Tanks World War One Quotes

In the City Market is the Meet Café. Followers of obsolete, unthinkable trades doodling in Etruscan, addicts of drugs not yet synthesized, pushers of souped-up harmine, junk reduced to pure habit offering precarious vegetable serenity, liquids to induce Latah, Tithonian longevity serums, black marketeers of World War III, excusers of telepathic sensitivity, osteopaths of the spirit, investigators of infractions denounced by bland paranoid chess players, servers of fragmentary warrants taken down in hebephrenic shorthand charging unspeakable mutilations of the spirit, bureaucrats of spectral departments, officials of unconstituted police states, a Lesbian dwarf who has perfected operation Bang-utot, the lung erection that strangles a sleeping enemy, sellers of orgone tanks and relaxing machines, brokers of exquisite dreams and memories tested on the sensitized cells of junk sickness and bartered for raw materials of the will, doctors skilled in the treatment of diseases dormant in the black dust of ruined cities, gathering virulence in the white blood of eyeless worms feeling slowly to the surface and the human host, maladies of the ocean floor and the stratosphere, maladies of the laboratory and atomic war... A place where the unknown past and the emergent future meet in a vibrating soundless hum... Larval entities waiting for a Live One...

A tank and its crew has but one reason to exist. To maneuver the tank’s cannon to a position where it could do the most damage and feed it once it was there.

What you should do," she told Fat during one of his darker hours, "is get into studying the characteristics of the T-34." Fat asked what that was. It turned out that Sherri had read a book on Russion armor during World War Two. The T-34 tank had been the Soviet Union's salvation and thereby the salvation of all the Allied Powers- and, by extension, Horselover Fat's, since without the T-34 he would be speaking - not english or Latin or the koine - but German.

Certainly the fighting around the huge water-tanks on the hillside was continuous for 112 days from the second half of September to 12 January 1943. Historians simply cannot say, or even estimate, how often the summit changed hands, for, as Chuikov notes, there were no witnesses who survived all through the whole battle for it, and in any case no one was keeping count. At one point the life expectancy of soldiers there was between one and two days, and to see a third day made one a veteran.

What happened? Stan repeats. To us? To the country? What happened when childhood ends in Dealey Plaza, in Memphis, in the kitchen of the Ambassador, your belief your hope your trust lying in a pool of blood again? Fifty-five thousand of your brothers dead in Vietnam, a million Vietnamese, photos of naked napalmed children running down a dirt road, Kent State, Soviet tanks roll into Prague so you turn on drop out you know you can't reinvent the country but maybe you reimagine yourself you believe you really believe that you can that you can create a world of your own and then you lower that expectation to just a piece of ground to make a stand on but then you learn that piece of ground costs money that you don't have. What happened? Altamont, Charlie Manson, Sharon Tate, Son of Sam, Mark Chapman we saw a dream turn into a nightmare we saw love and peace turn into endless war and violence our idealism into realism our realism into cynicism our cynicism into apathy our apathy into selfishness our selfishness into greed and then greed was good and we Had babies, Ben, we had you and we had hopes but we also had fears we created nests that became bunkers we made our houses baby-safe and we bought car seats and organic apple juice and hired multilingual nannies and paid tuition to private schools out of love but also out of fear. What happened? You start by trying to create a new world and then you find yourself just wanting to add a bottle to your cellar, a few extra feet to the sunroom, you see yourself aging and wonder if you've put enough away for that and suddenly you realize that you're frightened of the years ahead of you what Happened? Watergate Irangate Contragate scandals and corruption all around you and you never think you'll become corrupt but time corrupts you, corrupts as surely as gravity and erosion, wears you down wears you out I think, son, that the country was like that, just tired, just worn out by assassinations, wars, scandals, by Ronald Reagan, Bush the First selling cocaine to fund terrorists, a war to protect cheap gas, Bill Clinton and realpolitik and jism on dresses while insane fanatics plotted and Bush the Second and his handlers, a frat boy run by evil old men and then you turn on the TV one morning and those towers are coming down and the war has come home what Happened? Afghanistan and Iraq the sheer madness the killing the bombing the missiles the death you are back in Vietnam again and I could blame it all on that but at the end of the day at the end of the day we are responsible for ourselves. We got tired, we got old we gave up our dreams we taught ourselves to scorn ourselves to despise our youthful idealism we sold ourselves cheap we aren't Who we wanted to be.

Towards the end of the Second World War, when I was sixteen years old, I was taken out of school and forced into the army. After a brief period of training at a base in Wüzburg, I arrived at the front, which by that time had already crossed the Rhine into Germany. There were well over a hundred in my company, all of whom were very young. One evening the company commander sent me with a message to battalion headquarters. I wandered all night long through destroyed, burning villages and farms, and when in the morning I returned to my company I found only the dead, nothing but dead, overrun by a combined bomber and tank assault. I could see only dead and empty faces, where the day before I had shared childhood fears and youthful laughter. I remember nothing but a wordless cry. Thus I see myself to this very day, and behind this memory all my childhood dreams crumble away.

Forget bringing the troops home from Iraq. We need to get the troops home from World War II. Can anybody tell me why, in 2009, we still have more than sixty thousand troops in Germany and thirty thousand in Japan? At some point, these people are going to have to learn to rape themselves. Our soldiers have been in Germany so long they now wear shorts with black socks. You know that crazy soldier hiding in the cave on Iwo Jima who doesn’t know the war is over? That’s us. Bush and Cheney used to love to keep Americans all sphinctered-up on the notion that terrorists might follow us home. But actually, we’re the people who go to your home and then never leave. Here’s the facts: The Republic of America has more than five hundred thousand military personnel deployed on more than seven hundred bases, with troops in one hundred fifty countries—we’re like McDonald’s with tanks—including thirty-seven European countries—because you never know when Portugal might invade Euro Disney. And this doesn’t even count our secret torture prisons, which are all over the place, but you never really see them until someone brings you there—kinda like IHOP. Of course, Americans would never stand for this in reverse—we can barely stand letting Mexicans in to do the landscaping. Can you imagine if there were twenty thousand armed Guatemalans on a base in San Ber-nardino right now? Lou Dobbs would become a suicide bomber. And why? How did this country get stuck with an empire? I’m not saying we’re Rome. Rome had good infrastructure. But we are an empire, and the reason is because once America lands in a country, there is no exit strategy. We’re like cellulite, herpes, and Irish relatives: We are not going anywhere. We love you long time!

An expert in international relations, a reasonable woman with a rich deep voice, advised me that the world was not well. She considered two common states of mind: self-pity and aggression. Each one a poor choice for individuals. In combination, for groups or nations, a noxious brew that lately intoxicated the Russians in Ukraine, as it once had their friends, the Serbs in their part of the world. We were belittled, now we will prove ourselves. Now that the Russian state was the political arm of organised crime, another war in Europe no longer inconceivable. Dust down the tank divisions for Lithuania’s southern border, for the north German plain. The same potion inflames the barbaric fringes of Islam. The cup is drained, the same cry goes up: we’ve been humiliated, we’ll be avenged.

Men should continue to fight, but they should fight for things worthwhile, not for imaginary geographical lines, racial prejudices, and private greed draped in the colors of patriotism. Their arms should be weapons of the spirit, not shrapnel and tanks. Think of what a world we could build if the power unleashed in war were applied to constructive tasks! One tenth of the energy that the various belligerent spent in the World War, a fraction of the money they exploded in hand grenades and poison gas, would suffice to raise the standard of living in every country and avert the economic catastrophe of worldwide unemployment. Nothing that I can do or say will change the structure of the universe. But maybe, by raising my voice, I can help the greatest of all causes-goodwill among men and peace on earth

A little of her would mourn the end of the play that she’d never get to see, but the moment she was caught up in the birthing, the trivialities of a pre-written drama would be swept away in the thrill of the unfolding natural one. It was such a privilege of a job. Every time that she helped to bring a new life into the world, her soul felt as if it were witnessing the birth of the Christ child all over again and any tiredness was dispelled by the joyous miracle. What power had guns and tanks against such simple renewal?

These are the figures of steel whose eagle eyes dart between whirling propellers to pierce the cloud; who dare the hellish crossing through fields of roaring craters, gripped in the chaos of tank engines ... men relentlessly saturated with the spirit of battle, men whose urgent wanting discharges itself in a single concentrated and determined release of energy. As I watch them noiselessly slicing alleyways into barbed wire, digging steps to storm outward, synchronizing luminous watches, finding the North by the stars, the recognition flashes: this is the new man. The pioneers of storm, the elect of central Europe. A whole new race, intelligent, strong, men of will ... supple predators straining with energy. They will be architects building on the ruined foundations of the world.

The Arab world has done nothing to help the Palestinian refugees they created when they attacked Israel in 1948. It’s called the ‘Palestinian refugee problem.’ This is one of the best tricks that the Arabs have played on the world, and they have used it to their great advantage when fighting Israel in the forum of public opinion. This lie was pulled off masterfully, and everyone has been falling for it ever since. First you tell people to leave their homes and villages because you are going to come in and kick out the Jews the day after the UN grants Israel its nationhood. You fail in your military objective, the Jews are still alive and have more land now than before, and you have thousands of upset, displaced refugees living in your country because they believed in you. So you and the UN build refugee camps that are designed to last only five years and crowd the people in, instead of integrating them into your society and giving them citizenship. After a few years of overcrowding and deteriorating living conditions, you get the media to visit and publish a lot of pictures of these poor people living in the hopeless, wretched squalor you have left them in. In 1967 you get all your cronies together with their guns and tanks and planes and start beating the war drums. Again the same old story: you really are going to kill all the Jews this time or drive them into the sea, and everyone will be able to go back home, take over what the Jews have developed, and live in a Jew-free Middle East. Again you fail and now there are even more refugees living in your countries, and Israel is even larger, with Jerusalem as its capital. Time for more pictures of more camps and suffering children. What is to be done about these poor refugees (that not even the Arabs want)? Then start Middle Eastern student organizations on U.S. college campuses and find some young, idealistic American college kids who have no idea of what has been described here so far, and have them take up the cause. Now enter some power-hungry type like Yasser Arafat who begins to blackmail you and your Arab friends, who created the mess, for guns and bombs and money to fight the Israelis. Then Arafat creates hell for the world starting in the 1970s with his terrorism, and the “Palestinian refugee problem” becomes a worldwide issue and galvanizes all your citizens and the world against Israel. Along come the suicide bombers, so to keep the pot boiling you finance the show by paying every bomber’s family twenty-five thousand dollars. This encourages more crazies to go blow themselves up, killing civilians and children riding buses to school. Saudi Arabia held telethons to raise thousands of dollars to the families of suicide bombers. What a perfect way to turn years of military failure into a public-opinion-campaign success. The perpetuation of lies and uncritical thinking, combined with repetitious anti-Jewish and anti-American diatribes, has produced a generation of Arab youth incapable of thinking in a civilized manner. This government-nurtured rage toward the West and the infidels continues today, perpetuating their economic failure and deflecting frustration away from the dictators and regimes that oppress them. This refusal by the Arab regimes to take an honest look at themselves has created a culture of scapegoating that blames western civilization for misery and failure in every aspect of Arab life. So far it seems that Arab leaders don’t mind their people lagging behind, save for King Abdullah’s recent evidence of concern. (The depth of his sincerity remains to be seen.)

When you're responsible for half the planet's military spending, and 80 percent of its military R&D, certain things can be said with confidence: No one is going to get into a nuclear war with the United States, or a large-scale tank battle, or even a dogfight. You're the Microsoft, the Standard Oil of conventional warfare: Were they interested in competing in this field, second-tier military powers would probably have filed an antitrust suit with the Department of Justice by now. When you're the only guy in town with a tennis racket, don't be surprised if no one wants to join you on center court--or that provocateurs look for other fields on which to play. If you've got uniformed infantryman and tanks and battleships and jet fighters, you're too weak to take on the hyperpower. But, if you've got illiterate goatherds with string and hacksaws and fertilizer, you can tie him down for a decade. An IED is an "improvised" explosive device. Can we still improvise? Or does the planet's most lavishly funded military assume it has the luxury of declining to adapt to the world it's living in?

I built, of blocks, a town three hundred thousand strong, whose avenues were paved with a wine-colored rug and decorated by large leaves outlined inappropriately in orange, and on this leafage I'd often park my Tootsie Toy trucks, as if on pads of camouflage, waiting their deployment against catastrophes which included alien invasions, internal treachery, and world war. It was always my intention, and my conceit, to use up, in the town's construction, every toy I possessed: my electronic train, of course, the Lincoln Logs, old kindergarten blocks—their deeply incised letters always a problem—the Erector set, every lead soldier that would stand (broken ones were sent to the hospital), my impressive array of cars, motorcycles, tanks, and trucks—some with trailers, some transporting gas, some tows, some dumps—and my squadrons of planes, my fleet of ships, my big and little guns, an undersized group of parachute people (looking as if one should always imagine them high in the sky, hanging from threads), my silversided submarines, along with assorted RR signs, poles bearing flags, prefab houses with faces pasted in their windows, small boxes of a dozen variously useful kinds, strips of blue cloth for streams and rivers, and glass jars for town water towers, or, in a pinch, jails. In time, the armies, the citizens, even the streets would divide: loyalties, friendships, certainties, would be undermined, the city would be shaken by strife; and marbles would rain down from formerly friendly planes, steeples would topple onto cars, and shellfire would soon throw aggie holes through homes, soldiers would die accompanied by my groans, and ragged bands of refugees would flee toward mountain caves and other chairs and tables.

Mattis and Gary Cohn had several quiet conversations about The Big Problem: The president did not understand the importance of allies overseas, the value of diplomacy or the relationship between the military, the economy and intelligence partnerships with foreign governments. They met for lunch at the Pentagon to develop an action plan. One cause of the problem was the president’s fervent belief that annual trade deficits of about $500 billion harmed the American economy. He was on a crusade to impose tariffs and quotas despite Cohn’s best efforts to educate him about the benefits of free trade. How could they convince and, in their frank view, educate the president? Cohn and Mattis realized they were nowhere close to persuading him. The Groundhog Day–like meetings on trade continued and the acrimony only grew. “Let’s get him over here to the Tank,” Mattis proposed. The Tank is the Pentagon’s secure meeting room for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It might focus him. “Great idea,” Cohn said. “Let’s get him out of the White House.” No press; no TVs; no Madeleine Westerhout, Trump’s personal secretary, who worked within shouting distance of the Oval Office. There wouldn’t even be any looking out the window, because there were no windows in the Tank. Getting Trump out of his natural environment could do the trick. The idea was straight from the corporate playbook—a retreat or off-site meeting. They would get Trump to the Tank with his key national security and economic team to discuss worldwide strategic relations. Mattis and Cohn agreed. Together they would fight Trump on this. Trade wars or disruptions in the global markets could savage and undermine the precarious stability in the world. The threat could spill over to the military and intelligence community. Mattis couldn’t understand why the U.S. would want to pick a fight with allies, whether it was NATO, or friends in the Middle East, or Japan—or particularly with South Korea.

Soldiers of the Eastern Front! Filled with grave concern for the existence and the future of our Volk, I decided on June 22 to direct an appeal to you in order to forestall the threatening attack of an opponent at the last minute. As we know today, it was the intention of the rulers in the Kremlin to destroy not only Germany, but also Europe. Comrades, you have realized two things in the meantime: 1. This opponent armed himself militarily for his attack to such an enormous extent that even our greatest fears were surpassed. 2. Lord have mercy on our Volk and on the entire European world if this barbaric enemy had been able to get his tens of thousands of tanks to move before we could. All of Europe would have been lost. For this enemy does not consist of soldiers, but, for the most part, of beasts (Bestien). Now, my comrades, you have personally seen this ”paradise of workers and peasants” with your own eyes. In a country, whose vastness and fertility could feed the whole world, a poverty reigns that we Germans cannot imagine. This is the result of nearly twenty-five years of Jewish rule which, as Bolshevism, basically reflects the basest form of capitalism. The bearers of this system are the same in both instances: Jews and again Jews! Soldiers! When I called on you to ward off the danger threatening our homeland on June 22, you faced the greatest military power of all time. In barely three months, thanks to your bravery, my comrades, it has been possible to destroy one tank brigade after another belonging to this opponent, to eliminate countless divisions, to take uncounted prisoners, to occupy endless space. And this space is not empty, it is a space in which this opponent lives and from which his gigantic war industry receives raw materials of all types. In a few weeks, three of his most vital industrial districts will be completely in your hands! Your names, soldiers of the German Wehrmacht, and the names of our brave allies, the names of your divisions, regiments, your ships and squadrons, will be tied for all time to the mightiest victories in world history. Proclamation to the soldiers of the Eastern Front Fuhrer Headquarters, October 2, 1941

the military-industrial-scientific complex, because today’s wars are scientific productions. The world’s military forces initiate, fund and steer a large part of humanity’s scientific research and technological development. When World War One bogged down into interminable trench warfare, both sides called in the scientists to break the deadlock and save the nation. The men in white answered the call, and out of the laboratories rolled a constant stream of new wonder-weapons: combat aircraft, poison gas, tanks, submarines and ever more efficient machine guns, artillery pieces, rifles and bombs. 33. German V-2 rocket ready to launch. It didn’t defeat the Allies, but it kept the Germans hoping for a technological miracle until the very last days of the war. {© Ria Novosti/Science Photo Library.} Science played an even larger role in World War Two. By late 1944 Germany was losing the war and defeat was imminent. A year earlier, the Germans’ allies, the Italians, had toppled Mussolini and surrendered to the Allies. But Germany kept fighting on, even though the British, American and Soviet armies were closing in. One reason German soldiers and civilians thought not all was lost was that they believed German scientists were about to turn the tide with so-called miracle weapons such as the V-2 rocket and jet-powered aircraft. While the Germans were working on rockets and jets, the American Manhattan Project successfully developed atomic bombs. By the time the bomb was ready, in early August 1945, Germany had already surrendered, but Japan was fighting on. American forces were poised to invade its home islands. The Japanese vowed to resist the invasion and fight to the death, and there was every reason to believe that it was no idle threat. American generals told President Harry S. Truman that an invasion of Japan would cost the lives of a million American soldiers and would extend the war well into 1946. Truman decided to use the new bomb. Two weeks and two atom bombs later, Japan surrendered unconditionally and the war was over. But science is not just about offensive weapons. It plays a major role in our defences as well. Today many Americans believe that the solution to terrorism is technological rather than political. Just give millions more to the nanotechnology industry, they believe, and the United States could send bionic spy-flies into every Afghan cave, Yemenite redoubt and North African encampment. Once that’s done, Osama Bin Laden’s heirs will not be able to make a cup of coffee without a CIA spy-fly passing this vital information back to headquarters in Langley.

In his outstanding book Why the Allies Won (1995), the British historian Richard Overy analyses the outcomes of the Second World War, which were not, he claims, a given. One explanation he offers is the German army’s attempt to optimise use of its military munitions at the expense of tactical combat efficiency. At one point in the war, the Germans had no fewer than 425 different kinds of aircraft, 151 kinds of trucks, and 150 kinds of motorcycles. The price they paid for the technical superiority of German-made munitions was difficulty in mass-production, which was ultimately more important from a strategic point of view. In the decisive battles fought in Russia, one German force had to carry approximately one million spare parts for hundreds of types of armed carriers, trucks and motorcycles. The Russians, in contrast, used only two types of tanks, making for much simpler munitions maintenance during war. It was ‘good enough’ for them.

The Official History of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops,

USS Henry Gibbons.

Dick Syracuse: I used to refer to us as the Cecil B. DeMille warriors.

In February 1959, the Journal of Commerce, in a story headlined “Cargo Ship with Methane on High Seas,” announced that a converted World War II freighter, renamed the Methane Pioneer, had set sail from Louisiana for England. It carried a cargo that had never before been shipped over the seas—liquefied natural gas—LNG. Liquefied natural gas is the product of a complex process that refrigerates natural gas to extreme cold, down to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit, thus compressing it into a liquid. Since in its liquid form the gas takes up only one six-hundredth of the space that it would in its gaseous state, it can be pumped into tanks on refrigerated ships and transported across oceans and then “regasified”—turned back into gas—at the other end and pumped into a pipeline system in the receiving country.

Over the coming days, one of the things that shocked the British most was the nonchalant way that the surviving prisoners lived their lives amongst the corpses, as if such sights were perfectly normal. One horrified medical officer described several such vignettes: a woman too weak to stand propping herself against a pile of corpses, as she cooked the food we had given her over an open fire; men and women crouching just anywhere in the open relieving themselves of the dysentery which was scouring their bowels; a woman standing stark naked washing herself with some issue soap in water from a tank in which the remains of a child floated.36

The age of territory was driven by acquisition. Leaders of nations sought to increase their nation’s power by gaining territory—mostly through force. Accumulated military prowess by one drove would-be victims to arm. War was thus inevitable. Lost lives and wasted resources were its currency. And always, one side’s gain was the other’s loss. Today, the importance of land as the primary source of human livelihood has diminished, giving way to science instead. Unlike territory, science has no borders or flags. Science can’t be conquered by tanks or defended by fighter jets. It has no limitations. A nation can increase its scientific achievement without taking anything from somebody else. In fact, great scientific achievement by one nation lifts the fortunes of all nations. It is the first time in history that we can win, without making anyone lose. In the age of science, the traditional power of states and leaders is declining. Rather than politicians, it is innovators that drive the global economy and wield the most influence. The young leaders who created Facebook and Google have sparked a revolution without killing one person. The globalized economy affects every state, yet no single state is powerful enough to determine outcomes. We are participating in the birth of a new world.

the campaign in Poland is remembered as one in which an antiquated Polish army was quickly pummeled by the world’s most modern army. Polish lancers charging in a valiant yet idiotic attack against German tanks is the only image from the 1939 Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland remaining in the popular imagination today. Originating as a piece of Nazi propaganda, paradoxically adopted by the Poles as a patriotic myth, the fictional charge obscures the actual events of September 1939.

One of the most famous figures to illustrate this skill is the mathematician Abraham Wald (Mangel and Samaniego 1984). During World War II, he was asked to help the Royal Air Force find the areas on their planes that were most often hit by bullets so they could cover them with more armour. But instead of counting the bullet holes on the returned planes, he recommended armouring the spots where none of the planes had taken any hits. The RAF forgot to take into account what was not there to see: All the planes that didn’t make it back. The RAF fell for a common error in thinking called survivorship bias (Taleb 2005). The other planes didn’t make it back because they were hit where they should have had extra protection, like the fuel tank. The returning planes could only show what was less relevant.

The Battle of Stalingrad during World War II was the largest battle in history. With it came equally staggering stories of how people dealt with risk. One came in late 1942, when a German tank unit sat in reserve on grasslands outside the city. When tanks were desperately needed on the front lines, something happened that surprised everyone: Almost none of them worked. Out of 104 tanks in the unit, fewer than 20 were operable. Engineers quickly found the issue. Historian William Craig writes: “During the weeks of inactivity behind the front lines, field mice had nested inside the vehicles and eaten away insulation covering the electrical systems.” The Germans had the most sophisticated equipment in the world. Yet there they were, defeated by mice. You can imagine their disbelief. This almost certainly never crossed their minds. What kind of tank designer thinks about mouse protection? Not a reasonable one. And not one who studied tank history.

I speak now of the mission the Elders of the council granted to you in the conference chamber. As you remember, your part in the coming task is twofold. In one phase of this you will accompany us to act with us in the great war that must be fought. We have developed a plan in which your help as an advance and secret agent is necessary. You will be told more about that later, when we have embarked. “Now, however, your other mission begins, here on Nor. It is the mission of love for your fellow men. No matter how successful we are in rescuing the men of Atlan, it cannot be that we will rescue all of them. Many must not be rescued! There is nothing we could do for them, poisoned as they are to the point of death. Nor must we allow any of this poison to escape to the dark worlds where it can infect others. Too, the dero influence is dangerous, and madness must not spread over the universe. “Thus, it has been given to you to inscribe on imperishable plates of telonion, our eternal metal, a message to future man which will be placed on and in Mu so that those who have the intelligence to find and read it may benefit by the truths of growth and defense against a too-soon death by age. “After the passing of Atlan science from Mu, men will begin to die at the same age, and their sons will all be the same size at the same age. This will be caused by accumulations of sun-poison in the water of Mu, which will stop all growth in mankind at almost the very beginning of their development. They will scarcely get beyond childhood before they will begin to die. “These plates you will inscribe will contain a message that is a key and a path to the door that will open life value to these future men, whose fate we know and pity, but cannot prevent. We can only teach them what we know that will enable them to get the most out of their life on Mu. The dero will not be able to read, and thus will die as they should. Those whose minds are powerful enough to escape complete dero-robotism will read and profit. “You can tell them how to attain this life growth by freeing their food and water intake of all the poisons that will be found in it in the natural state. The age poisons can be removed by centrifuge and by still; their air can be made a nutrient by proper treatment and freed of all its detrimental ions by field sweeps of electric. The exd on which the basic integration of life feeds can be concentrated (just as it was in your body in the growth school tank) in energy flows which greatly increase the rate of growth and the solidity and weight of the flesh. “Tell future man to do these things, Mutan Mion, and their reward will be great. You have seen what the reward of such effort can be—in thousands of years of life’s fullness—even on a planet under a detrimental sun. We cannot save those men yet unborn. We can only leave for them the heritage that is rightfully theirs, the heritage of our sciencon knowledge. And you, Mutan, in your infinite love and pity for your fellow men, shall perform this task with all the energy that your love makes possible!

Churchill. His epic career intersected with the Middle East at several key points (and remember that he is credited with pioneering the very term Middle East); but the most important was his role as Colonial Secretary. He was a little surprised to be offered the post, at the end of 1920; but it is easy to see why Lloyd George thought he was the right man for the job. He had shown immense energy and dynamism as Minister for Munitions—equipping Britain with the tanks, planes and other technology that helped win the war. As Secretary of State for War he had been masterly in his demobilisation strategy: quelling mutinies by ensuring that those who had served the longest were the first to be reunited with their families. He had shown his gifts of charm and persuasion in the pre-war Ulster talks—and those gifts would be needed in spades. The First World War had left some snortingly difficult problems, and especially in the Middle East. — THE POST OF Colonial Secretary might sound less grand than that of Foreign Secretary—a role still occupied by that most superior person, George Nathaniel Curzon. But that is to forget the scale of the British Empire in 1921. The First World War was not meant to be an acquisitive conflict;

Like so much of the city, the Kurfürstendamm was left in rubble by the bombing and subsequent fires of World War II. From the now-destroyed Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche to the remains of Halensee, only 43 of the 235 buildings were habitable by 1945, the other 192 were completely destroyed. By the end of the conflict the Ku’damm had been used as a runway for fighter aircraft and had been one of the last lines of defence of the city, as Russian army tanks rolled up the boulevard from the bridge at Halensee, heading for bunkers in the Tiergarten, and onwards to the Reichstag.

There was a popular and rather clever saying during the 1960s that asked, “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” This is not quite as ludicrous a concept as it may seem on the surface. There is a constant danger on the battlefield that, in periods of extended close combat, the combatants will get to know and acknowledge one another as individuals and subsequently may refuse to kill each other. This danger and the process by which it can occur is poignantly represented by Henry Metelmann’s account of his experiences as a German soldier on the Russian front during World War II. There was a lull in the battle, during which Metelmann saw two Russians coming out of their foxhole, and I walked over towards them…they introduced themselves…[and] offered me a cigarette and, as a non-smoker, I thought if they offer me a cigarette I’ll smoke it. But it was horrible stuff. I coughed and later on my mates said “You made a horrible impression, standing there with those two Russians and coughing your head off.”…I talked to them and said it was all right to come closer to the foxhole, because there were three dead Russian soldiers lying there, and I, to my shame, had killed them. They wanted to get the [dog tags] off them, and the paybooks…. I kind of helped them and we were all bending down and we found some photos in one of the paybooks and they showed them to me: we all three stood up and looked at the photos…. We shook hands again, and one patted on my back and they walked away. Metelmann was called away to drive a half-track back to the field hospital. When he returned to the battlefield, over an hour later, he found that the Germans had overrun the Russian position. And although there were some of his friends killed, he found himself to be most concerned about what happened to “those two Russians.” “Oh they got killed,” they said. I said: “How did it happen?” “Oh, they didn’t want to give in. Then we shouted at them to come out with their hands up and they did not, so one of us went over with a tank,” he said, “and really got them, and silenced them that way.” My feeling was very sad. I had met them on a very human basis, on a comradely basis. They called me comrade and at that moment, strange as it may seem, I was more sad that they had to die in this mad confrontation than my own mates and I still think sadly about it.

Old Ironsides, the only American tank division to see desert combat in World War II, was the only one to get no desert training. Hamilton H. Howze, the 1st Armored operations officer and a future four-star general, later asserted, “None of the division was worth a damn.

• While Rommel was going to see Hitler to beg for more tanks and a tighter command structure, Eisenhower was visited by Churchill, who was coming to the supreme commander to beg a favor. He wanted to go along on the invasion, on HMS Belfast. (“Of course, no one likes to be shot at,” Eisenhower later remarked, “but I must say that more people wanted in than wanted out on this one.”) As Eisenhower related the story, “I told him he couldn’t do it. I was in command of this operation and I wasn’t going to risk losing him. He was worth too much to the Allied cause. “He thought a moment and said, ‘You have the operational command of all forces, but you are not responsible administratively for the makeup of the crews.’ “And I said, ‘Yes, that’s right.’ “He said, ‘Well, then I can sign on as a member of the crew of one of His Majesty’s ships, and there’s nothing you can do about it.’ “I said, ‘That’s correct. But, Prime Minister, you will make my burden a lot heavier if you do it.’ ” Churchill said he was going to do it anyway. Eisenhower had his chief of staff, General Smith, call King George VI to explain the problem. The king told Smith, “You boys leave Winston to me.” He called Churchill to say, “Well, as long as you feel that it is desirable to go along, I think it is my duty to go along with you.” Churchill gave up.

At one point, a German tank commander from one of the knocked out tanks ran forward in a frenzy of frustrated rage and clambered atop a Hotchkiss tank, swinging a hammer he perhaps meant to use on its periscope. However, he missed his footing and tumbled off, crushed to death a moment later under the tank's track.

The “secret weapon” in the German tank arsenal, which ultimately overcame superior French guns and armor, consisted of the radio fitted into each Panzer. Only one in five – 20% – of French tanks carried a radio, so once combat began, 80% of the French tanks relied on visual signals, including merely observing the movements of other tanks and attempting to guess the intended maneuvers.

It is enough to write a few lines about tanks in the streets in some sad country, about a clear injustice, which requires no description; it is enough to move from one side to another, to satisfy someone’s taste, the need of the moment, the need for “big” games to take a peek into everything and to prove everything with cheap opinions formed almost on command, almost as a recipe of measured pain to resolve the crisis, to extinguish the pain based on a few words that don’t change anything except that they flatter vanity and a misguided interest in all dimensions of life and creation, in the air that is being poisoned by smoke from cars, smoke from the television screens, the smoke curtains of politicians, left and right, the smoke of films and pop culture, smokescreens of intelligence that finds an explanation for all this, makes up theories, finds justification for the schizophrenic decisions of the new rulers, for wars, agreements, contracts; finds justification for obedience, for the sale of beliefs under the disguise of conviction, for several awards, for a few moments of illusion in the hocus-pocus world where the truth does not interest anyone anymore, except for ways for lies to be packaged and sold as the greatest truth with the help of big intellectuals that will find a good argument, a good defense and justification for everything, since everything becomes much easier, if a hoax is supported by “scientific” evidence.

Stewart Emery reports a startling experiment done with amoebas in California. In his book Actualizations, he reveals how two tanks of amoebas were set up in order to study the conditions most conducive to growing living organisms. In one tank, the amoebas were given ultimate comfort. The temperature, humidity, water levels, and other conditions were constantly adjusted for ultimate ease in living and proliferation. In the other tank, the amoebas were subjected to rude shocks. They were given rapidly whipsawing changes in fluid level, temperature levels, protein, and every other condition they could think of. To the total amazement of the researchers, the amoebas in the more difficult conditions grew faster and stronger than those in the comfort zone. They concluded that having things too set and too perfect can cause living things to decay and die, whereas adversity and challenge lead to strength and the building of the life force. This might also explain why suicide rates in America have always gone down during times of war. And why in Denmark, where a very comfortable government-run lifestyle is guaranteed to everyone, the suicide rate is the highest in the world. There is not much difference between death and the comfort zone. Crossing the line is easy. The only difference between a rut and a grave is a few feet.

Towards the end of the evening, British soldiers had dragged a man to see Tennant, explaining that he was a spy who had tried to smuggle himself into Dunkirk, and should be shot. Tennant was soon clear that the man was exactly who he claimed to be, an RAF officer who had been shot down over German-held territory, had found a bike and had cycled to Dunkirk. On way, he said, he had heard a noise and hidden behind a hedge while the tanks went by. It was then that he realised the panzers were going the wrong way – for some reason, they were driving away from Dunkirk. It was the first indication for Tennant that there might still be a lull in the German advance long enough to collect the bulk of the BEF after all. The problem was that the BEF had not yet reached Dunkirk in force, and it was the other flank protecting their retreat, the one looking east, that was now under threat. The Belgian army was now down to its last auxiliary troops, using First World War artillery from the training college. They told Gort at 10pm that they had agreed to an armistice with Germany, starting in just one hour. It left a 25 kilometre gap that would need to be filled to protect them against the other side of the advancing enemy army.

© 2000 The Barcelona Review, interview made by Sarah Martin with Patricia Anthony on the subject of her novel FLANDERS - Why did you choose to write about World War I? The easy answer to your question "Why?" would be that I wanted to write about death in all its aspects, from the terror and pain of it to the transcendent beauty of the end. Normally I don't begin a novel with a theme, but allow the theme to grow organically, just as I allow my characters and story to grow on their own and follow where they lead. Anyway, this time, rather than the idea, I played with theme. I looked around history for just the right death--the worst grinding horror of it, the great maw of the beast. The perfect choice, of course, was WWI. Not when the Americans entered the war - then the war became mobile. The soldiers climbed up out of the trenches. The early tanks made their debut. Earlier, then. So the secondary characters had to be British, as I didn't know enough about the Germans. It wouldn't be appropriate to set the novel in 1914 when, despite the slaughter of the British Army, many soldiers still believed the war would be won soon. No. It had to be the tag end of 1915, expanding until that dismal, wet autumn of 1916 when in Flanders the mud was so deep that the wounded drowned in it, that horses couldn't move. Hope was lost and all that was left was the daily grind of battle. War had become commonplace, a way of life, no longer a goal to be won. War had become the terrible, mindless machine that rolls over everything in its path - morality and courage and even outrage become moot in its shadow. But in that darkness, Travis Lee's enlightenment. And in the end, of course, the only light of the book resides in him, even though his external world is uncompromisingly dark. What I wanted to do was show one man who faces the worst that life and death has to offer, yet still has inner peace. Travis Lee's story is that of a man on his road toward enlightenment.

prospective buyer who knocked on their door in January and found her in a chenille robe, a World War II trench coat, a pair of rubber garden boots, a man’s felt hat, and what appeared to be Uncle Billy’s flannel pajama bottoms. As far as the frozen caller could tell, there was no heat in the house. Being a caring soul, he inquired around and was told that the Presbyterian church had filled up Miss Rose’s oil tank in November, and, on last inspection, it was still full. Most people knew, too, that the old couple walked to Winnie Ivey’s bake shop every afternoon, always hand in hand, to pick up what was left over. Winnie, however, was not one to give away the store. She carefully portioned out what she thought they would eat that night and the next morning, and no more. She didn’t like the idea of Miss Rose feeding her perfectly good day-old Danish to the birds. After their visit to the bake shop, Miss Rose and Uncle Billy, walking very slowly due to arthritis and a half dozen other ailments, dropped by to see what Velma had left at the Main Street Grill. Usually, it was a few slices of bacon and liver mush from breakfast, or a container of soup and a couple of hamburger rolls from lunch. Occasionally, she might add a little chicken salad that Percy had made, himself, that very morning. On balance, it was said, Miss Rose and Uncle Billy fared

What had happened was that the German army had deep misgivings about the western offensive, afraid that success would go to Hitler’s head, as indeed it did, and the failed British offensive had made them nervous. Hitler in particular was worried about whether his tanks would manage to get through the marshy ground to the west of Dunkirk. He was also nervous at the prospect of Gamelin’s inevitable counterattack from the south east. But his senior military advisers were divided about what to do. There were angry meetings at Hitler’s military OKH headquarters, the operational command of the army.  There is some evidence to suggest that Hitler was reluctant to destroy the British, believing that the British empire – like the Roman Catholic church – was one of the pillars which held up the world (his favourite film was Lives of a Bengal Lancer). The controversial stop order was to have enormous implications, preventing Guderian from winning the war that week – it could be said to have been Hitler’s fatal strategic error.

The Battle of Stalingrad during World War II was the largest battle in history. With it came equally staggering stories of how people dealt with risk. One came in late 1942, when a German tank unit sat in reserve on grasslands outside the city. When tanks were desperately needed on the front lines, something happened that surprised everyone: Almost none of them worked. Out of 104 tanks in the unit, fewer than 20 were operable. Engineers quickly found the issue. Historian William Craig writes: “During the weeks of inactivity behind the front lines, field mice had nested inside the vehicles and eaten away insulation covering the electrical systems.” The Germans had the most sophisticated equipment in the world. Yet there they were, defeated by mice.