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After the revolutionary enthusiasm--and the increasing irony--of Chapter III, and before the grim ironies in store for us in Chapter V, the narrative in this chapter is fast and light. With the help of his men and two neighbors, Jones tries to take the farm back by force. But Snowball, who has been reading up on Caesar\'s campaigns, has prepared the animals to defend themselves. They defeat their former master, but not before a sheep is killed and Snowball, who has flung himself right at Mr. Jones, is injured.
As described by Orwell, the \"heroic\" battle is reduced to a farce, with pigeons releasing their droppings on the men\'s heads and geese pecking the men\'s legs. There is one serious and revealing incident, though. Boxer, who has been the animals\' main fighter, believes he has killed a stable-boy (or so he thinks). It was unintentional, he says sorrowfully.
\"No sentimentality, comrade!\" cried Snowball, from whose wounds the blood was still dripping. \"War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.\"
\"I have no wish to take life, not even human life,\" repeated Boxer, and his eyes were full of tears.
Orwell\'s point is that leaders stick to the political goal, regardless of the means needed to attain it. Ordinary people, on the other hand, confronted with a real, individual human death, have more decency.
But the stable-boy is not dead after all; he gets up and runs away while the animals are searching for Mollie, who had taken flight when the farmer\'s gun went off. And the chapter ends when the animals decorate Snowball and Boxer \"Animal Hero, First Class,\" name their victory the \"Battle of the Cowshed,\" and decide to celebrate it every year.
Orwell wants to keep things light in this chapter. Yet the Battle of the Cowshed allegorically tells the story of the Russian Civil War. Why Orwell wished to treat this terrible war in this way is open to question.
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