Siegfried Sassoon joined the Sussex Yeomantry on the 4th of August, 1914, the day that England declared war on Germany, and was a year later commissioned a 2nd lieutenant with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. For his exceptional valor and calm under fire he received the Military Cross and the nickname Mad Jack. In 1917 he delivered his “declaration against the war” to Parliament, calling for a negotiated peace, to no avail. A gunshot wound to the head, a case of friendly fire, ended his combat career but not his life. He remains one of the most celebrated poets of the twentieth century.