God-given gift of catastrophe

      It ain’t the kind of problem you meet everyday. I doubt if it’s ever been posed at Staff College . . . “Now then, Mr Flashman, you command an army fifty thousand strong, with heavy guns, well supplied, their lines of communication protected by an excellent river. Against you is a force of only ten thousand, with light guns, exhausted after a week’s forced marching, short of food and fodder and damned near dying of thirst. Now then, sir, answer directly, no hedging — how do you lose, hey? Come, come, you’ve just given excellent reasons for not taking a town that’s lying at your mercy! This should be child’s play to a man with your God-given gift of catastrophe! Well, sir?


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.220, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, tactics.