Charge!

01 Wednesday Aug 2018

Posted by lebedusya1 in Artists and Illustrators, Films and Music, J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, The Rohirrim

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16th Lancers, Aliwal, Australian Light Horse, Australians, Balaclava, Beersheba, Cavalry, Charges, Great War, Light Brigade, Palestine, Rohirrim, Scots Greys, The Lighthorsemen, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Turks, Warhorse, Waterloo

As always, dear readers, welcome.

In an addition to an entry in Letters, the main portion of which has rather a murky history (see 217-218), but which the editor dates as “presumably written circa 1966”, Tolkien says that several features of The Lord of the Rings “still move me very powerfully”. These features include being “most stirred by the sound of the horses of the Rohirrim at cockcrow”.

As this is one of our favorite parts of the book,

we would absolutely agree, but, as is so often the case, both with JRRT and with ourselves, we wondered why.

The easiest answer is that it’s a highly-dramatic moment: the main gate of Minas Tirith is giving way under the blows of Grond, the orcs are about to pour in, and it looks like Aragorn and his companions won’t appear in time to save the situation.

We have been following the Rohirrim, of course, from their muster to their march

to their meeting with Ghan-buri-Ghan,

so the build is two-fold: the attack, which is completely focused on breaking in, and the approach of the Rohirrim. Thus, when it looks darkest, the charge is like sunlight breaking through heavy cloud.

This is a beginning, we thought, to why, but could there have been another reason for JRRT?

When Tolkien, growing up, thought of cavalry charges, he probably saw, in his mind’s eye, the glorious mounted attacks of Britain’s past, like the Scots Greys at Waterloo

image6scot

or the 16^th Lancers at Aliwal

or the Light Brigade at Balaclava.

In all of these, soldiers in bright-colored coats waved swords and lancers and dashed fearlessly against the enemy. Even his toy soldiers would have had that same devil-may-care look

as did the real cavalry of his childhood,

but, when 1914 and the Great War came, soldiers put away those bright colors and put on khaki.

But did that wild courage have to be put away, as well? In 1914, there were a few moments when even mud-colored mounted men had a moment of glory.

This wasn’t to last—at least on the Western Front and a major reason was this—

(Here’s a LINK to a clip from the film Warhorse, which shows the effect in rather a symbolic way, thank goodness! We love horses and mourn their terrible losses through all of world history—they never asked to be part of human violence and, so often, their fate was to die because of it. We also think that it’s just as well that the commander of this imaginary attack didn’t survive it—it’s absolutely inept, both in conception and its carrying-out and he would deserve to have been court-martialed.)

So, instead, those men dismounted and became infantry, fighting from hole in the ground to hole in the ground.

This was the world which JRRT

knew: heavy guns, gas, and the rattle of machine guns, no place for wide double ranks of sabre-wavers.

There was at least one bright moment, but not on the Western Front. Instead, it was in far-off Palestine, where, on 31 October, 1917, Australians and their horses swept over a line of Turkish trenches at Beersheba in a charge very reminiscent of the 19^th-century world.

Ironically, these were not cavalry at all, but Australian Light Horse—mounted infantry—who, lacking swords or sabres or lances, attacked using their long bayonets, instead.

(You can see this charge reenacted wonderfully in the 1987 Australian movie, The Lighthorsemen, one of our very favorite films of the Great War.

Here’s a LINK to the charge scene, before you see the whole film—but we recommend that you see that charge in context.)

On the whole, however, modern war had become one big, bloody ditch,

and victory came in mud-color and mass industrial slaughter. Perhaps it was a relief to imagine another world, where brave men in armor, mounted on flying horses, still had a place?

As always, thanks for reading!

MTCIDC

Lent to a Museum (Mathom.2)

07 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by lebedusya1 in Artists and Illustrators, Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Military History, Narrative Methods

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Abbotsford, armor, Ashestiel, Cartley Hole, Castle, Craigievar, cuirassier, czapska, Edinburgh, Gothic, Henry Fox Talbot, Horace Walpole, Marquis de Montrose, Mathom-house, Melrose Abbey, Napoleon's Hair, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, Rob Roy MacGregor, Scottish, Scottish Baronial, Sir Walter Scott, Strawberry Hill, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Waterloo, Waverly

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

In a posting from January, 2017, we discussed the idea of a “mathom house” at Michel Delving in the Shire. We know about this place from the Prologue to The Lord of the Rings:

“So, though there was still some store of weapons in the Shire, these were used mostly as trophies, hanging above hearths or on walls, or gathered into the museum at Michel Delving. The Mathom-house it was called: for anything that Hobbits had no immediate use for, but were unwilling to throw away, they called a mathom. Their dwellings were apt to become rather crowded with mathoms, and many of the presents that passed from hand to hand were of that sort.” (Prologue, The Lord of the Rings)

Rereading this passage this time, we were caught by two things: “some store of weapons” and “Their dwellings were apt to become rather crowded with mathoms” because, put together, they sound like part of the description of the personal Mathom-house of the original inspirer (we would say) of adventure-writing in English, Sir Walter Scott.

Trained to become a lawyer, Scott had lived for some years in several houses in Edinburgh, for much of his later life at Number 39, North Castle Street–

Although he began his rise to literary fame with the publication of The Lay of the Last Minstrel, a long poem, in 1805,

money began to pour in with his first novel, Waverley, published anonymously, in 1814.

(What a great illustration, by the way—both the first edition and the manuscript.)

Because his legal work required him to have a residence outside Edinburgh, Scott had rented this, at Ashestiel, from 1804-1811.

When the lease was up, he then invested in this rather modest farm house at what was called “Cartley Hole”, which locals called “Clarty Hole”, “clarty” being a Scots word for “mucky”, suggesting that our illustration is prettier than the actual place.

More commercially successful novels and an eventual baronetcy gave Scott grander ideas and he began to rebuild—and rebuild—the house, as well as changing its name to the more dignified “Abbotsford”, as it was near the ruins of the 12^th-century Melrose Abbey.

“Bigger” at this time might have meant something Georgian, like this—

but Scott, no doubt influenced by the Gothic ideas of people like Horace Walpole

image9hw

and his Strawberry Hill

fixed upon a design which, in time, was not only bigger, but Gothic—and Scottish, in the style called “Scottish Baronial”, like this castle at Craigievar, completed in 1626.

In a way, such a choice makes sense: many of his novels have Scots locations and they made him wealthy enough to build such a place.

This is perhaps the first photographic image of Abbotsford. It dates from 1844 and is by the English inventor, as far as we currently know, of photography, Henry Fox Talbot.

And here is a modern image.

The outside of Abbotsford is striking enough, but it’s what’s inside which made us think of a Mathom-house.

There is seemingly an endless “store of weapons”.

And then there are all of those other things. A lock of Napoleon’s hair.

image17nappy'shair.jpg

The sword of a 17^th-century Scottish hero, the Marquis of Montrose.

The sporran (purse) of that early-18^th century Highland legend, Rob Roy MacGregor.

(Scot also believed he had Rob Roy’s musket.)

And even souvenirs he had picked up from the battlefield of Waterloo, which he had visited only a short time after the battle.

Note the hole in the breastplate—and also that the headgear with it (a czapska) belongs not to the man who would have worn the breastplate, a cuirassier,

but to a French/Polish lancer

With all of these trophies tacked onto every possible surface—including full suits of armor–

we wouldn’t be surprised to see a rather familiar object, ancient, famous, which we are told “was arranged on a stand in the hall (until he lent it to a Museum)”—would you?

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

Abbotsford was opened to visitors within a few months of Scott’s death. Among those tourists were Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

They liked the place so much that, when they decided that they needed a little place in the country, Abbotsford would be one of their models.

Long after Albert’s death in 1861, the Queen continued to pay a yearly visit to Balmoral.

PPS

If you’d be interested in seeing Abbotsford as an early 20^th-century tourist might have seen it, here’s a LINK to Beautiful Britain: Abbotsford (1912).

The Man Who Was Killed

30 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by lebedusya1 in J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods

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"The Man He Killed", Adventure, British Infantry, British Militia, Crimean War, Damrod, Fantasy, Faramir, Frodo, Haradrim, History, Lamellar, Mablung, Middle-earth, military history, Military recruiters, Napoleonic Wars, Sam Gamgee, Second Boer War, The Dynasts, The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, Thomas Hardy, Time's Laughingstocks, Tolkien, Waterloo, WWI

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always. In this posting, we propose to suggest a connection—one, at the moment, at least, which we can’t prove—between Tolkien and the late-Victorian/Edwardian/Georgian (he was born in 1840 and died in 1928) poet/novelist, Thomas Hardy.

We begin with a quotation from The Two Towers, Chapter 4, “Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit”. Sam and Frodo have been taken by Faramir’s rangers and, with Damrod and Mablung as their minders, they are about to sit out the ambush staged by Faramir to destroy a column of Haradrim. Unthinkingly, Sam has become an eager spectator, and:

“Then suddenly straight over the rim of their sheltering bank, a man fell, crashing through the slender trees, nearly on top of them. He came to rest in the fern a few feet away, face downward, green arrow-feathers sticking from his neck below a golden collar. His scarlet robes were tattered, his corslet of overlapping brazen plates was rent and hewn, his black plaits of hair braided with gold were drenched with blood. His brown hand still clutched the hilt of a broken sword.”

The Haradrim are from the far south, but, wherever this man was from, he was wearing a type of armor called “lamellar”, from the Latin word, “lamella”, meaning, “a little, thin plate”, it being a diminutive of “lamina”, “a thin piece of something/a plate, leaf”. It’s a kind of protection worn over many centuries in many parts of the world. Basically, it looks like this:

It can be made, as the one described, of lamellae of bronze, or of iron, which are sewn to an underlying fabric.

So, perhaps, this dead warrior looked a bit like this:

Sam’s curiosity was quickly dampened by the sight—and it makes us wonder if what we are also seeing here is Lieutenant Tolkien’s first glimpse of a dead enemy soldier.

tolkien-x deadgerman

“It was Sam’s first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man’s name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace—“

It was this brief meditation—abruptly interrupted by the appearance of a Mumak—which reminded us of this Thomas Hardy poem, “The Man He Killed”:

“Had he and I but met

By some old ancient inn,

We should have sat us down to wet

Right many a nipperkin!

“But ranged as infantry,

And staring face to face,

I shot at him as he at me,

And killed him in his place.

“I shot him dead because —

Because he was my foe,

Just so: my foe of course he was;

That’s clear enough; although

“He thought he’d ‘list, perhaps,

Off-hand like — just as I —

Was out of work — had sold his traps —

No other reason why.

“Yes; quaint and curious war is!

You shoot a fellow down

You’d treat if met where any bar is,

Or help to half-a-crown.”

The language—“nipperkin”, “ ‘list”—and the social situation depicted: “was out of work—had sold his traps” (“traps” being slang of the time for “personal possessions”)—would suggest that the speaker is a working man. Such, along with farm boys, were prime material for military recruiters

in the Victorian world in which this poem was written (1902—published in Hardy’s Time’s Laughingstocks, 1909 ). The speaker is, in his own words, however, from an earlier day. When Hardy wrote the poem, the Second Boer War (1899-1902) was just ending, but it was hardly a war in which soldiers did as the speaker says, “but ranged as infantry,/and staring face to face,/I shot at him as he at me,/and killed him in his place.” The war had begun with British infantry attacking in spread-out lines, but still very visible on the landscape and it had cost them dearly.

Their enemy—mostly all militia—that is, part-time soldiers—had dug in from the start.

Colenso,_KwaZulu-Natal_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_16462.jpg

British losses had taught them to do the same.

What the speaker is describing sounds much more like earlier European wars, in which soldiers stood in long lines at a narrowing distance from each other and fired. The last of these, for Britain, had been the Crimean War (1854-56).

download-193789-The-23rd-Regiment-Royal-Welsh-Fusiliers-at-the-Battle-of-the-Alma-on-20th-September,-1854.jpg

Hardy, however, had a strong interest in the Napoleonic wars of the late-18^th-early 19^th-centuries, had published a massive dramatic piece, The Dynasts (1904-08), set in that period, and had even twice visited the battlefield of Waterloo (1876, 1896). Thus, we imagine that the poem’s speaker is actually describing something like this:

Had Tolkien read the Hardy poem and perhaps have even been inspired by it? Both scenes include a battlefield, a battle death, and a lingering sense of regret—although Sam hadn’t killed the man from Harad, he displays that same sense of “this was just a person, an ordinary person, once” which gives the Hardy poem its power.

As ever, we leave it to you, dear readers—what do you think?

Thanks, as ever, for reading!

MTCIDC

Charge! The End?

14 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by lebedusya1 in Films and Music, J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth

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Adventure, Bataclava, Bigelow, British, British Heavy Brigade, Cavalry, Cawnpore, Charges, Chasseurs d'Afrique, Crimean War, French, Funckens, Gandalf, Helm's Deep, John Ford, Minas Tirith, Oliphaunts, Prussian, Remington, Rohirrim, Rossbach, Russian, Schreyvogel, seige, Stagecoach, surreneder, The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Trostle Farm, Warhorse, Waterloo, Western, William Simpson

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always.

In our last, we were discussing film music, where it comes from and what it does. This brought us, as always, it seems, back to JRRT. In that post, we talked about the “Shire theme”. In this, we want to talk not about a theme, but about a scene, one we have mentioned before, the charge of the Rohirrim and the attempted raising of the siege of Minas Tirith.

Although, strictly speaking, what is happening to Minas Tirith is simply a frontal assault, not a siege in the classic sense. Although, seen in this illustration (by the wonderful husband and wife team of the Funckens), they may look the same—

in a formal siege, you surround a town/fortress

call on the place to surrender

use your heavy weapons to bombard the place

Drive the defenders back from their outer works

And then call upon the defenders to surrender—which, often they do (fewer Alamos than myth would tell you)

But, if not, a final—usually costly—attack

and, potentially, the massacre of all—or at least all of the garrison–inside. (In Jackson’s LoTR, the Orcs are certainly not taking prisoners as they break into Minas Tirith).

The charge of the Rohirrim, though, brought to mind other charges, such as the charge of the Prussian cavalry against the French/Allied army at Rossbach, in 1757—

or the French and British cavalry charges at Waterloo, 1815—

or those _other_ charges at the battle of Balaclava, 1854, that of the French 4^th Chasseurs d’Afrique

or of the British Heavy Brigade, which drove the Russian cavalry from the British camp.

Those last two remind us, of course, of one of our favorite adventure movies, the 1936 The Charge of the Light Brigade

It is not so authentic in look as the 1968 movie of the same name,

and, in fact, the film states at its opening that it’s only loosely based on actual historical events (including not only the charge, but the 1857 massacre at Cawnpore—which, in reality, occurred some three years after the Crimean War battle). It also beefs up the Russian defense—adding non-existent earthworks, for instance. Here’s the movie’s view

and here’s William Simpson’s near-contemporary illustration (Simpson arrived after the battle, but must have talked to survivors and certainly could have seen the terrain).

All of these charges were directed at enemy forces on an open battlefield. The attack of the Rohirrim actually comes from a different scenario, one which is based upon a theme familiar to those who have seen American westerns: the arrival of the cavalry in the nick of time.

In this scenario, someone is trapped and surrounded—or at least persistently assaulted by a more numerous enemy—the classic is an attack upon circled wagons

The crisis comes and it looks like those attacked are about to be overwhelmed

but, at the last minute, help arrives—the cavalry, bugles sounding, guidons waving (although that illustrated in this vidcap is the 1885 pattern and the film from which this comes takes place in 1880—then again, the uniforms are a bit odd, too—here’s Remington’s and Schreyvogel’s more accurate views, as well) rides fearlessly to the rescue.

After sorting through more than 50 westerns, we believe that the movie from which our first image comes is probably the source of the modern idea of the arrival of the cavalry—see this clip from John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939)

CLIP

This happens twice, of course, in The Lord of the Rings, first at Helm’s deep, when Gandalf arrives—

and again, as we began, at Minas Tirith. It’s interesting, however, to see that, in this second example, the cavalry rescue is not so successful, since there are those oliphaunts we discussed in an earlier posting—

In our world, it wasn’t giant oliphaunts who eventually defeated cavalry and drove them to the edges of the battlefield, where they lasted a little longer, but this

as you can see in this clip from Warhorse.

CLIP

And it’s for the best, really. It’s bad enough that we humans engage in violent actions without dragging the rest of the animal kingdom into it…

(A few of the 80 horses lost by Bigelow’s 9^th MA Battery at the Trostle Farm, 2 July, 1863—and, as a sad ps, 25 horses were killed or so badly injured that they were put down at the filming of the 1936 The Charge of the Light Brigade—this so shocked those in Congress that a law for the protection of animals in films was passed to prevent future harm).

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

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Tag Archives: Waterloo

Charge!

Lent to a Museum (Mathom.2)

The Man Who Was Killed

Charge! The End?