For belligerent purposes, the 14th century, like the 20th, commanded a technology more sophisticated than the mental and moral capacity that guided its use.
One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.
If all were equalized by death, as the medieval idea constantly emphasized, was it not possible that inequalities on earth were contrary to the will of God?
The Germans could not get over the perfidy of it. It was unbelievable that the English, having degenerated to the stage where suffragettes heckled the Prime Minister and defied the police, were going to fight.
![Barbara Tuchman Quote - [T]he obverse of facile emotion in the 14th century was a general insensitivity to the spectacle of pain and death.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/the-obverse-of-facile-emotion-in-the-14th-century--683x1024.jpg)
