A Soldier's Declaration


I am making this statement
as an act of willful defiance of military authority,
because I believe that the war
is being deliberately prolonged
by those who have the power to end it.

I am a soldier,
convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers.
I believe that this war,
upon which I entered as a war of defense and liberation,
has now become a war of aggression and conquest.
I believe that the purposes
for which I and my fellow-soldiers entered upon this war
should have been so clearly stated
as to have made it impossible to change them,
and that, had this been done,
the objects which actuated us
would now be attainable by negotiation.

I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops,
and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings
for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust.

I am not protesting against the conduct of the war,
but against the political errors and insincerities
for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.

On behalf of those who are suffering now
I make this protest
against the deception which is being practiced on them;
also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacence
with which the majority of those at home
regard the continuance of agonies
which they do not share,
and which they have
not sufficient imagination
to realize.

Siegfried L. Sassoon, July 1917

(via wood s)