Incompetence and Glory

"I believe that if this barbarous nation [Russia] the enemy of all progress... should once succeed in establishing itself in the heart of Europe, it would be the greatest calamity which could befall the human race."
~Lord Lyndhurst in a speech to the House of Lords

"We shall have to shift those fellows with the bayonet, old boy!"
~A Royal Fusilier to his comrade at the crossing of the Alma

"C'est magnifique, mais ce nes pas la guerre."
~General Canrobert on watching the Charge of the Light Brigade

"I'll have your arm off before you know where you are."
~Surgeon to Evelyn Wood, shot in the elbow

"He wasn't a very great general, but he was a very good man."
~Florence Nightingale writing about Lord Raglan, British C-in-C