The Courtesies of War
During the Peninsular War, writes Michael Glover, British and French often treated one another with humanity and courtesy.
Those who expatiate on the horrors of war tend to forget that, at least until Hiroshima, the people who experienced those horrors most acutely were the soldiers who were doing the fighting. One of the consequences of this is that a strange fellow-feeling grew up between the opposing front-line troops, often extending to arrangements for their mutual convenience when the business of trying to kill each other permitted.
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