The Man he Killed by Thomas Hardy

The short poem, "The Man he Killed," by Thomas Hardy shows the senselessness and futility of war, where one man killed the other simply because they were fighting on opposite sides during the war. It is written in a conversational tonne, making it seem that the soldier is addressing the audience personally. It makes it easier for the reader to see how pointless the war and forces the reader to view themselves if in another position, would have things gone differently?
The first stanza explains that if the two men who fought had met under different circumstances, for example, if they met outside a pub they would have, "sat us down to wet, Right many a nipperkin." The two men, if under different circumstances, could have been two friends having a drink. Hardy is trying to send the reader a message that the men who fight in wars are not natural enemies, but are told to hate each other.
In the second stanza, Hardy is describing the real way the two men met, on the battle field. That when, "staring face to face," the only reaction the two men have is to shoot at the other. They both do not know the other, nor have any reason to hate each other than that they are enemies in the war. The same ideas continue into the third stanza when the speaker tries to justify himself for the reason he killed the man. He says, "I shot him because - because he was my foe," which Hardy wanted the reader to see the speaker trying to convince himself that their were reasons of why he killed him. Hardy uses the repetition of the speaker saying "my foe" to show that the speaker wants to believe the man is actually his foe. Hardy's reason for ending the third stanza with the word "although" is he wants the reader to see that the speaker is still not convinced in his reasons for killing the man.
The forth stanza is the speaker contemplating the reason for his "foe" to have enlisted in the army. If he "was out of work" just like the speaker himself. The speaker than says that he was only in the army because he had no where else to go, "no other reason why."
The final stanza of the poem retells Hardy's main idea for the poem, how "quaint and curious war is." That war makes a soldier kill a man for now other reason than the man is on the opposite side of the war. The soldier is pleading with the audience for them to believe he had a just reason for the death.