United States or Bahrain ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I had heard of martinets, and disciplinarians, and foul-mouthed captains; but this outdid all I ever could have conceived, and much more than I thought ever could have been submitted to by any correct officer. Roused to indignation, and determined not to be treated in this manner, I again walked up to him, and requested leave to go on shore. "You have had your answer, sir."
In fact, Millet was an original genius, whereas the teachers at the School of Fine Arts were careful and methodical rule-of-thumb martinets. They wished to train Millet into the ordinary pattern, which he could not follow; and in the end, he left the school, and attached himself to the studio of Paul Delaroche, then the greatest painter of historical pictures in all Paris.
It was hard to believe that these armed martinets could play with their responsibilities in such a crisis. Did they realise its gravity? Were facts being witheld? Was the true and actual condition of the city as regards provisions and the contingencies to which their scarcity might lead were these things being properly represented to the public and to Sir Redvers Buller?
Martinets of the old school gravely shook their heads, and trembled for the discipline of men without stocks and overalls. But Sir Henry Lawrence had the courage of his opinions, and determined to put his theories to practice, though at first on a small scale. Not only were the Guides to be sensibly clothed, but professionally also they were to mark a new departure.
The prospect of being subjected to that prince of martinets, Davoust, chafed his pride; and, throwing up his command, he forthwith returned to the pleasures of Cassel. By great good fortune, Bagration's force had escaped from the snares strewn in its path by the strategy of Phull and the counter-moves of Napoleon.
I am sure in the one case we never regret the want of the acuteness and eloquence of the lawyers; and so, I hope, in the other, we may manage to make shift with our hearts and muskets, though we shall lack some of the discipline of you martinets."
These irregular troops of horse might be criticised by martinets and pedants, but they contained some of the finest fighting material in the army, some urged on by personal hatred of the Boers and some by mere lust of adventure.
It was the pointer who captured their imaginations. On Saturday night, while the crowd was at supper, the decision of the judges, who always stopped at Freedom Hill, was telephoned in. And the decision showed them to be dog men, not martinets men who can overlook a grievous fault in the face of a magnificent accomplishment and a future full of promise.
He looked more like a petty officer of dragoons than a minister of the Christian religion, one of those exacting small military martinets accustomed to brow-beating and bullying every subordinate without reason or justice.
It is easy to deride martinets and pipe-clay: all the drill in Christendom will not make a good soldier out of a weakling or a coward; but, unless you can turn men into machines, so far as to make them act independently of individual thought or volition, you can never depend on a body of non-fatalists for advancing steadily, irrespective of what may be in their front; nor for keeping their ranks unbroken under a hail of fire, or on a sinking, ship.
Word Of The Day