Diary of a Dead Officer

by West, Arthur Graeme

• ISBN13: 9781853677298
• ISBN10: 1853677299
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-06-01
• Publisher: Greenhill Books/Lionel Leventhal

Summary

The Diary of a Dead Officer brings together the private papers of Arthur Graeme West. First published posthumously in 1917, it presents a scathing picture of army life, and West's poems, which make up the fifth section of the book, serve as a powerful protest against the futility of war. Born in September 1891, West was a quiet, effacing and unathletic youth with a passion for literature, who went on to become a keen Oxford scholar. When war broke out in 1914, it left him for some time untouched. However in January 1915, in a rush of enthusiasm, he enlisted as a Private in the Schools Battalion. From that time, until his death in April 1917, his life was a succession of training in England and trenches in France, with short intervals of leave. West joined from a feeling of duty and patriotism, but the war was to have a profound affect on him. An individualist who hated routine and distrusted discipline, he developed an intense abhorrence to army life and began to question the very core of his beliefs in religion, patriotism and the reason for war. This growing disillusionment found expression in two particularly powerful war poems he wrote during this time: "God, How I Hate You" and "Night Patrol" which stand deservedly alongside those of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. In August 1916 he became a second lieutenant in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. Shortly after, he wrote to his new battalion threatening to desert the army - but he could not bring himself to post the letter. Less than a year later, on April 3, 1917, he was shot dead by a sniper's bullet near Bapaume. Written with complete frankness and sincerity The Diary of a Dead Officer gives voice to one officer's struggle to come to terms with the realities of war and is a poignant tribute to a lost generation of soldiers. This edition retains the original Introduction by Cyril Joad, an Oxford colleague of West's and an active pacifist; and contains a new Foreword by Nigel Jones, author of Rupert Broke: Life, Death and Myth and The War Walk.

Author Biography

Cyril Joad is an Oxford colleague of West's and an active pacifist.
Nigel Jones is the author of Rupert Broke: Life, Death and Myth and The War Walk.  Nigel lives in Lewes, East Sussex (England).