Sunday, January 03, 2010

The Machine Gun in World War I

“The machine gun had been a symbol of European dominance over distant, alien and despised peoples in Africa and Asia.... By the second decade of the twentieth century, the machine gun had become a means whereby those societies that felt they shared the highest values of civilization, religion, philosophy, science, culture, literature, art, music and a love of nature, were able to continue to bleed each other barbarically year after year.”

--Martin Gilbert, The Somme: Heroism and Horror in the First World War, 2006

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