Chapter 1

• Sassoon's protest, "A Soldier's Declaration," written on June 15, 1917:

  I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those how have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe this War, upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest.
• I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow-soldiers entered upon this War should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible for them to be changed without our knowledge, and that, has this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.
• I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolonging those sufferings for ends which I believe to be eveil and unjust.

  I am not protesting against the military conduct of the War, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.
• On behalf of those who are suffering now, I make this protest against the deception which is being practiced on them. Also I believe that it may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those as home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficienct imagination to realise.
• The declaration was read before the House of Commons, July 30, 1917, printed in The London Times, on July 31, 1917 (ironically -- perhaps appropriately -- the first day of the Third Battle of Ypres, Passchendaele).
• p6-7 Rivers and Bryce discuss how Sassoon will be arriving at Craiglockhart. Rivers initially believes Sassoon has pacifist motives. "Can you imagine what our dear Director of Medical Services is going to say, when he finds out we're sheltering "conchies" as well as cowards, shirkers, scrimshakers and degenerates"
• p8 Sassoon has a war hallucination "The whistle blew. Immediately, he saw lines of men with grey muttering faces clambering up the ladders to face the guns. He blinked them away" First glance as Sassoon, he could well be suffering from war nuerosis.
• P9 - Graves meets Sassoon on the train "Look, you've made your protest. For what it's worth, i agree with every single word of it. But you've had your say. There's no point making a martyr of yourself" - Friendly advice becoming from a trusted companion.
• p11 - Robert Graves swears on the bible that the board will not court-martial him but instead they will lock him in a mental asylum for the rest of the war unless he gives up the declaration.
• P12-13 Rivers is experiencing trouble trying to understand Sassoon's case. He "was finding it difficult to examine the evidence impartially. He wanted Sassoon to be ill"
• P13 - Before establishing a mutual respect, Rivers is in effect against Sassoon's declaration as he believes the motives stem from being a pacifist or for attention.