Here’s an interesting missive from the book I’m currently reading. In discussing Oliver Cromwell’s innate nature as a soldier in contrast to a politician:
Further the soldier is, from the nature of his trade at one and the same time subordinate and in command.
With the courtier or the politician it is just the other way; the whole point of their trade is the avoidance of responsibility. The individual is to get as much as he can in the way of glory or occupation or (much the most important) money without showing his hand. If he shows his hand too much he is doomed, for he lives in the perpetual turmoil of competition against his fellows.
His action must never be direct; he must always be one of a committee, a unit lost in numbers; he must suggest, influence, bide his time, work by elimination. Direct action – which is violence – is the only thing especially odious to assemblies or courts.”
— Belloc, H. (1934). Cromwell (1st ed.). Philadelphia & London: J.B. Lippincott Company. p.114
Careful when reading stuff written by those Roman Catholics, O.
Next you’ll find out what Belloc had to say about the Mohammedans!