Saturday, April 3, 2010

On War

Who could prefer war to peace? In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons.

--Herodotus

Experience proves that the man who obstructs a war in which his nation is engaged, no matter whether right or wrong, occupies no enviable place in life or history. Better for him, individually, to advocate 'war, pestilence, and famine,' than to act as obstructionist to a war already begun.

--U.S. Grant
Posted by at
Labels:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice quotes, but the one from Grant is demonstrably wrong in the case of history's verdicts. Thucydides' heroes tend to be those who counsel against war, or against the most aggressive, warlike actions. Lincoln, Thoreau, and Grant himself all today earn many historians' praise for seeking to obstruct, or in the case of Grant retroactively condemning, the Mexican War. And the issue isn't just history's verdicts: Grant's experience of the Civil War should have taught him that most countries fight their wars in conditions of tremendous internal political division.

April 4, 2010 at 8:26 AM
John said...

I think Grant was commenting on what happens to opponents during wartime, probably by way of explaining why he kept his mouth shut during the Mexican War. Obviously, after the war is over the ones who opposed it are often seen as wiser.

I find it interesting that while most regular Army officers who fought in the Mexican War enjoyed themselves -- Simon Bolivar Buckner called it "our romance" -- Grant refused to find any fun in it. He never wrote about the Civil War as a fun or exciting thing, either, just a sort of grim necessity. Yet at some level he obviously felt more alive in war than at any other time.

April 4, 2010 at 8:04 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)