Liquid Courage

Drink: Tank of the Somme (The Great Fuckup)

Ratings:
Strength: 3/5 (tank)
Skill: 1/5 (galley slave)
Rank: 2/5 (lance corporal)

[ingredients:]

• 40 oz bottle Olde English malt liquor
• 8 oz Pimms

[preparation:]

1. Waste 1/5th of the population of the Olde English bottle onto the ground.
2. Fill remainder of bottle with upper-class Pimms.
3. Shake to mix and tank slowly.
4. Bitterly realize the toll drinking takes on the world.

Background

“Somme.  The whole history of the world cannot contain a more ghastly word.” ~Friedrich Steinbrecher, German officer, 1916

Much of military history works like this.  Our clan of noble, handsome hunter-gatherers fights your clan of butt-ugly, savage barbarians with maces.  There is clobbering on both sides, and gnashing of teeth.  Then, my clan invents the Longer Mace.  Now we can clobber you before you can clobber us.  Our casualties drop, your casualties rise.  Victory!

Cut to World War I.  The “longer mace” of the time are defensive.  Barbed wire, trenches, and machine guns have made every general’s favorite infantry charge ineffectual.  And not just ineffectual, but frequently horrific.  One of the many tragedies of World War I was the piss-poor adaptation of offensive infantry tactics to these new realities.  But you can’t have a war if nobody is attacking (or so thought much of Western Europe), so generals employed 19th century infantry charges against 20th century defensive fortifications.  The Somme was a particularly egregious example.

The Battle of the Somme took place from July to November, 1916, along a 12-mile front near the River Somme in Northern France.  Field Marshall Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force, planned the Somme offensive to relieve pressure against the French forces at Verdun, and to break the German lines in Northern France.  The British and French’s numerical superiority at times reached seven-to-one.  Matching that advantage with intelligence, innovative thinking, and flawless execution, a breakthrough may have been possible.  Unfortunately, Haig possessed none of those characteristics.

The infamous first week of the battle was particularly illustrative.  Traditional infantry tactics involved the shelling of the enemy position, followed closely by an infantry charge.  So, the battle began with a week-long British bombardment using 1.5 million shells.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of this fire was ineffectual, either missing the German lines or doing insufficient damage to the fortified German bunkers.  Then, on the scheduled day for the first assault, communication problems led to a ten-minute pause between the end of the shelling and the charge.  This gave the Germans time to emerge from their bunkers and man the machine guns.  The infantry went “over the top,” sometimes at a walking march, into the strafing fire of the German machine guns.

Of the 110,000 men who attacked that first day, 60,000 were killed or wounded.  It was the highest single day of casualties in the long history of the British Army.  Despite some French success at various points along the line, the fighting continued for months without decisive results.  Haig’s suspicion that horses were not particularly susceptible to gunfire(!) proved to be untrue.  Fighting petered out in November with the onset of winter.  All told, the British and French captured a little less than six miles of ground at the farthest point from the original lines, at a cost of 620,000 men to Germany’s 450,000 casualties.  Both sides were decimated by the monumental casualties.  The battle came to represent a profound moment of disillusionment for Britain, as many of the men lost were the nation’s most patriotic, enthusiastic, and educated volunteer soldiers.  To the British infantry who survived the battle, it gained the moniker, “The Great Fuck Up.”

In retrospect, there are several bitter pills to swallow.  Numerous opportunities on both sides were squandered because of poor communication.  September saw the debut of the tank, the weapon that would eventually end trench warfare and provide the “longer mace” that the offense so desperately needed.  At the time, however, tanks were lumbering behemoths doing more good for British morale than for Britain’s strategic goals.  Thirty of the forty-nine tanks broke down before seeing combat.  And finally, a 27-year old Adolf Hitler was one of the German soldiers to survive the battle.

Drink: The Romefather

Ratings:
Strength: 3/5 (tank)
Skill: 4/5 (foreign legion)
Rank: 3/5 (centurion)

[ingredients]:

• two parties
• lots of red wine
• unlubricated Trojan condom
• moxie

[preparation]:

1. Leave one party and find another you’ve heard about but never seen.
2. Ask for an unreasonable amount of wine from your generous host.
3. Piss off a friend of the host.
4. Ignoring a wild-haired, athletic virgin, pour the wine into an un-lubricated Trojan condom.
5. Poke a hole in the condom and drink like a wineskin.

Background

In America today, we write about the actions and intentions of our Founding Fathers in history books, Supreme Court decisions, and National Treasure movie scripts. Two thousand years ago, they wrote epic poems. The opportunistic poet Virgil (the Michael Bay of the Roman Empire) composed The Aeneid to tell the blockbuster foundation story of the Roman Empire.

In the first century BC, Virgil was a hot young Roman poet and a marketing genius. The amphitheater receipts for Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad were legendary, and Virgil saw room for a spinoff. He selected Aeneas as his central character, the Trojan hero destined to found Rome. Aeneas was a smaller character in Homer’s Iliad, a principal Trojan lieutenant and the son of the goddess Aphrodite (and a mortal prince with fantastic game). A solid leading man.

Virgil made some key marketing choices. First, he included the best parts of Homer’s poems: the wandering sea voyages, and lots of war. Then, knowing that every kid already had a Zeus pillowcase and an Aphrodite wineskin, he used the Roman names for those gods. Finally, seeing a lack of dynamic female characters, he introduced the virgin warrior princess Camilla, a role model for the young girl demographic. Throw in about 1,000 attempts at sweet (if overlong) death-blow catchphrases, and you have the makings of a blockbuster epic poem.

So what of the war that founded Rome? Aeneas arrived in Italy with his displaced Trojan soldiers after the famous horse-related fiasco in Troy. Aeneas asked local King Latinus for land and Latinus’s daughter. Certainly a bold howdy-do. But Aeneas’ coming had been prophesied, so Latinus was on board with this. So, too, was Tartarus, a strapping lad and potential suitor for the King’s daughter.

What prevented the implementation of this progressive immigration policy? Jealous goddesses, as usual (Virgil loved the deus ex machina). Trojan-hating Juno (Hera in the prequels) sent a Fury to drive Tartarus and Latinus’s wife crazy with hatred for the Trojans, and everybody went to war.*

The fighting was ferocious, as the Trojans defended their beachhead against the Latin attacks, and besieged the capital city when they gained the advantage. Several times the Latins were on the verge of defeating the Trojans. Tartarus, who wrecked shop from the moment the Fury’s hell-serpent introduced frenzy into his heart, nearly routed the Trojan camp while Aeneas was away courting allies. The constant meddling of goddesses on both sides of the conflict prevented any definitive resolutions (and conveniently prolonged the story).

Poor Tartarus. By all accounts a stand-up guy, he probably would have gotten along fine with Aeneas if not for the Fury-induced madness. But you just don’t win against the Most Pious Half-Immortal Soldier Ever. Mommy Venus (Aphrodite) gave her son armor forged by the god smith Vulcan (Xzibit), and from there it was only a matter of time.

Aeneas was not fated to found Rome. His descendants, Romulus and Remus, would found the actual city. The shield given him by Venus depicted Rome’s future greatness, but to Aeneas it was merely pleasant artwork (imagine putting on a condom with a picture of your grandson on it). Wearing his god-forged unbreakable armor, Aeneas lead the battle against the Latins until he faced Tartarus. Jupiter (Zeus) ordered all goddesses to clear out, and Aeneas killed Tartarus.

Virgil ended the poem there, but the end credits explained that Juno extracted from Jupiter the concession that the Latins would keep their name, even as the Trojans intermixed with the local populace. Thus Rome, the world’s greatest empire, was built on the pious strength of a legendary soldier (later made immortal by his goddess mother) and his unbreakable, god-forged armor. Concessions and merchandise are available for purchase in the courtyard.

*Interesting that Hera, the Goddess of Childbirth and Marriage, would hate the Trojans.

**ed. note: Translations from R. Fagles.

Drink: The Valley of Death

Ratings:
Strength: 2/5 (musket)
Skill: 2/5 (national guard)
Rank: 3/5 (centurion)

[ingredients]:

• chilled Russian vodka
• currant liqueur
• French champagne
• one copy of Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade

[preparation]:

1. In a narrow champagne flute, pour one ounce of chilled Russian vodka.
2. Mishearing something, recklessly pour one ounce of currant liqueur into the flute.
3. Top off the glass with French champagne, stirring gently to mix until the concoction becomes poetic.
4. Read Tennyson’s poem aloud, taking a sip every time you come across the word ‘death.’

Background

You don’t need to be a Victorian poet to appreciate that a 19th century battle involving feuding commander-in-laws, tragic battlefield misunderstandings, the “Valley of Death,” at least three types of knitwear, and heroic French cavalry is going to be a total disaster. These were the ingredients of the Battle of Balaklava.

The Crimean War began in 1853, with the British, French and Ottomans fighting the Russians for control of the fading Ottoman Empire. Modern historians consider it the first modern war, due to the involvement of telegraphs, repeating rifles, and high-explosive artillery. How hilarious, then, that perhaps its most famous military action involved horses, sabers, and verbal misunderstandings.

On October 25, 1854, English and French troops were attempting to capture the Black Sea Russian port of Sevastapol. Their 4,500 soldiers faced 25,000 Russians across a U-shaped valley. While these odds may seem extreme, the Russians never approach a battle without waaaay too many soldiers. And, recall, that it was the first modern war. So everybody was excited and unsure of what, exactly, would be required of them in this bold new day.

Let’s cut to the charge. The British commander, Lord Raglan, kept giving his cavalry, commanded by Lord Lucan, confusing orders. The fourth, and worst of the bunch, was carried to Lucan by a snotty Captain named Nolan.

“Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, follow the enemy, and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns. Horse artillery may accompany. French cavalry is on your left. Immediate.”

Besides sounding like a Mad-Libs battle command, it seemed to Lucan to have nothing to do with the battle whatsoever. The only guns he could see were the Russian artillery at the other end of the valley, more than a mile away (and what the hell are ‘horse artillery’?). Lucan asked for clarification. Nolan vaguely swept his hand across the valley and said contemptuously, “There my lord, there are your guns.”

Lucan took this order to Earl Cardigan, his direct subordinate and commander of the Light Cavalry. Lucan also happened to be Cardigan’s brother-in-law and, if that were not sufficiently galling, had just won the regiment’s coveted “Most Luxurious Muttonchops Award.” A reluctant Cardigan led his 600-odd men on a one-mile charge across the entire battlefield, being fired upon from three sides by Russians who probably felt like they were hunting buffalo in “Oregon Trail.” Tragically, the charge may have succeeded if Lucan had followed with the heavy cavalry (or at least the featherweight or welterweight cavalry). Instead, Cardigan’s Light Cavalry roughed up the Russians until the Russians realized they vastly outnumbered the British, at which point they sent the Light Cavalry back across the same one-mile gauntlet of artillery and rifles.*

The Light Cavalry were probably saved from total annihilation by a flanking movement from the French Chausser’s d’Afrique, who sufficiently engaged one side of the Russian guns to cover the British charge and retreat. The whole action took 20 minutes. Of the approximately 660 British who participated in the Charge of the Light Brigade, 110 were killed, 161 wounded or captured, and 375 horses killed. Nolan was among the dead. Cardigan survived and argued bitterly with Lucan about who was at fault for the suicidal order.

Cardigan got the last muttonchop-quivering laugh when he had the button-front sweater named for him. Indeed, knitwear was thrown about like purple hearts. The town of Balaklava got its name attached to ski masks, Raglan ended up with a namesake sweater, and trendy trousers were named after British officer Duke Skinnyjeans. Lord Tennyson honored them all with his famous poem Charge of the Light Brigade, and his lesser-known essay, Totally Sweet Cavalry Charges, Poetry, and You.

*This strategy for chasing a superior enemy force was later made famous by Han Solo’s charge in the Battle of the White Subhallway in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.