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* III
If asked which twentieth-century war had the greatest impact on the world, the
average American is likely to respond with World War II-and that conflict had
an enormous effect in the staggering number of casualties, the number of nations
engaged in the conflict, the introduction of nuclear weapons, and the ushering in of
the Cold Wa. Despite this, for Europeans, and particularly for the British, World
War I had an equal, if not greater impact.
In the years prior to the first world war, Britain experienced the continued aftereffects
of Victorian optimism. Some even referred to this Edwardian period as a time of endless
summer, when people believed in progress, that everything was moving in a positive
direction. Furthermore, in the second half of the nineteenth century war remained a
romanticized phenomenon, with patriotism and gallantry as its primary features. World War
I, or the Great War, as it came to be known, exploded those notions-quite literally. Because
of extensive and entangling alliances, the conflict evolved from relatively insignificant origins
(the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian empire) to involve a
greater portion of the developed world. Beyond the sheer number of nations involved, it was
a war unlike any previous one, depending less on troop numbers and movement and more
on technological superiority and military prowess. It was the first conflict in which weaponry
became especially important, with the introduction of U-boats, aerial dogfights, Zeppelin
bombings, gas attacks, trench battles, and tank warfare. The effect was a dehumanized
conflict in which the superior machine mattered more than the superior soldier.
Perhaps most significant, however, was the enormous number of young soldiers who were
either killed or wounded in the conflict. As Ezra Pound was to write, "There died a myriad /
And of the best, among them" (Hugh Selwyn Mauberley), and for poets during and after the
conflict the world would no longer be the same. All of the pre-war optimism disappeared,
as did confidence in the traditional Western way of looking at the world. In its place was a
profound skepticism of meaning in the universe and of the privileged position of the West,
+
2 Introduction
SPC WWI Poetry Book_S17_Interior.indd 2
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