Let's get this straight . . Attributing "Oh What A Lovely War" to wot-is-name Attenborough is no more accurate than attributing it to John Lennon!!!

"Oh what a lovely war" was created by Joan Littlewood and Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, East London. All Attenborough did was commit it to film, sticking fairly closely to the stage version.

[Ewan MacColl is, of course, usually attributed as being a co-founder of Theatre Workshop with Littlewood, to whom he was married for some period.]

But to return to the central question, most anti-war songs of this period in the UK were, indeed, "songs of the trenches". As I recall, "I Don't Want to Join the Army" was one such, and is a parody of a music hall song of the time.

G.