Chocolate Soldier

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 would not fight but would look good in a uniform, shortened from 'Chocolate Cream Soldier'.

"Do you agree, Mr. Clay," she asked, "or do you prefer the chocolate-cream soldiers, in red coats and gold lace?"
(from: Soldier of Fortune by Richard Harding Davis. 1897)

It can refer to:

• The Chocolate Soldier, a 1908 operetta by Oscar Straus, based on the play Arms and the Man
• The Chocolate Soldier, a missionary recruitment pamphlet written by Charles Studd in 1912
• The Chocolate Soldier (film), a 1941 film version of the operetta, starring Nelson Eddy
• A chocolate liqueur-based cocktail, whose name is indirectly derived from the above - see List of cocktails
• Chocolate Soldier (drink), a chocolate-flavored soft drink originally made by Monarch Beverage Company of Atlanta in the 1960s
• A member of the Australian Army Reserve past or present; called 'Choco' for short. Usually a derogatory term. Also used derisively to refer to 'soft' soldiers in the Israeli Army.
• 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
• A member of the army of Chocolate Soldiers in The Wonder City of Oz (1940)
• Hot Chocolate Soldiers a 1934 Walt Disney cartoon
• One of the common names of Kalanchoe tomentosa, a succulent plant
• Two brush-footed butterflies:
  • Junonia iphita, also called the chocolate pansy
  • Junonia hedonia, also called the brown pansy