The Diary of a Dead Officer

Description

The Diary of a Dead Officer contains the diary entries of Arthur Graeme West, published after the author’s death. The entries that make up the book paint a very gloomy picture about how futile, useless and devastating war is – not all chapters are in prose, the book includes several poems by West, but all of them are in the same note and revolve around the same topic.

West was born in 1891 and grew up to be a quiet and not very athletic young man, passionate about literature. In 1915, after the First World War broke out, West joined the army and spent time training in England and as a private in the trenches of France. He joined the army motivated by enthusiasm, but he grew disappointed both with life as a soldier and the political aspects of war. The army routine and the extremely strict discipline he must comply with also affects him profoundly, making him depressed and wishing to leave the army.

The Diary of a Dead Officer voices all the worries and concerns of West as a soldier and also describes the hardships of army life both in the training camp and on the front. The diary was assembled from West’s writings from the time he enlisted in the army and up to his last days – the author died on the front, shot dead by a sniper in Bapaume, a town in northern France – and it marks his transition for a patriot willing to fight for his country to a pacifist who considers the war to be useless bloodshed, from a believer into an atheist.

The book emanates a gloomy atmosphere and it is a very vivid and sensitive depiction of how warfare affects the life of the individual provided by an insider, a sensitive man who had to experience the horrors of war.
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