Quotes About Warfare

While the Germans intercepted and recorded many hours of SIGSALY transmissions, they were never able to interpret them.

FLINTLOCK (1610)

homicide, democide, genocide, ethnocide, politicide, regicide, infanticide, neonaticide, filicide, siblicide, gynecide, uxoricide, mariticide, and terrorism by suicide.

It's not immediately obvious why, out of all the weapons of war, poison gas was singled out as uniquely abominable—as so uncivilized that even the Nazis kept it off the battlefield.

It's highly unpleasant to be gassed, but then it's just as unpleasant to be perforated or shredded by pieces of metal.

One of the tragic ironies of the second half of the 20th century is that when colonies in the developing world freed themselves from European rule, they often slid back into warfare, this time intensified by modern weaponry, organized militias, and the freedom of young men to defy tribal elders.77 As we shall see in the next chapter, this development is a countercurrent to the historical decline of violence, but it is also a demonstration of the role of Leviathans in propelling the decline.

where civil blood makes civil hands unclean

Every lover is a soldier. (Love is a warfare.) [Lat., Militat omnis amans.]

And this is only the beginning of the road to total familial warfare, conducted mostly in the underworld, underneath the false façade of normality and love.

One thing the American defense establishment has traditionally understood very well is that countries don't win wars just by being braver than the other side, or freer, or slightly preferred by God. The winners are usually the guys who get 5% fewer of their planes shot down, or use 5% less fuel, or get 5% more nutrition into their infantry at 95% of the cost.

if you want an honest view of what's going on, you also have to consider the planes that didn't come back.

countries don't win wars just by being braver than the other side, or freer, or slightly preferred by God. The winners are usually the guys who get 5% fewer of their planes shot down, or use 5% less fuel, or get 5% more nutrition into their infantry at 95% of the cost. That's not the stuff war movies are made of, but it's the stuff wars are made of. And there's math every step of the way. —

Salvo una batalla perdida, no hay nada más deprimente que una batalla ganada».

Se acostó a soñar despierto con Bailén. El lodo y la sangre. Las risotadas y las chanzas. Las descargas cerradas. Los soldados que empuñaban carabinas y calaban bayonetas. Los chasquidos. Las balas que pasaban silbando. Los fusileros intoxicados de pólvora que mordían el cartucho, empujaban el proyectil con la baqueta, se ponían los mosquetes contra la cara y disparaban. Los bordados y los cordones. Las fogatas y las antorchas. La miseria. El dolor. Los muertos.

Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow, And Scipio's ghost walks unavenged amongst us!

Kill every enemy twice, Wilky said. Better than gettin' shot by a soldier pretending to be dead.

This world is a military expedition, an eternal combat. No doubt all chose who fought courageously in a battle are worthy of praise, but also there is no doubt that the greatest glory goes to the one who returns wounded.

The problem had been evident from the moment the first Tommy tried to pull himself out of the trench by gripping a rotted sandbag and had fallen back to the bottom. The rain collapsed the sides of trenches, and men had to be heaved over the parapet bodily. Tanks sank, their treads unable to gain traction. As the men finally advanced, they were sucked into mud-filled craters, where many drowned.

Passchendaele ended in breathtaking losses. More than 310,000 British, 85,000 Frenchmen, and 260,000 Germans, a total of 655,000, had fallen in a battle fought over a field five miles wide.

The ground over which the bulk of the battles raged was only about eighty-five miles wide, a relatively modest battleground but a rather large cemetery, considering the 3,258,610 killed there and the 7,745,920 wounded, for total losses of 11,004,530 men.

artillery pieces were lined up, only more of them, 4,000 in all, a gun every six yards stretching for fifteen miles. The enemy would be pounded with shells, only more of them, 4.5 million this time.

Knowing that masks donned in time could protect against gas, they began loading shells with sneezing powder, which seeped through the masks' filters.

The concussive force of grenades rattled men's brains to the point of madness.

A fourteen-year-old lad crouching with his bazooka behind a ruined wall on a burned out street is worth more to the nation than ten intellectuals who attempt to prove that our chances now are nil.