Cannon fodder
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"Cannon Fodder" is an expression used to denote the treatment of armed forces as a worthless commodity to be expended. Fodder is food for livestock - the livestock in this case being cannons, the food being the soldiers sent against them.
It generally refers to situations where soldiers are forced to fight against hopeless odds, as in the trenches of World War I. The term may have been introduced during the U.S. Civil War.
Literary References
- The hero of the satirical novel The Good Soldier Svejk is drafted into the army as cannon fodder during World War I.
- The video game Cannon Fodder made light of the expression by portraying the deaths of the animated soldiers in the game humorously, and allowing the player to quickly replace lost soldiers with new ones.
See also
- Sacrificial lamb, a metaphorical reference for a person who has no chance of surviving the challenge ahead, but is placed there for the common good
- Redshirt, a stock character in science fiction whose sole purpose is to die violently soon after being introduced. This idea was widely used in the Star Trek series, created by Gene Roddenberry.