Knowledge Matters™

Make a round of the troops immediately after a battle, or even the day after, but before the reports have been drawn up, and ask any of the soldiers and senior officers how the affair went. You will be told what all these men experienced and saw, and you will form a majestic, complex, infinitely varied, depressing and indistinct impression; and from no one – least of all the Commander in Chief – will you learn what the whole affair was like.