Rosenberg was assigned to the 12th Bantam Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment, a bantam being a designation for men under the usual minimum height of 5'3". After apparently declining promotion to lance corporal, Rosenberg was transferred, first, to the South Lancashire Regiment, then to the King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment (KORL). He was sent with his unit to serve on the Western Front in France, where he arrived on 3 June 1916.[3] He continued to write poetry while serving in the trenches, including "Break of Day in the Trenches", "Returning We Hear the Larks", and "Dead Man's Dump". In December 1916, Poetry Magazine published two of his poems.[3]
In January 1917, Rosenberg reported being sick and his family and friends asked his superiors to remove him from the front lines; he was transferred to the Fortieth Division Works Battalion and started to deliver barbed wire to the trenches.[3] He wrote his poem Dead Man's Dump during this period. In June, he was temporarily assigned to the 229 Field Company, Royal Engineers. In September 1916, he spent ten days in London on leave.[3] After returning to his old unit, he fell sick in October and spent two months in the 51st General Hospital. After release, he was transferred to the 1st Battalion of the King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment.[3] He applied for a transfer to an all-Jewish battalion, but historians have been unable to trace his application.[8]
On 21 March 1918, the German Army started its Spring Offensive on the Western Front. A week later, Rosenberg sent his last letter with the poem "Through These Pale Cold Days" to England before going to the front lines with reinforcements.[3] Having just finished a night patrol, he was killed on the night of 1 April 1918 with another ten KORL soldiers; there is a dispute as to whether his death occurred at the hands of a sniper or in close combat. In either case, he died in a town called Fampoux, northeast of Arras. He was first buried in a mass grave, but in 1926 the unidentified remains of the six KORL soldiers were individually re-interred at Bailleul Road East Cemetery, Plot V, Saint-Laurent-Blangy, Pas de Calais, France.[9] Rosenberg's gravestone is marked with his name and the words, "Buried near this spot", as well as – "Artist and Poet".[3]
