General Flashman and the Great War, Part 2

*‘Anyway, imagine yourself a Belgian — in Liege, say. Along come the Prussians, and invade you. What about it? — a few cars commandeered, a shop or two looted, half a dozen girls knocked up, a provost marshal installed, and the storm’s passed. Fierce fighting with the Frogs, who squeal like hell because Britain refuses to help, the Germans reach Paris, peace concluded, and that’s that. And there you are, getting on with your garden in Liege. But — ‘ the General waved his bony finger. ‘Suppose Britain helps — sends forces to aid little Belgium — and the Frogs — against the Teuton horde? what then? Belgian resistance is stiffened, the Frogs manage to stop the invaders, a hell of a war is waged all over Belgium and north-east France, and after God knows how much slaughter and destruction the the Germans are beat — or not, as the case may be. How’s Liege doing? I’ll tell you — it’s a bloody shambles. You’re lying mangled in your cabbage patch, your wife’s had her legs blown off, your daughters have been raped, and your house is a mass of rubble. You’re a lot better off for British intervention, ain’t you?’ He sat back grinning sardonically.


* Should be read in conjunction with General Flashman and the Great War, Part 1 [Speedicut]

Mr American, pp.518-19, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


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Bellowing his grievance

Had I ever, I wondered, encountered such an immortally conceited ass with a truer touch for self-destruction? George Custer came to mind. Aye put him and Gordon-Cumming on the edge of a precipice and I’d not care to bet which would tumble first into the void, bellowing his grievance.

Flashman and the Tiger, p.240, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Burning down a house

Next to the wreck of a human body, nothing looks so foul as a pretty house in its setting, when the smoke eddies from the roof, and the glare shines in the windows, and the air shakes with heat.


Flashman and the Dragon, p.283, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.



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Destruction of the Summer Palace

“I am therefore requesting the Commander-in-Chief —” he nodded towards Grant — “to take the requisite steps for the complete destruction of the Summer Palace.”
      My first thought was that I hadn’t heard right; my second, what a perfectly nonsensical idea: someone murders twenty people, so you plough up his garden.


Flashman and the Dragon, pp.274-5, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.



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The effect of plunder

“It’s a marvelous thing, the effect of plunder on soldiers, I suppose they feel real power for once in their wretched lives — not the power to kill, they all know about that, it’s just brute force against a body — but the greater power to destroy a creation of the mind, something they know they could never make."


Flashman and the Dragon, p.267, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.


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