How is war presented in Thomas Hardy's poetry?

Thomas Hardys's poetry spans a number of decades, themes and phases, and so his attitudes and presentations of themes like war often vary considerably across these time periods. In this answer I will examine two of Thomas Hardy's war poems, "Drummer Hodge" and "The Man he Killed" in order to explore the ways in which Hardy's attitudes to war became more direct, confrontational and humanistic as his poetry evolved. The most striking characteristic of an early war poem like "Drummer Hodge" is the complete absence of war. The opening lines "They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest / Uncoffined - just as found" foreground the poem as taking place after a battle. No details of Hodge's death are mentioned, and the reader learns precious little about the circumstances of his death or even the setting, beyond the 'foreign' soil that he's buried in. The effect of erasing the conflict completely from the text is that the poem is subsequently focused entirely on the melancholy consequences of the war, namely that Hodge will never return to 'his Wessex home'. In setting his poem in the eerie tranquility of the 'gloam' proceeding a battle, Hardy emphasises the tragedy of war and its fatal consequences for young men.