I was reading an issue of Atlantic Monthly from 1919 and encountered the following paragraph:
There is no further context, as these are (according to the article) translated conversations and musings of Russian soldiers overheard by a nurse. I'm not familiar with any English expression like "dogs in clover" or "live in clover" (perhaps "pig in mud").
It would seem that the "dogs" are enemy combatants (e.g. Germans) who are enjoying a much finer standard of living on the battlefield than their Russian counterparts. Is this expression used much in English, or is it a Russian or Eastern European idiom? And why "clover"?
Best Answer
I just did some further looking. Etymonline has an entry for clover: