A memorable Midway meeting: Bob Watson, veteran of Omaha Beach

While walking through the interior of the massive USS Midway this past weekend in all its stunning glory, admiring the vintage and modern planes and the cavern-like interior of the hangar deck, I came upon an elderly gentleman in fatigues sitting in front of a collage of photos. On his head was a familiar black cap sewn with gold lettering, the kind worn by members of the military to commemorate either the branch of the service in which they served or the engagement in which they fought. These hats always get my attention.

Truth be told I didn't even notice the man's battle ribbons at first, nor the Purple Heart on his chest. I was too busy gaping at the two words on his cover that chill the soul of anyone with even a passing knowledge of WWII: Omaha Beach.

Bob Watson , U.S. Sixth Naval Beach Battalion, was among the first waves of U.S. soldiers to hit Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6 1944. He was just 18 years old. When I saw him on the Midway he was just finishing up speaking with another gentleman and his wife. Passers-by occasionally glanced his way, perhaps pausing to look over his photos of Omaha, once and a while stopping and thanking him for his service. He should have been swarmed by thankful citizens. Take a look at his story on the site I've linked to. His landing craft hit a teller mine on the top of a submerged wooden obstacle, a devious construction that was part of Hitler's famous Atlantic sea wall. The ensuing explosion blew off the front door of the craft, killing more than half of the crew. Dazed and injured Watson somehow made it to shore where he was thrust immediately into the Army firing line. Later he helped to clear the beach of obstacles with a bulldozer while still under German fire. It's amazing stuff. I got to hear Watson's story and much more, speaking with this kind old warrior for the better part of an hour.

Watson's collage includes photos of him shaking hands with Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, taken on the eve of the debut of Saving Private Ryan. One of the more interesting bits from our talk was when Watson relayed his conversation with Spielberg, who had asked Watson what he liked and disliked about Ryan. "The landing scene was accurate, though not quite as bloody as what really happened that day," said Watson, noting that body parts and mangled corpses were everywhere while the ocean seemed on fire with exploding shells and burning gasoline. In general he thought it was an excellent film and a compelling portrayal of the war. His major criticism of the film? "I told Spielberg: 'Who were these guys (actors)? They're too old. All the guys I knew were almost all 18, 19 years old.'" Watson was just 18 when he hit the carnage on the beach. The thought of a bunch of 18 year olds whose first experience of combat was Omaha is sobering and horrifying. After almost an hour I shook his hand for the last time, thanked him profusely for his heroism and service, and was on my way.

I'm tempted to leave this post at that but I can't resist a bit of moralizing.

The same day Jessica Sanchez from American Idol was invited out to the Midway for a special performance  for her hometown fans. On the top deck Sanchez was surrounded by easily a thousand-plus screaming fans with handmade signs and cameras, hoping for a glimpse of a 16-year-old whose claim to fame is a good voice and some face time on a mediocre television program. Now, I have absolutely no hard feelings toward Sanchez, she seems like a nice kid, and I wish her the best in her singing career. I just found the whole cult of personality mentality a bit disheartening when the real celebrity was below decks. I couldn't help but feel that the incongruity of the situation is a rather sad reflection on the current state of our culture. Our heroes are in the history books--or in the case of Watson, living history. Not on TV. We have it all backwards.

Carnage and Culture by Victor Davis Hanson, a review

Themistocles, Alexander the Great, Cortes, and the British and American officers of the last two centuries enjoyed innate advantages that over the long duration could offset the terrible effects of imbecilic generalship, flawed tactics, strained supply lines, difficult terrain, and inferior numbers—or a simple “bad day.” These advantages were immediate and entirely cultural, and they were not the product of the genes, germs, or geography of a distant past.

--Victor Davis Hanson, Carnage and Culture

Carnage and Culture (2001) serves as a corrective in some ways to Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel. Military success is not just about east-west vs. north-south axes and favorable climates for growing crops, Hanson argues, but about cultures that value individual initiative in conjunction with discipline, and whose armies and soldiers take to the battlefield because of personal choice or the decision of an elected official. As units comprised of free individuals Western armies are invested in conflicts differently than their eastern counterparts.

Hanson says that Western armies discuss and vote on strategy before battle, have the initiative and flexibility to make changes during the heat of the fighting, and audit the performance of their military and non-military leadership afterwards. This cultural mindset makes for a better individual soldier and a more cohesive unit, one that fights in close ranks (the Macedonian Phalanx, British squares, and so on) and prefers open, head-on combat of annihilation (“shock battle” is one of Hanson’s favorite terms). The historical result is a track record of victories over lesser-motivated, more inflexible, and lighter-armored foes, even when outnumbered, such as Alexanders's rout of the Persians at the battle of Gaugamela, for example. In nearly all the major engagements in which west triumphed over east, “the same paradigms of freedom, decisive shock battle, civic militarism, technology, capitalism, individualism, and civilian audit and open dissent loom large,” Hansen writes.

Technology has certainly played a role in the military supremacy of western forces, too. Because free inquiry and rationalism are Western trademarks, European armies have been traditionally been equipped with better arms and armor, Hanson adds. But technology alone cannot account for this long track record of victory: “Themistocles’ triremes at Salamis were no better than Xerxes’, and Admiral Nagumo’s carriers at Midway had better planes than the American’s did,” Hanson explains.

The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie, a review

“Who cares who’s buried where?” muttered Craw, thinking about all the men he’d seen buried. “Once a man’s in the ground he’s just mud. Mud and stories. And the stories and the men don’t often have much in common.”

—Joe Abercrombie, The Heroes

Although it’s classified as fantasy, don’t be fooled: Joe Abercrombie’s The Heroes is every inch a war story, knee deep in mud and blood, with the term “heroes” used in a rather ironic fashion. You won’t find any heroes here, just a bunch of men trying to live through another day on the battlefield.

It’s also bloody good. While it’s not at the level of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Killer Angels, and perhaps doesn’t quite stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the same shieldwall as Steven Pressfield’s brilliant Gates of Fire, The Heroes is certainly one of the best books of its kind. Chock full of vivid combat and the incredible stress and strain of war, with a cast of memorable if not particularly deep characters and enough twists to keep you guessing to the end, it’s a terrific read for those who enjoy the sights and sounds of combat on the printed page.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Black Gate website.

Internal, external conflict ignite Cornwell’s The Burning Land

“Our gods prefer feasting. They live, Uhtred. They live and laugh and enjoy, and what does their god do? He broods, he’s vengeful, he scowls, he plots. He’s a dark and lonely god, Uhtred, and our gods ignore him. They’re wrong.”

–Bernard Cornwell, The Burning Land

Conflict — internal to fictional protagonist Uhtred of Bebbanburg, and external to blood-soaked, fire-ravaged Britain — burns brightly in The Burning Land, the fifth and latest entry in Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Stories, a partially fictionalized chronicle of the real-life Viking invasions that swept Dark Ages Britain.

A Saxon-raised-Dane, Uhtred is a microcosm of the rough mixing of Christianity and pagan culture that occurred in war-torn ninth century Britain. Uhtred is a Saxon whose father was killed in a Danish raid. Taken prisoner as a thrall to the Dane Earl Ragnar and raised hard, he nevertheless grows to love the Danes. Although they’re ferocious raiders, the Danes drink deep of life, scorn Christian virtues of humility and pity, and worship the pagan gods of Thor and Odin (they expect less of their followers than the one God, and leave more leeway for fun).

But Uhtred’s loyalties are torn. His hereditary home is the Northern kingdom of Bebbanburg and his peoples are Saxon. Over the course of the series he comes to respect the coldly pious and serious, but brilliant and fair King Alfred of Wessex (Alfred the Great) and at times reject the occasionally murderous habits of the Danish warlords.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Black Gate website.

Gemmell’s Legend remains a rousing call to arms

I love pre-battle speeches. Arnold’s “Than to hell with you!” prayer to Crom before the battle of the mounds, and Theoden’s exhortation to the Rohirrim just before their charge on the Pelennor Fields (“spears shall be shaken, shields shall be splintered!”), to name two, make me want to pick up spear and shield and wade into the fray (of course Kenneth Branagh’s Band of Brothers/St. Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V remains the best). Even though I’d never want to fight in a real shield wall, the power of these speeches admittedly give me second thoughts.

That’s probably why I loved reading David Gemmell’s Legend (1984) so much. Gemmell’s debut novel is more or less a buildup to (and execution of) a monumental battle scene, and its rousing, inspirational speeches don’t disappoint. In terms of the printed page Legend ranks right up alongside Steven Pressfield’s spectacular Gates of Fire for galvanizing battle-speeches.

Here’s one sample as delivered by Druss, the eponymous “legend” from whom the novel derives its name. Druss is an aging warrior and a veteran of innumerable battles who dusts off his axe Snaga and treks to the defense of the fortress Dros Delnoch, like an aging athlete coming out of retirement to prove he can still play. On the eve of the final battle, he rouses the outnumbered Drenai to stand with him, one last time:

“Some of you are probably thinking that you may panic and run. You won’t! Others are worried about dying. Some of you will. But all men die. No ever gets out of this life alive.

I fought at Skeln Pass when everyone said we were finished. They said the odds were too great, but I said be damned to them! For I am Druss, and I have never been beaten, not by Nadir, Sathuli, Ventrian, Vagrian, or Drenai.

By all the gods and demons of this world, I will tell you now—I do not intend to be beaten here, either!” Druss was bellowing at the top of his voice as he dragged Snaga into the air. The ax blade caught the sun and the chant began.

“Druss the Legend! Druss the Legend!”
If you like the above monologue, you’ll probably love Legend. If not, well, there’s always Magic Kingdom for Sale: Sold.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Black Gate website .

Top 10 fantasy fiction battles: Camlann

1. Battle of Camlann, from various sources

Many a spear was thrust and splintered,
Many a stern word spoken;
Many a sword was hacked and bent,
Many a helmet broken;
Noble companies clashed together,
Battering helmets bright.
A hundred thousand fell to the ground;
The boldest were quelled ere night.

Since Brutus voyaged out of Troy
And Britain for kingdom won,
No war so wonderfully fierce
Was fought beneath the sun.
By evening not a knight was left
Could stir his blood and bone
But Arthur and two fellow-knights
And Mordred, left alone.

—Le Morte Arthur

Camlann, the final battle of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, has been retold and re-imagined by authors as diverse as Sir Thomas Malory, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Bernard Cornwell, appearing in ancient sources like the stanzaic poem Le Morte Arthur (written circa 1350) and modern novels like T.H. White’s The Once and Future King (published 1958). Despite differing details of the order of battle and the manner in which its final blows were struck, all the sources agree that Camlann was the end of Arthur’s reign. He either dies outright, or is mortally wounded and spirited away to the mystical isle of Avalon from which one day he will return, healed, to repair a broken world.

Was Arthur a real figure? I suspect he was. Ancient legends, however altered they may become with the passage of years and the vagaries of recorded history, typically have some basis in fact. Most histories place Arthur as a sixth-century ‘dux bellorum’ (war-leader) or high king of the post-Roman period in Britain. His legend fomented in Geoffrey of Monmouths’s History of the Kings of Britain, was adapted and romanticized by various French poets, and eventually reached its fullest form in Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur.

But beneath all the romance and splendor of the myth—handsome knights winning favors for their lovely ladies in tournaments, or riding off gallantly on glorious grail quests and the like—is the grim, bloody battle that ended the dream. Whether it was fought in the fifth century A.D. by bearded warriors armed with spears and shield and wearing coats of ring-mail, or was a mythic 15th century tilt of plumed knights in gothic plate, Camlann kicks ass and rates as no. 1 on my list of Top 10 fantasy fiction battles. There are many reasons why it has such resonance with me, but here’s a few:

• The aging Arthur, lacing them up one last time like an aging but still dangerous prize heavyweight. Arthur bleeds pathos; betrayed by his best friend and his wife, hated by his bastard son, and unable to patch together his squabbling knights, he nevertheless rides out to battle one final time for the good of the world. He fights for a concept of what is right.

• Lancelot, Arthur’s disgraced betrayer, returning to the fray to help out his beloved king. In many versions of the story he reaches the battle too late, but I’ve always been partial to those where Lancelot returns in the nick of time, fights bravely, and dies at Arthur’s side after begging his forgiveness. See John Boorman’s Excalibur (cue lump in throat when a wild-haired Lancelot rides into the fray swinging a mace).

• Mordred is a complex enemy. Either you love to hate him, or find it hard to wholly root against him. In some versions of the tale Mordred is Arthur’s nephew and a terrible betrayer, utterly unsympathetic to the reader. In others he’s Arthur’s illegitimate child whom the King in a moment of supreme weakness tries and fails to drown after hearing a prophecy that his birth will bring ruin to Camelot. Thus Mordred’s hatred for his father and the Round Table is rather justifiable.

• The desperate nature of the affair. Order and the age of chivalry hang in the balance, and underneath the pounding hooves of Mordred’s forces can be heard the heavy footsteps of an approaching Dark Age. Against these are arrayed a thin red line of Arthur’s knights, the remains of the once great round table.

• Its finality. Everyone of consequence pretty much dies in the Battle of Camlann, including Arthur, Mordred, and the great knights Lancelot and Gawain. It’s the end of a golden age and a shining castle on a hill.

The alliterative Morte Arthure says that Mordred’s forces include 60,000 soldiers while Arthur’s troops number just 1,800 knights. The stanzaic Le Morte Arthur estimates a larger order of battle with a combined 100,000 casualties.

Camlann is often started seemingly a random when, during a parley of the opposing forces, one of Mordred’s men is stung on the foot by an adder and draws his sword to kill it. Thinking that their king has been deceived, Arthur’s knights attack. Perhaps the serpent is an allusion to Satan, the deceiver and sewer of discord, wreaking mischief on the Christlike Arthur.

Of the battle itself there are numerous versions. Bernard Cornwell wrote a memorable version in Excalibur, the concluding volume of his highly recommended Warlord Trilogy. Here Arthur’s knights engage Mordred’s in a clash of shieldwalls on a narrow strip of sandy beach (would you expect anything less from Cornwell, he of the shieldwall fetish?) Mordred’s forces vastly outnumber Arthur’s but he can’t bring them all to bear at once and his advantage is nullified. Cornwell does a usual fine job of depicting the nasty, brutish conflict that occurs in the interlocked walls of wood:

I recall confusion and the noise of sword ringing on sword, and the crash of shield striking shield. Battle is a matter of inches, not miles. The inches that separate a man from his enemy. You smell the mead on their breath, hear the breath in their throats, hear their grunts, feel them shift their weight, feel their spittle on your eyes, and you look for danger, look back into the eyes of the next man you must kill, find an opening, take it, close the shield wall again, step forward, feel the thrust of the men behind, half stumble on the bodies of those you have killed, recover, push forward, and afterwards you recall little except the blow that so nearly killed you. You work and push and stab to make an opening in their shield wall, and then you grunt and lunge and slash to widen the gap, and only then does the madness take over as the enemy breaks and you can begin to kill like a God because the enemy is scared and running, or scared and frozen, and all they can do is die while you harvest souls.

At the end of most versions of the battle only four combatants are left standing—Arthur, Mordred, and Arthur’s knights Sir Lucan and Sir Bedievere. Mordred and Arthur’s final death-duel differs depending on the source material. Most tales have Arthur running Mordred through with a spear, but suffering a mortal head-wound when the latter cleaves his helm and brain-pan with an overhand sword-stroke.

But in the alliterative Morte Arthure, Arthur, mortally wounded in the right side by a sword-stroke from Mordred, slashes off the latter’s sword-hand an inch from the elbow. Mordred falls to his knees in pain and Arthur drags him back upright again and drives Excalibur all the way up to its hilts. Cornwell’s version also has Arthur wounded in the side and right eye but concludes with Arthur chopping through Mordred’s skull-topped helmet (and Mordred’s skull beneath).

In any case, Arthur is terribly wounded, perhaps mortally. Lucan’s heart bursts as he tries to bear his wounded king from the field, leaving Bedievere as the final survivor of the battle. Arthur’s last order is for Bedievere to cast Excalibur into the sea, and after two false starts Bedievere follows his king’s command. The last rays of a red sun glitter on the sea as it dips below the horizon.

Some legends say Arthur is taken by boat to the Isle of Avalon to heal. Others say his wound was mortal and he died on the shores of the sea and was entombed there. But whether from some mystical isle or beyond the realms of death, Arthur will one day return. He is after all the Once and Future King.

***

So that does it for my top 10 fantasy fiction battles. Some honorable mentions that could have made the list on another day include The Battle of the Pelennor Fields and Helm’s Deep from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, The battle of the ice wall from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, the final battle in C.S. Lewis’s Prince Caspian, the battle of Nemedian and Aquilonian armies from Robert E. Howard’s The Hour of the Dragon, and The Battle of Yonkers from Max Brooks’ World War Z.

What are yours? Comments are welcomed.

Top 10 fantasy fiction battles: Ragnarök

2. Ragnarök, from various sources

We will give our lives and let our world be destroyed, but we will battle so that these evil powers will not live after us.

—Odin, from The Children of Odin by Padraic Column

The Twilight of the Gods. The Doom of the Gods. Not just the ending of the world, but the breaking of the world. A final battle of order vs. chaos. A creation myth that explains our dim remembrances of gods and monsters and the chants of old heroes singing in our ears. A conflict that ended in fire and darkness and ultimate defeat for the greatest gods and heroes of an age—but took evil down with it.

I’m referring of course to Ragnarök, the epic battle of giants, heroes, gods, and monsters from Norse mythology. Although I’m not aware of one definitive treatment of the battle (for this post I’m drawing upon Snorri Sturluson’s The Prose Edda and Padraic Colum’s The Children of Odin), and it lacks the detail and narrative voice of the others on my list, for sheer scope, stakes, and iconic elements, it’s almost impossible to top, and so checks in at no. 2 on my Top 10 Fantasy Fiction Battles of all time.

Ragnarök. Heck, I even love the pitiless, hard sound of its name.

Ragnarök pits Giants, a wicked race which seeks to destroy the race of men, versus a pantheon of Gods who beautify the world and elevate its inhabitants. The battle is leant an extra degree of poignancy by the fact that Odin knows the Gods are going to lose. But victory is not their goal—they’re fighting to smash the enemy and not let them rule the world. Ragnarök is the essence of the northern theory of courage that J.R.R. Tolkien so loved: bravery and unshakeable resolve in a hopeless situation.

Ragnarök is preceded by three consecutive hard winters without a summer. Great battles rock the world, brutal conflicts pitting brother against brother in wars of destruction. Humanity is at its lowest ebb and can only be cleansed by fire:

Brothers will fight
and kill each other,
sisters’ children
will defile kinship.
It is harsh in the world,
whoredom rife
—an axe age, a sword age (and the sun rises)
—shields are riven—
a wind age, a wolf age—
before the world goes headlong.
No man will have
mercy on another.

Then comes the final battle. Heimdall, Watcher of the Gods and Warder of the Rainbow Bridge, sees the advancing host of foes and blows the Gjallarhorn. The Gods awaken and assemble. Valhalla opens its 540 doors with 800 champions ready to pass through each door. That’s 432,000 of the greatest champions, ever. The mind reels.

And that’s not counting the Gods themselves, the Aesir and the Vanir, the Asyniur and the Vana, the Einherjar and the Valkyries. I’ve always liked the thought of the Valkyries—fair maidens who collect the souls of the bravest warriors from the battlefield and take them to Valhalla on flying horses—engaging in the battle. They know the tremendous stakes involved in its outcome. The great host is resplendent in its war-gear and Odin rides in the vanguard. Writes Colum: “Odin rode at the head of his Champions. His helmet was of gold and in his hand was his spear Gugnir. Thor and Tyr were in his company.”

But the forces of evil are equally mighty—so mighty, in fact, that Ygdrassil, the World Tree whose roots are deeper than memory, is said to tremble. “And nothing, whether in heaven or on earth, is without fear,” writes Sturluson. The forces of evil include Surtur and his army of fire giants, Hrym and his host of frost giants, Jormungand, the midgard serpent, whose length encircles the globe, Fenrir, a wolf whose gaping mouth reaches from the ground to the sky, and Garm, the hound with the bloody jaws. The traitorous god Loki (whose father is a Giant and is thus allied with the forces of evil) leads into battle all of the dead from the realm of his daughter Hel. The rainbow bridge shatters and falls into pieces under their weight.

The combat is fierce and apocalyptic. Fenrir slays Odin. Vidar, the Silent God, places his leather sandaled foot in its lower jaw and seizes the wolf’s upper jaw, then tears its head apart. Thor crushes Jormungand with a hammerstroke from Miolnir, but the serpent in its death throes spews its choking and blinding venom. Thor perishes (too soon for me, I wanted to see the thunder god pulverize some Giants with his hammer). Loki and Heimdall slay each other in single combat. Garm slays Tyr but is himself slain by the one-handed God.

The fire giant Surtur sets the world on fire with his blazing sword, evoking thoughts of some great nuclear holocaust. Surtur and his host are consumed in the fire. Ygdrassil is said in some versions of the story to go up in flames as well, perhaps symbolic of the passing of the spring from the earth. Others claim it survives and gives root to a new world from the ashes of the old.

The wolf Hati devours the Sun (Sol) and the wolf Managarm devours the moon (Mani). Stars fell and darkness came down over the world. Writes Colum: “The seas flowed over the burnt and wasted earth and the skies were dark above the sea, for Sol and Mani were no more.”

Eventually the earth springs green again and a new sun and moon arise. The death of the world paves the way for what could be a Christian creation myth: Corum writes of a new heaven above even Asgard. “Will and Holiness ruled in it.” Deep in a wood two of human kind are left, parallels to Adam and Eve. “A woman and a man they were, Lif and Lifthrasir. They walked abroad in the world, and from them and from their children came the men and women who spread themselves over the earth.”

Top 10 fantasy fiction battles: The Battle of Thermopylae

3. Gates of Fire, Steven Pressfield
Battle of Thermopylae

"Answer this, Alexandros. When our countrymen triumph in battle, what is it that defeats the foe?”

The boy responded in the terse Spartan style, “Our steel and our skill.”

“These, yes,” Dienekes corrected him gently, “but something more. It is that.” His gesture led up the slope to the image of Phobos.

Fear.

Their own fear defeats our enemies.

“Now answer. What is the source of fear?”

When Alexandros’ reply faltered, Dienekes reached with his hand and touched his own chest and shoulder.

“Fear arises from this: the flesh. This,” he declared, “is the factory of fear.”

The above dialogue from Steven Pressfield’s incomparable Gates of Fire (in addition to reminding me a bit of the famous “what is best in life?” exchange from Conan the Barbarian) is one of those grab-you-by the throat moments in which you realize that there existed such a thing as a warrior culture. The ancient city-state of Sparta offers prima facie evidence of such a society. Its entire purpose was to produce unstoppable, peerless, fearless fighting men. As a result the Spartans boasted the best warriors of their own, and perhaps any, age.

The Spartans’ legendary prowess was put to the ultimate test when a two-million man Persian army under King Xerxes poured into Greece in 480 BC to enslave the western world. The ensuing events are now the stuff of legend: 300 Spartans were dispatched to slow the advance of the Persian forces at the Hot Gates, a narrow strip of land between the cliffs and sea. All were killed, but the Persian army was delayed for seven crucial days, which bought the rest of Greece enough time to mobilize, unify, and ultimately defeat the Persians at Salamis and Plataea. The west was saved.

How did the Spartans hold out so long at Thermopylae and eventually beat the Persians? The answer lay in a combination of superb training and an unbeatable martial mindset. The armies of Xerxes sewed fear in their opponents with their overwhelming numbers. Their hordes of archers, for instance, were said to fire enough arrows to blot out the sun. But Xerxes did not understand the nature of the opponent he faced in the Spartans, who were not only exquisitely trained and skilled with shield, spear, and sword, but quite simply knew no fear in battle. Theirs was not the mindless, slavering fearlessness of a barbarian horde bolstered with liquid courage, but the unbreakable fearlessness of superbly disciplined soldiery. The fear of death was stamped from the Spartans during a pitiless 13-year period of training that turned boys into iron-hard warriors who regarded dying on the battlefield as a gift. I would have wet my pants and defecated if I had to stand in a shield wall and fight belly-to-belly with an opponent who wanted to kill me; the Spartans relished the opportunity.

Gates of Fire offers its reader battle without compromise. Post-traumatic stress disorder wasn’t in the Spartans’ vocabulary. That’s actually not fair: The Spartans mourned and honored their dead. After battles they wept and shook, or fell on their knees and thanked the Gods they survived. They were in the end only men, after all. But this never occurred during battles, which the Spartans conducted with ruthless efficiency and impeccable discipline. In the midst of the unspeakable carnage of the shield wall they entered into a displaced state of mind which allowed them to avoid a condition called katalepsis, or “possession, meaning that derangement of the senses that comes when terror or anger usurps dominion of the mind.” Gates of Fire introduces its readers to a host of these Spartan descriptors—Arosis (harrowing, or a hardening the will), Phobos (fear), Aphobia (fearlessness), Andreia (true courage). Pressfield also acquaints his readers with the Spartans’ fearsome eight-foot war spears and their most prized possession, 20-pound shields of bronze and wood that served as both protection and offense, a battering ram whose rim could crush an opponent’s skull.

Pressfield simply writes awe-inspiringly well about the Spartans’ training and discipline and how it manifests itself during battles. From an early skirmish against the Syrakusans:

Now from the Lakedaemonian ranks rose the paean, the hymn to Castor ascending from four thousand throats. On the climactic beat of the second stanza,

Heaven-shining brother
Skyborne hero

the spears of the first three ranks snapped from the vertical into the attack.

Words cannot convey the impact of awe and terror produced upon the foe, any foe, by this seemingly uncomplex maneuver, called in Lakedaemon “spiking it” or “palming the pine,” so simple to perform on the parade ground and so formidable under conditions of life and death. To behold it executed with such precision and fearlessness, no man surging forward out of control nor hanging back in dread, none edging right into the shadow of his rankmate’s shield, but all holding solid and unbreakable, tight as the scales on a serpent’s flank, the heart stopped in awe, the hair stood straight up upon the neck and shivers coursed powerfully the length of the spine.

This scene (and many others like it) are to me what make Gates of Fire such a great book. Yes, the battles are awesome and Thermopylae is enough to earn a place in my Top 10 Fantasy Fiction Battles. But it’s the lead-up to the battle that’s the crowning achievement of the book.

Once the Battle of Thermopylae begins the action and the carnage are unrelenting. Thermopylae is like some great marathon without a finish line; the warriors fight on, day after day, beyond endurance, until they are ground down and destroyed. Each day the Spartans take the field thinned in number, horribly wounded, dog-tired, but committed to the purpose. They were going to die and they knew it. Their wives and children and peers expected no less and would not have accepted surrender or retreat.

The Spartans were not only better trained and more motivated but had topography on their side at Thermopylae. They built a wall of rough stone, the height of two men, from which they mounted their defense. The narrow defile of the Hot Gates allowed a maximum of 1,000 Persians to close with the defenders, of which there were 4,000 (the 300 were reinforced with other Greek soldiers). This created a pinch point of death, a meatgrinder into which the Persians marched. Xerxes’ watched over the battlefield from a throne perched on the cliffs; he expected his men to finish off the Greeks on the first morning and be treated to a warm noontime lunch.

The Persians, needless to say, didn’t know what was about to hit them. Their army was built for mobility and fighting on the open plains; they bore wicker shields, bows, javelins, and scimitars and were lightly armored. Fighting in close quarters against the Spartans and the massed heavy infantry of the Greeks resulted in their massacre. The Spartans’ phalanx hit the Persians like an armored rugby scrum and smashed and trampled them down, then speared them underfoot. They shoved them over cliffs en masse, tumbling them 200 feet to shatter on the rocks or drown in the churning sea below.

After the first day of fighting the Hot Gates looked like a scene out of hell. Writes Pressfield: “The ‘dance floor,’ now in full shadow, looked like a field ploughed by the oxen of hell. Not an inch remained unchurned and unriven. The rock-hard earth, sodden now with blood and piss and the unholy fluids which had spilled from the entrails of the slain and the butchered, lay churned in places to the depth of a man’s calf.”

On the sixth night the Spartans made one last desperate attempt to turn the tide, sending a handful of Peers on a forced march through the night to assassinate Xerxes in his tent. The attempt comes up just short. The next day most of the remaining Greek allies withdrew, leaving barely 100 of the original 300 Spartan Peers to guard their withdrawal. A few hundred Greeks remained behind as well. All die to the last man, save one, Xeones, who will go on to narrate the tale.

Before the final battle each of the leading Spartan Peers offers up some final words to their comrades in arms. Here’s a bit of King Leonidas’ speech, issued from this great king of 60 years, one tricep torn through in the fighting, shield lashed to his useless arm, recounting what men a hundred generations yet unborn will remember of this great last stand:

“They will come, scholars perhaps, or travelers beyond the sea, prompted by curiosity regarding the past or appetite for knowledge of the ancients. They will peer out across our plain and probe among the stone and rubble of our nation. What will they learn of us? Their shovels will unearth neither brilliant palaces nor temples; their picks will prise forth no everlasting architecture or art. What will remain of the Spartans? Not monuments of marble or bronze, but this, what we do here today.”

I wrote in a previous review that when you read Gates of Fire you feel as though you’re in the shieldwall, amid sweating, straining men awaiting the clash of spear and sword. I felt exhausted, terrified, and exhilarated while reading it. That’s the highest praise I can bestow on a battle-novel, of which, like the Spartans themselves, Pressfield's book is peerless.

Top 10 fantasy fiction battles: At last, the final, bloody three

After a lengthy and rather inexcusable hiatus, I’m finally bringing my Top 10 Fantasy Fiction Battles series to its savage, bloody conclusion. Spears shall be shaken, shields splintered, and Odin’s corpse hall shall overflow with fallen warriors, their souls borne away from corpse-strewn battlefields on the winged steeds of valkyries. Or something like that.

As a reminder this series focuses on the best mass battles of fantastic fiction, not small skirmishes or one-on-one duels. Note too that the term fantasy is a bit of a misnomer since a few these battles are historical fiction, but I chose to include them because they are either so ancient or so shrouded in legend that out of necessity they were heavily re-imagined by their respective authors. Plus, they kicked too much ass to leave them off the list--some of the best battle scenes I've read were penned by authors of historical fiction.

Look for the next installment a bit later this week. Here are links to the first seven parts:

4. The Battle of Unnumbered Tears, from The Silmarillion

5. The Demons Before Carce, from The Worm Ouroboros

6. Battle of Five Armies, from The Hobbit

7. A Hero Strives With Gods, from The Iliad

8. Battle of Cynuit, from The Last Kingdom

9. Battle of the Blackwater, from A Clash of Kings

10. Battle at Leidhra, from Hrolf Kraki’s Saga

Cimmerian sighting: Adrift in The Pacific

I’ve always had a fascination with World War II. When I was a kid I played with army soldiers and guns, pretend battles with friends that always pitted the U.S. vs. Germany. When I got older I started to read about the war, broadening my interest from its tanks and planes and guns to its root causes, its personalities, its tactics and triumphs, and its tragedies.

But it wasn’t really until 1998’s Saving Private Ryan that I grasped the true hell of combat. Even now, some 12 years later, when I think about those landing craft approaching the beaches at Normandy, my palms break out in sweat, my heart begins to race, and my damn testicles crawl up inside my body.

I had the same reaction watching 2001’s Band of Brothers. When Easy Company’s paratroopers bail out over France into heavy flak and tracer bullets, landing spread across hostile fields in which enemy soldiers wait below, wanting only to kill them, my first thought was an incredulous, Men actually did this?

The memories of these scenes left me eagerly anticipating the 10-part HBO miniseries The Pacific, which switches the action from the European theatre of war to the savage battles waged against the Japanese. Having recently read With the Old Breed—an outstanding combat memoir by Marine infantryman Eugene Sledge, and one of the books upon which the mini-series is based—I knew The Pacific had the underpinnings to be very, very good. And with the same superstar producer duo that brought us both Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers—Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks—I was hoping that lightning would strike thrice with The Pacific.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site.

Blogging The Silmarillion: The breaking of the siege of Angband and other (myth) busting

Part five of Blogging the Silmarillion continues with chapters 16-20 of the Quenta Silmarillion.

—

By the command of Morgoth the Orcs with great labour gathered all the bodies of those who had fallen in the great battle, and all their harness and weapons, and piled them in a great mound in the midst of Anfauglith; and it was like a hill that could be seen from afar. Haudh-en-Ndengin the Elves named it, the Hill of Slain, and Haudh-en-Nirnaeth, the Hill of Tears.

—J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, “Of the Fifth Battle”

If you had but four words to describe the action of Chapters 16-20 of The Silmarillion, you could do worse than all hell’s breaking loose. It’s a section I equate to a great turning of the tide against the forces of good.

In fact, Hell breaking loose is almost a literal interpretation of what happens in the fourth great Battle of Beleriand, the Dagor Bragollach (Battle of Sudden Flame). From the deep pits and mines of hellish Angband issue great streams of fire, followed by hosts of orcs, Balrogs, and the dragon Glaurung. It’s very much as if Gehenna, on the orders of Satan, were to empty its bowels of fell spirits and demons. The Noldorin guarding Angband are destroyed or driven back as Morgoth, pent up in his fortress for nearly 400 years, breaks out with a fury and a vengeance.

Seventeen years after this eruption, the forces of good marshal for another great cast at overthrowing Morgoth and ending his reign of terror. The result is the Nirnaeth Arnoediad (Battle of Unnumbered Tears), whose enduring image is a great hill of corpses of Elves, Men, and Dwarves, captured magnificently in the above piece of art by the incomparable Ted Nasmith. The Doom of the Noldor comes home fully to roost as the grieving wives and children of the slain indeed shed “tears unnumbered.” With the defeat, Elven might in Beleriand, save in a defensive capacity only, is smashed. It’s one of the greatest and at the same time most heartbreaking scenes of battlefield ruin I’ve read.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site.

Epic battles of Middle-earth in miniature

I'd like to offer a half-hearted apology to readers of The Silver Key who don't care much for Middle-earth. Until I get through Blogging the Silmarillion, for now and in the foreseeable future it's all Tolkien, all the time.

But although I've been shirking RPGs and gaming these days, I thought gamers and Tolkien fans alike would appreciate this link. It's a site with some great pictures of miniatures and detailed descriptions of some of the large-scale battles of Middle-earth, from The Silmarillion all the way up through The Lord of the Rings. These were articles originally published in Miniature Wargames magazine; the owner of the Web site is apparently the author.

Awesome stuff. My personal favorite is Helm's Deep. That and the picture of Eowyn and the Witch-King from the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.

I love miniatures and wish I had the time and patience (and talent) to do work like this.

Cimmerian sighting: My top five reads of 2009

Merry Christmas! With the end of the year approaching I thought I would put together one of those ever-popular “best-of” lists for your consideration.

Following are my top five books that I’ve either read or re-read in 2009, and that I thought may be of interest to readers of The Cimmerian. If you’re looking for a few ideas for those book gift cards in your stocking, I highly recommend any of the following for purchase.

They make for pretty grim reading, but hey, The Cimmerian has always been less about “caroling out in the snow” and more of the “scary ghost stories, and tales of the glories” bent when it comes to the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site.

Cimmerian sighting: Best battle-speeches

I’m no war-monger, nor do I make light of real battles and their terrible cost. But there’s no doubt that mass-combats make for great cinematic drama, especially in their build-up and occasionally in their denouement. Here on the day after Veterans Day, I’m marking the occasion by taking a look back at a film that every battle-aficionado should watch at least once: Henry V.

Many fantasy fans lament the lack of good movies in the genre, myself included. But I will say that you’re missing out if you haven’t given Henry V a chance (I speak here of the Kenneth Branagh 1989 film. I haven’t yet seen the 1944 version with Laurence Olivier). While it’s obviously not fantasy, Henry V has a lot of the trappings of the genre (armored knights, archers, kings, castles, etc.). It’s also got some surprisingly good combat sequences, as well as a few of the most rousing battle-related speeches/sequences ever put to film.

Despite its excellent reputation, I held off watching Henry V for a long time. My reasoning: How good could a Shakespeare film be? Impenetrable? Likely. Boring? Most certainly. Or so I thought.

I admit it; I was wrong.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian web site.

Thanks to the vets

I came across a great video today, courtesy of MSN.com/The History Channel: colorized footage of just-restored footage from Okinawa, originally shot in 1945. Here's another one of Iwo Jima. Both are highly recommended (you may have to wade through a commercial first).

I love the old black-and-white combat footage, but it sometimes adds another layer of separation and unreality from what was a very bloody, violent, and not-so-distant conflict. While I'm not wild about the idea of colorizing old movies, when it comes to actual footage of real events, I'm all in favor.

To all of our war veterans, past and present, thank you for your service.

To old friend and World War II veteran Ed Cassidy, laid to rest this past weekend in Andover, NH, God speed.

Cimmerian sighting: Iron Maiden's The Trooper

(Note: Over at The Cimmerian, fellow blogger Deuce Richardson asked if we could supply posts to commemorate October 25th, which has resounded throughout military history as a date for epic, bloody battles. Following is my tribute to a famous charge and the heavy metal song that immortalized it, at least in my eyes).

Not everyone who comes to appreciate history arrives via the same path. Some have their interest piqued in school by reading traditional textbooks. Others learn from wisdom passed down in tales told by grandparents and great-grandparents. Still others get hooked from watching the (occasionally) fine programming of the History and Discovery channels.

Then there are those who learned about great historic battles at the feet of those long-haired, spandex-encased professors of heavy metal, Iron Maiden. I count myself in this crowd. ‘Twas Maiden who got me more interested in learning about the horrific World War I battle of Paschendale. ‘Twas Maiden that helped provide the impetus for my lifelong love of World War II with their take on the Battle of Britain, “Aces High.” And of course, it was Maiden that helped spark my interest in that famous engagement of the Crimean War, the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava.

This insane, glorious charge of horsemen into the roaring mouths of Russian guns was of course made famous by British poet Alfred Tennyson in his poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” But for those denim-jacketed outcast teens growing up in the 80’s, the Charge was immortalized by Maiden in their smash-hit, “The Trooper.” I've always thought of Iron Maiden as the heavy metal band that catered to the semi-nerdy crowd. If you were smart, you liked history and of course you liked Iron Maiden.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian web site.

Cimmerian sighting: Reveling in the slaughter of Agincourt

Bernard Cornwell’s Agincourt (2009, HarperCollins Publishers) does not tell the story of a battle, but rather of a terrible red butchery. Englishmen poleaxing French men-at-arms like cattle. Nobles, men of dignity and fine lineage and status, lying kicking in the mud, screaming, as low-born archers pried open their visors and thrust daggers through their eyes and into their brain. Gruesome stuff.

True, Agincourt was a great victory for the English in the Hundred Years’ War, one that has resounded through the ages. The events of October 25, 1415 are an incredible tale of a few (6,000 English soldiers) prevailing against many (an estimated 30,000 French knights and men-at-arms). The battle has gained additional resonance by Shakespeare’s magnificent play Henry V. But its actual events were not glorious.

In other words, it’s a tale that historical fiction writer extraordinaire Bernard Cornwell was born to tell. And tell the story he does, quite faithfully and well, although it does come off as a bit formulaic.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site .

Axis and Allies--the relaunch

One of the highlights of my vacation was getting a game of Axis and Allies together with a couple of guys from my regular D&D group. I used to play A&A quite a bit as a youth and into my teenage years, back when it seemed like everyone had a copy of the game. But after loaning out my copy to a friend and never getting it back, and losing interest over the years, A&A had become a distant, pleasant memory of games past, sort of like Runequest or Top Secret.

A couple years ago I started getting the itch to try A&A again. It came about naturally, as a result of my lifelong interest in World War II and the urge to recreate the great battles of the European and Pacific theaters of war. I did some web-browsing and was pleased to discover that not only was A&A still a viable game, but that it had undergone a fairly substantial revision in 2004 and was reportedly "new and improved." On a whim I added it to my Christmas list, and in addition to the usual sweaters and underwear recieved a copy from my wife. There it sat for two more years, until last Sunday, when I finally had the opportunity to once again wage war on a world-wide scale circa 1942.

The new version of A&A includes two new pieces (destroyers and artillery) and several new twists on old units (tanks defend at a 1-3 on a D6, battleships can take 2 hits, fighters are cheaper, transports can carry more, etc.). Perhaps the biggest change of all, however, is that the new game boasts a newly redrawn map. Sure, WWII still takes place in Europe, Asia, Africa, etc, but the new edition divides the land and sea up into more spaces. Crossing the Atlantic is more difficult, Germany and Russia battle along more fronts, and, in general, movement and positioning are more important and require more decision making than before. In short, it's a lot more difficult for Russia to place mass infantry along its border and play fortress Moscow--the Krauts can affect a breakthrough a lot easier by attacking along a bigger front. In turn, the Russkies can counterattack more effectively and the Eastern front becomes more vulnerable for the Nazis as well. There's also more neutral territories and natural obstacles that block movement (the Sahara desert is now a considerable nuisance, for example).

A&A third edition also includes National Advantages, cool new optional rules that allow for events like the Russian Winter, Kamikaze and Kaiten attacks, U-Boat wolf packs, radar, superfortresses, and more. Since this was our first game with the revised rules we reigned in our enthusiasm and picked only one National Advantage each (Niall was ready to go full-bore with all six for each combatant).

On the surface, the new rules seemed to make for a more robust, realistic, and enjoyable play experience, but we were soon to find out.

On Sunday Niall and Steve and I went at it in a marathon session which lasted from roughly noon until 8:30 p.m (yes, I have a great wife who lets me do these things from time to time--you cannot have her). Niall and I took the Allies (I was Britain, he the U.S. and Russia) while Steve played the Axis powers of Germany and Japan. Steve, while also a newcomer to the new edition, had played A&A extensively a short while ago and thus had the important advantage of recent experience over Niall and I, hence the decision for us to join forces. To add to the ambience of the game, I brought along my authentic WWII army helmet and Japanese bayonet, as well as a copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War. In hindsight, I should have read the latter before we began.

Alas, the combined years of expertise and WWII knowledge that Niall and I brought to the table were no match for Steve's aggressive Axis stratagems, particularly his brilliant handling of Japan. While Germany fought Russia to a stalemate and maintained enough sea and air power to prevent any U.K. sorties across the English Channel, the Japanese went on a conquest of Asia, taking all of Eastern Russia, Southeast Asia, China, and even India and its neighboring countries. Steve's land grab built the Japanese from a starting 30 IPCs (Industrial Production Certificates, or money) to over 50, which he used to purchase an intimidating submarine fleet that kept the U.S. from crossing the Pacific.

Simultaneously, the Japanese fighters (land and carrier-based), harried my meagre U.K. forces off the coast of Africa while sweeping away the light resistance Russia could manage in the East (being otherwise occupied with surging German tanks, artillery, and infantry).

In hindsight, in addition to Steve's good play, we (the Allies) made some tactical errors. As I see it, they included:

• As the U.K. I should have made all efforts to place and hold an industrial complex in India, which would have allowed me to bring my forces to bear in Southeast Asia and stem the Japanese advance. Instead, I opted to put my complex in South Africa. I eventually wound up holding most of Africa with the help of the U.S., but it was far too little, too late.
  
• The U.S should have been more aggressive. Niall played a very good Russia, beating back German advances with good use of fighter-supported infantry, but Russia cannot hold both fronts. The U.S. was hindered by some hard early blows to its fleet by the aggressive Japanese, but could have nevertheless made greater efforts to establish a beachhead in Asia.

By the end of the game, we were whipped, and Niall and I conceded with German troops at the doorstep of Moscow and Japan holding enough territory to make Alexander the Great green with envy. Still, our ignorance of the rules made it too easy for Steve. Late in the game Germany secured rockets with an industrial breakthough, allowing the Nazis to use their antiaircraft pieces for long range, IPC-draining attacks on London and Moscow. With his large number of artillery, captured and otherwise, Steve rained 3d6 worth of IPC terror on our cities, draining our cash reserves and reinforcements to nil.

The addition of rockets seemed very powerful at the time--game-unbalancingly-powerful--so afterwards I checked the rules, which clearly state that a industrial complex may only suffer one rocket attack per turn, and cannot lose more IPCs than the territory's income value (of which London and Russia each have 8). Our error allowed Steve to make multiple attacks and wreak more financial loss than the rules dictated.

But in all fairness, the handwriting was on the wall and our defeat was inevitable by that point. Steve had us beaten even before Nazi V-2s started raining havoc from the skies.

Still, I'm very much looking forward to the rematch. I can definitely say that a great day was had by all, and that A&A very much holds up as a great game and a nice change of pace from RPGs.

Cimmerian sighting: A harrowing look into 'The Face of Battle'

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, [conjure] up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favor’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let it pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.

–William Shakespeare, Henry V

My copy of The Face of Battle greets its reader with the profiled, mail-coifed skull of a Swedish soldier killed in the Battle of Visby, 27 July 1361. This simple, arresting image serves as a proverbial “worth a thousand words” summary of author John Keegan’s seminal work of military history. It is, in my opinion, a must-read for devotees of historical and/or fictional combat.

When I read fantasy literature I often find myself caught up in the action, thrilling in the swirl of combat without regard for the carnage and misery that actual battle wreaks on its participants. The Face of Battle is the bitter antidote to these vicarious feelings of heroism and joyous slaughter that possess me during my literary excursions, reminding me that a battlefield—medieval, Napoleonic, modern, or Hyborian Age, for that matter—is no place that I’d really want to be. Ultimately, Keegan’s book is a powerful statement against the insanity of armed conflict.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site .

Top 10 fantasy fiction battles: The Battle of Unnumbered Tears

4. The Children of Hurin, J.R.R. Tolkien
Nirnaeth Arnoediad

Great was the triumph of Morgoth, and his design was accomplished in a manner after his own heart; for Men took the lives of Men, and betrayed the Eldar, and fear and hatred were aroused among those that should have been united against him.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

As much as I enjoy the Battle of the Pelennor Fields and the Battle of Five Armies, neither can compare in size, pathos, devastation, and sheer magnificence with the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, also known as the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, one of the six major battles of the First Age of Middle Earth. Imagine magnificent elf-lords in gleaming armor and high white helms, doughty dwarves blasted with dragon fire, Balrogs engaging in single combat, a battle of betrayal, of bravery and sacrifice, and of ultimate ruin. That is the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.

Though not quite as enormous as the War of Wrath, the Battle of Unnumbered Tears is massive in scope. This Wikipedia entry does a nice job of pulling together an order of battle that estimates 330,000-500,000 orcs in the hosts of Angband, the fortress of the dark lord Morgoth. Opposing them is a force of approximately 85,000-120,000 elves, men, and dwarves.

If these massive armies weren’t enough, Morgoth's forces are reinforced with balrogs, trolls, wolves, and the dragon Glaurung. That’s right—balrogs and a dragon are involved in the battle. The armies of elves, men, and dwarves include several great heroes of their age, such as are rarely seen in the Third Age of Middle Earth (the age in which The Lord of the Rings takes place) and of which songs are still sung.

Such a battle defies description: Even Tolkien, its creator, can’t do it justice. As he writes in The Children of Hurin:

Many songs are yet sung and many tales are yet told by the Elves of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, in which Fingon fell and the flower of the Eldar withered. If all were now retold a man’s life would not suffice for the hearing.

I’d be willing to sit at the feet of Tolkien's shade and listen to a full recounting of the battle, but I have only one life to give to the endeavor. Alas, as it now stands, our only description of the battle are eight pages in The Children of Hurin and a brief section of The Silmarillion. Still, what is told and/or hinted at is enough to easily earn the battle a place in my Top 10 Fantasy Fiction Battles.

As befits its name, the Battle of Unnumbered Tears results in perhaps the most devastating loss on the battlefield for the forces of good in J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium—utter defeat of the Noldor elves, the death of Fingon, their king, and the capture and eventual torture of the great human hero Hurin. It’s an antidote for critics who accuse Tolkien of being soft on war, and a teller of easy, child-friendly tales in which the forces of good always prevail. This opinion (and I've seen it espoused in more than one place) is horseshit.

The battle rages for at least six days, from what I can gather from the text, and is like a great, slowly unfolding tragedy. The forces of good are well-prepared, confident, and hold the high ground, and when Turgon and his 10,000-strong army issues uncalled for from Gondolin, Fingon’s heart is filled with hope of final victory. “The day has come! Behold, people of the Eldar and Fathers of Men, the day has come!” he says.

But a black night is in store. The Captain of Morgoth sends out heralds with tokens of parley, and bring with them Gelmir, a lord of Nargothrond, an elven lord whom Morgoth had blinded in captivity. The heralds cruelly hew off his arms and legs in plain sight of the elves and leave him to die. As fate would have it, Gelmir’s brother Gwindor sees this act of butchery and charges the heralds in a blind rage, slaughtering them. His forces continue the attack all the way through the gates of Angband, penetrating so far and with such wrath that Morgoth himself, hearing Gwindor and his men beating upon his door, trembles on his throne. But Gwindor is trapped at the doors and captured, and all his folk slain there.

Back on the field, Fingon and the main body of the elves have followed Gwindor onto the battle-plain where they no longer have the advantage of high ground, and there begins the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, “all the sorrow of which no tale can contain,” Tolkien writes. The field is lost when Gothmog, a balrog and high-captain of Angband, meets King Fingon in combat on the field. Fingon fights Gothmog to a standstill until a second balrog comes behind him and casts a throng of steel around him. Gothmog hews Fingon’s white helm with a stroke of his black axe, killing the elven king. “Thus fell the King of the Noldor; and they beat him into the dust with their maces, and his banner, blue and silver, they trod into the mire of his blood.” In addition, the Easterlings turn traitor and fall upon the rear of the sons of Feanor, helping to turn the tide of battle in favor of Morgoth.

Fingon’s younger brother Turgon escapes back to Gondolin thanks to a brave, suicidal rear guard action by Hurin and his brother Huor. This is perhaps the most poignant pause in a battle filled with such moments. Says Huor to the elf-lord:

“This I say to you, lord, with the eyes of death: though we part here for ever, and I shall not look on your white walls again, from you and from me a new star shall arise. Farewell!”

The Men of Dol-lomin fight a terrific last stand, affecting Turgon’s escape, but there is no escape for the brothers. Huor falls with a venomed arrow in his eye, all his valiant men are slain about him in a heap, “and the Orcs hewed their heads and piled them as a mound of gold in the sunset.”

Then comes the ultimate end. If this passage doesn’t invoke a chill in your soul, Tolkien will never be for you:

Last of all Hurin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and seized the axe of an orc-captain and wielded it two-handed; and it is sung that the axe smoked in the black blood of the troll-guard of Gothmog until it withered, and each time that he slew Hurin cried aloud: ‘Aure entuluva! Day shall come again!’ Seventy times he uttered that cry; but they took him at last alive, by the command of Morgoth, who thought thus to do him more evil than by death. Therefore the Orcs grappled Hurin with their hands, which clung to him still, though he hewed off their arms; and ever their numbers were renewed, till he fell buried beneath them.

Unfortunately for Hurin, he is taken alive.

The enduring image of the battle is a great mound of corpses of men, elves, and dwarves that can be seen for miles off, and upon which no servant of Morgoth dares to trod. It later grows green and is the only verdant place in the desert of Anfauglith. Wives of the slain later find it and grieve upon it. Artist Ted Nasmith’s wonderful, grim painting “The Hill of the Slain” captures this image beautifully and terribly.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one other amazing sequence of the battle that is not included in The Children of Hurin, but which can be found in The Silmarillion: A battle of dwarves and dragons. Glaurung the dragon and his brood are wreaking havoc upon the Noldor, who break before the fire-spewing wyrm. But standing firm are the Dwarves of Belegost, who wear “great masks in battle hideous to look upon” and are thus able to withstand the flames. The dwarves surround Glaurung and hack at him with their axes. Glaurung in his rage turns and strikes down Azaghal, Lord of Belegost, and crawls over him, but with his dying stroke Azaghal drives a knife into his belly, so wounding him that he flees the field. The grief-stricken dwarves bear away their lord singing a dirge, and none dare to stay them, not even their foes. It’s an amazing image.