Philip's second cousin, Siegfried Sassoon, has become known as one of the defining voices of the conflict with his searing poetry of the waste of human life involved in trench warfare. The two did not meet until after the end of the war and Philip seems to have had little sympathy with Siegfried's decision to protest publicly against the carnage in July 1917. As a staff officer, Philip would have been unlikely to have appreciated Siegfried's poem, “The General”, written in April 1917.
Yet, in the 1920s and 1930s, Philip was much more prominent than Siegfried in public life. It was not until later in the 20th century that Field Marshal Haig came under criticism for the huge casualty rate.