Quotes from Ladislas Farago

History often has a difficult time catching up to the events it records.

With proper and prudent recognition of their limited war potential, the British hoped to avoid a frontal attack on the Continent. They preferred a roundabout way to victory, having convinced themselves that German power could be worn down by attrition to the point of collapse, whereupon "the Anglo-American forces in the United Kingdom could perform a triumphal march from the Channel to Berlin with no more than a few snipers' bullets to annoy them.

Patton hated and dreaded mediocrity. A few days before his death he wrote to Robert P. Patterson, who had succeeded Mr. Stimson as Secretary of War: "Anyone in any walk of life who is content with mediocrity is untrue to himself and to American tradition.

L'audace, I'audace, toujours l'audace! " Remember that, gentlemen. From here on out, until we win or die in the attempt, we will aways be audacious.

One of his mechanics who despaired when he could not get spare parts for the tanks once announced casually that most of them were ordinary parts he used to order from Sears, Roebuck. Patton seized upon the remark. When it proved impossible to obtain the parts through regular channels—partly because of the red tape and partly because the Army simply did not have any at that stage—he ordered them from Sears, Roebuck and paid the bill out of his own pocket.

When the Battle of the Bulge ended the war in the west had only about 100 days left. But what a One Hundred Days they became in Patton's career! During that period he mounted four full-scale campaigns and wound up, somewhat baffled by the end when it came, inside Czechoslovakia with something resembling the military version of an unfinished symphony.

Patton wrote in his diary on April 15th, the morning after his departure from II Corps: "War is very simple, direct and ruthless. It takes a simple, direct and ruthless man to wage war." He had no doubt that he was such a man.

There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to change. It is: 'To use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wounds, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum time.

Anyone in any walk of life who is content with mediocrity is untrue to himself and to American tradition." He

When Patton now showed up on the Mary to welcome them, Sergeant Bill Pajewski punched Corporal Sam McCarthy in the ribs. "Man," he whispered in obvious consternation, "do you see what I see? It's Old Blood and Guts!" McCarthy responded by crossing himself.

In the hospital, there also was a man trying to look as if he had been wounded. I asked him what was the matter, and he said he just couldn't take it. I gave him the devil, slapped his face with my gloves and kicked him out of the hospital. Companies should deal with such men, and if they shirk their duty they should be tried for cowardice and shot. I will issue an order on this subject tomorrow.

He lavished his affection on the dog and even had Willie, sitting up on a chair, dine with him at his table. The dog reciprocated, and it was quite moving to watch Patton scuffling with his forbidding-looking but meek pet in his moments of raucous bliss.

It was the most moving experience of my life," he wrote, "and the knowledge of what the ambulances contained made it still more poignant." It was with that episode in mind that he concluded his post mortem: "The results attained were made possible only by the superlative quality of American officers, American men and American equipment. No country can stand against such an army.

The Battle of the Bulge is sometimes characterized as Hitler's final desperate gamble, the last straw at which he grabbed. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Ardennes offensive was a major and carefully conceived maneuver, not merely to avert the defeat of the Third Reich, but also to administer a decisive blow to the Allies. It was developed long in advance and prepared with exceptional care, respectable ingenuity and considerable investment in human and material resources.

In equipment, Allied superiority was stifling. In guns it was 2½ to 1, in tanks 20 to 1. The Allies had some 14,000 planes, against which the Germans could pit only 573 serviceable aircraft. The entire Luftwaffe was down to 4,507 planes, and none of those in Germany and the Eastern Front could be spared for the west.

When Philip of Macedonia, the father of Alexander the Great, was told that a certain city in his army's path was impregnable, he asked: "Is there not a pathway to it wide enough for an ass laden with gold?" It was the fate of Vidkun Quisling to be nothing but an ass.

Victories in battles are deceptive triumphs. They place the burden of proof not on the men who won them, but on those who are in charge of the war and must be guided by the assumption that no matter how many battles may be won, the war itself can still be lost. Nobody knew this better than Pyrrhus of Epirus. And nobody should have realized this sooner than Adolf Hitler of the Thousand-Year Reich.

History would not be what it is, the record of man's crimes and follies, if logic and decency governed its events and great decisions.

So thorough was his inspection that he even peeped into the latrines and fined the men who neglected to wear their helmets while engaged in one of nature's most pristine pursuits.

Patton was bombed, strafed, shelled—but he thrived on it. At the summit of a badly littered road over a hill he stopped to survey the scarred and scorched landscape of war—rubbish that used to be farms, fields in which the grass was burning, hundreds of stiff-legged, dead cattle. He threw out his arms as if trying to embrace the scene, and shouted to the sky, "Could anything be more magnificent?!

How come, Georgie, that you go armed to a civilian horse show?" "I believe in being prepared," he told her. "I always carry a pistol, even when I'm dressed in white tie and tails.

That split second an invisible battery opened up with a salvo. Patton had to raise his voice to a still higher pitch, as he exclaimed, "Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God, how I love it!