Siegfried Sassoon Quotes
I believe that the purpose for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.
Sassoon, Siegfried. "A Soldier's Declaration." Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, Faber and Faber, 1930, p. 235.
See a similar sentiment by Tallyrand
War and international conflict had become very complicated in modern times. Americans and most other people associated victory in war with unconditional surrender. However, since the unconditional surrender is of WWII, no conflict has ended with an unconditional surrender.
After the attack on Fort Sumter, the South Sent “diplomats” to negotiation with the Government. Unfortunately for all, the South really was not open to negotiations as they only had two predetermined positions they would agree to: The first was that the Government should guarantee the perpetual right of states to have slavery if they wished and that fugitive slaves would be returned by the non-slave states. The second was that the Union should recognize the Confederacy as an independent nation and have peaceful relations between the two. The first was impossible to deliver even if the Union would agree to continue slavery, there was no way that the Federal Government could enforce the return of fugitive slaves from many northern states where they were free the second they set foot in the state, and the Northern states demanded States Rights and not being forced to return Fugitive Slaves forcing the Southern States to oppose States Rights when it came to Fugitive Slaves while favoring it for slavery itself. The Federal government could not enforce the Dred Scott Decision under the pro-South Buchanan administration. And Lincoln and most of the Northern Politicians would not accept a complete dissolution of the Union. There are no other possibilities the South would accept and there was really nothing to negotiate.
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon CBE MC was an English poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's view, were responsible for a jingoism-fuelled war. Sassoon became a focal point for dissent within the armed forces when he made a lone protest against the continuation of the war in his "Soldier's Declaration" of 1917, culminating in his admission to a military psychiatric hospital; this resulted in his forming a friendship with Wilfred Owen, who was greatly influenced by him. Sassoon later won acclaim for his prose work, notably his three-volume fictionalised autobiography, collectively known as the "Sherston trilogy".
