The Guns of August Quotes

“'''''Elan'' had not been enough.'''”

“Honor wears different coats to different eyes.”

“Precision in timing was not in any case a notable Russian virtue.”

“Risk was the least favorite concept of the British admiralty in 1914.”

““I need no Chief,” said the Kaiser; “I can do this for myself.””

“Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.”

“Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general.”

“The enemy was considered beaten, and any evidence to the contrary was unwelcome.”

“Systematic attention to detail was not a notable characteristic of the Russian army.”

“But once divinity of doctrine has been questioned there is no return to perfect faith.”

“In the midst of war and crisis nothing is as clear or as certain as it appears in hindsight.”

“Wikipedia: The Guns of August”

“In 1914 “glory” was a word spoken without embarrassment, and honor a familiar concept that people believed in.”

“The cult of arrogance practiced by Prussian officers affected no one more painfully than themselves and their allies.”

“That vexing problem of war presented by the refusal of the enemy to behave as expected in his own best interest beset them.”

“When at last it was over, the war had many diverse results and one dominant one transcending all others: disillusion.”

“Europe was a heap of swords piled as delicately as jackstraws; one could not be pulled out without moving the others.”

“No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard and fast and specific decision.”

“By his silence Joffre ratified the decision; he did not forgive it.”

“Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip, and Germans, no less than other peoples, prepare for the last war.”