Chocolate Soldier Explained

Chocolate soldier is an expression referring to a good-looking but useless warrior, popularised by George Bernard Shaw's 1894 play Arms and the Man. The term originates as a derogatory label for a soldier who will not fight but looks good in a uniform, shortened from 'Chocolate Cream soldier'.

It can refer to:

Arts and entertainment

• The Chocolate Soldier, a 1908 operetta by Oscar Straus, based on the play Arms and the Man
• The Chocolate Soldier (film), a 1941 film version of the operetta, starring Nelson Eddy
• A member of the army of Chocolate Soldiers in The Wonder City of Oz (1940)

Flora and fauna

• A common name of Kalanchoe tomentosa, a succulent plant
• A brown-flowered cultivar of Aquilegia viridiflora, the green columbine
• Two butterflies:
  • Junonia iphita
  • Junonia hedonia

Other uses

• A chocolate liqueur-based cocktail – see List of cocktails
• Chocolate Soldier (drink), a chocolate-flavored soft drink
• A derogatory term for a member of the Australian Army Reserve
• Chocolate Soldier (Parliament), a Parliamentary assistant for an Opposition front-bench spokesman in the British House of Commons in the early 1970s, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust
• The Chocolate Soldier, a missionary recruitment pamphlet written by Charles Studd in 1912

See also

• Hot Chocolate Soldiers, a 1934 Walt Disney cartoon