Welcome, as always, dear readers.
If you’d seen the title of an earlier posting, “You’ve Got Mail”,
you might believe that I’m beginning to specialize in romcoms from the 1980s-90s with this title—
but, although some of the characters might be wearing mail in this posting,
(Denis Gordeev)
there’s no romance and no comedy. Instead, it involves “sally” and “harry” not as nicknames for “Sarah” and “Henry”, but as verbs and nouns of destruction.
The war to which 2nd LieutenantTolkien
arrived in mid-1916
(Peter Dennis—a real favorite of mine for his ability to recreate scenes from the past, always with small, useful details.)
was not the war planned in 1913. Into a world in which soldiers still wore fancy dress for parades—
(artist: possibly Brian Fosten?)
and cavalry officers still dreamed of heroic charges,
(Richard Simkin)
came these
and this sort of thing
with many other horrors to come and soldiers did the only sensible thing, given that they couldn’t just run for their lives, and began to dig in.
(another Peter Dennis)
On the Western Front, where Tolkien served, this eventually meant 500 miles of such digging, from Switzerland to the North Sea, until, ultimately, there were two lines of trenches, one German, one Allied, now facing each other.
People at the time were reminded of what was called siege warfare, which, in the past had meant that an army surrounded a town or a fortress, blocking access to it from the outside, usually dug trenches to mark off the area and to protect their own soldiers and, depending upon the era and its weaponry, use various war machines against the walls and those inside.
(Julius Caesar’s siege of the Gallic stronghold of Alesia, 52bc)
(a kind of idealized medieval siege by Liliane and Fred Funcken)
(the siege of Swedish-occupied Riga by the Russians in 1710, by an artist whose name appears to be “Batov”)
The difference, in this case, being that both sides seemed to be besieging the other and neither was surrounding or surrounded.
During his stay on the Western Front in 1916, Tolkien participated in a massive assault on sections of the German lines—the Battle of the Somme—in which the British suffered over 50,000 casualties on the first day alone.
(and another Peter Dennis
Big battles like this were relatively rare, however, as they required so much planning and such great resources, but, in between them, soldiers raided each other’s trenches, both to keep their own soldiers busy and to keep the enemy off balance, as well as to gain intelligence from prisoners and captured documents.
(and a further Peter Dennis)
In older, traditional sieges, the besieged might try to do the same, as well as ruin the besiegers’ siege artillery and trenches, even carrying off the enemy’s entrenching tools. This was called a “sally”, and here we can see the besieged Gauls trying this maneuver out at Caesar’s siege of Alesia in 52BC
(and yet another Peter Dennis)
and here are Texian volunteers sallying from the Alamo to destroy shacks (jacales) being used by Mexican skirmishers in 1836.
(Gary Zaboly)
“To sally” comes from French saillir, “to leap/jump”, and clearly implies “to jump out at someone”, preferably unexpectedly, and that’s why some fortresses have sally ports—
(this is at Fort Mifflin, on the Delaware River south of Philadelphia)
smaller gates which could be used for surprise attacks on attackers. And, when you sally, your job is to harry the enemy, “to harry” coming from Old English hergian (HAIR-yee-an), “to harass/plunder/ravage”, among other warlike definitions.
Tolkien, perhaps with a strong memory of trench warfare, along with a reminiscence of the desperate Gauls at Alesia, recreates one of these attacks at Helm’s Deep, where Saruman’s army of orcs and Dunlendings has begun its assault upon the outer wall.
(the artist listed for this is “Brokenhill”, but the only one I could find was an art commune in Australia, which I’m hoping is correct and which you can visit here: https://artofbrokenhill.com/ )
Strictly speaking, this isn’t really a siege, any more than the attack on Minas Tirith is really a siege, even though that’s the chapter title. Rather, it’s an escalade—an assault by ladder, which has always struck me as about the last siege attack I’d join—look at what’s happening in this one—would you want to be on the top of a rickety ladder?
Included in the escalade is an attempt to break through the main gates:
“Again the trumpets rang, and a press of roaring men leaped forth. They held their great shields above them like a roof, while in their midst they bore two trunks of mighty trees. Behind them orc-archers crowded, sending a hail of darts against the bowmen on the walls. They gained the gates. The trees, swung by strong arms, smote the timbers with a rending boom.”
That “like a roof” is, basically, a Roman formation called a “turtle”—a testudo—used in exactly the same way in Roman assaults.
(from the column of Trajan, showing Roman infantry attacking a Dacian town)
The tree trunks are improvised battering rams—although classical ones could be tipped with metal to make them more effective—
In response, Aragorn and Eomer, with “a handful of stout swordsmen”, attempt a sally:
“There was a small postern-door that opened in an angle of the burg-wall on the west, where the cliff stretched out to meet it…Together Eomer and Aragorn sprang through the door, their men close behind. The two swords flashed from the sheath as one.”
Initially, this harrying of the enemy is successful, driving them back from the gate, but then there are too many of them and Eomer is grabbed by two of the Orcs, only to be rescued by the sudden appearance of Gimli, as the sally party dodges back inside the postern/sally port, which is closed behind them.
(Donato Giancola—I’ve recommended his site before—and here it is: https://donatoarts.com/ )
But this is only the first sally—Theoden, fretting at the rapidly decaying defensive situation, as Saruman’s early blasting powder blows holes in the ancient walls of the Deep, makes a second attack, although, this time, it seems more like the action of despair, rather than a good tactic:
“But I will not end here, taken like an old badger in a trap. Snowmane and Hasufel and the horses of my guard are in the inner court. When the dawn comes, I will bid men sound Helm’s horn and I will ride forth. Will you ride with me then, son of Arathorn? Maybe we shall cleave a road, or make such an end as will be worth a song—if any be left to sing of us hereafter.” (this, as well as all of the previous quotations, are from The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 7, “Helm’s Deep”)
(Alan Lee)
It’s not, of course, a suicidal charge, as Gandalf arrives with re-enforcements and then there are the Ents, so the sally harries the Orcs to their doom among the trees
and, although there is, as I said at the beginning, neither comedy nor romance, this sally, like the romcom, has a happy ending.
As always, thanks for reading.
Stay well,
When deep in a forest, never sneer at the trees—someone might be listening,
(Alan Lee)
And remember that, also as always, there’s
MTCIDC
O
doubtfulsea 