These two chapters are most notable for anti-war satire. Voltaire was appalled by the slaughter and waste that characterized the Seven Years War, in progress at the time he wrote. This conflict has its place in the background to Candide and will be discussed later. The Bulgarians are the Prussians. Long since, critics and editors of the tale have pointed out that Voltaire chose that name to refer to his one-time patron, Frederick the Great, whom he suspected of being a pederast. The French word bougre (cf. English bugger) derives from Bulgare. Voltaire chose the term Abarians, the name of a Scythian tribe, to represent the French. But in Chapter II, the author first pokes fun at the drillmastership of Frederick the Great and implies that the "heroes" are made into mere automatons. Writing with studied casualness, he depends as usual on irony. His description of the slaughter and destruction incidental to war is absolutely devastating, and his irony reaches the apex when he tells how the rival kings retired to their respective camps to sing praises to God.
Notable also is Voltaire's offensive against religion as he found it practiced in his day. As the account of the Anabaptist's warmth and generosity indicate, Voltaire found the Church suspect when its clergy and laymen failed to be tolerant and merciful. It is of some relevance to recall that in his English Letters, he had kind words to say about the Baptists, whose practices seemed to him to be closer to those of the primitive Christians than did those of other sects. It is quite interesting that Voltaire should have chosen an Anabaptist as his Good Samaritan: apparently, deist that he was, he believed strongly in justification by works. Particularly he deplored the extremes of religious zealots.
In the category of anti-religious satire may be included what Voltaire had to say about free will. Basic to the Christian doctrine, certainly to Roman Catholicism, is the proposition that man, endowed with reason, can and must make his choice between good and evil. The well-meaning Candide found that, although he knew war to be evil, he had no choice as regards becoming a soldier or not. The best that he could do was to hide when the hostilities began.
To be sure that he does not neglect his major thesis—the attack upon optimistic philosophy—Voltaire inserts the introduction and description of the pitiable beggar who made his appearance at the end of Chapter III.
