There are many fine war poets, and I particularly like reading those of the First World War. Curiously, in equal measure I enjoy reading both the war jingoists such as Rupert Brooke and Jessie Pope as well as the dark, stark realism of Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves and Rudyard Kipling. Kipling was an enthusiastic supporter of the war and the “greatness of the British Empire”, at least until his only son was killed at the Battle of Loos in his very first action. Rupert Brooke was always an “Empirist” and enthusiastic warrior, probably because he never experienced a…