How many Gettysburgs

‘I’d also like to remind our jingo-drunk public that they haven’t the least notion what a war with modern weapons will be like and the only fellows who can even guess are your American survivors from places like Antietam and Shiloh — that’s the only real war there’s been in a hundred years.’ The General pointed an accusing spoon at Mr Franklin. ‘Know how many men went down at Gettysburg? Fifty thousand — and if I hadn’t moved damned lively I’d have been one of ’em. Well, how many Gettysburgs d’you think it will take to settle a scrap between the kind of forces under arms in Europe today? I don’t know — perhaps a month of it would make everyone cry quits, but knowing the sort of clowns who’ll be in command — who are always in command — I take leave to doubt it.’


Mr American, p.520, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, warfare.

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.

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.

What do they expect?

What beats me is the way people take it to heart – what do they expect in war? It ain’t conducted by missionaries, or chaps in Liberal clubs, snug and secure.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.243, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes, war.

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.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes.