Rob

“The hour of courage has struck on the clock …’, ran Anna Akhmatova’s poem at that moment when the very existence of Russia appeared to be in mortal danger.”
― Antony Beevor, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege, 1942-1943

“The problem of Palestine’, one British general decided, was ‘the same as the problem of Ireland, namely, two peoples living in a small country hating each other like hell.”
― James Barr, Lords of the Desert: Britain's Struggle with America to Dominate the Middle East

“How refreshing it is’, wrote Stauffenberg, ‘to get away from this atmosphere to surroundings where men give of their best without a thought, and give their lives too, without a murmur of complaint, while the leaders and those who should set an example quarrel and quibble about their own prestige, or haven’t the courage to speak their minds on a question which affects the lives of thousands of their fellow men.’ Paulus either did not notice, or more likely he deliberately ignored, the coded message.”
― Antony Beevor, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege, 1942-1943

“By then tensions were rising in Palestine. Almost exactly twenty-five years earlier, in the hope of creating what it called ‘a buffer Jewish state’ to guard the eastern approaches to the Suez Canal and keep the French at bay, the British government of the day had issued the Balfour Declaration, named after the then foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour. This pledged support for a Jewish national home in Palestine so long as it did not impinge on the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities there. It helped Britain secure the mandate to rule Palestine in 1920.”
― James Barr, Lords of the Desert: Britain's Struggle with America to Dominate the Middle East