Rupert Brooke, is rather a pre-war poet, whose war experience consisted of one day of limited military action with the Hood Battalion during the evacuation of Antwerp. He died in the Aegean Sea (from blood poisoning) on his way to battle at Gallipoli in 1915.

Isaac Rosenberg, suffering from chronic bronchitis, emigrated to the warmer climate of South Africa. Having returned to England, enlisted in 1915, and was assigned to the 12th Suffolk Folk Regiment. Private Rosenberg was later transferred to the 11th Battalion, The King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment. He was sent to the Somme, on the Western Front where he was killed in 1918.

Wilfred Owen, who joined the Artists’ Rifles, spent the worst war winter in France. After having stayed at Craiglockhart War Hospital for some months suffering from shellshock, he returned to France to be killed one week before “The Guns Fell Silent”.

Siegfried Sassoon, who was commissioned as an officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, became a decorated war hero. He was nicknamed "Mad Jack" by his men for his recklessly brave actions.
After the war Sassoon was instrumental in bringing Owen's work to the attention of a wider audience.