Nichols serves at Loos and the Somme
Poet involved
What happened
Nichols served on the Western Front in France, including the Battle of Loos and the Battle of the Somme, as an artillery officer. Front-line service was relatively brief compared with some fellow soldier-poets, but it furnished the landscape of bombardment that fills Ardours and Endurances. He was still a very young lieutenant when those battles were fought.
Literary impact
Loos and the Somme became the experiential ground of The Assault, Battle, and related sequences. The poems try to hold exaltation, fear, and comradeship inside one officer’s unfolding attack.
Source: Wikipedia
