Our Russian friends

‘And I learned a thing or two from our Russian friends — confuse, alarm, bewilder. If you haven’t got a good case, it’s worth more than dishonest juryman.’



Mr American, p.391, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, dishonest.

A ragged fence of bayonets

…and the muskets of the infantry squares came to the present in a ragged fence of bayonets that must be ridden under as that magnificent sea of men and horses engulfed us. I never saw the like in my life, I who watched the great charge against Campbell’s Highlanders at Balaclava — but those were just Russians, while these were the fathers of the Guides and Probyn’s and the Bengal Lancers, and the only thing to stop them at full tilt was a horse soldier as good as themselves.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.260, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, cavalry.

Their hard school

…this was their hard school, as I was to learn, like our North-west Frontier, where you either soldiered well or not at all.

Flashman at the Charge, p.213, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,hard school, North-west frontier.

A Baptist hermit

Russians, in my experience, are part-drunk most of the time, but if there’s a sober soul between the Black Sea and the Capsian for weeks after the Rostov kermesse he must be a Baptist hermit.

Flashman at the Charge, p.211, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Russians, drunk.

The battery at Balaclava

‘And our moujiks are, well, different from yours’. I wondered, even as I said it, if they were; remembering that hospital at Yalta, I doubted it. But I couldn’t help adding: ‘Would your moujiks have ridden into the battery at Balaclava?’

Flashman at the Charge, p.148, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Charge of the Light Brigade.

Just nuts to them

… the Cossacks were free, independent tribesmen; they had land, and paid little tax, had their own tribal laws, drank themselves stupid, and served the Tsar from childhood till they were fifty because they loved to ride and fight and loot – and they liked nothing better than to use their nagaikas on the serfs, which was just nuts to them.

Flashman at the Charge, p.147, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Cossacks.

Ever the diplomat, our Flash

Such conditions of squalor, half the year in stifling heat, half in unimaginable cold, and all spent in back-breaking labour, are probably enough to explain why they [Russian serfs] were such an oppressed, dirty, brutish, useless people – just like the Irish, really, but without the gaiety.

Flashman at the Charge, p.144, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Irish, Russians.

It’s black, it’s thick, and it makes you drunk

Their [Russian serfs] drink was as bad – bread fermented in alcohol which they called qvass (‘it’s black, it’s thick, and it makes you drunk,’ as they said), and on special occasions vodka, which is just poison. They’ll sell their souls for brandy, but seldom get it.

Flashman at the Charge, p.144, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,qvass, serfs.

General or Colonel So-and-so

These Russian civil servants are a bad lot – pompous, stupid and rude at best. They come in various grades, each with a military title – so that General or Colonel So-and-so turns out to be someone who neglects the parish sanitation or keeps inaccurate records of livestock.

Flashman at the Charge, p.128, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,civil servants, pompous.

Mankind's natural condition?

And it [the emancipation of serfs] was all nonsense, anyway; the Russians will always be slaves – so will most of the rest of mankind, of course, but it tends to be more obvious among the Ruskies.

Flashman at the Charge, p.125, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,emancipation, serfs.