“And people wonder why this war is being lost,” Genādijs grumbled. “Not only are we a tiny nation against a vast empire, with a pathetic population against a great one, but the men in our military command are absolute incompetents.”
“It’s been almost twenty years and we remain,” Miķelis said. “I certainly don’t think the Gryebyaninets expected that. They had every confidence, I’m sure, that they would drive us into the sea in months. We still hold territory east of the Highlands. As much as we’ve lost land, it certainly isn’t as much as anyone expected.”
Genādijs exhaled scoffingly. “We’re going to lose, though, so all of this effort is pointless.”
Miķelis shifted his jaw. “Is that why you don’t wish to be here? You don’t think there’s any point in trying to stave off the inevitable?”
“No, I don’t,” Genādijs replied. “Let’s just get it over with and be done with it, I’m sure living under the Gryebyaninets won’t be that bad, and if people do think it’s bad, then they can go live somewhere else.”
Glancing over at Kristiāns, Miķelis saw he was still quite lost in thought, as Miķelis had expected Kristiāns to have made some heated comments that could’ve incited an argument in response to Genādijs’ bleak view of things.
Genādijs wasn’t the first person Miķelis had heard express such sentiments, even if he was the first person in the army Miķelis had heard express them.
It was true that the mismatch was in Gryebyaninets favour. Their territory was vast, to the point that Gryebyaninets was considered a dog on whose back was a flea, and Miķelis was one of the parts of that flea which was intent to stubbornly resist being removed from the dog.
Nevertheless, as Papa had wisely pointed out not long before Miķelis had left, it had been nearly twenty years and the ‘great dog’ of Gryebyaninets had failed to remove and destroy the flea on its back, which suggested that for all of its greatness and might, Gryebyaninets wasn’t so great as it seemed.
The fact that this war had dragged on for so long was proof that bleak outlooks like Genādijs’ were unwarranted. Everyone had been convinced — insofar as Miķelis had heard, as he’d not been born when the war broke out, even if he’d been born before the war had been going on for a year — that it would be a swift rout, with the vast might of Gryebyaninets overwhelming the meagre force that could be mustered against it, but here Miķelis was, of age to fight in the army, and there was an army for him to fight in against the Gryebyaninets, who still had not driven his people into the sea, and had not even crushed them against the Highlands.
Considering few people had believed in the beginning that their homeland would still exist even a year on from the first attacks, it wasn’t necessarily surprising that people were still of a mind that defeat and a cessation of existence for their homeland would still be the ultimate end. Their enemy was vastly superior to them in territory and manpower, it was only reasonable, but the fact that they’d held on for this long gave them good reason to hope that maybe a different outcome might be the result.
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