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The World Crisis, Volume V: The Eastern Front QUOTES

The World Crisis, Volume V: The Eastern Front QUOTES

1 " A prodigious event had happened. The monotony of toil and of the daily round was suddenly broken. Everything was strange and new. War aroused the primordial instincts of races born of strife. Adventure beckoned to her children. A larger, nobler life seemed to be about to open upon the world. But it was, in fact, only Death. "

― Winston S. Churchill , The World Crisis, Volume V: The Eastern Front

2 " As Lord Kitchener observed after one heart-shaking discussion: ‘We cannot make war as we ought; we can only make it as we can. "

― Winston S. Churchill , The World Crisis, Volume V: The Eastern Front

3 " There are two enemies and two theatres: the task of the Commander is to choose in which he will prevail. To choose either, is to suffer grievously in the neglected theatre. To choose both, is to lose in both. The Commander has for his guides the most honoured principles of war and the most homely maxims of life. ‘First things first!’ ‘Being before well-being!’ ‘What you do, do well!’ ‘Always be strongest at the point of attack!’ It is the application of these simple rules to the facts that constitutes the difficulty and the torment "

― Winston S. Churchill , The World Crisis, Volume V: The Eastern Front

4 " The name,’ he says of the ‘Winter Battle in Masuria,’ ‘charms like an icy wind or the silence of death. As men look back on the course of this battle they will only stand and ask themselves “Have earthly beings really done these things or is it all but a fable or a phantom? Are not these marches in the winter nights, that camp in the icy snowstorm and that last phase of the battle in the forest of Augustow so terrible for the enemy, but the creation of an inspired human fancy? "

― Winston S. Churchill , The World Crisis, Volume V: The Eastern Front

5 " Although general staffs present the results of their labours in simple and precise assertions, these are no sure foundations upon which to make intricate plans depending upon a few days or a few divisions one way or another. "

― Winston S. Churchill , The World Crisis, Volume V: The Eastern Front

6 " Mischief, thou art afoot. Take thou what course thou wilt. "

― Winston S. Churchill , The World Crisis, Volume V: The Eastern Front

7 " Few indeed are the instances in history of a river-line athwart the advance of a superior army proving an effective defence "

― Winston S. Churchill , The World Crisis, Volume V: The Eastern Front

8 " Difficulties had been expected in obtaining the Emperor’s signature to the Declaration of War against Serbia. When Margutti handed the necessary document to Count Paar, the Count remarked: ‘This may be all right, but all I can say is that men of eighty-four years of age don’t sign war proclamations.’ Count Berchtold had therefore fortified himself by laying before his master at the same time a report that the Serbians had already fired upon Austrian troop steamers on the Danube and that hostilities had in fact begun. The text submitted to Francis Joseph ended with the words ‘the more so as Serbian troops have already attacked a detachment of Imperial and Royal troops at Temes-Kubin.’ This was not true; and Berchtold, after the Emperor had signed the Declaration, erased the sentence, explaining the next day that the report was unconfirmed. But he did not give the Emperor any chance to review the decision. "

― Winston S. Churchill , The World Crisis, Volume V: The Eastern Front

9 " The facts remain that the Serbian reply was not read by the man on whose decision the fate of the world still hung, until nearly sixty hours after it had been delivered at Belgrade; and that before he could act upon it, the irrevocable declaration of war had gone forth from Vienna. "

― Winston S. Churchill , The World Crisis, Volume V: The Eastern Front

10 " A situation had been created where hundreds of officials had only to do their prescribed duty to their respective countries to wreck the world. They did their duty. "

― Winston S. Churchill , The World Crisis, Volume V: The Eastern Front

11 " Ten million homes awaited the return of the warriors. A hundred cities prepared to acclaim their triumphs. But all were defeated; all were stricken; everything that they had given was given in vain. The hideous injuries they inflicted and bore, the privations they endured, the grand loyalties they exemplified, all were in vain. Nothing was gained by any. "

― Winston S. Churchill , The World Crisis, Volume V: The Eastern Front

12 " The cause of quarrel had disappeared on paper at the same time as the fighting all over Europe began. "

― Winston S. Churchill , The World Crisis, Volume V: The Eastern Front

13 " A war postponed may be a war prevented. The combinations of States vary as years pass. The Ententes or Alliances of one decade may have lost their savour in the next. Time and peace solve many problems, and men’s thoughts move on to new spheres. "

― Winston S. Churchill , The World Crisis, Volume V: The Eastern Front