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 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.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, invasion.

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.

Some half-baked crank notion

‘. . . I won’t have you ruin your life for some half-baked crank notion that thinks the way to get votes for women is to bomb railway trains. Don’t you see it’s the last thing that can work — no government, not even that weak-kneed rabble of Asquith’s, dare give into terror and vandalism? Anyway, they’ll have a dam’ sight more important things to think of shortly, with this next war that the country’s spoiling for.’ Sir Harry snorted derisively. ‘Look at ’em — legions of bloodthirsty lunatics drilling in Ireland, workers within an ace of a general strike — dammit, even you women have got the fighting fever, with your smashing and bombing and shooting up locomotives. Any fool can see it’ll end in civil war — or more likely our tackling the Kaiser when he takes a slap at Russia or France, which he’s itching to do. Your votes are going to look like small beer, Button — which is why you’re sure to get ’em in the end, and much good they’ll do you. But war or not, you’ll get ’em all the faster if you lie low and work away quietly.’

Mr American, pp.428-9, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, notion.

Why do wars start?

     ‘What are the real reasons? Go on, tell me — I’m on the outside, you’re on the inside, and you know about these things. Why do wars start?’
     ‘That’s easy,’ said Churchill. ‘Greed. And fear. And both those emotions are concerned with power and money. That’s all And they work away, until some accident — or some contrivance, although people are seldom clever enough to be able to contrive exactly — sets them off into war. Then the justifications — liberty, patriotism, compassion, indignation, religion even — come into play. But they aren’t reasons. money and power, they’re what count.
     Mr Franklin replaced his cue in the rack and considered the fresh, rather baby face with its humorous mouth and lively eyes under the balding forehead. Slowly he said: ‘I’d have thought those other things you mentioned — liberty patriotism, and so on — I’d have thought they mattered too.’
     ‘Of course they matter,’ said Churchill. He stood waiting for Mr Franklin, his hands on his hips, his head thrust forward. ‘Of course they matter — nothing matters more. He smiled at the American, nodding. ‘But money and power are what count.’


Mr American, pp.204-05, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, war.

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.

’twasn’t really a war

. . . which, as Speedy observed , made you realise how downright foolish war can be.
      But then, ’twasn’t really a war, nor Arogee a proper battle. Like Little Big Horn , it was more a nasty skirmish, and like Big Horn it had an importance far beyond its size.


Flashman on the March, p.242, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, war.

Certain defeat

. . . for perhaps the first time in her long and turbulent history Britain was going into a war which everyone believed we were going to lose. Everyone, that is, except Bughunter Bob Napier.


Flashman on the March, p.27, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, war.

I can’t abide leeks

As an unworthy holder of that Cross myself, I’ll say they earned them, and as much glory as you like, for there never was a stand like it in all the history of war. For they didn’t only stand against impossible odds, you see — they stood and won, the garrulous little buggers, and not just ’cos they had Martinis against spears and clubs and a few muskets; they beat ’em hand to hand too, steel against steel at the barricades, and John Zulu gave them best. Well, you know what I think of heroism, and I can’t abide leeks, but I wear a daffodil as my buttonhole on Davey’s Day, for Rorke’s Drift.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.288, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, Welsh.

Pretty ramshackle

He beagn by asking me what I knew of the Austrian Empire. I retorted that they seemed to be good at losing wars and territory, having been licked lately by France, Prussia, and Italy, for heaven’s sake, and that the whole concern was pretty ramshackle. Beyond that I knew nothing and cared less.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.86, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, empire.

Flashman the non-Founding Father

      It’s understandable, to be sure: they have to live with their ancestors’ folly and pretend that it was all for the best, and that the monstrous collection of platitudes which they call a Constitution, which is worse than useless because it can be twisted to mean anything you please by crooked lawyers and grafting politicos, is the ultimate human wisdom. Well, it ain’t, and it wasn’t worth one life, American or British, in the War of Independence, let alone the vile slaughter of the Anglo-Saxon-Norman-Celtic race in the Civil War. But perhaps you need to stand on Cemetery Ridge after Pickett’s charge to understand that.
      I put these thoughts to Lincoln, you know, after the war, and he sat back, cracking his knuckles and eyeing me slantendicular.
      “Flashman the non-Founding Father is a wondrous thought,” says he.

Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.105, Harper Collins, 1995.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, constitution.

Most wars

In most wars, you see, killing is only the means to a political end, but in the Sutlej campaign it was an end in itself.



Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.342, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.




Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, war.

Statesmen and princes

Oh, I’d guessed there was steel inside my drunken, avid little houri, but hardly of the temper that could slaughter scores of thousands of men just for her own political convenience and personal comfort. Mind you, what other reasons do statesman and princes ever have for making war, when all the sham’s been stripped away?


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, pp.205-06, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, statesmen.

At peace and dog-tired

…the storm of war and action hurtles you along in blood and thunder, seeking vainly for a hold to cling to, and then the wind drops, and in a moment you’re at peace and dog-tired, with your back to a gun-wheel at Gwalior, or closing your eyes in a corner seat of the Deadwood Stage, or drinking tea contentedly with an old Kirghiz bandit in a serai on the Golden Road, or sitting alone with the President of the United States at the end of a great war, listening to him softly whistle “Dixie”.


Flashman and the Dragon, p.287, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, reflection.

Tally the destruction

No one can ever count the dead, or tally the destruction, or imagine the enormity of its blood-stained horror. This was the Taiping – the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace.


Flashman and the Dragon, p.84, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, Taiping.

Ill-suited to peacetime

I reflected, watching him that night, how the best soldiers in war are so often ill-suited to peacetime service…

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

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, soldier.

Reservation or the grave

      The Indian’s tragedy was that being a spoiled and arrogant savage who wouldn’t lie down, and a brave and expert fighter who happened to be quite useless at war, he could only be suppressed with a brutality that often matched his own. It was the reservation or the grave, there was no other way.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.171, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, tragedy.

Men in fear and rage

“What bleating breast-beaters like you can’t comprehend,” I went on at the top of my voice, while the toadies pawed at me and yapped for the porters, “is that when selfish frightened men—in other words, any men, red or white, civilized or savage—come face to face in the middle of a wilderness that both of ‘em want, the Lord alone knows why, then war breaks out, and the weaker go under. Policies don’t matter a spent piss—it’s the men in fear and rage and uncertainty watching the woods and skyline, d’you see, you purblind bookworm, you! And you burble about enlightenment, by God— ”

Flashman and the Redskins, p.20, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, conflict.

A broken firing-pin

      ‘Good God, you don’t mean to say,’ cries I, genuinely appalled, ‘that he got his knocker shot off?’
      ‘Let’s not think about it,’ says he, but I can tell you I went about wincing for the rest of the evening. Poor old White Raja – I mean, I’m a callous chap enough, but there are some tradgedies that truly wring the heart. Mad about that delectable little bouncer Angie Coutts, despot of a country abounding with the juiciest of dusky flashtails just itching for him to exercise the droit de seigneur, and there he was with a broken firing-pin. I don’t know when I’ve been more deeply moved. Still if J.B. were the first man in to rescue Elspeth, she’d be safe enough.

Flashman's Lady, p.133-34, Pan edition, 1979.

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Heavy speculation

One thing I'm sure of: there was twice as much treasure destroyed as carried away, and we officers were too busy bagging our share to do anything about it. I daresay a philosopher would have made heavy speculation about the scene, if he'd had time to spare from filling his pockets.

Flashman in the Great Game, pp.265-6, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes, loot.