Thinking of the wide variation in attitudes to warfare it behoves to
spare more than a passing thought for those who fought with
the pity of war, the suffering, deeply impressed in their minds.
If responses are without compassion then nothing of lasting value
has been learned.
Take Wilfred Owen as a case in point. He was the greatest of the poets of the First World War. His death in battle a few days before the armistice
was an incalculable loss to the section of society that is concerned with the causes and the effects of war.
Owen found his voice in the trenches. His poems combine bleak realism with
indignation and compassion. For many he shaped their response and attitude to war.