…and what is a good weapon but a good idea made murderous flesh?

In such a beast as this…” (he means the army)”…it was the collective power that went, collapsing like a long-exhausted animal, at once falling under its own weight as much as that of its enemy....

We are all cynics now, I suppose, and even a mewling infant knows that to save a life is to make an eternal enemy.

The battle had been as hideous as you might expect between one side who were simply not afraid to die and another who regarded death as merely a door to the eternal life.