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About this quote

What does it mean?
A warning to enemies that British artillery is everywhere and unstoppable. Resistance or escape is futile; surrender is the only option.
In plain terms
Our guns are everywhere, so give up now to avoid being killed.
What can you take from it?
Surrender early when facing overwhelming force.

Where it applies

  • battlefield warnings
  • negotiation under fire
  • psychological warfare

Putting it to work

  • issue ultimatums
  • assess defensive positions
  • calculate survival odds

Questions to consider

  • When does resistance become suicide?
  • How do you convey inevitability?

Another view

This ignores potential for guerrilla tactics or morale to sustain resistance.

More from Rudyard Kipling

  1. So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan; You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man.

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  2. You may talk o' gin and beer When you're quartered safe out 'ere, An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it; But when it comes to slaughter You will do …

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  3. For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' 'Chuck him out, the brute!' But it's 'Saviour of 'is country' when the guns begin to shoot.

    Permalink to quote #24

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