The only good reason for fighting

     A sudden, odd thought struck Mr Franklin, and it seemed doubly odd that it had only just occurred to him.
     ‘D’you think England will win this war?’
     ‘Ask them,’ said the General, and jerked his thumb at the window, grinning. Then he considered, the eyes narrowing in the flushed, ancient face. ‘Probably— yes, on balance, we ought to win. Germany can lick Russia, but not Britain and France together. But they’ll take a lot of beating, if it’s a fight to the finish. Yes, I’d say we were odds on to win — not that it matters all that much.’
     Mr Franklin stared at him in astonishment. ‘You can’t mean that — it doesn’t make sense!’
     Sir Harry turned to look at him, then glanced out the window again.
     ‘It isn’t important whether you win or lose,’ he said, ‘so long as you survive. So long as your people survive. And that’s the only good reason for fighting that anyone ever invented. The survival of your people and race and kind. That’s the only victory that matters.’


Mr American, p.525, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, war.

General Flashman and the Great War, Part 3

     ‘By that reckoning,’ said Mr Franklin, ‘no one would ever stand up to a brute or a bully.’
     ‘Course they would — when it was worth while. You don’t remember the war of 1870 — when those same Germans marched on Paris. Smallish war — but suppose we’d been helping the frogs then? It wouldn’t have been over half as quick, and God knows how many folk would have died who are still happily going about their business in Alsace and Lorraine. Same thing today — we should simply tell the Kaiser that if his fleet puts its nose out of the Baltic we’ll send it to the bottom — that satisfies the Frogs, up to a point, since it guarantees their northern coast, it satisfies the Kaiser who’ll swallow his pride for the sake of us keeping out of the war, and it saves his pretty little ships as well. And five years from now, Liege will be doing rather well — whether it’s got a German provost-marshall still or not. And that won’t matter a damn, to people whose main concern is eating, drinking, fornicating, making money, and seeing their children grow up safe and healthy.’


* Should be read in conjunction with General Flashman and the Great War, Part 1 & General Flashman and the Great War, Part 2 [Speedicut]


Mr American, p.519, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, war.

General Flashman and the Great War, Part 1

     Mr Franklin replied non-committally, and asked the General what he thought of the war situation. The old man shrugged.
     ‘Contemptible — but of course it always is. We should stay out, and to hell with Belgium. After all, it’s stretching things to say we’re committed to ’em, and we’d be doing ’em a favour — and the frogs too.’
     ‘By not protecting them, you mean? I don’t quite see that.’
     ‘You wouldn’t — because like most idiots you think of war being between states - coloured blobs on the map. You think if we can keep Belgium green, or whatever colour it is, instead of Prussian blue, then hurrah for everyone. But war ain’t between coloured blobs — it’s between people. You know what people are, I suppose? — chaps in trousers, and women in skirts, and kids in small clothes.’*

*See also General Flashman and the Great War, Part 2 [Speedicut]


Mr American, p.518, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, people.

Many people are

Again, he may simply have been as mad as a hatter; many people are, you know.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, pp.320-21, Harper Collins, 1995.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, mad.

A good dissembler

I said it had been, but fortunately I was a good dissembler.
   ‘You must be,’ says he. 'And I speak as a politician, who knows how difficult it is to fool people.’
   ‘Well,’ says I, ‘my own experience is that you can fool some people all the time – and all the people sometimes. But I concede that it’s difficult to fool all the people at the same time.’

Flash For Freedom!, p.128, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Abraham Lincoln.

Laying down the law

I have soldiered in too many countries and known too many peoples to fall into the folly of laying down the law about any of them.



Flashman, p. 51, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

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