Infantryman Coningsby Dawson fought in the First World War and authored two books, Carry On: Letters in Wartime (1917) and The Glory of the Trenches. He wrote:

In the noble indignation of a great ideal, British soldiers face a worse hell than even the most ingenious of fanatics ever planned or plotted. Men die scorched like moths in a furnace, blown to atoms, gassed, tortured. And again other men step forward to take their place well-knowing what will be their fate.

Dawson concludes: “Bodies may die, but the spirit of England grows greater as each soldier speeds along its way.”

How extraordinary to describe the perpetual slaughter of British soldiers in this way; to suggest that the death of British soldiers enhanced the spirit of Great Britain. Loss as gain, as Ivan Strenski puts it. Death as virtue. Dawson’s description perfectly captures the psychology of the First World War.

880,000 British men died in the First World War, 12.5% of those who served, 6% of the adult male population. The Battle of the Somme, July 1, 1916, was the bloodiest in the history of the British Army. British forces suffered more than 57,000 casualties. Nineteen-thousand soldiers were killed on the first day of the battle alone.

Rephrasing Dawson’s conclusion slightly: “Bodies may die but the spirit of England grows greater as each soldier speeds along the way” becomes “Bodies may die, therefore the spirit of England grows greater as each soldier speeds along the way.”

The growth of the spirit of England is dependent—directly proportional—to the number of British soldiers who speed along their way to their death. The greater the number of dead soldiers, the greater the spirit of England.

Richard Koenigsberg