Their great canal

They were hellish jealous of their great canal, which was then within a year of completion, with gangs of thousands of the unfortunate fellaheen being mercilessly flogged on the last lap, for it was built with slave labour in all but name.⁹


9. Work on the Suez Canal, the brainchild of the French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps, began in 1859, and the waterway was opened to navigation in 1869. It had cost almost ₤30 million, and in 1875 Disraeli acquired 176, 602 shares for ₤4 million, giving Britain a 44% holding. The canal was indeed built by what amounted to slavery, the forced labour (corvee) of the Egyptian peasants being enforced by the rawhide whip of the overseers (courbash). (John Marlowe, The Making of the Suez Canal, 1964.)


 Flashman on the March, p.16, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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A true meeting of minds

It was a true meeting of minds, for I doubt if a woman ever stripped faster from full court regalia, and we revelled in each other like peasants in a hayrick . . .


Flashman and the Tiger, p.187, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Flashman, friend of the worker

…the coolies could be seen languidly pursuing the only two occupations known to the Chinese peasant: to wit, standing stock-still up to the knees in paddy-water holding a bullock on a rope, or shifting mud very slowly from one point to another. Deny them these employments, and they would simply lie down and die, which a good many of them seemed to do anyway.

Flashman and the Dragon, p.19, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.

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Stay, cruel despot!

Now, I don’t recite all these barbarities to shock or excite your pity, or to pose as one of those holy hypocrites who pretend to be in a great sweat about man’s inhumanity to man. I’ve seen too much of it, and know it happens whenever strong folk have absolute power over spiritless creatures. I merely tell you what I truly saw – as for my own view, well I’m all for keeping the peasants in order, and if hammering ’em does good, and makes life better for the rest of us, you won’t find me leaping between the tyrant and his victim crying ‘Stay, cruel despot!’…

Flashman at the Charge, p.146, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Start the revolution without me

Mark you, our populace may be wiser than it knows, for so far as I can see revolutions never benefited the ordinary folk one bit; they have to work just as hard and starve just as thin as ever. All the good they may get from a rebellion is perhaps a bit of loot and rape at the time – and our English peasantry doesn’t seem to go in for that sort of thing at home, possibly because they’re mostly married men with responsibilities.

Royal Flash, p.245, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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Country folk

He was a peasant, with a face like a walnut, and when he saw me he brought up short and stood glowering at me, the way country folk do at everyone who hasn’t got dung on his boots.

Royal Flash, p.187, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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Truly be called

I’ve sometimes wondered what the result of that encounter was, and if there is some sturdy peasant somewhere in Holstein called Carl who puts on airs in the belief that he can claim royal descent, If there is, he can truly be called an ignorant bastard.

Royal Flash, p.145, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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