The only thing we learn from history, George Bernard Shaw quipped, is that we learn nothing from history.
Cyril Kornbluth, a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, wrote his science-fiction tale, The Only Thing We Learn, soon after that war ended and not long before he died.
Here Wing Commander Arris realizes his forces — defending Earth — are doomed, as the ramshackle rebel fleet attacking them doesn’t crumble on contact with a “proper” fleet:
Lunar relay flickered out as overloaded fuses flashed into vapor. Arris distractedly paced back to the dark corner and sank into a chair.
“I’m sorry,” said the voice of Glen next to him, sounding quite sincere. “No doubt it was quite a shock to you.”
“Not to you?” asked Arris bitterly.
“Not to me.”
“Then how did they do it?” the wing commander asked the civilian in a low, desperate whisper. “They don’t even wear .45′s. Intelligence says their enlisted men have hit their officers and got away with it. They elect ship captains! Glen, what does it all mean?”
“It means,” said the fat little man with a timbre of doom in his voice, “that they’ve returned. They always have. They always will. You see, commander, there is always somewhere a wealthy, powerful city, or nation, or world. In it are those whose blood is not right for a wealthy, powerful place. They must seek danger and overcome it. So they go out — on the marshes, in the desert, on the tundra, the planets, or the stars. Being strong, they grow stronger by fighting the tundra, the planets, or the stars. They — they change. They sing new songs. They know new heroes. And then, one day, they return to their old home.
“They return to the wealthy, powerful city, or nation or world. They fight its guardians as they fought the tundra, the planets, or the stars — a way that strikes terror to the heart. Then they sack the city, nation, or world and sing great, ringing sagas of their deeds. They always have. Doubtless they always will.”
“But what shall we do?”
“We shall cower, I suppose, beneath the bombs they drop on us, and we shall die, some bravely, some not, defending the palace within a very few hours. But you will have your revenge.”
“How?” asked the wing commander, with haunted eyes.
The fat little man giggled and whispered in the officer’s ear. Arris irritably shrugged it off as a bad joke. He didn’t believe it. As he died, drilled through the chest a few hours later by one of Algan’s gunfighters, he believed it even less.