"'The breakthrough in the centre at Rivoli, too - that will crop up again if there's ever another war. It's no more obsolete than the Iliad. I may add that we're more or less condemned to frontal attacks, because we can't afford to repeat the mistake we made in '70; we must assume the offensive, nothing but the offensive. The only thing that troubles me is that although I see only the slower, more antiquated minds among us opposing this splendid doctrine, nevertheless one of the youngest of my masters, who is a genius, I mean Mangin, feels that there ought to be place, provisional of course, for the defensive. It isn't very easy to answer him when he cites the example of Austerlitz, where the defensive was simply a prelude to attack and victory.' . . .
. . . 'You interest me enormously. But tell me, there's one point that puzzles me. I feel that I could become passionately involved in the art of war, but first I should want to be sure that it is not so very different from the other arts, that knowing the rules is not everything. You tell me that battles are reproduced. I do find something aesthetic, just as you said, in seeing beneath a modern battle the plan of an older one; I can't tell you how attractive the idea sounds. But then, does the genius of te commander count for nothing? Does he really do no more than apply the rules? Or, granted equal knowledge, are there great generals as there are great surgeons . . .?'
. . . 'In fact I may may perhaps be wrong in speaking to you only of the literature of war. In reality, as the formation of the soil, the direction of wind and light tell us which way a tree will grow, so the conditions in which a campaign is fought, the features of the country through which you manoeuvre, prescribe, to a certain extent, and limit the number of the plans among which the general has to choose. . .'
. . . 'Whereas the more intelligent of our teachers, all the best brains of the cavalry, and particularly the major I was tell you about, consider on the contrary that the issue will be decided in a real free-for-all with sabre and lance and the side that can hold out longer will be the winner, not merely psychologically, by creating panic, but physically. . . .'
. . . 'In the course of a campaign, if it is at all long, you will see one belligerent profiting by the lessons provided by the enemy's successes and mistakes, perfecting the methods of the latter, who will improve on them in turn. But all that is a thing of the past. With the terrible advance of artillery, the wars of the future, if there are to be any more wars, will be so short that, before we have had time to think of putting our lessons into practice, peace will have been signed."
Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, pp. 112-116
OK, I've cherry-picked several different passages out of lengthy discussion that Proust is having with Robert and his colleagues about war. It's one of the most poignant moments in Remembrance of Things Past so far because they are on the cusp of an almost apocalyptic war that cost the lives of millions and began the process of knocking Europe off of its throne as rulers of the world. Some of the comments are just foolish, and even the ones that hint at greater wisdom, such as the last comments about the "terrible advance of artillery," are still handicapped by classic misunderstanding. How could they know? World War I was going to be so profoundly different than any war that preceded it that it almost negated prophecy. There is an old saying that the generals always fight the last war, meaning that they use what worked last time - so any time there is a new general with a new vision they are almost always successful. You see it so clearly here. Remembering the period that Proust is discussing, and the folly and horror that awaited, makes the novel all the more painful and also beautiful.
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