Diary of a Dead Officer: Being the Posthumous Papers of Arthur Graeme West

The Diary of a Dead Officer brings together the private papers of Arthur Graeme West. First published posthumously in 1917, it presents a scathing picture of army life, and West’s poems, which make up the fifth section of the book, serve as a powerful protest against the futility of war. Born in September 1891, West was a quiet, effacing and unathletic youth with a passion for literature, who went on to become a keen Oxford scholar. When war broke out in 1914, it left him for some time untouched. However in January 1915, in a rush of enthusiasm, he enlisted as a Private in the Schools Battalion. From that time, until his death in April 1917, his life was a succession of training in England and trenches in France, with short intervals of leave. West joined from a feeling of duty and patriotism, but the war was to have a profound affect on him. An individualist who hated routine and distrusted discipline, he developed an intense abhorrence to army life and began to question the very core of his beliefs – in religion, patriotism and the reason for war. This growing disillusionment found expression in two particularly powerful war poems he wrote during this time: “God, How I Hate You” and “Night Patrol” which stand deservedly alongside those of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. In August 1916 he became a second lieutenant in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. Shortly after, he wrote to his new battalion threatening to desert the army – but he could not bring himself to post the letter. Less than a year later, on April 3, 1917, he was shot dead by a sniper’s bullet near Bapaume. Written with complete frankness and sincerity The Diary of a Dead Officer gives voice to one officer’s struggle to come to terms with the realities of war and is a poignant tribute to a lost generation of soldiers. This edition retains the original Introduction by Cyril Joad, an Oxford colleague of West’s and an active pacifist; and contains a new Foreword by Nigel Jones, author of Rupert Broke: Life, Death and Myth and The War Walk.