Siegfried Sassoon recorded in his diary on 22nd July 1916, that the 1st Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers boarded a train at Mericourt and travelled to Hengest. From there they marched seven kilometers to La Chausee (one kilometer from Picquigny), for a fortnight’s rest. The next day the great diarist and memorizer wrote just one line: “Feeling very ill. Temperature 105 at 9pm. Went to New Zealand Hospital at Amiens on Monday morning.”

At the hospital his condition was diagnosed as dysentery, which Sassoon believed he had caught at their new billets at La Chausee. This had originally been occupied by Australian troops and had been left in less than ideal sanitary conditions when taken over by his battalion.

Serious cases from the barges...

The following describes the hospital at Amiens and comes from a book written by Hester Maclean and published by the Tolan Printing Company in 1932, entitled ‘Nursing in New Zealand: History and Reminiscences, Chapter XXXIX - New Zealand Hospitals in Britain and France:’

“Twenty-seven sisters and staff nurses left England on July 30th, 1916, to join the staff of the No. 1 New Zealand Stationary Hospital at Amiens, France, some fifteen miles from the front line. After a couple of days spent in Boulogne, the party was divided, one half going to a British hospital at Abbeville, and the other half to Amiens to the No. 1 Stationary Hospital. The trip to Amiens took twelve hours instead of the customary four, owing to the bombing of the railway line just ahead of the train.

The hospital was in two buildings, the main portion of 350 beds was in part of a convent, ‘St. Famille,’ just above the station, where the more serious cases were admitted, and half in the Lycee Girls' School, a few blocks away, which could accommodate 380 beds. A little later a third school was opened as an officers' hospital, with 100 beds.

For nearly ten months the No. 1 Stationary Hospital was used as a casualty clearing station in conjunction with other British hospitals some distance out, and also for the serious cases from the barges on the Somme which could not travel. From here, when work slackened, surgical teams, consisting of a surgeon, an anaesthetist, a sister, and one, perhaps two, men, were sent up to casualty clearing stations for the big offensive. The patients here were British, some fifty German prisoners and some Belgian soldiers. After ten months at Amiens the Stationary Hospital was transferred to Hazebrouck with a bed status of 1,040, which occupied two schools and a field of tents.”

Sainte Famille Convent

Lycee Girls’ School Sainte Famille

I do not think we will ever know for certain in which building Sassoon lay in his hospital bed. He left the hospital at one o’clock on July 30th in an ambulance to Corbie. At five o’clock a train took him to No.2 Hospital at Rouen which he reached at 2.30 am. At 10.15 am on August 1st he boarded the hospital ship ABERDONIAN, and reached Southampton midday on the 2nd. He was then put on another train which reached Oxford at around 4 pm., and he soon found himself in No.3 General Service Hospital at Somerville College. What happened after that is another story.

Poetry in Hospital

During Sassoon’s stay at the New Zealand Hospital in Amiens he wrote two important poems and was inspired to later write another which this writer believes to be his best war poem. Just before becoming ill Sassoon had received news that his friend and fellow poet Robert Graves, had been killed in action. As he lay in his bed thinking about this loss he wrote the poem ‘To His Dead Body.’

To His Dead Body

Two weeks after writing this poem Sassoon received news from his friend Eddie Marsh that Graves had not been killed and was recovering in hospital in Highgate.

Across the ward in the bed opposite Sassoon lay a young officer concealed behind screens. The dying man, becoming more and more delirious, was crying out names and raving about a wood and the loss of a friend. This man’s cries reminded Sassoon of his own experiences on the Somme in Mametz Wood, and he was inspired to write ‘Died of Wounds.’

Died of Wounds

After leaving hospital Sassoon went to his home ‘Weirleigh’ in Kent, to recuperate, and in August he wrote what Wilfred Owen would later describe as “a perfect piece of art,” the wonderful poem ‘The Death-Bed.’

The Death-Bed

Sassoon sent this poem to the Westminster Gazette but it was refused without comment. A typical response from many publications which would not publish anything that did not place the life of soldiers in a favourable light. The world still had a lot to learn.