Well the model for what modern warfare entailed had been there for all to see since the American Civil War, and the Boer War had only been a few short years before.

My Grandfather always insisted that the conditions in the Boer War were a damn sight worse than in the trenches of the first world war, and he served in both.

Like a lot of creative geniuses, RK was a prat. he did a lot of braying about Tommy this and Tommy that, without acquainting himself with even the most basic facts.

RK owed it to all the people who respected and listened to him, not to have misled them. If we can't trust our poets to have a decent humane vision, what good are they? Apart from providing us with adventure stories and catchy rhymes - and I think honours like OM and the Nobel Prize should mean more than that.

As you say - a remarkable piece of drama. But it sort of sticks in my craw, being asked to empathise with him.