What is the main theme of Shaw's Arms and the Man?

Shaw's title of his play, Arms and the
Man is taken from the opening line of Virgil's epic The
Aeneid  - "Of arms and the man I sing."  The play was first produced on April
21st 1894 and was a huge success. The background of the play is the 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian
war. Virgil's Aeneid is a military epic and glorifies war whereas
Shaw's main purpose in writing the play was to criticize the romantic notions associated
with war.  This is emphatically revealed in Act I when Bluntschli tells the scared
Raina,

What use are
cartridges in battle ? I always carry chocolate instead
;

Shaw's satire against
war proved very prophetic when  the First World War broke out in 1914. It was only then
that the British were cured of their romantic notions of war.