Summary
In "Base Details," Siegfried Sassoon exposes and criticizes the hierarchies of the World War One war effort. The speaker imagines himself as a major, working with other military officials at the base to decide which young soldiers are sent to the front lines.
The major's face is described as puffy and petulant as he overindulges in luxury, guzzling food and drink while staying in the best hotels. Part of his job is reading the names of those who died while in military service. The major makes passing comments about the death of a soldier and the heavy losses sustained in the previous battle.
In the last lines of the poem, the war is done. The soldiers are "stone dead," but the major himself, returning home only to die in his sleep, also cannot escape death in the end.
Analysis
In "Base Details," Siegfried Sassoon expresses an anti-war sentiment as he satirizes those in command of the war efforts of World War One. In the poem, the speaker imagines himself as a major, first describing this musing in terms of physical qualities: "If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath" (Line 1). The phrase "If I were fierce" is an example of the subjunctive mood, in which one describes a hypothetical scenario or expresses a wish, recommendation, or demand. The first part of the line ("If I were fierce") implies a kind of longing on the part of the speaker to be what he is not, but the details that come after it (to be bald and short of breath) destabilize the meaning of "fierce." If one is bald and short of breath, this implies that one is old and/or physically unfit. To be fierce but have the appearance of physical incapability means that this fierceness is either a compensative show or a self-deceit.
The first line is composed in iambic pentameter, creating a marching rhythm. This rhythm stands in contrast to the lack of any real fighting on the part of the majors, as revealed later in the poem. A marching rhythm evokes the sense of unity and camaraderie necessary in a war effort. However, the majors are cut off from the soldiers who they send to the front lines. There is no camaraderie in the vertical line of war hierarchy. In addition, it is for this reason that the majors are "short of breath": they do not actually engage in combat.
In the speaker's imagined scenario, he "would live with scarlet Majors at the Base," which represents not only military headquarters, but the foundation of the chain of command (Line 2). The base of something is its foundation or main starting point on which everything else rests. The word "base" could also mean having or showing a lack of decency: being cruel or immoral. This is expressed by the greedy and callous behavior of the majors. The implication in the poem is that if the base of military command is corrupt, then the entire war effort is futile. In military language, the word "detail" refers to an assignment or appointment to a specific task or duty. This suggests that the greedy behavior of the majors is part of the job description, indicating that the entire system of command is corrupt.
The word "scarlet," used to describe the majors, has several meanings. This color differentiates the uniforms of officers from the khaki uniforms used by fighting soldiers. The color also applies to the ruddy faces of the officers as they overindulge in food and drink. Another symbolic meaning of the color scarlet is that the job of the majors is to send soldiers to die on the front lines of war, implying that they have blood on their hands. Though Sassoon fought on the side of the Allies during World War One, he criticizes British military authorities in this poem.
The majors give the orders that "speed glum heroes up the line to death," exercising the ultimate power—to determine whether someone lives or dies (Line 3). The "line" here represents the front lines of the battle. But the line could also represent the thin organic line between life and death. The description of the soldiers as "glum heroes" implies a sense of discontentment. Even as the soldiers follow orders and receive recognition as heroes, they are glum as they go to battle. Perhaps they have already experienced or heard about the horrors of war. The word "speed" suggests that the majors send the soldiers to their likely deaths without a second thought.
In Line 4, the speaker says, "You'd see me with my puffy petulant face." The "you" here is a general address to everyone existing in the imagined scenario, including the reader. The phrase "You'd see me" is a way for the poet to express his disdain for the majors by making their shame public. The plosive alliteration of the /p/ in "puffy petulant" and the /g/ in "Guzzling and gulping" places emphasis on the distasteful descriptions, creating a jarring effect. Petulance is defined as the quality of being childishly sulky or bad-tempered. The petulance of the imagined major is indicative of his character: he is used to getting his way and will raise a fuss when he doesn't. In this case, petulance accompanies the power to send another person to their grave. The poet criticizes this combination.
The words "Guzzling and gulping" disrupt the regular iambic rhythm of the preceding lines. These are examples of trochee, in which a stressed syllable is followed by an unstressed one. This indicates that the overindulgence taking place (described as guzzling and gulping) ruins the steady discipline and clearheadedness needed to effectively organize war efforts. Instead, these majors profit from their positions of power. They stay in the best hotels and eat and drink beyond their capacities while soldiers suffer on the front lines.
In the following line, the speaker imagines reading the Roll of Honour, which is a memorial list of those who died while in service. He would say "'Poor young chap, / ...I used to know his father well'" (Lines 5-6). This expresses performative sympathy. Though it is implied that the Major would read the name of the dead soldier from the Roll of Honour, he does not specify the name in the poem, meaning that it could apply to any of the thousands lost as a result of the war.
The line about the major claiming to have known the soldier's father is not entirely clear. Perhaps it implies that some of the soldiers came from higher classes, which is why the major would have known the father of a soldier. Sassoon himself came from an affluent background. He enlisted to fight in the war with patriotic intentions that quickly dissipated once he experienced battle. This would explain the term "glum" used earlier to describe the returning soldiers. Though they have been made "heroes" by their exploits, (reminiscent of the way Sassoon was awarded the Military Cross for bringing back a wounded soldier while under heavy fire), the soldiers are battle-hardened and weary.
The major's comment "Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap" is made sarcastically by the speaker. Though the major defines the war effort as a "we," it is implied that the commanding officers are a corrupt part of the collective. Calling a battle a "scrap" is an understatement. This is another dismissive comment made in passing.
Sassoon utilizes the last rhymed couplet of the poem in a Shakespearian way: to summarize and to give a twist. The war does not have any direct bearing on the personal lives of the majors, insofar as they do not engage in direct combat in the poem. The casualness in these lines is present throughout the whole poem, summarizing the careless attitude that the majors have toward the casualties of the war. The youth are "stone dead," implying that in the mind of the Major, they were never living in the first place. This creates a sense of dehumanization.
These last lines could also be considered a satirization of a heroic couplet. A heroic couplet is a rhymed couplet written in iambic pentameter that relays themes of heroism. But in the case of the poem, the couplet mocks the obvious lack of heroism inherent in the Major's character. He "[toddles]" like a child, likely as a result of overindulging in food and drink. That he dies in bed provides the poem's twist: despite holding the power to send soldiers to their graves, the major cannot avoid facing his own mortality in the end.
