Ways of Seeing War

Abstract

In The Deserted Village (1770), Goldsmith sketched a portrait of an old soldier, presumably a victim of the Seven Years’ War from 1756 to 1753:

The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,

Sate by his fire, and talked the night away;

Wept o’er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,

Shouldered his crutch, and showed how wars were won.

The broken soldier evokes pity and anger. This is a man who has been ruined physically, who walks with a crutch, whose life from now on is limited to begging. He has been hospitably looked after by the village preacher, but may not be so fortunate elsewhere: he was one of many during the wars of this time — the Seven Years’ War, the War of American Independence, the Napoleonic Wars — who were used by the army or navy and then cast aside. It was part of the ill-treatment which soldiers often received at the hands of the government: as soldiers they were subject to military discipline, exposed to danger, and dismissed when they were of no further use. The closest parallel, often invoked by those who were against war, was that of slavery. The image of the soldier or sailor as a slave, forced into the army or navy and deprived of his individual choice of action, was a recurrent one. And clearly, if such a view was held, then war was a sorry business, without justification at any time.