To some extent Captain Liddell Hart's tactical theories are separable from his strategic ones, and here his prophecies have been all too well justified by events. No military writer in our time has done more to enlighten public opinion. But his justified war with the Blimps has perhaps overcoloured his judgment... Disgusted by the spectacle of Passchendaele, Captain Liddell Hart seems to have ended by believing that wars can be won on the defensive or without fighting—and even, indeed, that a war is better half-won than won outright. That holds good only when your enemy thinks likewise, a state of affairs which disappeared when Europe ceased to be ruled by an aristocracy.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "To some extent Captain Liddell Hart's tactical theories are separable from his strategic ones, and here his prophecies have been all too well justified by events. No military writer in our time has done more to enlighten public opinion. But his justified war with the Blimps has perhaps overcoloured his judgment... Disgusted by the spectacle of Passchendaele, Captain Liddell Hart seems to have ended by believing that wars can be won on the defensive or without fighting—and even, indeed, that a war is better half-won than won outright. That holds good only when your enemy thinks likewise, a state of affairs which disappeared when Europe ceased to be ruled by an aristocracy." in the context of "George Orwell, review of B. H. Liddell Hart's The British Way in Warfare in New Statesman and Nation (21 November 1942), quoted in George Orwell, The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell. Volume II: My Country Right or Left, 1940–1943, eds. Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (1968), pp. 248-249" to mean that wisdom is timeless.