A room in a burning house

What it takes to pretend to save France if Europe, in which France is located, is lost. Those who can do great things can do small things; those who cannot achieve great things cannot do small things. How do you secure a room in a burning house?

Pierre Drieu la Rochelle

Loyalty to the Emperor

“The Varangians…regard loyalty to the emperors & the protection of their persons as a family tradition, a kind of sacred trust and inheritance handed down from generation to generation; this allegiance they preserve inviolate and will never brook the slightest hint of betrayal.” 

-Anna Komnene, on the Varangian guard and their loyalty to the Emperors in Constantinople

Hatred for the enemy

"I admit willingly that after the Normandy battles, my unit was composed of young fanatic soldiers. Many of them had lost their parents, or brothers and sisters in the bombardments. Some had seen for themselves at Cologne where thousands of bodies were crushed after the terrorist raids. Their hatred of the enemy was such that I admit that I could not always control them. At Malmédy, there were, no doubt, some excesses." - Joachim Peiper

Parker, Hitler's Warrior, chapter 18, citing La Libre Belgigue in note 61