1. Richard Aldington Richard Aldington was born on 8 th July, 1892 in Portsmouth, Hampshire. He was educated for four years at Dover College and then for one year at the University of London. By the age of nineteen Richard Aldington could read Greek, Latin, French and Italian with ease.

2. Richard had access to his father’s library with contained many poetry books; this prepared him at the age of eighteen to launch an attack on poetic tradition. His own first volume of poems had appeared when he was seventeen. In 1911 he met the American poet Hilda Doolittle, who was already calling herself H.D. For six years she was his senior and in 1913 they got married. Richard Aldington and H.D. were taken up by the American poet Ezra Pound, who sent their poetry to his friend Harriet Monroe for the Chicago poetry magazine. Aldingtons experiences in the trenches soon resulted in the diagnosis of neurasthenia.Through the twenties he was ill and bitter feeling. The broken Aldington managed to salvage a life in France and Italy where he became freelance writer and a translator. He had just published his book of poetry on war, images of war in 1919. When in 1929 he then published his angry war novel. This Aldingtons first novel made him famous and it is probably his best known work.

3. Other novel written by Aldington was “The Colonel’s Daughter” which was published in 1931. He also published several volumes of poetry such as “The Fool l’ the Forest”. Aldington left England to go to America at the beginning of the second world war. His marriage to H.D. had been dissolved in 1927 although they had been separated for many years. Aldington wrote several biographies. These included “A Life of Wellington” which won him the “James Tait Memorial Prize” in 1996. Aldington’s autobiography, “Life for Life’s Sake”, was published in 1941, he died in 1960.

4. Battlefield The wind is piercing chill And blows fine grains of snow Over this shell rent ground; Every house in sight Is smashed and desolate. But in this fruitless land, Thorny with wire And foul with rotten clothes and sacks, The crosses flourish- Ci-git, ci-git, ci-git…… ”Ci-git I soldat Allemand Priez puor lui”

5. The Poem The wind is piercing chill Is a metaphor, saying that the wind its self is hurting them just as much as the war is, mentally and physically. And blows fine grains of snow Is saying that it is snowing and windy and that the wind is really fine and is blowing everywhere. Over this shell rent ground; Means that the ground is covered in used bullets and is empty and there are big crater holes from where the shells have been blown up during battles.

6. Every house in sight is smashed and desolate. All the homes are destroyed due to warfare in the towns and in the cities, everybody has moved out to get away from the fighting and moved on leaving the houses empty. all barren and there is no vegetation it’s all mucky and messy. But in this fruitless land, This means that the ground is

7. Thorny with wire Is saying that the wire is all bundled up in a big bunch like a bramble bush. And foul with rotting clothes and sacks, The dead bodies are scattered all over the place and their clothes are starting to rot and their sacks and equipment are just left covering the ground.

8. The crosses flourish- The dead bodies are all buried and the crosses keep on going up and filling mass amounts of land. Ci-gît, ci-gît, ci-gît…’Ci-gît, 1 soldat Allemand, Priez pour lui Here lie here lies here lies a German soldier, pray for him This last line is the most important line of the poem. It tells us that even though he wasn’t on the Germans side but the Germans are people too. It says that the war isn’t people wanting to go out killing but its people having to kill. We should think of the enemy as people but not as shooting targets.

9. The end By Amanda By Ashley By Steven By David