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RAINA. I wish our people were not so cruel. What glory is there in killing wretched fugitives?
As Act I begins, Louka enters to reveal that Servian fugitives are running through the streets with the Bulgarian cavalry chasing after them. Raina laments the fact that her country’s army is continuing to pursue their enemy even after winning their battle, and although she largely celebrates the fighting and Sergius’s heroism in it, this line reveals a break in her romanticized perspective. The harsh realities of war begin to emerge in this moment and will continue to manifest themselves throughout the remainder of the play.
MAN. (shamefacedly, but still greatly tickled). I didn’t laugh, I assure you. At least I didn’t mean to. But when I think of him charging the windmills and thinking he was doing the finest thing—(chokes with suppressed laughter).
Raina’s hidden fugitive, who the audience eventually learns is Bluntschli, delivers this line in Act I after comparing Sergius’s charge into battle to Don Quixote’s attempt at a heroic fight against windmills. By alluding to Don Quixote, a classic novel which satirizes chivalry and knighthood, Bluntschli suggests that Sergius’s actions were completely senseless. This perspective emphasizes the self-aggrandizing nature of battle and calls attention to just how distorted the Petkoffs’ glorifying view of war has become.
SERGIUS. And how ridiculous! Oh, war! war! the dream of patriots and heroes! A fraud, Bluntschli, a hollow sham, like love.
Sergius delivers this line in Act III after learning from Bluntschli that the Bulgarian army ruthlessly killed a friend of theirs, the man responsible for spreading the story of his stay at the Petkoffs’, by burning him alive. This news acts as the breaking point for Sergius’s understanding of war, fully destroying the once-glorified view he had of his military career. The fact that even Sergio, the aspiring hero, is willing to admit to war’s futility emphasizes just how bleak and hopeless such a cause can be.
