[aside]my cousin fell off Beachy Head last month. no deathwish, she wuz just sat on the bench and the whole cliff face came down. amazingly, she survived, but she has broken her back.[/aside]

It seems probable that Douglas was influenced by your man there. In my opinion, the Great War poets were and are a massive influence on the way we (we meaning English folk) think about war. They were part of the propaganda explosion of the early twentieth century and so had a very visible, or easily identifiable impact, not just on poets but on our whole society. I'm not qualified to give you anything more than my opinion but it is worth reading up on, it's fascinating. Chomsky has waxed lyrical about this subject in about a million books, and, of course, everyone should read Edward de Bernays 'Propaganda'.