SEVEN

LESSONS LEARNED

‘There is more to be learnt from ill-success—which is, after all, the true experience—than from victories, which are often attributable less to the excellence of the victor’s plans than to the weakness or mistakes of his opponent.’1

Preface to EDMONDS,
Official History of the Great War,

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‘The Battle of the Somme… marked the end of the first and mildest part of the war; thereafter it was like embarking on a different one altogether.’2

ERNST JÜNGER,
Storm of Steel, 1920