“The moment historians examine the past they risk changing it, by selectively re-arranging events, consciously or not, according to the judgment(s) of posterity or their own baggage of values and prejudices.” — Paul Ham Copy Share Image
“But behind the superficial appearance of a time of radical upheaval, most governments and ordinary people simply did not experience the Belle Époque in the way today’s wistful novelists, TV producers and cultural historians present” — Paul Ham Copy Share Image
“There was a happy irony in the first cousin of the autocratic Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II (with whom George bore a… — Paul Ham Copy Share Image
“In America's 'nonlinear war', with no frontline or clear political or territorial goals, the number of enemy killed apparently revealed who was 'winning'. 'The… — Paul Ham Copy Share Image
“If a complete free market seemed efficacious in principle, in practice it had not delivered the basic services necessary for a country to call… — Paul Ham Copy Share Image
“At the present rate of attrition, Haig delighted in informing the prime minister, ‘the enemy’s man power will be running out next May or… — Paul Ham Copy Share Image
“Thwarted by the British and French on the world stage, Berlin decided in 1913 to concentrate Germany’s military objectives in Europe. That year Germany… — Paul Ham Copy Share Image
“The moment historians examine the past they risk changing it, by selectively re-arranging events, consciously or not, according to the judgment(s) of posterity or… — Paul Ham Copy Share Image
“entrenchment of social conservatism, being a strident belief in God, King and Country that arose after the disillusionment of the Belle Époque (which was… — Paul Ham Copy Share Image
“Friedrich von Bernhardi, one of Germany’s most influential military thinkers. Bernhardi believed the German people were destined to become the master race, who would… — Paul Ham Copy Share Image
“There is one possibility left,’ he wrote on Christmas Day 1913, 40 years ahead of his time, ‘an industrial customs union, of which sooner… — Paul Ham Copy Share Image
“Indeed, in the huge opening battles to come, hundreds of thousands of German youths would hurl themselves at the French, British and Russian lines… — Paul Ham Copy Share Image
“During the Year of the Monkey, the press, which had hitherto generally supported the war or stuck to feel-good stories of heroism and mateship,… — Paul Ham Copy Share Image
“Respected political and military leaders saw the world as a Darwinian battleground, where the fittest race would emerge triumphant from a savage fight to… — Paul Ham Copy Share Image
