Base Details Literary Elements

The unidentified speaker in "Base Details" is someone who actively dislikes military authority, made clear by the satirization of military officers (majors) taking place in the poem.

The poem is composed of a single ten-line stanza written mostly in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is ABABCDCDEE.

Metaphors
-"And when the war is done and youth stone dead" (Line 9): The dead young soldiers are compared to stones.

Alliteration
-"You'd see me with my puffy petulant face" (Line 4): The /p/ repeats.
-"Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel" (Line 5): The /g/ repeats.
-"Reading the Roll of Honour" (Line 6): The /r/ repeats

Assonance
-"Majors at the Base" (Line 2): The long "a" sound repeats.
-"Guzzling and gulping" (Line 5): The /u/ repeats.
-"last scrap" (Line 8): The short "a" sound repeats.

The whole poem is built on the ironic premise that the base of military command is corrupt. Though the majors are in positions of authority, they engage in gluttonous behavior while it is implied that soldiers suffer and die on the front lines.

Satire, War Poetry

The setting is the speaker's imagination, in which the major stays safely at a military base and a hotel during the war, and toddles home after the war, where he dies in bed.

Sardonic, Acerbic, Angry

The protagonists of the poem are the young soldiers who lose their lives in battle. The antagonists are the corrupt military officials who enjoy themselves while sending the soldiers to their deaths.

The major conflict in the poem is that the military officials (appearing in the poem as majors) are corrupt; they do not provide a strong base of leadership, and thus the entire war effort costs countless of young men their lives.

The climax arrives when the poet bitterly describes the way the major would toddle safely home after the war and die in bed.

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The comment that the speaker (imagining himself as a major) makes about losing "heavily in this last scrap" is an example of understatement (Line 8). What is referred to as a "scrap" is likely a horrendous battle that cost many lives.

The phrase "glum heroes" refers to the sense of patriotic disillusionment that Sassoon experienced after fighting in World War One. This contributed to his anti-war sentiment.

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Satire is often created using over-exaggeration. Any of the details about the major could be considered hyperbole: his puffy petulant face, the way he guzzles and gulps in the best hotel, etc.

"Gulping" is an example of onomatopoeia.