"Oh, yes, we all ought to feel immensely relieved by capturing a mountain and a couple of unfortified German towns, even if there are today in Europe seventeen million men under arms and seventeen million more in reserve, all preparing to blow each other's heads off."
Warner came back slowly to the windows:
"It is a ghastly situation, Halkett. The magnitude of the cataclysm means nothing to us, so far. Nobody yet has comprehended it. I don't think anybody ever really can—even when it's over and the whole continent is underplowcd and fertilized with dead men from the Channel to the Carpathians—no single mind of the twentieth century is ever going to be able to grasp this universal horror in all its details. In a hundred years, perhaps——" He shrugged, threw away his cigarette, and picked up his evening coat to inspect it before decorating his person with it.
Halkett said:
The scale of the whole business is paralyzing. Here's a single detail, for example: Germany is in process of launching six huge armies into France. The Crown Prince, the Grand Duke of Württemberg, Generals von Kluck, von Bülow, von Hausen, and von Heeringen command them.
"Three of them have not yet moved; three are on their juggernaut way already—the Army of the Meuse, based at Cologne, is marching through Belgium on a front thirty miles wide, its right flank brushing the Dutch border at Visé, its left on Stavelot, its center enveloping the Liége railroad.
"The Moselle army, based on Coblenz, has made a highway of the Grand Duchy and is in Belgium. The Rhine army has its bases at Strassburg and Mayence, and started very gayly to raise the devil on its own account, but we've stung it in the flank already and it's squirming in uncertainty.
"And that is the situation so far, old chap, as well as I can understand it. And I understand it fairly well because of my position with this French army. You don't quite understand how I happen to be here and what I am doing, do you?"
"Not exactly. I know you have a Bristol aëroplane here and that you are attached to the British Flying Corps."
"Oh, yes. In our service I am squadron commander, and Gray is wing commander. But I have a flight-lieutenant yonder at the sheds and a mechanic.