# The Colonel — Memoirs of an Infantry Officer character guide

> The Colonel in Memoirs of an Infantry Officer by Siegfried Sassoon.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** The Colonel

**First appearance:** 0000-i-at-the-army-school

## Snapshot

A green-tabbed, Coronation-Medal-wearing authority figure whose contempt for untidy temporary officers embodies the Regular Army's disdain.

## Who they are

The Colonel appears at the Base and in the battalion as a symbol of the peacetime Regular Army, glaring at subalterns in trench-boots and complaining that young Cromlech reads Shakespeare instead of using soap. He is not a villain so much as a system: the man who decides who belongs and who does not. He matters because his disapproval shapes the narrator's sense of himself as an outsider in his own regiment.

## In the story

### [At the Depot](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se/chapters/vi-at-the-depot)

Sits at the top table in the mess among the easygoing Majors, later going to the anteroom for his game of Bridge.

### [VII: Rouen in February](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se/chapters/vii-rouen-in-february)

A bulky, grey-haired Colonel at the Hôtel de la Poste who disapproves of the infantry subalterns.

### [II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se/chapters/ii)

A bulky grey-haired Colonel at the Hôtel de la Poste, disapproving of the infantry subalterns.

### [II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se/chapters/ii)

Deals with the Corps Commander's criticism about marching intervals.

### [V](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se/chapters/v)

At Battalion Headquarters, offers congratulations to the narrator on his 'dashing display' before he departs.

### [III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se/chapters/iii)

Commanding officer at Clitherland, unaware of Sherston's protest plans.

### [V](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se/chapters/v)

Recipient of Sherston's formal letter of protest, enclosing his statement of defiance.

### [VII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se/chapters/vii)

Presides over the Medical Board and later visits Sherston in Liverpool, attempting to persuade him to abandon his protest.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se/characters/the_colonel
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se/characters