The Rear Guard

Poetry › Siegfried Sassoon (1918)

Siegfried Sassoon’s “The Rear-Guard” (1918) depicts a soldier’s nightmarish journey through a trench tunnel during the Battle of Arras, transforming modern warfare into a vision of hell. The poem’s graphic imagery and Dantean descent capture the claustrophobic horror and psychological toll of trench life.

(Hindenburg Line, April 1917) Groping along the tunnel, step by step, He winked his prying torch with patching glare From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air. Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes and too vague to know; A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed; 5 And he, exploring fifty feet below The rosy gloom of battle overhead. Tripping, he grabbed the wall; saw someone lie Humped at his feet, half-hidden by a rug. And stooped to give the sleeper’s arm a tug. 10 “I’m looking for headquarters.” No reply. “God blast your neck!” (For days he’d had no sleep.) “Get up and guide me through this stinking place.” Savage, he kicked a soft, unanswering heap, And flashed his beam across the livid face 15 Terribly glaring up, whose eyes yet wore Agony dying hard of ten days before; And fists of fingers clutched a blackening wound. Alone he staggered on until he found Dawn’s ghost that filtered down a shafted stair 20 To the dazed, muttering creatures underground Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound. At last, with sweat and horror in his hair, He climbed through darkness to the twilight air, Unloading hell behind him step by step. 25

Introduction

Siegfried Sassoon’s “The Rear-Guard” was first published in 1918 in his collection Counter-Attack and Other Poems, one of the most powerful documents of World War I disillusionment. Written after Sassoon’s return from the front, the poem describes a soldier’s attempt to find his way through the Hindenburg Line during the 1917 Battle of Arras, one of the war’s most devastating campaigns. Sassoon (1886–1967), a decorated officer and recipient of the Military Cross, became one of Britain’s most outspoken critics of the war. His poetry combines realism and moral outrage, rejecting patriotic idealism in favor of exposing the physical and psychological devastation of combat.

“The Rear-Guard” is among Sassoon’s most vivid portrayals of trench warfare. The poem’s narrative follows an exhausted soldier crawling through a tunnel filled with debris, corpses, and suffocating air, searching for “headquarters.” His encounter with a dead man—mistaken for a sleeping comrade—serves as a grotesque revelation of the war’s dehumanizing conditions. The final ascent “to the twilight air” evokes a grim parody of resurrection, as the soldier escapes one level of hell only to return to another above ground.

Stylistically, Sassoon fuses realism with infernal allegory. The poem’s subtitle situates the action precisely—“Hindenburg Line, April 1917”—but its imagery evokes the descent into the underworld from Dante’s Inferno. The “dawn’s ghost” and “twilight air” suggest an ambiguous boundary between life and death, while phrases like “unloading hell behind him” transform the literal act of climbing into a spiritual ordeal. The poem’s rough meter, enjambed lines, and colloquial diction mirror the soldier’s disorientation and fatigue.

Historically, “The Rear-Guard” reflects the shift in tone that defined late-war poetry: from patriotic sentiment to moral and existential despair. Sassoon’s hellish vision exposes the modern battlefield as a place where faith, humanity, and order collapse. For contemporary readers, the poem remains a haunting reminder of how industrial warfare mechanized death and blurred the distinction between heroism and survival. It also exemplifies Sassoon’s ability to merge reportage with allegory, turning personal trauma into universal indictment.

Questions for Consideration

1. How does Sassoon use imagery of darkness and confinement to create a sense of psychological as well as physical horror?
2. In what ways does “The Rear-Guard” echo the structure and imagery of Dante’s Inferno? What is the effect of framing a modern battle within an epic tradition?
3. Consider the moment when the speaker mistakes the corpse for a living man. What does this misrecognition reveal about the conditions of war and the soldier’s state of mind?
4. How does the poem’s title—“The Rear-Guard”—reflect both its military and symbolic meanings? What might the soldier represent within the larger moral landscape of the war?
5. How does Sassoon’s use of sensory detail (sound, smell, touch) differ from his use of visual imagery? What emotions do these evoke?
6. Compare this poem’s tone and perspective to that of “The General.” How does Sassoon’s treatment of leadership, responsibility, and human suffering evolve across these works?
7. Research the Hindenburg Line and the Battle of Arras. How do the historical events enhance your reading of the poem’s setting and mood?
8. The poem’s final line, “Unloading hell behind him step by step,” suggests both relief and futility. What multiple meanings can you identify in this ending?
9. How does Sassoon blend realism and symbolism in “The Rear-Guard”? In what ways does this fusion anticipate modernist experimentation in later war poetry?
10. What does the poem suggest about the relationship between survival and trauma? Does the soldier’s emergence into light imply hope, or merely another form of despair?

Journal Prompts

1. Describe your personal reaction to the imagery of “The Rear-Guard.” Which line or moment struck you most, and why?
2. Sassoon’s poem is both realistic and allegorical. Do you read the soldier’s climb toward “twilight air” as escape, rebirth, or something else? Explain your interpretation.
3. Research the conditions of trench warfare during the Battle of Arras. How does knowing the historical context change your understanding of the poem’s atmosphere?
4. Imagine the poem’s events from the soldier’s perspective: what might he be thinking or feeling as he navigates the darkness? Write a brief journal entry in his voice.
5. Reflect on the connection between the physical environment and psychological trauma in this poem. How does the tunnel serve as a metaphor for the soldier’s mental state?
6. Compare Sassoon’s vision of war here with Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est.” How do both poets use hellish imagery to challenge traditional ideas of heroism?
7. The poem evokes Dante’s *Inferno.* Research this reference and explain how Sassoon adapts a medieval religious framework to describe modern warfare.
8. Write about the title “The Rear-Guard.” How does it influence your reading of the poem? What expectations does it set, and how are they subverted?
9. Sassoon’s speaker ends by “unloading hell behind him.” What do you think he carries forward psychologically or morally? How might this relate to veterans’ experiences after war?
10. Consider writing a creative response: imagine the soldier finally reaching daylight. What does he see, hear, or feel as he steps into “the twilight air”?