Sassoon's wartime diaries published online

The war diaries of British poet Siegfried Sassoon have been published online for the first time, with images of early drafts and unpublished material caked with mud from the trenches of World War I.

Because of the delicate state of the notebooks and journals, the 4,100-page archive was until now only accessible to the poet's official biographer.

But the Cambridge University Library, which bought the collection five years ago, has now digitalized the treasure trove and made it public online at cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk.

In scrawled ink, some of it almost a century old, the booklets are filled with names and addresses, scribbled drawings and notes, draft poetry and diary entries of Sassoon's life as he went to war.

He describes his first day at the Somme as a "sunlit picture of hell".

"Since 6:30 there has been hell let loose," reads one water-stained entry from July 1, 1916.

"The air vibrates with the incessant din - the whole earth shakes and rocks and throbs. It is one continuous roar - machine guns tap and rattle - bullets whistling overhead."

The archives also contain drafts of his letter A Soldier's Declaration, in which he said the war was "being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it". The letter brought him to national prominence when it was read out in parliament and printed in the press.

"The war diaries Sassoon kept on the Western Front and in Palestine are of the greatest significance, both nationally and internationally, and we are honored to be able to make them available to everyone, anywhere in the world, on the 100th anniversary of the First World War," said Cambridge University librarian Anne Jarvis.

(China Daily 08/02/2014 page10)