Blackadder: We've been sitting here since Christmas 1914, during which millions of men have died, and we've advanced no further than an asthmatic ant with some heavy shopping.
Blackadder: This is a crisis, a large crisis. In fact, if you've got a moment, it's a twelve-storey crisis with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeted throughout; twenty-four hour porterage and an enormous sign on the roof saying 'This is a Large Crisis'.
Blackadder: The guns have stopped because we are about to attack. Not even our generals are mad enough to shell their own men. They feel it's more sporting to let the Germans do it.
Blackadder: [Describing Baldrick's poetry.] It started badly, it tailed off a little in the middle and the less said about the end the better, but apart from that it was excellent.
George: The war started because of the vile Hun and his villainous empire building.
Blackadder: George, the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the globe, while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in Tanganyika. I hardly think we can we can be entirely absolved from blame on the imperialistic front.
Baldrick: I have a plan, sir.
Blackadder: Really, Baldrick, a cunning and subtle one?
Baldrick: Yes, sir.
Blackadder: As cunning as a fox who's just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University?
Blackadder: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way there could never be a war.
Baldrick: But - this is a sort of a war, isn't it sir?
Blackadder: Yes that's right, you see there was a tiny flaw in the plan.
George: What was that sir?
Blackadder: It was bollocks.
Answer: The closest we ever get to knowing his first name is in series 3, when he claims it's "Sod Off". Blackadder asks him in series 3 where this came from, and he replies "Well, when I was a kid, living in the gutter, I'd go up to the other kids and say 'Hello, I'm Baldrick'. And they'd say, 'Yes, we know. Sod off, Baldrick.'" The S in this series is likely a reference to that, but it's not addressed, and given this Baldrick is clearly different from the series 3 Baldrick, we can't draw a direct link.
Shay