For reference, the well-worn anecdote about everyone saying "it'll all be over by Christmas" at the beginning of World War I didn't actually really happen. Tha

For reference, the well-worn anecdote about everyone saying "it'll all be over by Christmas" at the beginning of World War I didn't actually really happen. That was a later anachronism, and the phrase "over by Christmas" doesn't appear until late 1917. It was used as an intentional exaggeration to describe how those in Britain at the end of the war felt about the decision to enter the war in 1914. The reality is that very observers anticipated an "easy" war. Virtually everybody predicted that the conflict would be the most destructive since the Napoleonic wars, and collapse the world economy. Overwhelming majority of the British public and politicians expressed a preference for neutrality. It wasn't until the Germans marched straight through the heart of neutral Belgium, and their sheer degree of wanton looting and destruction, that public opinion turned. It's very clear that even in 1914 nobody thought it would be an "easy" war. Germany's Rape of Belgium led Britain, and later America, to reluctantly intervene. However it's a testament to the sheer scale of carnage in World War I that even these very dour predictions turned out to be underestimates.