Memoirs Of An Infantry Officer Quotes

I didn't want to die - not before I'd finished reading The Return of the Native anyhow.

I have always been considerably addicted to my own company.

In 1917 I was only beginning to learn that life, for the majority of the population, is an unlovely struggle against unfair odds, culminating in a cheap funeral.

Against the background of the War and its brutal stupidity those men had stood glorified by the thing which sought to destroy them…. I

We were carrying something in our heads which belonged to us alone, and to those we had left behind us in the battle.

I didn’t want to die – not before I’d finished reading The Return of the Native anyhow.

In war-time the word patriotism means suppression of truth.

Rambling among woods and meadows, I could ‘take sweet counsel’ with the country-side; sitting on a grassy bank and lifting my face to the sun, I could feel an intensity of thankfulness such as I’d never known before the War; listening to the little brook that bubbled out of a copse and across a rushy field, I could discard my personal relationship with the military machine and its ant-like armies. On

Our two Tigers checked ammunition and fuel: we had thirty rounds between us, and enough fuel for ten minutes driving, and then to reverse across the bridge. Our four surviving Panthers had similar reserves, we learned over the radio, and the PAK officers ran down from the bunkers for a brief consultation beside our hull. They still had substantial reserves of armour-piercing, and the mortar battery behind the bunker line had not yet fired a shot. The Flak guns had reasonable reserves, but the infantry in their slit trenches were low on everything – ammunition, spirit and strength.

In the Army of the Potomac were fifty-one brigades of infantry, eight brigades of cavalry, and three hundred and seventy guns of artillery. The artillery appointments were so superior that our officers sometimes felt humiliated when posted to unequal combat with their better metal and munitions. In small-arms also the Union troops had the most improved styles.

I am staring at a sunlit picture of Hell, and still the breeze shakes the yellow weeds, and the poppies glow under Crawley Ridge where some shells fell a few minutes ago.

The purgatory I'd let myself in for always came between me and the pages; there was no escape for me now.

None of us could know how insignificant we were...