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1660c0f
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He said, "McKinley was going around the country shouting prosperity when there was no prosperity for the poor man." --
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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44c3a24
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In his message to Congress on December 3, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt said, "Anarchism is a crime against the whole human race and all mankind should band against the Anarchist." He was not the product of social or political injustice and his protest of concern for the workingman was "outrageous." The institutions of the United States, the President insisted, offered open opportunity "to every honest and intelligent son of toil." He urged that..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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36d1748
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War, he stated, "is a biological necessity"; it is the carrying out among humankind of "the natural law, upon which all the laws of Nature rest, the law of the struggle for existence." Nations, he said, must progress or decay; "there can be no standing still," and Germany must choose "world power or downfall."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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ec000ea
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I also know that what follows is far from the whole picture. It is not false modesty which prompts me to say so but simply an acute awareness of what I have not included. The faces and voices of all that I have left out crowd around me as I reach the end.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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ecacd51
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What made the Schlieffen plan was not Clausewitz and the Battle of Cannae, but the body of accumulated egoism which suckled the German people and created a nation fed on "the desperate delusion of the will that deems itself absolute."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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eb7ad6f
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It is a peculiar habit of Christianity to conceive the most compassionate and forgiving divinities and use them to sponsor atrocity.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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be4994e
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Although ship for ship it approached a match with the British and in gunnery was superior, the Kaiser, who could hark back to no Drakes or Nelsons, could never really believe that German ships and sailors could beat the British. He could not bear to think of his "darlings," as Bulow called his battleships, shattered by gunfire, smeared with blood or at last, wounded and rudderless, sinking beneath the waves. Tirpitz, whom once he had gratef..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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60b008d
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An event of great agony is bearable only in the belief that it will bring about a better world. When it does not, as in the aftermath of another vast calamity in 1914-18, disillusion is deep and moves on to self-doubt and self-disgust. In
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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0cb7e8d
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I need no Chief," said the Kaiser; "I can do this for myself."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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dbddbf1
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In the school building taken over by GQG, an unbridgeable gulf separated Operations, the Troisieme Bureau, which occupied the class rooms, from Intelligence, the Deuxieme Bureau, which was installed in the gymnasium with the apparatus pushed against the walls and the rings tied up to the ceiling. All day the Deuxieme Bureau collected information, interrogated prisoners, deciphered documents, put together
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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1ae194a
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In the school building taken over by GQG, an unbridgeable gulf separated Operations, the Troisieme Bureau, which occupied the class rooms, from Intelligence, the Deuxieme Bureau, which was installed in the gymnasium with the apparatus pushed against the walls and the rings tied up to the ceiling. All day the Deuxieme Bureau collected information, interrogated prisoners, deciphered documents, put together ingenious conjectures and passed on ..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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3cfd9d6
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He seemed less in need of a secretary than of someone to listen to him.
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listening
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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128a6e6
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Humanizing war?! You may as well talk of humanizing Hell. Sir John Fisher
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division
sin
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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cfc5727
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The world remembers the battle ever since by the taxis. A hundred of them were already in the service of the Military Government of Paris. With 500 more, each carrying five soldiers and making the sixty-kilometer trip to the Ourcq twice, General Clergerie figured he could transport 6,000 troops to the hard-pressed front. The order was issued at 1:00 P.M., the hour for departure fixed for 6:00 P.M. Police passed the word to the taxis in the ..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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1bc6903
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Regulations," he would say, "are all very well for drill but in the hour of danger they are no more use.... You have to learn to think." To think meant to give room for freedom of initiative, for the imponderable to win over the material, for will to demonstrate its power over circumstance."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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757102d
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They governed from duty, heritage and habit--and, as they saw it, from right.
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politics
history-politics
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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5e4b491
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the Kaiser was as close to the "sick Tom-cat" mood as he thought the Russians were. More cosmopolitan and more timid than the archetype Prussian, he had never actually wanted a general war. He wanted greater power, greater prestige, above all more authority in the world's affairs for Germany but he preferred to obtain them by frightening rather than by fighting other nations. He wanted the gladiator's rewards without the battle, and wheneve..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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9bcdd63
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As the final crisis boiled, his marginalia on telegrams grew more and more agitated: "Aha! the common cheat," "Rot!" "He lies!" "Mr. Grey is a false dog," "Twaddle!" "The rascal is crazy or an idiot!" When Russia mobilized he burst into a tirade of passionate foreboding, not against the Slav traitors but against the unforgettable figure of the wicked uncle: "The world will be engulfed in the most terrible of wars, the ultimate aim of which ..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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128d39b
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Margery Kempe was obviously an uncomfortable neighbor to have, like all those who cannot conceal the painfulness of life.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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20dc32c
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Its insistent principle that the life of the spirit and of the afterworld was superior to the here and now, to material life on earth, is one that the modern world does not share, no matter how devout some present-day Christians may be. The rupture of this principle and its replacement by belief in the worth of the individual and of an active life not necessarily focused on God is, in fact, what created the modern world and ended the Middle..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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6f5c0b1
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Man himself was the formulator of the impossible Christian ideal and tried to uphold it, if not live by it, for more than a millennium. Therefore it must represent a need, something more fundamental than Gibbon's 18th century enlightenment allowed for, or his elegant ironies could dispose of.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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e3db356
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They were deaf to disaffection, blind to the alternative ideas it gave rise to, blandly impervious to challenge, unconcerned by the dismay at their misconduct and the rising wrath at their misgovernment, fixed in refusal to change, almost stupidly stubborn in maintaining a corrupt existing system. They could not change it because they were part of it, grew out of it, depended on it.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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7cd2fb7
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Hierosolyma est Perdita
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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68e8f8c
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It must always be an amazement how 18th century letter writers - even, and especially, officials - had the time and capacity to produce their sculpted sentences and perfection of grammar and , while 20th century successors can only envy the past and leave their readers painfully to pick their way through thickets of academic and the mud of bureaucratic jargon.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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ccee193
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William III died childless in 1702, in a fall when his horse stumbled over a molehill, an obstacle that seems as if it should have some philosophical significance but, as far as can be seen, does not.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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f8798be
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If Joffre's plan were to work, it was essential that the BEF hold the space between Lanrezac and the newly forming Sixth Army. Under General Order No. 2 Joffre intended the BEF to conform to the general pace of the retreat and, once they reached the Somme at St. Quentin, hold firm.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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d35a407
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The Brunswick Manifesto, rather than accomplishing Louis XVI's rescue, paved the way to the guillotine, which could have been foreseen if Karl Wilhelm had given the matter any forethought, but thinking ahead is given to chess players, not to autocrats.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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68ab3a5
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Adams, not yet replaced, repeated that "the arrogant English were treating Amsterdam exactly as they had Boston." With that fatal gift for the unlearned lesson, the produced the same result - unity against the oppressor, which in America had brought the fractious colonies into their first federation."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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f4dacc3
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The lesson was not yet clear in the 18th century, as America was to learn to her cost in our own century, that the presence of disunity in the military about method and strategy, and among the nation's people about the rightness of the war aim, makes it impossible for a war of any duration to be fought effectively and won.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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3fa7fa0
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the French, who had put large expectations in the abasement of Britain that American success would cause, had been disappointed by the weakness of the American military effort. Instead of an aggressive ally, they were tied to a dependent client, unable to establish a strong government and requiring transfusions of men-at-arms and money to keep its war effort alive.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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8c7924b
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On October 17, the day when Cornwallis, heralded by his little drummer boy, asked for terms, his would-be rescuers in New York, Graves and Clinton, setting a record for belated action in military history, finally fixed a time to leave on the mission that had been waiting ever since Clinton had acknowledged on September 2 that Cornwallis would have to be "saved." An army of 7,000 was boarded, sails were hoisted, Graves' fleet with Clinton on..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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6e51501
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Major von Kleist gave orders that a man or, if no man was available, a woman, be taken from every household as a hostage." Through some peculiar failure of the system, the greater the terror, the more terror seemed to be necessary."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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1e48259
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The Germans were obsessively concerned about violations of international law. They succeeded in overlooking the violation created by their presence in Belgium in favor of the violation committed, as they saw it, by Belgians resisting their presence.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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b5a1163
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The German obsession had two parts: that Belgian resistance was illegal and that it was organized from "above" by the Belgian government or by burgomasters, priests, and other persons who could be classified as "above." Together the two parts established the corollary: that German reprisals were righteous and legal, regardless of degree. The shooting of a single hostage or the massacre of 612 and the razing of a town were alike to be charge..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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b6bfb0f
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As time went on and victory went glimmering, the desire to carry the fleet safe and sound through the war for bargaining purposes at the peace table became even more embedded.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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ce31eb3
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The Prime Minister was not the only person unconcerned with odds and ends of this kind. When a German official, foreseeing the change to a long war of attrition, presented Moltke with a memorandum on the need for an Economic General Staff, Moltke replied, "Don't bother me with economics--I am busy conducting a war."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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c196de7
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To Wilson neutrality was the opposite of isolationism. He wanted to keep out of war in order to play a larger, not a lesser, part in world affairs. He wanted the "great permanent glory" for himself as well as for his country, and he realized he could win it only if he kept America out of the quarrel so that he could act as impartial arbiter."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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f35631c
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In any case, leaping trade with the Allies, which was taking up more than the slack of lost trade with Germany, dulled the edge of national principle. As long as goods were being absorbed, the United States came gradually to acquiesce in the process begun by the Order in Council of August 20.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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5bfc8ad
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The risk of leaving East Prussia, hearth of Junkerdom and the Hohenzollerns, to be held by only nine divisions was hard to accept, but Frederick the Great had said, "It is better to lose a province than split the forces with which one seeks victory," and nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general." --
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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7cdd518
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When those who have the title of shepherd play the part of wolves," said Lothar of Saxony, "heresy grows in the garden of the Church."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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5433ac7
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To put on the garment of legitimacy is the first aim of every coup. When
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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dca8765
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That was the Battle of Mons. As the opening British engagement of what was to become the Great War, it became endowed in retrospect with every quality of greatness and was given a place in the British pantheon equal to the battles of Hastings and Agincourt. Legends like that of the Angels of Mons settled upon it. All its men were valorous and all its dead heroes.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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6ce2923
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He must present Belgium as the cause without hiding France as the basic cause; he must appeal to Britain's honor while making it clear that Britain's interest was the deciding factor; he must stand where a tradition of debate on foreign affairs had flourished for three hundred years and, without the brilliance of Burke or the force of Pitt, without Canning's mastery or Palmerston's jaunty nerve, without the rhetoric of Gladstone or the wit ..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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8b6eece
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I managed to weave my way in and around it, a maneuver one learns in the process of writing history--to muffle the facts a bit when one can't understand everything--watch Gibbon do it in those sonorous balanced sentences which, if you analyze them, often turn out to make little sense, but you forget that in the marvel of their structure. I am no Gibbon, but I have learned the value of venturing into the unfamiliar instead of returning to a ..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |