Toby

“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.”
― Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August

“For a hundred years the Ottoman Empire, called the “Sick Man” of Europe, had been considered moribund by the hovering European powers who were waiting to fall upon the carcass.”
― Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August

“Belgium’s declared intention to fight was, the Germans believed, no more than the “rage of dreaming sheep”—in the words a Prussian statesman once applied to his domestic opponents.”
― Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August

“As early as August 24 Sukhomlinov, the War Minister who had not bothered to build arms factories because he did not believe in firepower, wrote General Yanushkevitch, the beardless Chief of Staff: “In God’s name, issue orders for gathering up the rifles. We have sent 150,000 to the Serbs, our reserves are nearly used up and factory production is feeble.”
― Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August