long-haul

Though the phrase (this had been haunting me for a while) used optimistically as way to promote good order and acquiescence on both sides during the Great War and probably was first forecast in earnest, “Over by Christmas” was a barbed and derisive response as well—soon overtaking the original sentiment. Hopes for an abbreviated skirmish were dashed by a failure to appreciate how technology and mechanisation had fundamentally altered the nature of killing as the very antithesis of our hubris and harmartia that allows us to think the same technology makes everything expedient and negotiable. This will not be over by Easter and please don’t wait for the authorities to tell us to look out for one another.