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Quotes from The First World War — John Keegan

1934–2012 England

← All quotes by John Keegan

14 quotes

Europe is once again, as it was in 1900, prosperous, peaceful and a power for good in the world.

The First World War (1998)

The Somme marked the end of an age of vital optimism in British life that has never been recovered.

The First World War (1998)

War’s rancours are quick to bite and slow to heal.

The First World War (1998)

Lightning victories, experience tells, store up evil consequences, usually for the victors.

The First World War (1998)

The First World War inaugurated the manufacture of mass deaths that the Second brought to a pitiless consummation.

The First World War (1998)

Time, in all crises, is usually the ingredient missing to make a solution. It is best supplied by an agreement on a pause.

The First World War (1998)

Little ground was gained, much life lost.

The First World War (1998)

The First World War was a tragic and unnecessary conflict.

The First World War (1998)

All worked excellently, until fighting began.

The First World War (1998)

Plans made without allowance for the intentions of the enemy are liable to miscarry. So it was to prove in 1916.

The First World War (1998)

By the end of 1915, none of the original combatants was fighting the war that had been wanted or expected. Hopes of quick victory had been dashed, new enemies had appeared, new fronts had opened.

The First World War (1998)

The opening months of the First World War marked the termination of two hundred years of a style of infantry fighting which, with decreasing logic, taught that drill and discipline was the best defence against missile weapons, however much improved.

The First World War (1998)

The system of communication itself denied any rapidity, let alone instantaneity, of communication when it was most needed, which was in the heat of action. The most important of the novelties of modern warfare in our own time has been the development of surveillance, targeting and inter-communication in real time, which is to say at the speed at which events unroll.

The First World War (1998)

The effect exerted by paper plans on the unfolding of events must never be exaggerated. Plans do not determine outcomes. The happenings set in motion by a particular scheme of action will rarely be those narrowly intended, are intrinsically unpredictable and will ramify far beyond the anticipation of the instigator. So it was to prove with the Schlieffen plan.

The First World War (1998)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: John Keegan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.