Paths of Glory quotes

View Quote [to Dax, about Mireau] Well, it had to be done. France cannot afford to have fools guiding her military destiny.

View Quote Narrator: War began between Germany and France on August 3, 1914. Five weeks later, the German army had smashed its way to within 18 miles of Paris. There the battered French miraculously rallied their forces at the Marne River, and in a series of unexpected counterattacks, drove the Germans back. The Front was stabilized and shortly afterward developed into a continuous line of heavily fortified trenches zigzagging their way five hundred miles from the English Channel to the Swiss frontier. By 1916, after two grisly years of trench warfare, the battle lines had changed very little. Successful attacks were measured in hundreds of yards - and paid for in lives by hundreds of thousands.

View Quote Lt. Roget: "It's impossible, sir. All the men are falling back.

View Quote Judge: This is a general courtmartial and we shall therefore dispense with unnecessary formalities. These men are charged with cowardice in the face of the enemy and will be tried for that offense... The indictment is lengthy and there's no point in reading it. The indictment is that the accused showed cowardice in the face of the enemy during the attack on the Ant Hill.

View Quote Saint-Auban: And I submit that the attack was a stain on the flag of France, a blot on the honor of every man, woman, and child in the French nation. It is to us that the sad, distressing, repellent duty falls, gentlemen. I ask this court to find the accused guilty...

View Quote Ferol: What do I have to die for, Father?...I'm scared, I'm scared!

View Quote Mireau: I am responsible for the lives of 8,000 men. What is my ambition against that? What is my reputation in comparison to that? My men come first of all, George. And those men know it, too.
Broulard: I know that they do.
Mireau: You see, George, those men know that I would never let them down.
Broulard: That goes without saying.
Mireau: The life of one of those soldiers means more to me than all the stars and decorations and honors in France.

View Quote Mireau: There is no such thing as shell shock!
Soldier: Yes, I have a wife...I'm never going to see her again. I'm going to be killed.
[Mireau slaps the soldier]
Mireau: Sergeant, I want you to arrange for the immediate transfer of this baby out of my regiment. I won't have any of our brave men contaminated by him.

View Quote Mireau: I never got in the habit of sitting. I like to be on my feet. Keep on the move...I can't understand these arm-chair officers, fellas trying to fight a war from behind a desk, waving papers at the enemy, worrying about whether a mouse is gonna run up their pants leg.
Dax: I don't know, General. If I had the choice between mice and Mausers, I think I'd take the mice every time.

View Quote Roget: I thought you'd been killed.
Paris: You didn't wait around to find out, did you Lieutenant?
Roget: Now look here, what do you mean?
Paris: I mean you ran like a rabbit after you killed Lejeune.
Roget: Killed Lejeune? What are you talking about? I don't think I like your tone. You're speaking to an officer, remember that.
Paris: Oh, well, I must be mistaken then, sir. An officer wouldn't do that. A man wouldn't do it. Only a thing would - a sneaky, booze-guzzling, yellow-bellied rat with a bottle for a brain and a streak of spit where his spine ought to be. You've got yourself into a mess, Lieutenant.
...
Roget: Have you ever tried to bring charges against an officer? It's my word against yours, you know, and whose word do you think they're gonna believe - or, let me put it another way, whose word do you think they're going to accept?

View Quote Mireau: [ordering artillary fire on his own men] The troops are mutinying, refusing to advance!
[Rousseau refuses the order twice, before demanding to see it in writing]
Rousseau: Supposing you're killed. Then where will I be?
Mireau: You'll be in front of a firing squad tomorrow morning, that's where you'll be. Hand over your command and report yourself under arrest to my headquarters.

View Quote Dax: They're not cowards, so if some of them didn't leave the trenches, it must have been because it was impossible.
Mireau: They were ordered to attack. It was their duty to obey that order. We can't leave it up to the men to decide when an order is possible or not. If it was impossible, the only proof of that would be their dead bodies lying in the bottom of the trenches. They are s****, Colonel, the whole rotten regiment; a pack of sneaking, whining, tail-dragging curs.
Dax: Do you really believe that, sir?
Mireau: Yes, I do. That's exactly what I believe. And what's more, it's an incontestable fact.
Dax: Then why not shoot the entire regiment? I'm perfectly serious...If it's an example you want, then take me...One man will do as well as a hundred. The logical choice is the officer most responsible for the attack.

View Quote Saint-Auban: Did you advance?...How far did you advance?
Ferol: To about the middle of no man's land, sir.
Saint-Auban: Then what did you do?
Ferol: ...Well, I saw that me and Meyer, sir...
Saint-Auban: I didn't ask you what you saw. The court has no concern with your visual experiences...
Ferol: I went back, sir.
Saint-Auban: In other words, Private Ferol, you retreated.
Ferol: Yes, sir.

View Quote Saint-Auban: Did you urge your fellow soldiers forward?
Arnaud: Most of them were dead or wounded before they got three steps beyond the trenches.

View Quote Dax: Why didn't you leave the trenches?
Paris: Major Vignon was shot, and he fell back on top of me, sir, and knocked me cold.
Dax: And were you lying unconscious in the trenches during the entire attack?
Paris: Yes, sir.
Judge: Have you any witnesses to that?
Paris: No, sir. I guess everybody was too busy to notice me. There were so many others lying dead anyway.
Judge: But you have no witnesses?
Paris: No, sir. I only have a rather large cut on my head, sir.
Judge: That could have been self-inflicted later.