Headstone of Private A.C. Thomas of the Royal Welch Fusiliers in Delville Wood Cemetery, Longueval, France. Thomas died July 20, 1916, aged 23. © 2014 John M. Shea

12285 Private

A.C. Thomas

Royal Welch Fusiliers

20th July 1916 Age 23



In Loving Memory

Mother and Maude

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Friday, October 19, 1917

"Dearest Robert, I am so glad you like Owen's poem. I will tell him to send you any decent stuff he does. His work is very unequal, and you can help him a great deal.

Seeing you again has made me more restless than ever. My position here is unbearable, and the feeling of isolation makes me feel rotten. I had a long letter from Cotterill to-day. They had just got back to rest from Polygon Wood and he says the conditions and general situation are more bloody than anything he has yet seen. Three miles of morasses, shell-holes and dead men and horses through which to get the rations up. I should like the people who write leading articles for the Morning Post (about victory) to read his letter."

Quotation Context

Excerpt from a letter dated October 19, 1917 from Siegfried Sassoon to the Robert Graves, a fellow soldier he had met at the end of 1915 as 'a young poet, captain in Third Battalion and very much disliked.' [p. 21] Sassoon was a British poet, author, Second Lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and recipient of the Military Cross for gallantry in action. Sassoon had been wounded in April, and by mid-June 15 had concluded that the war begun 'as a war of defence and liberation, [had] become a war of aggression and conquest.' In October he was at Craiglockhart, a psychiatric facility in Scotland, and under the care of W. H. R. Rivers. There he met the poet Wilfred Owen and edited some of his poems. Their relationship is the basis for Regeneration, the first book of Pat Barker's trilogy of the same name. Graves was the author of Goodbye to All That. Quartermaster Joe Cotterill had written of the Battle of Polygon Wood, a September 26 action in the Third Battle of Ypres.

Source

Siegfried Sassoon Diaries 1915-1918 by Siegfried Sassoon, pp. 191 and 192, copyright © George Sassoon, 1983; Introduction and Notes Rupert Hart-Davis, 1983, publisher: Faber and Faber, publication date: 1983

Tags

1917-10-19, 1917, October, Wilfred Owen, Owen, Robert Graves, Graves, peace, victory, Polygon Wood, Third Ypres, Third Battle of Ypres, Royal Welch Fusilier