Rachel Beer , allowing him to buy the great estate of Heytesbury House in Wiltshire . ) His first published success , " The Daffodil Murderer " ( 1913 ) , was a parody of John Masefield ' s " The Everlasting Mercy " . Robert Graves , in " Good - Bye to All That " describes it as a " parody of Masefield which , midway through , had forgotten to be a parody and turned into rather good Masefield . " Sassoon expressed his opinions on the political situation before the onset of the First World War thus — " France was a lady , Russia was a bear , and performing in the county cricket team was much more important than either of them " . Sassoon wanted to play for Kent County Cricket Club ; Kent Captain Frank Marchant was a neighbour of Sassoon . Siegfried often turned out for Bluehouses at the Nevill Ground , where he sometimes played alongside Arthur Conan Doyle . He also played cricket for his house at Marlborough College , once taking 7 wickets for 18 runs . Although an enthusiast , Sassoon was not good enough to play for Kent , but he played cricket for Matfield , and later for the Downside Abbey team , continuing into his seventies . War service . The Western Front : Military Cross . Motivated by patriotism , Sassoon joined the British Army just as the threat of World War I was realised , and was in service with the Sussex Yeomanry on the day the United Kingdom declared war ( 4 August 1914 ) . He broke his arm badly in a riding accident and was put out of action before even leaving England , spending the spring of 1915 convalescing . ( Rupert Brooke , whom Siegfried had briefly met , died on the way there . ) He was commissioned into 3rd Battalion ( Special Reserve ) , Royal Welsh Fusiliers as a second lieutenant on 29 May 1915 . On 1 November his younger brother Hamo was killed in the Gallipoli Campaign . and in the same month Siegfried was sent to the 1st Battalion in France . There he met Robert Graves and they became close friends . United by their poetic vocation , they often read and discussed each other ' s work . Though this did not have much perceptible influence on Graves ' s poetry , his views on what may be called ' gritty realism ' profoundly affected Sassoon ' s concept of what constituted poetry . He soon became horrified by the realities of war , and the tone of his writing changed completely : where his early poems exhibit a Romantic , dilettantish sweetness , his war poetry moves to an increasingly discordant music , intended to convey the ugly truths of the trenches to an audience hitherto lulled by patriotic propaganda . Details such as rotting corpses , mangled limbs , filth , cowardice and suicide are all trademarks of his work at this time , and this philosophy of ' no truth unfitting ' had a significant effect on the movement towards Modernist poetry . Sassoon ' s periods of duty on the Western Front were marked by exceptionally brave actions , including the single - handed , but ultimately pointless , capture of a German trench in the Hindenburg Line . Armed with grenades he scattered 60 German soldiers : He went over with bombs in daylight , under covering fire from a couple of rifles , and scared away the occupants . A pointless feat , since instead of signalling for reinforcements , he sat down in the German trench and began reading a book of poems which he had brought with him . When he went back he did not even report . Colonel Stockwell , then in command , raged at him . The attack on Mametz Wood had been delayed for two hours because British patrols were still reported to be out . " British patrols " were Siegfried and his book of poems . " I ' d have got you a D . S . O . , if you ' d only shown more sense , " stormed Stockwell . Sassoon ' s bravery was inspiring to the extent that soldiers of his company said that they felt confident only when they were accompanied by him . He often went out on night - raids and bombing patrols and demonstrated ruthless efficiency as a company commander . Deepening depression at the horror and misery the soldiers were forced to endure produced in Sassoon a paradoxically manic courage , and he was nicknamed " Mad Jack " by his men for his near - suicidal exploits . On 27 July 1916 he was awarded the Military Cross ; the citation read : Robert Graves described Sassoon as engaging in suicidal feats of bravery . Sassoon was also later ( unsuccessfully ) recommended for the Victoria Cross . War opposition : Craiglockhart . Despite his decoration and reputation , he decided in 1917 to make a stand against the conduct of the war . One of the reasons for his violent anti - war feeling was the death of his friend , David Cuthbert Thomas ( called " Dick Tiltwood " in the Sherston trilogy ) . Sassoon would spend years trying to overcome his grief . At the end of a spell of convalescent leave , Sassoon declined to return to duty ; instead , encouraged by pacifist friends such as Bertrand Russell and Lady Ottoline Morrell , he sent a letter to his commanding officer entitled " " . Forwarded to the press and read out in Parliament by a sympathetic MP , the letter was seen by some as treasonous ( " I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority " ) or at best condemnatory of the war government ' s motives ( " I believe that the war upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of aggression and conquest " ) . Rather than court - martial Sassoon , the Under - Secretary of State for War , Ian Macpherson decided that he was unfit for service and had him sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh , where he was officially treated for neurasthenia ( " shell shock " ) . Before declining to return to active service he had thrown the ribbon from his Military Cross into the river Mersey . According to his description of this incident in " Memoirs of an Infantry Officer " he did not , as one would infer from the context of his action , do this as a symbolic rejection of militaristic values , but simply out of the need to perform some destructive act in catharsis of the black mood which was afflicting him ; one of his pre - war sporting trophies , had he had one to hand , would have served his purpose equally well . The novel " Regeneration " , by Pat Barker , is a fictionalised account of this period in Sassoon ' s life , and was made into a film starring James Wilby as Sassoon and Jonathan Pryce as W . H . R . Rivers , the psychiatrist responsible for Sassoon ' s treatment . Rivers became a kind of surrogate father to the troubled young man , and his sudden death in 1922 was a major blow to Sassoon . At Craiglockhart , Sassoon met Wilfred Owen , a fellow poet who would eventually exceed him in fame . It was thanks to Sassoon that Owen persevered in his ambition to write better poetry . A manuscript copy of Owen ' s " Anthem for Doomed Youth " containing Sassoon ' s handwritten amendments survives as testimony to the extent of his influence and is currently on display at London ' s Imperial War Museum . Sassoon became to Owen " Keats and Christ and Elijah " ; surviving documents demonstrate clearly the depth of Owen ' s love and admiration for him . Both men returned to active service in France , but Owen was killed in 1918 . Sassoon , despite all this , was promoted to lieutenant , and having spent some time out of danger in Palestine , eventually returned to the Front . On 13 July 1918 , Sassoon was almost immediately wounded again — by friendly fire after he was shot in the head by a fellow British soldier who had mistaken him for a German near Arras , France . As a result , he spent the remainder of the war in Britain . By this time he had been promoted acting captain . He relinquished his commission on health grounds on 12 March 1919 , but was allowed to retain the rank of captain . After the war , Sassoon was instrumental in bringing Owen ' s work to the attention of a wider audience . Their friendship is the subject of Stephen MacDonald ' s play , " Not About Heroes " . Post - war . Editor and novelist . Having lived for a period at Oxford , where he spent more time visiting literary friends than studying , he dabbled briefly in the politics of the Labour movement , and in 1919 took up a post as literary editor of the socialist " Daily Herald " . He lived at 54 Tufton Street , Westminster from 1919 to 1925 ; the house is no longer standing , but the location of his former home is marked by a memorial plaque . During his period at the " Herald " , Sassoon was responsible for employing several eminent names as reviewers , including E . M . Forster and Charlotte Mew , and commissioned original material from " names " like Arnold Bennett and Osbert Sitwell . His artistic interests extended to music . While at Oxford he was introduced to the young William Walton , whose friend and patron he became . Walton later dedicated his " Portsmouth Point " overture to Sassoon in recognition of his financial assistance and moral support . Sassoon later embarked on a lecture tour of the USA , as well as travelling in Europe and throughout Britain . He acquired a car , a gift from the publisher Frankie Schuster , and became renowned among his friends for his lack of driving skill , but this did not prevent him making full use of the mobility it gave him . Sassoon was a great admirer of the Welsh poet Henry Vaughan . On a visit to Wales in 1923 , he paid a pilgrimage to Vaughan ' s grave at Llansantffraed , Powys , and there wrote one of his best - known peacetime poems , " At the Grave of Henry Vaughan " . The deaths of three of his closest friends - Edmund Gosse , Thomas Hardy and Frankie Schuster ( the publisher ) - within a short space of time , came as another serious setback to his personal happiness . At the same time , Sassoon was preparing to take a new direction . While in America , he had experimented with a novel . In 1928 , he branched out into prose , with " Memoirs of a Fox - Hunting Man " , the anonymously - published first volume of a fictionalised autobiography , which was almost immediately accepted as a classic , bringing its author new fame as a humorous writer . The book won the 1928 James Tait Black Award for fiction . Sassoon followed it with " Memoirs of an Infantry Officer " ( 1930 ) and " Sherston ' s Progress " ( 1936 ) . In later years , he revisited his youth and early manhood with three volumes of genuine autobiography , which were also widely acclaimed . These were " The Old Century " , " The Weald of Youth " and " Siegfried ' s Journey " . Personal life . Sassoon , having matured greatly as a result of his military service , continued to seek emotional fulfilment , initially in a succession of love affairs with men , including the landscape architectural and figure painter , draftsman and illustrator , William Park " Gabriel " Atkin , actor Ivor Novello ; Novello ' s former lover , the actor Glen Byam Shaw ; German aristocrat Prince Philipp of Hesse ; the writer Beverley Nichols ; an effete aristocrat , the Hon . Stephen Tennant . Only the last of these made a permanent impression , though Shaw remained his close friend throughout his life . In September 1931 , Sassoon rented and began to live at Fitz House , Teffont Magna , Wiltshire . In December 1933 , to many people ' s surprise , he married Hester Gatty , who was many years his junior ; this led to the birth of a child , something which he had long craved . This only child George ( 1936 – 2006 ) , became a scientist , linguist and author , and was adored by Siegfried , who wrote several poems addressed to him . However , the marriage broke down after the Second World War , Sassoon apparently unable to find a compromise between the solitude he enjoyed and the companionship he craved . Separated from his wife in 1945 , Sassoon lived in seclusion at Heytesbury in Wiltshire , although he maintained contact with a circle which included E . M . Forster and J . R . Ackerley . One of his closest friends was the young cricketer Dennis Silk . He formed a close friendship with Vivien Hancock , headmistress of Greenways School at Ashton Gifford , which his son George attended . The relationship provoked Hester to make some strong accusations against Vivien Hancock , who responded with the threat of legal action . Sassoon was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1951 New Year Honours . Towards the end of his life , he converted to Roman Catholicism . He had hoped that Ronald Knox , a Roman Catholic priest and writer whom he admired , would instruct him in the faith , but Knox was too ill to do so . The priest Sebastian Moore was chosen to instruct him instead , and Sassoon was admitted to the faith at Downside Abbey , close to his home . He also paid regular visits to the nuns at Stanbrook Abbey , and the abbey press printed commemorative editions of some of his poems . During this time he also became interested in the supernatural , and joined the Ghost Club . Siegfried Sassoon died one week before his 81st birthday , of stomach cancer , and is buried at St Andrew ' s Church , Mells , Somerset , close to Ronald Knox . Legacy . On 11 November 1985 , Sassoon was among sixteen Great War poets commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in Westminster Abbey ' s Poet ' s Corner . The inscription on the stone was written by friend and fellow War poet Wilfred Owen . It reads : " My subject is War , and the pity of War . The Poetry is in the pity . " The year 2003 saw the publication of " Memorial Tablet " , an authorised audio CD of readings by Sassoon recorded during the late 1950s . These included extracts from " Memoirs of an Infantry Officer " and " The Weald of Youth " , as well as several war poems including Attack , The Dug - Out , At Carnoy and Died of Wounds , and postwar works . The CD also included comment on Sassoon by three of his Great War contemporaries : Edmund Blunden , Edgell Rickword and Henry Williamson . Siegfried Sassoon ' s only child , George Sassoon , died of cancer in 2006 . George had three children , two of whom were killed in a car crash in 1996 . His daughter by his first marriage , Kendall Sassoon , is Patron - in - Chief of the Siegfried Sassoon Fellowship , and a Lady Associate Royal Welch Fusilier . In May 2007 Sassoon ' s Military Cross was put up for sale by his family . It was bought by the Royal Welch Fusiliers for display at their museum in Caernarfon . Sassoon ' s other service medals went unclaimed until 1985 when his son George obtained them from the Army Medal Office , then based at Droitwich . The " late claim " medals consisting of the 1914 - 15 Star , Victory Medal and British War Medal along with Sassoon ' s CBE and Warrant of Appointment were auctioned by Sotheby ' s in 2008 . In June 2009 , the University of Cambridge announced plans to purchase a valuable archive of Sassoon ' s papers from his family , to be added to the university library ' s existing Sassoon collection . On 4 November 2009 it was reported that this purchase would be supported by £550 , 000 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund , meaning that the University still needed to raise a further £110 , 000 on top of the money already received in order to meet the full £1 . 25 million asking price . The funds were successfully raised , and in December 2009 it was announced that the University had received the papers . Included in the collection are war diaries kept by Sassoon while he served on the Western Front and in Palestine , a draft of " " ( 1917 ) , notebooks from his schooldays , and post - war journals . Other items in the collection include love letters to his wife Hester , and photographs and letters from other writers . Sassoon was an undergraduate at the university , as well as being made an honorary fellow of Clare College , and the collection will be housed at the Cambridge University Library . As well as private individuals , funding came from the Monument Trust , the JP Getty Jr Trust , and Sir Siegmund Warburg ' s Voluntary Settlement . In 2010 , " Dream Voices : Siegfried Sassoon , Memory and War " , a major exhibition of Sassoon ' s life and archive , was held at Cambridge University . Several of Sassoon ' s poems have been set to music , some during his lifetime , notably by Cyril Rootham , who co - operated with the author . The discovery in 2013 of an early draft of one of Sassoon ' s best - known anti - war poems had biographers saying they would rewrite portions of their work about the poet . In the poem , ' Atrocities , ' which concerned the killing of German soldiers by their British counterparts , the early draft shows that some lines were cut and others watered down . The poet ' s publisher was nervous about publishing the poem , and held it for publication in an expurgated version at a later date . Said Sassoon biographer Jean Moorcroft Wilson on learning of the discovery of the early draft : " This is very exciting material . I want to rewrite my biography and I probably shall be able to get some of it in . It ' s a treasure trove . "