The passage reflects uncertainty about whether modern wars can still produce clear and decisive victories. Frederic Henry contrasts the First World War with an older image of warfare associated with commanders such as Napoleon, where armies could be defeated in recognisable battles. On the Western Front, however, neither side appears capable of achieving such a result, and prolonged stalemate begins to seem like the normal condition of war.

The reference to the Hundred Years’ War turns that frustration into a historical comparison. It suggests that conflict may persist for years without a meaningful resolution, sustained by repeated fighting rather than a decisive conclusion. In A Farewell to Arms, this thought contributes to the novel’s broader treatment of exhaustion and disillusionment. War is presented less as a sequence leading towards victory than as an enduring system that absorbs lives and resources while offering little sense of progress or purpose.

Full quotation

“Napoleon would have whipped the Austrians on the plains. He never would have fought them in the mountains. He would have let them come down and whipped them around Verona. Still nobody was whipping any one on the Western front. Perhaps wars weren’t won any more. Maybe they went on forever. Maybe it was another Hundred Years’ War.”