The Story Archive

Arms and the Man

George Bernard Shaw · 1894 CE · Play · English · Modernist

A Swiss mercenary in Serbian uniform climbs a drainpipe into a Bulgarian girl's bedroom during the rout of 1885, asks for chocolate rather than cartridges, and falls asleep while she hides him from the search party. Her betrothed is the cavalry officer whose suicidal charge carried the day only because the enemy had been issued the wrong ammunition. Shaw took the title from the opening line of the Aeneid and turned it against the romance of soldiering.

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