Probably the longest I have taken to read a book I quite enjoyed, I kind of had to learn not to be attention to every detailed because that way it is in parts a chore to read.

But overall it is a great book and not comparable to anything I've read so far. It is a biography, an adventure, sometimes a study of humanity and the author himself. It is about war. About its brutality and its senselessness. But less so then other books of the War to End all Wars. It also shows how people can carry on even after the most dreadful events. How people can have fun and be human, be cruel or kind, selfish or selfless in the most distressing moments of their life. Besides that with the knowledge of a hundred years after the story ends, it is astonishing what has changed, what is still the same and how long lasting consequences decisions have. It is also saddening how, someone who lived in a time where racism wasn't necessarily the hatred of others, but considered scientific fact. But also how shallow modern racists replaced 'race' with 'culture' to make the same points about people different to them. And how a self-reflected yet at the same time ignorant the author is about issues of racism, colonialism, nationalism and war itself.

And a fun quote: "[...] and [the Arabs] could never be strong in modern armaments. Were it otherwise, we should have had to pause before evoking in the strategic centre of the Middle East new national movements of such abounding vigour". Yep, nationalists with modern weaponry in the Middle East, does sound like a bad idea, same as everywhere else