Charles Sorley

If 1915 marked a major change in the sentiments expressed by poetry to the Great War—a move from a patriotic call to arms in the battle against Evil towards an evocation of the horrors and suffering caused by this terrible conflict—Charles Hamilton Sorley was one of the rare writers to express his opposition to the war from its very outset. A student at the University of Iéna until the eve of the declaration of hostilities, Sorley was a great admirer of German culture, a fact which did not prevent him from joining the British army.

The overall impression he gave in the few poems he had time to write was of someone deeply saddened by the conflict between two great nations, and sickened by its carnage. In a letter which he wrote to his mother in March 1915 he sums up these feelings when he declares, “There is no such thing as a just war”, whilst in another letter he condemns those who seek to distort the image of war in their writings:

The voice of our poets and men of letters is finely trained and sweet to hear; it teems with sharp saws and rich sentiment; it is a marvel of delicate technique: it pleases, it flatters, it charms, it soothes: it is a living lie.

His opinion of the war can be clearly seen in a poem which he dedicated to Germany. Unlike the favoured view of the German nation at the time, he does not portray the enemy as evil and aggressive, but prefers instead to speak repeatedly of tragic blindness rather than any deliberate machinations. In the very opening of the poem, he declares to the German people: “You are blind like us”. The idea contained in this line would also seem to be that Britain, too, is committing a grave error. There is no longer any notion of a struggle between ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’: both nations must share an equal portion of blame for the war as

. . . gropers both through fields of thought confined

We stumble and we do not understand.

In the second stanza he dares to suggest something which must have been far from the thoughts of most people at the time: eventual reconciliation between the two nations. Up until now, it has been seen that the idea foremost in the lines of the many poems written, was that of stopping the Germans’ advance and gaining a glorious victory. But Sorley was more far-sighted. He prefers to express the hope that:

When it is peace, then we may view again

With new-won eyes each other’s truer form

And wonder. (9-11)

And even in the years to come, it may be possible to forget the misery and destruction that is currently being wreaked in Europe: “We’ll . . . laugh at the old pain, the storm, / The Darkness and the thunder and the rain” (12-14).

Sorley was killed at the Battle of Loos on 13th October 1915. Today, a memorial bearing his name can be seen at Dud Corner Cemetery, Loos-en-Gohelle, France.