"The poems in the anthology up the line to death reveal the comradeship between fighting men" To what extent do you agree with this statement?
Many of the fighting soldiers during world war one developed friendships with each other based on their shared experience and the amount of time they spent together in the trenches, and there is evidence of comradeship in many of the world war one poetry however friendship only existed to a certain extent in order to express my view on this stamen I will be assessing three poems from the anthology up the line to death including "Two Fusiliers" by Robert Graves, "Dead Man's Dump" by Isaac Rosenberg and finally the "Deserter" by Gilbert Frankau.
One of the reasons soldiers developed such strong comradeships that lasted even after the war, was due to the amount of horror and bloodshed they had witnessed together, furthermore the shared experience of suffering and hardship led to strong companionship. One of the poems that highlight this idea is "Two Fusiliers" it has been said that this poem reflects the friendship between Graves and another poet Sassoon.
The poem starts with a rhetorical question "and we have done with war at last?" it's as if the writer can't quite comprehend the fact that the war is actually over and he no longer has to suffer, then he goes to reflect on the fact that they have both survived and the word "we've" points to the writer including a fellow soldier in his contemplation of the war it's as if the two men are bonded by their experience but also by the fact that they both survived when so many others didn't. The poem then goes to talk about how strong their friendship is and that they "closely bound by firmer stuff" i.e. the war which clearly show comradeship between fighting men. The repletion of the word "by" in the first stanza highlights the friendship cemented by all the things they have seen and heard and all their experiences are listed one after the other to emphasize the true extent of what they share. The final stanza challenges readers to find a friendship that's as closely bound as theirs is i.e. "by blood" of the dead soldiers around them or the fact that their friendship developed despite their surroundings it "blossoming from mud" and witnessing death that they faced together and avoided together. Clearly this poem is evidence of t comradeship between fighting men and not just any friendship but one very strongly bound.
However not all those involved in the war were friendly with each other with emphasis placed on the division between those in command such as the generals and the ordinary fighting soldiers, one of the great horrors of world war one was the punishment for soldiers who chose to desert which was death. The poem "The Deserter" describes a single incident of a soldier being executed the poem consists of three quatrains and written using an irregular meter that moves the poem at a fast pace, reflecting the swiftness of the execution. The poem begins with the soldier apologizing for his crime while the other men "bandaged his livid face" and led him out to "die his death of disgrace, this a direct contrast to how Graves in his poem Two Fusiliers talks about how his friendship with his fellow soldier which is bound by witnessing the death of men around them killed by the enemy not by their own men. This treatment between men fighting on the same sides shows that not all fighting men developed comradeship with each other; however it can also be argued that those in command generally didn't fight therefore they didn't have any bond with the ordinary soldiers. The second stanza describes the firing squad' preparing for the execution , technical terms are used such as 'bolt-heads', 'cartridge', 'stock' and 'foresight' to give readers a greater understanding of the situation . The final stanza opens with the sergeant major giving the command to "fire" and the "shameless soul of a nameless man, went up in the cordite-smoke" the word shameless is used to highlight how those killed for deserting were disgraceful and dishonorable and those men were likely not to receive a proper burial which in itself proves that fighting men weren't always friendly.
On the other hand this type of inhumanity also existed between the ordinary fighting men were many of them we desensitized to those around them or they didn't have the energy to develop friendship also the fact that at any time anyone of them could may have discouraged soldiers to develop friendships if they know that their friends could die at any time. The poem "Dead Man's Dump" By Isaac Rosenberg is written from a soldiers point of view horrifically describing the violent and tragic situations that soldiers went through during the war, the first stanza starts with the image of "plunging limbers over a shattered track" the use of alliteration in this line helps readers imagine the damaged roads surrounded by dead soldiers. The second stanza opens with "the wheels lurched over sprawled dead" the fact that soldiers would ride over their fellow dead soldiers instead of giving them a proper burial shows an absence of any kind of comradeships existing between these men. The couplet stands out as it consist of "they left this dead with the older dead, stretched at the cross roads" which emphasizes the extent to which the soldiers are able to simply to dump the dead on the road this to some extent shows their inhumanity but it also shows that instead of being bonded by the shared experience of witnessing death as Graves believes, the soldiers are completely unaffected by the sight of their fellow soldiers being dumped and there is no mention of friendship existing , So instead of bringing them together it hardens them and leaves them without feelings.
To a certain extent it's evident that the ideas of the poem in this anthology change depending on what section they are placed in and how far into the war the poems were written for example "Two Fusiliers" was written after the war which meant that the soldiers were able to be friends once the horror had ended while on the other hand the poems that were written in the depth of the fighting such as "The Deserter" and "Dead Man's Dump" left little room for comradeship due to the level of death and destruction.
