Poetry was used by all sides during the war and the efforts to get the right poetry were a secret government propaganda effort that wasn't known of at the time.

Poetry was used by all sides during the war and the efforts to get the right poetry were a secret government propaganda effort that wasn't known of at the time. There was a big fear that the Germans were trying to undermine the morale of people in the UK so poetry was the 'big guns' for seeing off that threat. The WW1 poets were not having to start from a blank page, a handy anthology of poetry was provided as a starting point, this has plenty of gems from way before the war to remind people what they were fighting for: https://archive.org/details/spiritofmanantho00bridiala/page/n25 https://archive.org/details/spiritofmanantho00bridiala/page/... There was another battle going on back on the home front, for women's rights. Poetry played a part in this struggle too.