WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.799 Imagine, if you will, a soldier in the brutal 00:00:03.799 --> 00:00:06.240 muddy hellscape of the First World War. Right. 00:00:06.580 --> 00:00:09.859 He is so ruthlessly brave, so seemingly devoid 00:00:09.859 --> 00:00:12.939 of fear, that he charges and captures an enemy 00:00:12.939 --> 00:00:16.640 trench entirely single -handedly, just scattering 00:00:16.640 --> 00:00:19.160 dozens of enemy fighters. Which is astounding 00:00:19.160 --> 00:00:21.850 on its own. Yeah. But then instead of calling 00:00:21.850 --> 00:00:24.769 for backup or securing the perimeter or celebrating 00:00:24.769 --> 00:00:27.750 his victory, he simply sits down in the mud in 00:00:27.750 --> 00:00:30.589 the middle of a war zone, pulls out a book of 00:00:30.589 --> 00:00:33.659 poetry, and just starts to read. It is wild. 00:00:33.899 --> 00:00:36.420 Welcome to the deep dive. I am thrilled you're 00:00:36.420 --> 00:00:38.579 joining us today because the person we are looking 00:00:38.579 --> 00:00:41.920 at is one of the most fascinating complex contradictions 00:00:41.920 --> 00:00:44.399 of the 20th century. Oh, absolutely. Today's 00:00:44.399 --> 00:00:46.840 source material is an extensive Wikipedia article 00:00:46.840 --> 00:00:49.460 detailing the life of Siegfried Sassoon. And 00:00:49.460 --> 00:00:51.700 our mission for this deep dive is to explore 00:00:51.700 --> 00:00:55.000 the incredible paradox of a man who was simultaneously 00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:58.100 a highly decorated combat hero and one of the 00:00:58.100 --> 00:01:00.960 British military's most prominent antiwar dissidents. 00:01:01.140 --> 00:01:03.820 Yeah, we are. to look at how his personal journey 00:01:03.820 --> 00:01:06.420 completely shattered the romanticized illusions 00:01:06.420 --> 00:01:10.150 of warfare for an entire generation. It is a 00:01:10.150 --> 00:01:14.129 truly remarkable life to examine. I mean, Sassoon's 00:01:14.129 --> 00:01:16.870 story forces us to question the intersection 00:01:16.870 --> 00:01:19.810 of severe psychological trauma, the creation 00:01:19.810 --> 00:01:22.549 of enduring art, and really the very nature of 00:01:22.549 --> 00:01:24.750 historical truth. Right. He was a man pulled 00:01:24.750 --> 00:01:27.829 between absolute extremes. By looking at his 00:01:27.829 --> 00:01:30.510 life, we get a profoundly unfiltered view of 00:01:30.510 --> 00:01:34.109 a world that was quite literally tearing itself 00:01:34.109 --> 00:01:37.459 apart. and a man trying to find some kind of 00:01:37.459 --> 00:01:39.579 moral footing in the rubble. OK, let's unpack 00:01:39.579 --> 00:01:41.680 this. Because you really cannot understand the 00:01:41.680 --> 00:01:44.239 sheer magnitude of Sassoon's later rebellion 00:01:44.239 --> 00:01:47.239 without first understanding the incredibly unique, 00:01:47.640 --> 00:01:50.579 privileged, and somewhat fractured world he came 00:01:50.579 --> 00:01:54.019 from. He was born in September 1886 into a family 00:01:54.019 --> 00:01:57.579 of massive cultural contrasts. His father, Alfred, 00:01:57.719 --> 00:02:00.359 was Jewish, descending from the incredibly wealthy 00:02:00.359 --> 00:02:03.200 Baghdadi Jewish Sassoon merchant family. But 00:02:03.200 --> 00:02:05.540 Alfred was actually entirely disinherited. Yeah, 00:02:05.719 --> 00:02:07.579 for marrying outside the faith. Right. Because 00:02:07.579 --> 00:02:09.840 Siegfried's mother, Theresa, was Anglo -Catholic 00:02:09.840 --> 00:02:11.840 and part of the prominent Thornycroft family. 00:02:11.960 --> 00:02:14.340 The sculptors. Yes, the famous sculptors responsible 00:02:14.340 --> 00:02:16.319 for some of the best known statues in London. 00:02:16.680 --> 00:02:19.039 So right away, we have this vivid blending of 00:02:19.039 --> 00:02:21.800 different cultural inheritances, creating a home 00:02:21.800 --> 00:02:24.340 environment that was rich in the arts, but also 00:02:24.340 --> 00:02:27.340 marked by familial estrangement. Yeah. And it 00:02:27.340 --> 00:02:29.659 is also worth noting a small but interesting 00:02:29.659 --> 00:02:32.219 detail about his name. which comes up quite a 00:02:32.219 --> 00:02:35.139 bit. Despite the very Germanic sounding name 00:02:35.139 --> 00:02:39.199 Siegfried, there was absolutely no German ancestry 00:02:39.199 --> 00:02:41.520 in his family. None at all. His mother simply 00:02:41.520 --> 00:02:44.419 loved Richard Wagner's operas and named him after 00:02:44.419 --> 00:02:46.580 one of the characters. Which is a detail that 00:02:46.580 --> 00:02:49.039 probably felt a bit heavy a few decades later 00:02:49.039 --> 00:02:51.300 when the world went to war. I can imagine. But 00:02:51.300 --> 00:02:54.500 his childhood While very comfortable, definitely 00:02:54.500 --> 00:02:57.240 had its dark spots. His parents separated when 00:02:57.240 --> 00:02:59.639 he was just four years old, and his father died 00:02:59.639 --> 00:03:02.379 of tuberculosis shortly after. Right. However, 00:03:02.780 --> 00:03:05.340 Sassoon lived on a private income, which was 00:03:05.340 --> 00:03:07.680 later boosted by a massive inheritance from his 00:03:07.680 --> 00:03:10.020 aunt, Rachel Peer. Which changed everything for 00:03:10.020 --> 00:03:13.439 him. It really did. This inheritance was so substantial, 00:03:13.759 --> 00:03:16.379 it eventually allowed him to buy a sweeping country 00:03:16.379 --> 00:03:19.520 estate in Wiltshire called Hatesbury House. And 00:03:19.520 --> 00:03:22.659 that financial independence is crucial to understanding 00:03:22.659 --> 00:03:26.000 his early adulthood. It meant he never had to 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:28.960 mold himself to the practicalities of a traditional 00:03:28.960 --> 00:03:31.819 career. He could just do what he wanted. Exactly. 00:03:32.219 --> 00:03:34.259 I mean, he went to Clare College, Cambridge, 00:03:34.460 --> 00:03:37.639 to read history, but he actually left without 00:03:37.639 --> 00:03:40.439 a degree. Just dropped out. Yeah. Instead, he 00:03:40.439 --> 00:03:44.699 spent the years after 1907 essentially living 00:03:44.699 --> 00:03:47.680 the ultimate life of an Edwardian country gentleman. 00:03:48.039 --> 00:03:50.340 Hunting. He was hunting, he was writing romantic, 00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:53.300 somewhat dilettante -ish verse, and he was playing 00:03:53.300 --> 00:03:55.379 a significant amount of cricket. And he wasn't 00:03:55.379 --> 00:03:57.580 just casually tossing a ball around on the village 00:03:57.580 --> 00:03:59.560 green, he played for the Blue Mantles Cricket 00:03:59.560 --> 00:04:02.080 Club. Right. sometimes taking the field alongside 00:04:02.080 --> 00:04:04.460 Arthur Coney Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. 00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:06.840 Which is such a crazy visual. I know. I want 00:04:06.840 --> 00:04:10.060 you, the listener, to really picture this environment. 00:04:10.719 --> 00:04:13.479 Picture a wealthy young man riding horses through 00:04:13.479 --> 00:04:16.040 the misty English countryside, playing cricket 00:04:16.040 --> 00:04:19.079 with literary giants, and writing poetry parodies. 00:04:19.339 --> 00:04:21.899 He actually wrote a parody of a John Masefield 00:04:21.899 --> 00:04:25.860 poem called The Daffodil Murderer. Which, amazingly, 00:04:26.060 --> 00:04:28.360 was so well written, it accidentally turned into 00:04:28.360 --> 00:04:31.000 a genuinely good piece of poetry. He couldn't 00:04:31.000 --> 00:04:33.600 even write a bad parody. Right. So he is living 00:04:33.600 --> 00:04:36.980 this idyllic, almost storybook existence, completely 00:04:36.980 --> 00:04:39.540 unaware that his entire world is about to shatter. 00:04:39.699 --> 00:04:42.379 The contrast between his pre -war life and what 00:04:42.379 --> 00:04:46.250 was to come could not be starker. It really represents 00:04:46.250 --> 00:04:49.889 the abrupt end of an entire era of European innocence. 00:04:50.529 --> 00:04:52.410 Yeah. When the threat of European war became 00:04:52.410 --> 00:04:55.980 undeniable, Sassoon didn't hesitate. He was in 00:04:55.980 --> 00:04:58.399 service with the Sussex Yeomanry, a volunteer 00:04:58.399 --> 00:05:01.639 cavalry regiment, on August 4th, 1914. Which 00:05:01.639 --> 00:05:04.720 was the exact day. The very day the United Kingdom 00:05:04.720 --> 00:05:06.819 declared war on Germany. Though he had a bit 00:05:06.819 --> 00:05:08.860 of a false start. He broke his arm badly in a 00:05:08.860 --> 00:05:11.259 writing accident before he even saw combat. Right. 00:05:11.459 --> 00:05:13.259 But he eventually shipped out to France with 00:05:13.259 --> 00:05:16.819 the Royal Welch Fusiliers in late 1915 as a commissioned 00:05:16.819 --> 00:05:19.500 officer. And this is where the idyllic country 00:05:19.500 --> 00:05:22.339 poet violently collides with the horrors of the 00:05:22.339 --> 00:05:24.720 Western Front. It's quite a shock to the system. 00:05:24.889 --> 00:05:27.410 It's hard to reconcile a guy who just wants to 00:05:27.410 --> 00:05:30.250 sit in a library and write romantic verse with 00:05:30.250 --> 00:05:34.170 the brutal reality of trench warfare. How did 00:05:34.170 --> 00:05:36.069 that environment actually change his writing? 00:05:36.509 --> 00:05:39.670 What's fascinating here is the profound, almost 00:05:39.670 --> 00:05:42.949 violent shift in his creative voice. While in 00:05:42.949 --> 00:05:45.569 France, he met another writer, Robert Graves, 00:05:45.689 --> 00:05:48.529 who became a close friend and a major influence. 00:05:48.870 --> 00:05:51.569 Graves had a literary philosophy of gritty realism 00:05:51.569 --> 00:05:54.430 that deeply impacted Sassoon. Gritty realism? 00:05:54.550 --> 00:05:56.870 Yeah. Under this influence and confronted with 00:05:56.870 --> 00:05:59.550 the daily slaughter around him, Sassoon completely 00:05:59.550 --> 00:06:01.930 abandoned that romantic sweetness of his early 00:06:01.930 --> 00:06:05.050 verse. He adopted a new philosophy for his writing. 00:06:05.230 --> 00:06:08.689 He called it no truth unfitting. No truth unfitting. 00:06:08.730 --> 00:06:10.769 That's a powerful standard to hold yourself to 00:06:10.769 --> 00:06:13.430 in a war zone. Exactly. He began detailing the 00:06:13.430 --> 00:06:15.649 absolute ugliest realities of the trenches. That 00:06:15.649 --> 00:06:17.089 stiff people didn't want to hear about. Right. 00:06:17.129 --> 00:06:19.370 He did this deliberately to shock a British public 00:06:19.370 --> 00:06:22.209 back home that was being lulled by patriotic, 00:06:22.410 --> 00:06:25.220 sanitized propaganda. He wrote about ratting 00:06:25.220 --> 00:06:27.540 corpses, mangled limbs, the suffocating filth 00:06:27.540 --> 00:06:29.839 of the mud, and even soldiers committing suicide 00:06:29.839 --> 00:06:31.920 out of sheer despair. Just laying it all out 00:06:31.920 --> 00:06:33.839 there. He was holding up a mirror to the society 00:06:33.839 --> 00:06:36.939 that sent these young men to die. But the paradox 00:06:36.939 --> 00:06:39.779 is that while he was writing these brutally anti 00:06:39.779 --> 00:06:42.680 -war poems, he was simultaneously acting as one 00:06:42.680 --> 00:06:45.759 of the most terrifyingly effective combat soldiers 00:06:45.759 --> 00:06:49.139 in his regiment. Yes. His men nicknamed him Mad 00:06:49.139 --> 00:06:52.680 Jack because of his jaw -dropping, near -suicidal 00:06:52.680 --> 00:06:56.100 military exploits. And that brings us back to 00:06:56.100 --> 00:06:58.120 the story from the beginning of our deep dive. 00:06:58.360 --> 00:07:00.699 The trench story. The Mehmet's wood incident. 00:07:01.240 --> 00:07:03.800 Armed with grenades, he went over the top in 00:07:03.800 --> 00:07:06.720 broad daylight, scattered 60 German soldiers, 00:07:07.139 --> 00:07:09.899 and captured an enemy trench entirely single 00:07:09.899 --> 00:07:12.170 -handedly. And the absurdity of the conflict 00:07:12.170 --> 00:07:14.730 is perfectly encapsulated in what he did next. 00:07:14.850 --> 00:07:16.889 Yeah. As you mentioned at the start, he didn't 00:07:16.889 --> 00:07:19.689 signal for reinforcements. He just sat down and 00:07:19.689 --> 00:07:22.050 captured German trench and read a book of poems 00:07:22.050 --> 00:07:24.209 he had brought with him. Unbelievable. He didn't 00:07:24.209 --> 00:07:26.550 even report back to his lines right away. Because 00:07:26.550 --> 00:07:28.790 of this, he actually delayed the British attack 00:07:28.790 --> 00:07:32.170 on the wood by two hours. Two whole hours. Because 00:07:32.170 --> 00:07:34.470 the commanders thought British patrols were still 00:07:34.470 --> 00:07:37.410 out there. His commanding officer, Colonel Stockwell, 00:07:37.579 --> 00:07:41.319 was absolutely enraged, yelling at him that he 00:07:41.319 --> 00:07:43.180 could have gotten him a distinguished service 00:07:43.180 --> 00:07:45.660 order if he'd only shown more tactical sense. 00:07:45.959 --> 00:07:48.600 But he was a phenomenally brave company commander, 00:07:48.819 --> 00:07:51.439 constantly going out on dangerous night raids 00:07:51.439 --> 00:07:54.860 into no man's land. His men reportedly only felt 00:07:54.860 --> 00:07:56.939 safe when he was with them. He inspired that 00:07:56.939 --> 00:07:59.300 kind of loyalty. He did end up being awarded 00:07:59.300 --> 00:08:01.800 the military cross for remaining under intense 00:08:01.800 --> 00:08:04.360 fire for an hour and a half to collect wounded 00:08:04.360 --> 00:08:06.959 soldiers. And he was even later recommended for 00:08:06.889 --> 00:08:09.790 Victoria Cross. Right. But where is that Mad 00:08:09.790 --> 00:08:12.170 Jack energy actually coming from? It clearly 00:08:12.170 --> 00:08:14.250 wasn't stemming from a deep belief in the righteousness 00:08:14.250 --> 00:08:17.089 of the war. That is the psychological core of 00:08:17.089 --> 00:08:20.110 Sassoon's experience. This manic courage, this 00:08:20.110 --> 00:08:23.250 Mad Jack persona was actually driven by a deep 00:08:23.360 --> 00:08:27.399 numbing depression and grief. In 1915, his younger 00:08:27.399 --> 00:08:29.759 brother, Hamo, was killed in the Gallipoli campaign, 00:08:30.199 --> 00:08:33.659 dying after having his leg amputated. And soon 00:08:33.659 --> 00:08:36.100 after, his close friend, David Cuthbert Thomas, 00:08:36.200 --> 00:08:38.700 was also killed in action. So he's just losing 00:08:38.700 --> 00:08:41.919 everyone. Everyone. Sassoon's reckless bravery 00:08:41.919 --> 00:08:45.279 was, in many ways, a symptom of severe trauma. 00:08:45.960 --> 00:08:49.720 It was a desperate, almost suicidal grief. masquerading 00:08:49.720 --> 00:08:52.039 as traditional heroism. That makes so much sense. 00:08:52.139 --> 00:08:54.200 He was putting himself in the line of fire because 00:08:54.200 --> 00:08:56.500 he simply didn't care if he survived a world 00:08:56.500 --> 00:08:58.820 without the people he loved in it. Here's where 00:08:58.820 --> 00:09:01.940 it gets really interesting because the ultimate 00:09:01.940 --> 00:09:05.200 decorated war hero is about to commit the ultimate 00:09:05.200 --> 00:09:09.019 act of military rebellion. Yeah. In August 1917, 00:09:09.360 --> 00:09:11.659 Sassoon was recovering from gastric fever at 00:09:11.659 --> 00:09:14.139 Somerville College in Oxford, which was being 00:09:14.139 --> 00:09:17.700 used as a military hospital. Encouraged by a 00:09:17.700 --> 00:09:20.059 circle of pacifist friends, including philosophers 00:09:20.059 --> 00:09:22.860 like Bertrand Russell, he decided he had to take 00:09:22.860 --> 00:09:25.700 a definitive stand. He wrote a letter to his 00:09:25.700 --> 00:09:27.620 commanding officer titled, Finished with the 00:09:27.620 --> 00:09:31.059 War, a Soldier's Declaration. Now, looking at 00:09:31.059 --> 00:09:33.639 this strictly through a historical lens, independent 00:09:33.639 --> 00:09:36.600 of modern politics, his letter was a massive 00:09:36.600 --> 00:09:40.179 shock to the system of the British Empire. And... 00:09:39.820 --> 00:09:43.019 We should be clear. We are just conveying the 00:09:43.019 --> 00:09:45.179 historical viewpoints from our source material 00:09:45.179 --> 00:09:49.000 here not taking sides or Endorsing any political 00:09:49.000 --> 00:09:51.759 stances exactly just reporting the facts of what 00:09:51.759 --> 00:09:55.000 he wrote He stated he was acting in willful defiance 00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:58.659 of military authority old very he explicitly 00:09:58.659 --> 00:10:01.580 wrote that he believed the war Which he had entered 00:10:01.580 --> 00:10:04.440 as a war of defense and liberation had become 00:10:04.440 --> 00:10:08.139 a war of aggression and conquest Wow. He accused 00:10:08.139 --> 00:10:10.679 the government of deliberately prolonging the 00:10:10.679 --> 00:10:13.139 suffering for political ends. It was explosive. 00:10:13.220 --> 00:10:15.279 It was actually read aloud in the House of Commons. 00:10:15.379 --> 00:10:18.519 Yeah. By all military standards of the time, 00:10:18.700 --> 00:10:21.240 an acting officer publishing a letter calling 00:10:21.240 --> 00:10:23.100 the government's motives into question while 00:10:23.100 --> 00:10:25.980 the war was still raging was treasonous. Absolutely. 00:10:26.279 --> 00:10:28.379 He fully expected to be court -martialed and 00:10:28.379 --> 00:10:30.340 he was prepared to go to prison for his beliefs. 00:10:30.539 --> 00:10:33.039 But the military made a very clever, highly calculated 00:10:33.039 --> 00:10:35.340 pivot. They didn't want a murder. Precisely. 00:10:36.039 --> 00:10:39.179 The Under Secretary of State for War, Ian McPherson, 00:10:39.840 --> 00:10:41.639 along with intervention from Sassoon's friend 00:10:41.639 --> 00:10:44.259 Robert Graves, realized that court -martialing 00:10:44.259 --> 00:10:47.080 a decorated war hero who was famous for his bravery 00:10:47.080 --> 00:10:49.940 would turn him into a very dangerous martyr for 00:10:49.940 --> 00:10:52.620 the anti -war movement. It would backfire entirely. 00:10:52.740 --> 00:10:55.240 So instead of a trial, a medical board declared 00:10:55.240 --> 00:10:57.940 him unfit for service. They said he was suffering 00:10:57.940 --> 00:11:00.120 from neurasthenia. Which was the medical term 00:11:00.120 --> 00:11:02.399 at the time for what we now know as shell shock 00:11:02.399 --> 00:11:05.629 or PTSD. Right. And they sent him away to Craiglock 00:11:05.629 --> 00:11:08.110 Heart War Hospital near Edinburgh. But before 00:11:08.110 --> 00:11:09.830 he agreed to go to the hospital, there was a 00:11:09.830 --> 00:11:12.629 famous incident where he threw his military cross 00:11:12.629 --> 00:11:15.509 ribbon into the sea at Formby Beach. This is 00:11:15.509 --> 00:11:17.750 a great story. Now, a lot of people misread his 00:11:17.750 --> 00:11:19.850 memoir later and assumed he threw the actual 00:11:19.850 --> 00:11:23.309 heavy metal away. But our source clarifies it 00:11:23.309 --> 00:11:25.629 was just the ribbon. The metal itself was kept 00:11:25.629 --> 00:11:28.330 by his family. His own later account of that 00:11:28.330 --> 00:11:30.549 moment is incredibly revealing about his state 00:11:30.549 --> 00:11:33.509 of mind. He stated he didn't throw the ribbon 00:11:33.509 --> 00:11:36.429 as some grand symbolic rejection of militarism. 00:11:36.429 --> 00:11:39.730 It was much more visceral than that. He simply 00:11:39.730 --> 00:11:43.149 had a deep psychological night to perform a destructive 00:11:43.149 --> 00:11:46.470 act, a physical catharsis to release the pressure 00:11:46.470 --> 00:11:48.730 building inside him. That makes sense. He even 00:11:48.730 --> 00:11:50.909 joked that if he had one of his old pre -war 00:11:50.909 --> 00:11:52.789 sporting trophies handy, he would have thrown 00:11:52.789 --> 00:11:55.149 that into the sea instead. Just needed to throw 00:11:55.149 --> 00:11:57.350 something. Exactly. It was about the physical 00:11:57.350 --> 00:11:59.929 release of frustration, not just the symbolism 00:11:59.929 --> 00:12:02.820 of the ribbon. that brings so much humanity to 00:12:02.820 --> 00:12:06.080 the myth of the stoic rebel. And while he was 00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:09.139 recovering at Craig Lockhart, another incredibly 00:12:09.139 --> 00:12:11.720 pivotal moment in literary history happens. He 00:12:11.720 --> 00:12:14.399 meets another patient, a young unknown poet named 00:12:14.399 --> 00:12:18.000 Wilford Owen. Sassoon took Owen under his wing. 00:12:18.580 --> 00:12:21.019 He deeply influenced Owen's writing, giving him 00:12:21.019 --> 00:12:23.279 the confidence to write about the true horrors 00:12:23.279 --> 00:12:25.659 of the trenches. He really shaped him. Sassoon 00:12:25.659 --> 00:12:28.019 even physically amended the manuscript of Owen's 00:12:28.019 --> 00:12:31.279 most famous poem, anthem for doomed youth. The 00:12:31.279 --> 00:12:33.700 bond between them was profound both personally 00:12:33.700 --> 00:12:37.019 and artistically. Sassoon effectively gave Oman 00:12:37.019 --> 00:12:40.720 permission to embrace that same gritty unflinching 00:12:40.720 --> 00:12:43.899 realism. The impact was so strong that Owen wrote 00:12:43.899 --> 00:12:47.360 a letter where he referred to Sassoon as Keats 00:12:47.360 --> 00:12:50.830 and Christ and Elijah. A poet, a savior, and 00:12:50.830 --> 00:12:54.470 a prophet all rolled into one. Exactly. Tragically, 00:12:54.690 --> 00:12:56.429 while both men eventually returned to active 00:12:56.429 --> 00:12:59.590 service, Owen was killed in France just one week 00:12:59.590 --> 00:13:02.970 before the armistice in 1918. Oh, that's heartbreaking. 00:13:03.330 --> 00:13:05.470 Sassoon later wrote that Owen's death was an 00:13:05.470 --> 00:13:07.190 unhealed wound that he carried for the rest of 00:13:07.190 --> 00:13:09.610 his life. Sassoon's own return to the front was 00:13:09.610 --> 00:13:12.840 also almost fatal. By 1918, he'd been promoted 00:13:12.840 --> 00:13:15.139 to acting captain, serving in Palestine and then 00:13:15.139 --> 00:13:18.220 back to France. But in July, he was wounded in 00:13:18.220 --> 00:13:20.240 the head. And this was by friendly fire, wasn't 00:13:20.240 --> 00:13:23.059 it? It was. A British soldier apparently mistook 00:13:23.059 --> 00:13:25.820 him for a German in the fading light. Our source 00:13:25.820 --> 00:13:29.120 notes a highly debated 2018 tabloid story suggesting 00:13:29.120 --> 00:13:31.179 it might not have been accidental. Interesting. 00:13:31.340 --> 00:13:33.759 Hinting at a possible fragging incident by someone 00:13:33.759 --> 00:13:36.960 angry at his anti -war stances. But the overwhelming 00:13:36.960 --> 00:13:39.100 historical consensus is that it was a tragic 00:13:39.100 --> 00:13:42.220 accident. Either way, that head wound finally 00:13:42.220 --> 00:13:44.659 ended his combat service for good. If we connect 00:13:44.659 --> 00:13:47.759 this to the bigger picture, Sassoon's post -war 00:13:47.759 --> 00:13:51.080 life reveals a man constantly trying to reconcile 00:13:51.080 --> 00:13:54.559 his past trauma with a rapidly changing modernized 00:13:54.559 --> 00:13:57.940 world. Yeah. As historians observing his trajectory, 00:13:58.220 --> 00:14:00.240 it's fascinating to see his political pivot. 00:14:01.159 --> 00:14:03.299 He initially aligned himself with the politics 00:14:03.299 --> 00:14:06.169 of the labor movement. perhaps looking for a 00:14:06.169 --> 00:14:08.830 societal structure that prioritized peace. Right, 00:14:08.990 --> 00:14:10.950 and again, we're just analyzing the history here 00:14:10.950 --> 00:14:13.429 impartially. Of course. He campaigned for Philip 00:14:13.429 --> 00:14:15.269 Snowden, who had been a prominent pacifist during 00:14:15.269 --> 00:14:17.929 the war, and so soon even took a job as the literary 00:14:17.929 --> 00:14:20.250 editor for the socialist Daily Herald newspaper. 00:14:20.480 --> 00:14:23.340 He used that platform to elevate other voices, 00:14:23.779 --> 00:14:26.879 employing major names like E .M. Forster as reviewers 00:14:26.879 --> 00:14:28.620 and commissioning writers like Arnold Bennett. 00:14:28.860 --> 00:14:31.139 He was really embedded in the scene. He also 00:14:31.139 --> 00:14:33.419 became a patron of the arts, financially supporting 00:14:33.419 --> 00:14:36.299 the young composer William Walton. But what I 00:14:36.299 --> 00:14:38.580 find really beautiful is how his empathy extended 00:14:38.580 --> 00:14:41.740 across enemy lines, even after all the bloodshed. 00:14:41.879 --> 00:14:44.879 Yes, his capacity for forgiveness was immense. 00:14:45.740 --> 00:14:48.679 In 1918, he wrote a poem called Reconciliation, 00:14:49.299 --> 00:14:51.740 which deeply identified with the grief of German 00:14:51.740 --> 00:14:54.840 soldiers and their mothers. Wow. He even traveled 00:14:54.840 --> 00:14:57.759 extensively in Germany after the war, seeking 00:14:57.759 --> 00:14:59.960 to understand the humanity of the people he had 00:14:59.960 --> 00:15:02.159 been ordered to kill. But his personal life was 00:15:02.159 --> 00:15:05.220 just as complex, restless, and unsettled as his 00:15:05.220 --> 00:15:08.220 creative life. It seems he was desperately searching 00:15:08.220 --> 00:15:10.600 for a piece he couldn't quite find. Totally true. 00:15:11.139 --> 00:15:13.259 Following the war, he had a succession of affairs 00:15:13.259 --> 00:15:16.320 with men in high society, including the actor 00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:19.220 Ivor Novello and surprisingly, Prince Philip 00:15:19.220 --> 00:15:21.759 of Hesse, a German aristocrat who was actually 00:15:21.759 --> 00:15:24.200 the Kaiser's nephew. That is surprising. But 00:15:24.200 --> 00:15:26.960 his most significant enduring relationship of 00:15:26.960 --> 00:15:29.299 this era was with an aristocrat named Stephen 00:15:29.299 --> 00:15:31.580 Tennant. They were together for nearly six years. 00:15:31.759 --> 00:15:35.019 It was a passionate but intensely difficult relationship. 00:15:35.460 --> 00:15:37.740 Tennant suffered from recurrent tuberculosis, 00:15:38.059 --> 00:15:40.240 which put a massive emotional and physical strain 00:15:40.240 --> 00:15:43.240 on both of them. Yeah. In 1933, Tennant ended 00:15:43.240 --> 00:15:45.879 the relationship in a rather brutal, distant 00:15:45.879 --> 00:15:48.740 fashion by having his physician write a letter 00:15:48.740 --> 00:15:51.759 to Sassoon, abruptly stating that Tennant never 00:15:51.759 --> 00:15:55.289 wanted to see him again. Ouch. To survive the 00:15:55.289 --> 00:15:57.370 horrors of the Western Front only to have your 00:15:57.370 --> 00:16:00.210 heart broken via a doctor's note is just incredibly 00:16:00.210 --> 00:16:03.710 sad. It's brutal. Later that same year, still 00:16:03.710 --> 00:16:06.309 reeling from the breakup, he met and married 00:16:06.309 --> 00:16:09.049 Hester Gaddy, who was 20 years younger than him. 00:16:09.070 --> 00:16:12.330 Right. They had a son, George, whom Sassoon absolutely 00:16:12.330 --> 00:16:15.049 adored and wrote several beautiful poems for. 00:16:15.730 --> 00:16:18.340 But sadly, The marriage broke down after the 00:16:18.340 --> 00:16:19.980 Second World War. They just needed different 00:16:19.980 --> 00:16:23.220 things. Yeah. Sassoon needed absolute solitude 00:16:23.220 --> 00:16:25.840 to manage his lingering demons, while Hester 00:16:25.840 --> 00:16:28.320 needed companionship, and it led to a very messy 00:16:28.320 --> 00:16:30.500 separation. Didn't she threaten legal action 00:16:30.500 --> 00:16:32.340 against someone? She did. Hester threatened legal 00:16:32.340 --> 00:16:35.159 action against a head mistress named Vivian Hancock, 00:16:35.580 --> 00:16:38.120 whom Sassoon had formed a close platonic friendship 00:16:38.120 --> 00:16:41.340 with. She threw around some pretty dramatic accusations. 00:16:41.620 --> 00:16:43.740 It seems he was restless in every aspect of his 00:16:43.740 --> 00:16:46.740 life. Even driving, right? Yes. even in his day 00:16:46.740 --> 00:16:49.519 -to -day routines. Despite being gifted a car 00:16:49.519 --> 00:16:52.480 by his publisher, his friends famously dreaded 00:16:52.480 --> 00:16:54.340 getting in the passenger seat with him because 00:16:54.340 --> 00:16:56.980 he was such an erratic, spectacularly terrible 00:16:56.980 --> 00:16:59.559 driver. That restlessness, that inability to 00:16:59.559 --> 00:17:02.440 just sit still and be at peace. carried over 00:17:02.440 --> 00:17:05.339 into his literary career as well. Feeling he 00:17:05.339 --> 00:17:07.700 had said all he could in verse, he pivoted from 00:17:07.700 --> 00:17:11.400 poetry to prose in 1928, publishing memoirs of 00:17:11.400 --> 00:17:14.440 a fox -hunting man anonymously. Oh, right. It 00:17:14.440 --> 00:17:16.559 was a fictionalized autobiography that showed 00:17:16.559 --> 00:17:18.980 a much more humorous, gentle side of his youth. 00:17:19.079 --> 00:17:21.819 It won the James Tate Black Award, which is one 00:17:21.819 --> 00:17:23.960 of Britain's oldest and most prestigious literary 00:17:23.960 --> 00:17:26.539 prizes. Amazing. And it became the first part 00:17:26.539 --> 00:17:28.460 of his highly acclaimed Sherston trilogy. So 00:17:28.460 --> 00:17:30.579 what does this all mean? We have a man who lived 00:17:30.579 --> 00:17:33.180 a dozen different lives. The carefree cricketer, 00:17:33.359 --> 00:17:36.200 the terrifying mad jack, the fierce anti -war 00:17:36.200 --> 00:17:39.240 dissident, the literary editor, and the celebrated 00:17:39.240 --> 00:17:42.730 memoirist. Quite a resume. Truly. He even underwent 00:17:42.730 --> 00:17:45.970 a massive spiritual shift late in life, finally 00:17:45.970 --> 00:17:48.650 ending his lifelong spiritual searching by converting 00:17:48.650 --> 00:17:52.890 to Catholicism in 1957 at the age of 70, just 00:17:52.890 --> 00:17:55.069 10 years before he died of stomach cancer in 00:17:55.069 --> 00:17:58.710 1967. But his legacy is still evolving even today, 00:17:58.869 --> 00:18:02.150 isn't it? Yes, heavily. The archive of his personal 00:18:02.150 --> 00:18:04.450 papers, which was eventually acquired by Cambridge 00:18:04.450 --> 00:18:07.509 University, continues to yield incredible secrets 00:18:07.509 --> 00:18:09.930 about his process and the era he lived in. And 00:18:09.930 --> 00:18:12.210 this brings us to one of the most stunning revelations 00:18:12.210 --> 00:18:15.230 in the source material. The 2013 discovery. Yes. 00:18:15.329 --> 00:18:17.990 In 2013, researchers digging through those archives 00:18:17.990 --> 00:18:20.410 discovered an early draft of one of his most 00:18:20.410 --> 00:18:23.670 famous anti -war poems called Atrocities. And 00:18:23.670 --> 00:18:26.170 what they found was shocking. It was. The draft 00:18:26.170 --> 00:18:28.490 revealed that crucial lines had been completely 00:18:28.519 --> 00:18:30.900 and diluted by his publisher before it ever saw 00:18:30.900 --> 00:18:33.400 the light of day. The original poem explicitly 00:18:33.400 --> 00:18:35.779 detailed allied troops killing German prisoners 00:18:35.779 --> 00:18:38.140 of war out of nervousness and spite. But the 00:18:38.140 --> 00:18:40.359 publisher was terrified of the public backlash. 00:18:40.759 --> 00:18:44.240 They forced Sassoon to expregate the text, softening 00:18:44.240 --> 00:18:46.539 the reality of allied war crimes before it could 00:18:46.539 --> 00:18:49.460 be printed. What stands out to you when you really 00:18:49.460 --> 00:18:52.099 think about that discovery? It makes you pause. 00:18:52.759 --> 00:18:55.779 Here is Siegfried Sassoon, a man who dedicated 00:18:55.779 --> 00:18:58.500 his entire adult life to the philosophy of no 00:18:58.500 --> 00:19:01.200 truth unfitting. Yeah. A man who risked a court 00:19:01.200 --> 00:19:03.619 martial to tell the public the truth about the 00:19:03.619 --> 00:19:07.680 war. Having his own horrific truths quietly sanded 00:19:07.680 --> 00:19:09.799 down by a publisher who decided the British public 00:19:09.799 --> 00:19:12.200 simply couldn't handle the reality of what their 00:19:12.200 --> 00:19:14.019 own soldiers were doing in the mud of France. 00:19:14.259 --> 00:19:16.960 It is a chilling reminder of how the narrative 00:19:16.960 --> 00:19:19.880 of war is controlled. Exactly. It's an incredible 00:19:19.880 --> 00:19:22.549 thought. To quickly recap our journey today, 00:19:22.769 --> 00:19:25.769 we followed Siegfried Sassoon from the idyllic, 00:19:25.910 --> 00:19:28.309 sun -drenched cricket pitches of Edwardian England 00:19:28.309 --> 00:19:31.309 into the bloody, terrifying trenches of the Western 00:19:31.309 --> 00:19:33.930 Front where his profound grief earned him the 00:19:33.930 --> 00:19:36.230 name Mad Jack. The completely different world. 00:19:36.450 --> 00:19:39.210 We've seen him launch a fiercely eloquent rebellion 00:19:39.210 --> 00:19:41.609 against the very military that decorated him, 00:19:42.089 --> 00:19:44.309 mentor one of history's greatest war poets in 00:19:44.309 --> 00:19:46.349 a psychiatric hospital, and eventually become 00:19:46.349 --> 00:19:48.890 a giant of British literature. constantly searching 00:19:48.890 --> 00:19:52.210 for peace in a deeply complicated personal and 00:19:52.210 --> 00:19:55.230 spiritual life. This raises an important question. 00:19:55.650 --> 00:19:58.210 Building on that 2013 discovery of the censored 00:19:58.210 --> 00:20:00.630 draft of atrocities, we have to ask ourselves 00:20:00.630 --> 00:20:03.390 how much of our accepted history of global conflicts 00:20:03.390 --> 00:20:06.910 has been quietly edited, diluted, or erased by 00:20:06.910 --> 00:20:09.329 publishers, governments, and institutions who 00:20:09.329 --> 00:20:12.269 are simply afraid of the raw truth. It's a huge 00:20:12.269 --> 00:20:15.470 question. And how might our entire societal understanding 00:20:15.470 --> 00:20:18.450 of heroism completely change if we had access 00:20:18.450 --> 00:20:20.970 to the unfiltered, ugly reality from the very 00:20:20.970 --> 00:20:23.609 beginning rather than uncovering it in a university 00:20:23.609 --> 00:20:26.690 archive a century later? A heavy but absolutely 00:20:26.690 --> 00:20:28.730 essential thought to leave you with today. We 00:20:28.730 --> 00:20:30.490 want to warmly thank you for joining us on this 00:20:30.490 --> 00:20:32.869 deep dive into the extraordinary paradoxical 00:20:32.869 --> 00:20:35.329 life of Siegfried Sassoon. Keep reading, keep 00:20:35.329 --> 00:20:37.269 seeking out multiple perspectives, and above 00:20:37.269 --> 00:20:39.369 all, keep questioning the narratives around you. 00:20:39.829 --> 00:20:40.569 Until next time.