Quotes November 17, 2017


It have been one of the richest experiences of my life…feeling that I was being really useful to the boys on the other side.
Unidentified actress about working in a war factory. From an excerpt in Adriane Ruggiero, American Voices from World War I (2003), p. 79–80, citing Norma B. Kastl, “Wartime, the Place and the Girl”, Independent magazine (unidentified issue).
 
 
 
 
Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?
Daniel Daly, Battle cry at the Battle of Belleau Wood, World War I, June 1918
 
 
 
 
Some of us still recall World War I, which awakened our generation to the fact that history was not a matter of the past, as a thoughtless philosophy of the hundred years’ peace would have us believe. And once started, it did not cease to happen. I will seek to evoke the scenes we have witnessed and take the measure of our frustrations. Great triumphs and grave disappointments have been met with. However, it is not a balance of our experiences, achievements and omissions that stands to question; nor am I scanning the horizon for a mere break. The time has come to take note of a much bigger change.
Karl Polanyi, “For a New West” (1958)
 
 
 
 
The First World War had begun – imposed on the statesmen of Europe by railway timetables. It was an unexpected climax to the railway age.
A. J. P. Taylor, The First World War ([1963] 1970) p. 20
 
 
 
 
The First World War killed fewer victims than the Second World War, destroyed fewer buildings, and uprooted millions instead of tens of millions — but in many ways it left even deeper scars both on the mind and on the map of Europe. The old world never recovered from the shock.
Edmond Taylor, in The Fossil Monarchies.