World War I: The Western Front, 1915: Comrade, I did not want to kill you. … But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response …. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony – Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?

Napoleonic Wars: Borodino, Russia, 1812: The French have destroyed my home and are coming to destroy Moscow; they have outraged and are outraging me at every moment. They are my enemies, they are all criminals to my way of thinking …. They must be put to death.