Lots of poetry about how miserable WW1 was for sure but you will still find the average Tommy trying to have a laugh in the face of it though. Chances are everyone in the picture would have gone "over the top" the next day and none of them survived. It was utter carnage mixed in with trench foot, dysentery and the odd game of football at Christmas. The scale of losses is mind-boggling. I went to the War Horse exhibition at the Army Museum a few years back. Moving stuff.
Poets are always miserable bastards though. Apart from Pam Ayers, of course. ER's favourite poet apparently.