The German march through Belgium, like the march of predator ants who periodically emerge from the South American jungle to carve a swath of death across the land, was cutting its way across field, road village, and town, like the ants unstopped by rivers or any obstacle.
—Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August, (Random House), 251
I’m in Wittenberg this afternoon. It’s a beautiful sunny day, quite warm, as was August 1914. I’m looking around the Biergarten, trying and failing to see people as predator ants. Perhaps I need another beer?
