Unlike many myths, that of the brass hat as a cheerful mass murderer had a solid foundation in fact. Some generals were more incompetent or more inhuman than others — the Germans were the least inefficient and usually the least wasteful of their men’s lives — but the whole military caste in pre-1914 Europe, like its diplomatic and ruling castes, was neither technically nor emotionally equipped to face the challenge of modern war. It always takes men a long time to adjust to new conditions, and nothing like World War I had ever been seen, or even imagined before.
