So damned military

      “I bumped into the sergeant of the guard, accidental-a-purpose. A waxed-moustached old turnip-head who's so damned military he probably rides his wife by the numbers — almost ruptured himself comin’ to attention when I happened by.”


Flashman and the Tiger, p.123, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, military.

A dull world

... it would be a dull world if there were no subalterns in it. Quieter, mind you.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.123, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, subaltern.

Beaten by bayonets

Good bayonet fighters will beat swordsmen and spearmen every time…



Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.338, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, bayonet.

Foreign service

      I’ve never cared, much, for service with foreign forces. At best it’s unfamiliar and uncomfortable, and the rations are likely to pay havoc with your innards. The American Confederates weren’t bad, I suppose, bar their habit of spitting on carpets, and the worse I can say of the Yankees is that they took soldiering seriously and seemed to be under the impression that they had invented it.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.214, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, rations.

The great thing about policy

That’s the great thing about policy, and why the world is such an infernal place: the man who makes the policy don’t have to carry it out, and the man who carries it out ain’t responsible for the policy.

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



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, policy.

Snug and helpless

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, which young military men should bear in mind, it’s that the foeman is generally as glad to accept your surrender as you are to give it. Mind you, he may turn spiteful later, when he’s got you snug and helpless (I often do), but that’s a risk you must run, you know.

Flashman and the Dragon, p.186, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.




Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, surrender.

Informally attired

Within ten minutes I’d replaced my soiled garments with a fine tussore coat, coolie pants, solar helmet, and umbrella, with a handsome morocco toilet case in my back pocket — and if you think that outlandish, let me tell you that armies were a deal more informally attired in my day. Campbell at Lucknow looked like a bus conductor, and old Raglan in the Crimea appeared to have robbed a jumble sale.

Flashman and the Dragon, p.157, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, uniforms.

Competent savages and buffoons

Little Phil, grinning all over and still looking as though he’d fallen in the river and let his uniform dry on him, led me off to talk to Sherman, whom I’d know as a competent savage, and the buffoon Pope, whose career had consisted of losing battles and claiming he’d won.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.214, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, officers.

The leading aristocrats

Since most of the leading aristocrats held high military rank, and took their duties seriously in a pathetically incompetent way (just like our own really), I gradually became acquainted – not to say friendly – with the governing class.

Flashman's Lady, p.236, Pan edition, 1979.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, aristocrats.

Pinched his ear

…then I singled out the unshaven chap, slapped him, told him not to do it again, pinched his ear à la Napoleon, and said I had high hopes for him. (Talk about discipline; come to old Flash and I’ll learn you things they don’t teach at Sandhurst.)

Flashman's Lady, p.235, Pan edition, 1979.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, Napoleon.

Heel Fido!

Mark you, I’d no time to waste marveling over the fatuousness of this kind of mismanagement; it was nothing new in our army, anyway, and still isn’t, from what I can see. Ask any commander to choose between toiling over the ammunition returns for a division fighting for its life, and taking the King’s dog for a walk, and he’ll be out there in a trice, bawling ‘Heel Fido!’

Flashman at the Charge, p.29, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,army, commander.

Better qualified than most

I applied for the Board of Ordnance, for which I knew I was better qualified than most of its members, inasmuch as I knew which end of a gun the ball came out of.

Flashman at the Charge, p.13, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Board of Ordnance, Defence Materiel Organisation.

Ends of the earth

…I’ve spent more than half of the last fifty years at the ends of the earth, in uniform as often as not, and doing most of my walking backwards.

Flash For Freedom!, p.13, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes.

A greater shambles?

Possibly there has been a greater shambles in the history of warfare than our withdrawal from Kabul; probably there has not.

Flashman, p.176, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes.