No butcher’s bill

      For once — and for the only time in my experience of sixty years’ soldiering in heaven knows how many campaigns — there was no butcher’s bill. We hadn’t lost a man storming Magdala, just seventeen wounded, and with only two dead at Arogee and one careless chap who shot himself on the march up, I doubt if we had more than half a dozen fatalities in the whole campaign, mortally sick included. If there were nothing else to testify to Napier’s genius, that casualty return alone would do, for I never heard the like of it in war.



Flashman on the March, p.280, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, casualty.

Warm feeling of survival

As I trotted through the lines I could feel that air of contented elation that comes at the end of a campaign: the men are tired, and would like to sleep for a year, but they don’t want to miss the warm feeling of survival and comradeship, so they lie blinking in the sun, or rouse themselves to skylark and play leapfrog.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, pp.348-9, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.




Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, elation.

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.

Worth an extra division

      I ain’t one of your by jingoes, and I won’t swear that the British soldier is braver than any other — or even, as Charley Gordon said, that he’s brave for a little while longer. But I will swear that there’s no soldier on earth who believes so strongly in the courage of the men alongside him — and that’s worth an extra division any day. Provided you’re not standing alongside me, that is.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.255, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, jingoism.

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.

First into the breach

      “Frogs just a damned nuisance, of course — no proprer provision, an’ thre days late,” says he with satisfaction. “How the blazes Bonaparte ever got ’em on parade beats me. We should go without ’em.”       Everyone says that about the French, and it’s gospel true — until it’s Rosalie’s breakfast time*, and then Froggy’ll be first into the breach ahead of us, just out of spite.


*Time for action. Rosalie was the long French sword-bayonet.


Flashman and the Dragon, p.160, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, French.

The great rule of headquarters

Two staff infants were within, Addiscombe all over ’em.
      “Hollo, my sons!” cries I cheerily, with my head splitting. “I’m Flashman. Not a bit of it, sit down, sit down! Don’t tell me you haven’t learned the great headquarters rule yet!”
      “They looked at each other, blushing and respectful in the presence of the celebrated beau sabreur. “No sir,” says one, nervously. “What’s that?”
      “Hark’ee, my boy. If bread is the staff of life, what is the life of staff?”
      “Dunno, sir,” says he, grinning.
      “One long loaf,” says I, winking. “So take your ease, and tell me where’s Sir Hope Grant


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



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, staff.

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.

Genteel soldiering

“Nothing can withstand the might of the Tien-Wang,” says Lee, and I thought, God help Shanghai. I realized then that my soldiering had been of the genteel, polite variety — well-mannered actions like Cawnpore and Balaclava and the Kabul retreat in which the occasional prisoner was taken. In China, the idea is to kill everything that stirs and burn everything that don’t. Just that.


Flashman and the Dragon, p.125, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, soldiering.

Gen. Sir James Grant explains the disposition of the 1860 Anglo-French expedition to China

     “Shared command. Montauban and I. Day about. Lamentable.” Pause. “Supply difficult. Forage all imported. No horses to be had. Brought our own from India. Not the French. Have to buy ’em. Japanese ponies. Vicious beasts. Die like flies.” Another pause. “French disturb me. No experience. Great campaigns, Peninsula, Crimea. Deplorable. No small wars. Delays. Cross purposes. Better by ourselves. Hope Montauban speaks English.
     That would make one of you, thinks I. Would the Chinese fight, I asked, and a long silence fell.
     “Possibly.” Pause. “Once.”


Flashman and the Dragon, p.47, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, abrupt.

A man apart

…in my time Grant was a man apart. He wasn’t much of a general; it was notorious he’d never read a line outside the Bible; he was so inarticulate he could barely utter any order but “Charge!”; his notions of discipline were to flog anything that moved; the only genius he possessed was for his bull fiddle; he could barely read a map, and the only spark of originality he’d ever shown was to get himself six months in close tack for calling his colonel a drunkard. But none of this mattered in the least, because your see, Hope Grant was the best fighting man in the world.

Flashman and the Dragon, p.46, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.

Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, soldier.

That double line of yokels and town scruff

It was the infantry I wanted to see, though, for (and I’m a horse-soldier as says it) I know what matters. When the guns haven’t come up, and you cavalry’s checked by close country or tutti-putti*, and you’re waiting in the hot, dusky hush for the faint rumble of impi or harka** over the skyline and know they’re twenty to your one, well, that’s when you realize that it all hangs on that double line of yokels and town scruff with their fifty rounds a man and an Enfield bayonet. Kitchener himself may have placed ’em just so, with D’Israeli’s sanction, The Times blessing, and the Queen waving ’em good-bye — but now it’s their grip on the stock and their eye at the backsight, and if they break, you’re done.

Flashman and the Dragon, pp.44-45, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.

*Roughly 'little cherubs'. A few thoughts occur as to what Flashman could mean, but if any reader has a reference to explain this more clearly, I would be grateful.

**Presumably, Flashman is referring to the Māori haka.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, infantry.

Shirking, running, diving into cover

If you’ve read my earlier memoirs you’ll know all about it — how by shirking, running, diving into cover, and shielding my quaking carcase behind better men, I had emerged after four campaigns with tremendous credit, a tidy sum in loot, and a chestful of tinware.

Flashman and the Dragon, p.10, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.

Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, credit.

Little Bighorn

           I’ll say two other things. If the 7th had had decent carbines, thay might have sickened the Sioux and been able to hole up on the hill, as Reno did. And that was Custer’s fault, too. He should have tested those pieces before he went near the Powder Country—tested ’em until they were red-hot, and he’d have seen them jam. T’other thing—Reno deserved the clean bill he got from the court-martial. I didn’t know him, much, but Napoleon himself couldn’t have done any better. If Custer had done half as well, there’d be a few old troopers still telling stretchers about how they survived the struggle up Greasy Grass hill.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.332, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, Little Bighorn.

One invariable rule

…there were many Sioux burial platforms, mostly broken and derelict, but some quite new, and the troops thought it great fun to scatter them to bits. I remarked in Terry’s hearing that it was bad medicine—for one thing, his Ree and Crow scouts wouldn’t like it—and he ordered it stopped. If you wonder why I put in my oar, I’ll answer that I’ve soldiered far and hard enough to learn one invariable rule, superstition or not: never monkey with the local gods. It don’t pay.


Flashman and the Redskins, p.289, Pan Books edition, 1983.



Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, rule.

A lucky song

…Custer himself led them off in his cracked baritone until the rafters rang and feet stamped and the glasses swung in rhythm as they roared out in chorus:

              We’ll beat the bailiffs out of fun,
              We’ll make the mayor and sheriffs run,
              We are the boys no man dare dun,
              If he regards a whole skin!
              In place of spa we’ll drink down ale,
              And pay no reckoning on the nail,
              No man for debt shall go to jail,
              While he can Garryowen hail!

They didn’t notice I wasn’t singing; I was remembering the remnants of the Light Brigade in that grisly hospital shed by Yatla, croaking out those self-same words in pathetic pride at having done what no horse-soldiers had ever done before. I thought of the pale fierce faces and the horrid wounds, and the unspeakable hell we’d come through, and the ghastly cost—and I wondered if it was a lucky song to sing, that’s all.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.278, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, song.

More horse soldiering than most

He knew he was a good soldier—and he was you know, when he was in his right mind. I’ve seen more horse soldiering than most, and if my life depended on how a mounted brigade was handled, I’d as soon see George Custer in command as anyone I know. His critics, who never saw him at Gettysburg and Yellow Tavern, base their case on one piece of arrant folly and bad luck, when he let his ambition get the better of him.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.255, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, George Custer.

Paying for policy

“Someone is going to have to pay for that policy sooner or later, I fear—probably someone in a blue coat earning $13 a month to guard his country’s frontier.”

Flashman and the Redskins, p.215, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, guard.

The soldier’s first rule

I should have thought of the soldier’s first rule, to put yourself in the enemy’s shoes and ask what you would do.

Flashman's Lady, p.287, Pan edition, 1979.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, soldier.