We really mean the same thing.

The difference is only that you are twenty-five and I am fifty." As Wilhelm was silent and thoughtful, Schrotter went on: "There is a great deal to be said about symbols.

Theoretically you are right, but life practically does not permit of your views.

Everything which you see and do is a symbol, and where are you to draw the line?
The flag is one, but without doubt the battle is one too.

I believe, in spite of the historian who is wise after the event, that the so-called decisive battles do not decide anything, and that it is the accidental events which have the permanent influence on the destiny of peoples.
Neither Marathon nor Cannae kept the Greeks or Carthaginians from destruction; all the Roman conquests did not prevent the Teutonic race from overrunning the world; all the Crusader conquests of Jerusalem did not maintain Christianity, or Napoleon's victories the first French Empire; nor did the defeats sustained by the Russians in the Crimea influence their development.