warfare hardened and embittered many. Freud said of disillusionment: When I speak of disillusionment, everyone will know at once what i mean. One need not be a sentimentalist; one may perceive the biological and psychological necessity for surrering in the economy of human life, and yet condemn war both in its means and ends and long for the cessation of all wars. British poet, Wilfred Own, who was killed in 1918 was transformed from a young romantic into a powerful denouncer of those who had sent young men off to war. In "Dulce et Decorum Est" he mocked "the old lie" that it was good to die for one's country, after giving a searing description of a gassed soldier coughing out his lungs. The anger of the soldier-poets was directed against those who had sent them to the war, not their enemy. The war experience did not produce new art forms or styles. It acted largely to make the harshest themes and the grimmest or most mocking forms of expression of prewar intellectual life seem more appropriate, and to fost experiments in opposition to the dominant values of contemporary europe. The Dada movement, which mocked old values and ridiculed stuffy bourgeois culture, was one of these movements. A mood of desolation and emptiness prevailed at the end of a war where great sacrifice had brought little gain. It was not clear where post-war anger would be focused, but it would definately be in antibourgeois politics. The echoes of a world shattering were heard throughout the world as Europe collapsed into total war. These echoes were the sound of change as Europe was transformed socially, politicaly, economically, and intellectualy into a machine of complete destruction. Europe would never be the same again. ...
