Philip Gibbs Quotes
But do you know, I shall not be sorry to die. I shall be glad, Monsieur. And why glad, you ask? Because I love France and hate the Germans who have put this war on us.
Gibbs, Philip. The Soul of the War. William Heinemann, 1915.
Ataturk was a young major at the time commanding troops of a weak and corrupt Ottoman regime. However a combined English and French (the strongest military powers in Europe) invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula threatened to capture the Turkish capital, Constantinople. Ataturk alone rallied the Turkish defenders and fought the invaders to a standoff in long drawn out battle with huge casualties on both sides. Ataturk became a national hero. Although Ataturk thereafter was very reluctant to use military force or endanger troops, the thing he always thought worth the supreme sacrifice (including his own) was the independence and sovereignty of the nation. See {584502} for his continuing belief in this type of sacrifice.
Even as he was being executed for his many war crimes, the Field Marshal exhibited the mental perspective of Germanic patriotism that had brought Europe as well as Germany itself so much death and ruin.
Joseph Addison had earlier written of such a situation. Recent research has strongly suggested that Hale may never have said these words. The American patriots wanted to have heroes and may not have been too worried about the documentation and historical research. See {621112}
Sir Philip Armand Hamilton Gibbs KBE was an English journalist and prolific author of books who served as one of five official British reporters during the First World War. Four of his siblings were also writers, A. Hamilton Gibbs, Francis Hamilton Gibbs, Helen Hamilton Gibbs, and Cosmo Hamilton, as was his father Henry James Gibbs, and his own son, Anthony.
