"They" by Siegfried Sassoon

What most struck me about Sassoon’s “They” is the juxtaposition of the bishop’s thoughts and those of the soldiers, and the irony this creates. The bishop’s justifications for war - such as that it is an “attack on Anti-Christ” (3-4), or fought for the “right to breed an honorable race”(5) - are the standard ones, used historically by everyone from the Crusaders to the Nazis to make war seem like an righteous cause. In the second stanza, however, the reader hears from “the boys,” those who have actually experienced war, and the switch in tone is jarring (7). Though they agree that experiencing war will cause “some change” (11), to them war is altogether more damaging. Instead of the ennobling effect the bishop sees in battle, they see only the risk of losing “both… legs” or going “stone blind” (8). The ironic contrast between their words is heightened by the bishop’s lame response that “the ways of God are strange” (12), as if he himself cannot see what is noble about being “shot through the lungs” (9).