Siegfried Sassoon was a British poet and novelist, best known for his antiwar poetry published after serving as a soldier in the First World War. "Attack," first published in 1918 in the collection Counter-Attack and Other Poems, gives a harrowing account of soldiers' advancement in battle.
In the poem, an army begins to advance toward the enemy line. The landscape is scarred and shrouded with smoke, and the men are gray with fear. Hope disappears, and the speaker cries for the battle to stop.
Counter-Attack and Other Poems was well-received due to its truthful and harrowing accounts of World War I. Despite the fact that many poems in the collection criticized the British public for blindly supporting the war, the collection's popularity provides testimony to the desire people had to learn more about the war and the experiences of soldiers. The collection remains an important historical and cultural artifact that gives voice to a whole generation of men who sacrificed their time, well-being, sanity, and lives as a result of the war.
