Tolstoy's description of a Russian Caravan six miles long as read in War and Peace.
Just as in the mechanism of a clock, so in the mechanism of the military machine, an impetus once given leads on to the final result; and the parts of the mechanism which have not yet been started into action remain as indifferently stationary. Wheels creak on their axles as the cogs engage, the revolving pulleys whir in rapid motion while the next wheel stands as apathetic and still as though it would stay so for a hundred years; but the momentum reaches it-the lever catches and the wheel, obeying the impulse, creaks and joins in the common movement, the result and aim of which are beyond its ken.
