# Quote — Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That

> Opposite our trenches a German salient protruded, and the brigadier wanted to "bite it off" in proof of the division's offensive spirit. Trench soldiers could never understand the Staff's desire to bite off an enemy salient. It was hardly desirable to be fired at from both flanks; if the Germans had got caught in a salient, our obvious duty was to keep them there as long as they could be persuaded to stay. We concluded that a passion for straight lines, for which headquarters were well known, had dictated this plan, which had no strategic or tactical excuse.

- 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/opposite-our-trenches

## 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)