Best British Army Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“The defenders retreated, but in good order. A musket flamed and a ball shattered a marine’s collar bone, spinning him around. The soldiers screamed terrible battle-cries as they began their grim job of clearing the defenders off the parapet with quick professional close-quarter work. Gamble trod on a fallen ramrod and his boots crunched on burnt wadding. The French reached steps and began descending into the bastion. 'Bayonets!' Powell bellowed. 'I want bayonets!' 'Charge the bastards!' Gamble screamed, blinking another man's blood from his eyes. There was no drum to beat the order, but the marines and seamen surged forward. 'Tirez!' The French had been waiting, and their muskets jerked a handful of attackers backwards. Their officer, dressed in a patched brown coat, was horrified to see the savage looking men advance unperturbed by the musketry. His men were mostly conscripts and they had fired too high. Now they had only steel bayonets with which to defend themselves. 'Get in close, boys!' Powell ordered. 'A Shawnee Indian named Blue Jacket once told me that a naked woman stirs a man's blood, but a naked blade stirs his soul. So go in with the steel. Lunge! Recover! Stance!' 'Charge!' Gamble turned the order into a long, guttural yell of defiance. Those redcoats and seamen, with loaded weapons discharged them at the press of the defenders, and a man in the front rank went down with a dark hole in his forehead. Gamble saw the officer aim a pistol at him. A wounded Frenchman, half-crawling, tried to stab with his sabre-briquet, but Gamble kicked him in the head. He dashed forward, sword held low. The officer pulled the trigger, the weapon tugged the man's arm to his right, and the ball buzzed past Gamble's mangled ear as he jumped down into the gap made by the marines charge. A French corporal wearing a straw hat drove his bayonet at Gamble's belly, but he dodged to one side and rammed his bar-hilt into the man's dark eyes. 'Lunge! Recover! Stance!”

War Fiction History Historical Fiction Assault French Revolution Military History Ebook British Army Fortress Malta Royal Navy Royal Marines

Book:Heart of Oak

Source: Heart of Oak

“When I came back to Dublin, I was court martialed in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so said they could shoot me in my absence.”

Army England Ireland Great Britain British Army

Book:The Hostage

Source: The Hostage

“The losses in the Dervish ranks were horrendous as whole families and tribal groups were wiped out. No European army would have dreamed of facing such a wall of fire, but still they came on.”

Weapons Suspense Rifles Daggers Weaponry British Army Fellaheen Army Grenadier Guards Regiments Sudanese Battalion

Book:No Road to Khartoum

Source: No Road to Khartoum

“We were wasting time. She could try and arrest me and would fail.”

Justice Military Danger Law Enforcement Fast Paced Adrenaline Gripping British Army Plot Twists Criminal Investigation

Book:The Prisoner of Acre

Source: The Prisoner of Acre

“Many who read this, especially in these peaceful times, may suppose this was a cruel and unnecessary severity under the dreadful and harassing circumstances of that retreat; but I, who was there, and was, besides, a common soldier of the very regiment to which these men belonged, say it was quite necessary. No man but one formed of stuff like General Craufurd could have saved the brigade from perishing altogether; and, if he flogged two, he saved hundreds from death by his management. I detest the sight of the lash; but I am convinced the British army can never go on without it.”

Military Life British Army Napoleonic Wars

Author:benjamin randall harris

“Anyway, here I am still waiting for troops, with everybody in the highest places issuing orders that I am to have them and no one in the lower quarters taking the slightest step to obey. The result is that we are months and months back on our programme and God knows when we will begin to do anything. Once patience gets frayed to tatters, and the loathing that one engenders for this country and its unbelievable military system reaches a stage impossible to describe. I am due for repatriation and often feel like applying. The only thing holding me back, and will no keep me here in spite of everything, the feeling that one hates to go home a failure, and secondly, the knowledge that if I got back home I would not be able to contribute one iota to the defeat of the enemy, whereas here I do know him and given the tools I can do something to finish him off. It's often so difficult though to fight (very metaphorically speaking), with one bare hands, and physically one gets exhaust. And one feels that one will never forgive or forget the stupid people who stood in the way, all the time wondering how one can be so petty, for they are certainly not worth remembering for their own sakes and not to forgive them is to take them far too seriously. I suppose really that war, especially when it is waged far away from public criticism and almost out of the public mind, is the highest form of inefficiency known to man. Hundreds more, thousands of gentlemen, in fact, who would be failures in any normal business and in peacetime would be kept in their places commercial travellers, et cetera, are now in positions of responsibility and yet sabotage anybody who has energy and ideas, and in spite of it all, I think that I still have a bit of both, and that no number of years in India will knock or dry them out of me.”

History Second World War Burma British Army Abyssinia Psywar

Author:George L. Steer

“When I came back to Dublin, I was court martialed in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.”

England Ireland British Army

Book:The Hostage

Source: The Hostage

“Today a Scot is leading a British army in France [Field Marshall Douglas Haig], another is commanding the British Grand Fleet at sea [Admiral David Beatty], while a third directs the Imperial General Staff at home [Sir William Roberton]. The Lord Chancellor is a Scot [Viscount Finlay]; so are the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Foreign Secretary [Bonar Law and Arthur Balfour]. The Prime Minister is a Welshman [David Lloyd George], and the First Lord of the Admiralty is an Irishman [Lord Carson]. Yet no one has ever brought in a bill to give home rule to England!”

“It's like guerrilla warfare. If you reveal your location, all it does is allow your opponent to improve his artillery bearings. It's better to move quietly, with stealth, under cover of night. You've got two choices: You can wear cammies and shimmy along on your belly, or you can put on a red coat and stand up for everyone to see. It comes down to whether you want to be the British army in the Revolutionary War or the Viet Cong. History tells us which tactic was more effective.”

“Commanders and senior officers should die with troops. The honour of the British Empire and the British Army is at stake.”

Should Dies Army British Empires Honour Officers Stakes Troops Senior Commanders British Empire British Army

Author:Lord Randolph Churchill

“My father was an army champion boxer... in the British army. And so he loved boxing and talked it up as a sport. But then when my brother and I were beating the crap out of each other, he was always trying to tone it down. But I am a fan of boxing.”

Trying Father Sports Fans Brother Army British Champion Tone My Brother Boxing Crap Always Trying Boxers British Army

Author:Hugh Jackman

“I was a section commander in the parachute regiment [in the British army].”

Army British Sections Commanders Parachutes British Army

Author:Scott Raab

“The American and the British armies liberated camps, there wasn't a single order of the day: Let's go and liberate the camp. They stumbled upon the camps. Same thing with the Russians, I asked the Colonel who liberated Auschwitz, they didn't, there wasn't a priority. But I feel that that was a mistake, it was a sin because they could have saved so many people and they didn't.”

People Feels Order Sin Mistake Army British Saved Priorities Camps Liberated Auschwitz Colonels British Army

Author:Elie Wiesel

“One of the most beautiful things about Britain, apart from the NHS and the free education, is the British Army.”

Beautiful Army British Britain Beautiful Things Free Education Nhs British Army

Author:John Lydon

“Dad was in the British Army and my mom was in the Royal Air Force, so both of my parents believed in discipline.”

Force Parent Air Mom Dad Discipline Army My Mom British Royal Air Force British Army

Author:Mike Myers

“Yeah. Floyd is his batman." His what?" Batman, like in the British army, each officer had a batman, a personal servant." You spend too much time reading, Spenser. You know more stuff that don't make you money than anybody I know.”

Knows Reading Stuff Too Much Army Yeah British Servant Officers British Army Spenser

Book:Mortal Stakes

Source: Mortal Stakes

“What if all those strange and unexplainable bends in history were the result of supernatural interference? At which point I asked myself, what's the weirdest most eccentric historical phenomenon of them all? Answer:the Great British Empire. Clearly, one tiny little island could only conquer half the known world with supernatural aid. Those absurd Victorian manners and ridiculous fashions were obviously dictated by vampires. And, without a doubt, the British army regimental system functions on werewolf pack dynamics.”

“The British Army should be a projectile to be fired by the British Navy.”

Should War Peace Army British Navy Total War British Army Projectile British Navy

Author:Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon

“The Australian divisions and the New Zealanders had become what they were to remain for the rest of the war the spearhead of the British Army”

War Military Army British Division Australian British Army

Author:John Terraine

“He loved telling stories. He had been everywhere in the world. The northwest frontier, the landscape of the Hindu Kush, was one of the great landscapes of my childhood because he used to evoke it with his stories. He taught me the sequence of ranks in the British army when I was about eight. I was in the bed with him while he told me everything about his life - except, probably, the real things, because of course you couldn't go there.”

World Real Stories Used Courses Childhood Taught Bed Army Eight British Landscape Sequence Frontiers Real Things Evoke Telling Stories British Army

Author:Sebastian Barry

“In later years, it was common, and I was guilty in this respect, to question the motives of those who joined the new British armies at the outbreak of the Great War, but it must, in their honour and fairness to their memories, be said that they were motivated by the highest purpose, and died in their tens of thousands in Flanders and Gallipoli, believing that they were giving their lives in the cause of human liberty everywhere, including Ireland.”

“I joined the British Army because she stood between Ireland and an enemy common to our civilization, and I would not have her (Britain) say that she defended us while we did nothing at home but pass resolutions.”

Home Common Enemy History Civilization Army British Britain Resolution Ireland British Army

Author:Francis Ledwidge

“It is absolutely bedrock to the British Army's philosophy that a commanding officer is responsible for what goes on within his command.”

Philosophy Goes On Army Responsible British Command Officers Bedrock British Army

Author:Mike Jackson