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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.

— John Keegan The First World War (1998)

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

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

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Keegan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.