Igenlode Wordsmith’s Reviews > The New Machiavelli > Status Update

One also forgets that a fair number of the people who felt that a European war might be a good thing were of the "let's shake up this rotten society a bit and rebuild better afterwards" disposition, rather than being blind jingoists: "I pray for a chastening war - I wouldn't mind [the English] flag in the dirt if only her spirit would come out of it"...

One keeps forgetting that 'the War' with its barbed wire and mass destruction which Britain almost lost through inefficiency and muddle-headedness, and which was held up as such an object lesson to the following generation, was in fact the Boer War...! :-(

This is a lot more readable than I admit to having expected - I'm reminded of Betjeman's Summoned by Bells, which is a similarly vivid evocation of a similar class and era.
As always one wonders how much is thinly-veiled autobiography...