The Rut of Big Guns in France Let me say at the outset of this chapter that I do not set up as one professing to have any knowledge whatsoever of so-called military science.

The more I have seen of the carrying-on of the actual business of war, the less able do I seem to be to understand the meanings of the business.

For me strategy remains a closed book.

Even the simplest primary lessons of it, the A B C's of it, continue to impress me as being stupid, but none the less unplumbable mysteries.
The physical aspects of campaigning I can in a way grasp.

At least I flatter myself that I can.