NON-AFRICAN DRAMA
BERNARD SHAW: Arms and the Man
What are your impressions on Sergius as a Soldier?
Explanation
Major Sergius Saranoff is a Bulgarian army commander who leads his regiment to win a battle against the Serbs at Silvinitza. However, both his critics and admirers consider him to be a failure and he admits he is. To Catherine, who sees him as a future son-in-law and to Raina his fiancée, he is no doubt the gallant and the perfect soldier. But he is an inexperienced soldier who leads “a charge on his own responsibility” and blindly “sweeps through the guns with ordinary swords”.
Bluntschli’s assessment of his performance at the warfront is even more damning. Bluntschli describes him as a foolish, tactless and quixotic soldier who, without initiative, fights at close range with swords against enemies with fire arms. He is “like a drum major” and he and his men are like “fools let loose on a field of battle” where he leads them to commit suicide. Because Sergius is an inexperienced soldier, he does not know how to save the lives of his troops. As he foolishly owns up himself, he conserves his own life but losses all his men while the Russian mercenaries lose only two generals but preserve all their men. As a tactless and inexperienced soldier who wantonly wastes the lives of his men on the battle field, Sergius’s conquest of the Serbs at Silvinitza is therefore seen as a pyrrhic victory. For this reason Major Petkoff refuses to promote him after the war. This is why he resigns prematurely from the army.