# Quote — Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That

> I protested: "But all this is childish. Is there a war on here, or isn't there?"
>
> "The Royal Welch don't recognize it socially," he answered.

- Author: [Robert Graves](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-graves.md)
- Book: [Goodbye to All That](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-graves/goodbye-to-all-that.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Graves#Goodbye_to_All_That_(1929)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-graves/goodbye-to-all-that/i-protested-but

## More from this book

> Cuinchy bred rats. They came up from the canal, fed on the plentiful corpses, and multiplied exceedingly. While I stayed here with the Welsh, a new officer joined the company... When he turned in that night, he heard a scuffling, shone his torch on the bed, and found two rats on his blanket tussling for the possession of a severed hand.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-graves/goodbye-to-all-that/cuinchy-bred-rats.md)

> Hardly one soldier in a hundred was inspired by religious feeling of even the crudest kind. It would have been difficult to remain religious in the trenches even if one had survived the irreligion of the training battalion at home.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-graves/goodbye-to-all-that/hardly-one-soldier.md)

> James Burford, collier and fitter, was the oldest soldier of all. When I first spoke to him in the trenches, he said: "Excuse me, sir, will you explain what this here arrangement is on the side of my rifle?" "That's the safety catch. Didn't you do a musketry-course at the depôt?" "No, sir, I was a re-enlisted man, and I spent only a fortnight there. The old Lee-Metford didn't have no safety-catch." I asked him when he had last fired a rifle. "In Egypt in 1882," he said. "Weren't you in the South African War?" "I tried to re-enlist, but they told me I was too old, sir... My real age is sixty-three."

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-graves/goodbye-to-all-that/james-burford-collier.md)