Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff
(German Admiral largely responsible for the reintroduction of unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917 which encouraged the United States to enter WWI; lived 1853-1919)
“I guarantee upon my word as a naval officer that no American will set foot on the Continent!”
The History of the Kings of Britain, completed in 1136 by a man known as Geoffrey of Monmouth, is admired for popularizing the legends of Merlin and King Arthur. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s tales inspired romantic writers throughout Europe to write Arthurian stories of knighthood and chivalry. You can read about that aspect of The History of the Kings of Britain, HERE. In this article, however, let’s look at something even more interesting—the outlandish claims of conquest that Geoffrey of Monmouth attributed to the ancient Britons. Even though almost every page in The History of the Kings of Britain has to be read with extreme caution in terms of historical accuracy, the work was so well written that the bizarre ‘history’ is highly enjoyable and entertaining.
One of the first major historical events that Geoffrey of Monmouth tweaked in favor of the Britons was the sack of Rome around 390 BCE. In the historical version of the sack of Rome by the Gauls, the Senones tribe (led by their chief, Brennus) besieged and pillaged the city of Rome. After the Romans surrendered to the Gauls, they also had to hand over a lot of their wealth. This traumatic event is considered one of the key events that inspired Rome to dramatically develop their military. In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s version of this event, however, Chief Brennus was a Briton who had lost his position in Britain to his older brother Belinus, who had also managed to subjugate Norway. Brennus then fled to Gaul, where he was made chief of the Senones. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, after Belinus and Brennus had a few more wars amongst themselves, the two joined forces to invade Rome, leading to the sack of the great city.
Now for the Arthurian stories. Geoffrey of Monmouth seems to place King Arthur’s father, Utherpendragon, in the 5th and 6th century CE, and his adventures mainly revolve around wars between the Britons and the Saxons. Geoffrey placed King Arthur in the 6th century, after King Clovis of the Franks had become Catholic, and he was given a much more elaborate string of conquests in The History of the Kings of Britain.
Geoffrey of Monmouth basically left nothing untouched by King Arthur—he wrote that Arthur went to war in Britain with the Saxons, the Picts, the Scots and the Irish. He also apparently subdued Iceland, Gotland, Gunhpar, the Orkneys and somehow subjugated all of Norway and Denmark. Then Geoffrey of Monmouth claimed that Arthur invaded Gaul (which would have historically been controlled mostly by the Franks), taking Normandy, Gascony and Aquitania. Next, the Romans arrived to challenge King Arthur (even though the Western Roman Empire had already fallen by the 6th century) and the Roman army also fell to Arthur’s Britons. Just when all of Europe seemed ready to fall to the might of the Britons, Mordred rebelled against King Arthur. While suppressing the rebellion, Arthur was injured and was carried away to Avalon, where he disappeared.
So, as you can tell, Geoffrey of Monmouth was very creative with his book, The History of the Kings of Britain. To end with a corny conclusion, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s book only had tiny tidbits of real history mixed into a gigantic soup of fiction and myth—yet, despite it all; it was a very delicious and enjoyable soup.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Sources:
Benjamin Franklin (American Founding Father, 1706-1790)
“There are Croakers in every Country always boding its Ruin.”
The year was around 333 BCE. Alexander the Great had led an army from Greece into Anatolia, had defeated the Persian forces multiple times and had brought numerous cities under the control of his growing empire. He even captured the narrow Cilician Gates, which gave Alexander a route to march into Syria.
The king of Macedonia marched south from the Cilician Gates to reach Tarsus. Here, however, one of those odd (but dramatic) events that were scattered throughout Alexander’s life occurred which delayed the Macedonian army for several agonizingly tense days.
The weather was brutal when the Macedonian army entered Tarsus. The heat was nearly unbearable, so you can imagine the relief when Alexander spotted the Cydnus River. In addition, the water from the river was supposedly imbued with some health benefits. Suffice it to say, Alexander the Great stripped down naked and plunged into the river. In his desperation to cool off, however, the Macedonian king had overlooked something—the Cydnus River was largely fed by snowmelt.
Despite the air being uncomfortably hot, the water was dangerously cold. The freezing water affected Alexander quickly—he went into shock and his body began to lose function. Fortunately, Alexander’s companions were able to swiftly pull the king from the icy water.
Nevertheless, Alexander had been in the river long enough to fall seriously ill. There is rarely a convenient time to be sick, but it was even more so for Alexander—Darius III of Persia was closing in with an army to crush the young upstart king. With this danger in mind, Alexander questioned his physicians for a quick remedy for his illness.
One man, Philip of Acarnania, had a suggestion that fit Alexander’s bill. His proposal was a strong purge to jolt Alexander out of his illness. The purge would be dangerous, and it would cause the king to deteriorate further before he finally recovered. Despite the danger, Alexander accepted the proposal and agreed to undergo the risky treatment.
As the legend goes, while Philip was preparing the medicine for the purge, Alexander received a warning from his powerful general (and potential rival), Parmenion. The general’s note claimed that Philip had been paid by Darius III to poison Alexander the Great. The message put the king in a great dilemma. On the one hand, Darius III did, indeed, offer a reward to any would-be assassins willing to take down Alexander. Conversely, Philip was basically a family doctor who had treated Alexander since the king’s childhood.
Alexander weighed his options until Philip arrived with the medicine. The two did a hand-off—Alexander accepted and drank Philip’s concoction, while the physician was given Parmenion’s letter. Philip reportedly just shrugged off the accusation of the letter and calmly informed Alexander that the medicine would soon begin to work.
The physician stayed with the king, applying new medications and keeping an eye on Alexander’s recovery. Within hours, there were signs of improvement. Around three days later, Alexander the Great burst from his sickroom and readied his army to continue their march.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Source:
Herodotus (490-425/420 BCE)
“In the temple of Babylon there is a second shrine lower down, in which is a great sitting figure of Bel, all of gold on a golden throne, supported on a base of gold, with a golden table standing beside it. I was told by the Chaldaeans that, to make all this, more than twenty-two tons of gold were used.”
In 48 BCE, while the civil war between Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompey was still in full swing, the two brilliant generals found themselves in a stalemate at Dyrrachium, located in modern-day Albania. Pompey was the first to set up camp at Dyrrachium. When Julius Caesar arrived, he naturally decided to implement one of his specialties—siege warfare. Despite Caesar having far fewer men than Pompey, the Caesarian forces began construction of a large messy, semi-circular wall around Pompey’s position, cutting him off from all land-based escape routes. In response, Pompey created his own defensive wall.
With the armies of Caesar and Pompey positioned behind opposing fortified walls, a waiting game ensued. Both sides hoped that their rations could last until their enemy began to starve, or a breach in the wall was found or created. The stalemate caused trouble for both Pompey and Caesar. In Pompey’s camp, food had been well stocked, but fodder for horses began to run low and safe water became scarce. On Caesar’s side, securing food was the main issue hindering the troops.
In his Commentaries on the Civil War, however, Julius Caesar recounted how one of his camps along the wall at Dyrrachium alleviated their food crisis with some clever cooking. The men under the command of one of Caesar’s officers, named Valerius, were fairly well off—they had access to cattle and milk. In addition, the soldiers discovered a nearby source of edible roots, which Julius Caesar called chara. With milk and chara roots present in ample quantities, some curious soldier mixed the two ingredients in a culinary experiment and found that the chara roots could be baked into something resembling a loaf of bread.
With the production of their chara bread, Caesar’s men were kept reasonably well fed. They also seemed to have loaves to spare, for Caesar wrote that his men would sometimes throw the chara bread at Pompey’s forces (sometimes tossing loaves over Pompey’s walls) to prove that they still had food and the siege would not be ending anytime soon.
Nevertheless, in walling off Pompey’s camp, Caesar had to spread his men thin, creating vulnerabilities. Pompey attacked a weak point in his enemy’s wall—a part still under construction—and broke free from the siege, dealing Julius Caesar one of his most clear defeats of the Civil War.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Sources:
(Soldiers from the Ming Dynasty Departure Herald, from the Jiajing reign period in China (1522-1566), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)
A Violent Golden Age
The centuries spanning the Spring and Autumn Period (8th-6th century BCE) and the Warring States Period (6th-3rd century BCE) saw the onset of an incredible amount of human innovation and thought. On one hand there were military advancements in China, such as the crossbow (introduced around the 5th-4th century BCE) and cavalry (made professional in China soon after the crossbow). On the other hand, texts of philosophy, religion and strategy were written that are still widely admired to this day. The number of great minds that operated during the Warring States Period is simply baffling. There was Confucius and his philosophical successors, notably Mencius and Hsün Tzu. Also prevalent were the major Daoist (or Taoist) intellectuals like Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. Later, there were the philosophers of authoritarianism and legalism, such as Lord Shang and Han Fei Tzu. Also present was the religious wildcard, Mo Tzu, who preached universal love and told of a personified Heaven that punished evil and rewarded good. Nevertheless, during this highly congested time period filled with so many geniuses, there lived a military strategist who would surpass all others in popularity and fame (except, perhaps, Confucius and Lao Tzu)—he was Master Sun, better known as Sun Tzu.
The famous work that is attributed to Sun Tzu is The Art of War. It was one of several collections of sayings, proverbs and advice on war and life that was produced by the ancient Chinese. Along with The Art of War, other notable scrolls dealing with war were The Book of Changes, The Thirty-Six Stratagems and The Hundred Unusual Strategies. The Art of War can be read both as a war manual and as a handbook for general use in daily life.
Sun Tzu had a unique philosophy on war. He was utterly ruthless, and yet, he would go above and beyond in his attempts to avoid unnecessary confrontation. For Sun Tzu, if a conflict could be won without a fight, then no fight was necessary. Nevertheless, avoiding did not mean abandoning victory. No, Sun Tzu’s ideal victory would involve deploying spies to discover an enemy’s vulnerabilities, followed by using espionage, sabotage and diplomacy to exploit these weaknesses, forcing the enemy into submission without raising a single weapon. If war happened to be unavoidable, then Sun Tzu would rely on an adaptable system of military moves and countermoves along with rigorous premeditated preparation and training to ensure victory in battle. Sun Tzu seemed to be heavily influenced by Daoism and believed that the Way (Dao) always provided a general with a path to survival and victory.
The Obscure Sun Tzu
Much like the poet Homer, historical records about Sun Tzu remain remarkably vague. There are very few historical accounts that detail the life of Sun Tzu, and almost every obscure aspect of Master Sun’s life is continuously debated by those who deny or defend the position of Sun Tzu as a real person from history.
Most of what is perceived to be known about Sun Tzu primarily comes from two sources: the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian (145-85 BCE) and The Spring and Autumn Annals detailing events that occurred between 722-481 BCE, in the Zhou Dynasty. With sources such as these, Sun Tzu can be loosely placed in a time period and pinpointed to a general area of ancient China.
Broadly speaking, Sun Tzu’s life, death and the recording of his sayings into The Art of War occurred during the long period of time between the 6th and 3rd century BCE. If, however, you follow sources such as Sima Qian, Sun Tzu is thought to have been a contemporary of Confucius, who likely lived around 551-479 BCE.
Sun Tzu’s supposed place of birth, and his kingdom of employment, fit the assumption that Master Sun lived mainly in the 6th and 5th century BCE. According to the scant information about Sun Tzu, the master strategist was born in Ch’i (or Qi), which is in the modern Shandong Province, but he eventually found employment in the court of King Ho-Lu (or He Lü) of Wu, who is believed to have reigned from 514-496 BCE. The Kingdom of Wu was located in modern Zhejiang. If Sun Tzu truly did work for King Ho-Lu, then he would, indeed, have been a contemporary of Confucius.
A popular and amusing story—which most historians believe to be fictional—occurred when Sun Tzu first was introduced to King Ho-Lu of Wu. According to the tale, King Ho-Lu was impressed by Sun Tzu’s military philosophy, but wanted to see the strategist demonstrate his skill. This demonstration, however, would not be an average exhibition, and the troops involved in the display would not be typical soldiers. No, King Ho-Lu wanted to see if Sun Tzu could whip the women in his palace into a capable fighting force. Therefore, the king’s concubines were marched out and Sun Tzu was tasked with transforming them into an army. Under the right conditions and experiences, almost anyone can be made into a more than competent fighter regardless of strength, size or sex—nevertheless, these ancient pampered concubines likely had little experience with the military.
Sun Tzu called the concubines together, organized them like an army, and instructed them on how to complete some simple drills. When he ordered the women to undertake the drills just as he had shown them, the concubines suffered a burst of sudden laughs and giggles. At this point, Sun Tzu chastised himself—he decided that he must not have given the instructions and orders with adequate clarity. Nevertheless, when he ordered the women to complete their drills a second time, the concubines, again, broke into uncontrollable giggles.
This breach of discipline was too much for Sun Tzu—he had two of his ‘officer’ concubines detained and scheduled for execution. After this decision was made public, Sun Tzu quickly received an urgent notice that the two condemned women were King Ho-Lu’s favorite concubines, and the king wanted the women pardoned. Sun Tzu responded bluntly, simply saying that because he was the general appointed by the king, he had the duty and the power to ensure that the military acted properly in order to ensure the country’s security. Suffice it to say, the two women were executed and the rest of the concubines no longer had any disciplinary troubles.
On a more solid historical note, the Kingdom of Wu was a major participant of the Warring States Period, and King Ho-Lu (r. 514-496 BCE) is widely believed to have been an actual king of the Kingdom of Wu. Sun Tzu is often mentioned in commentary on the Wu-Chu Wars that occurred between 512-506 BCE. In particular, Master Sun supposedly played a major role in Wu’s victory over Chu in the Battle of Boju (506 BCE), when the strategist commanded Wu’s forces, along with King Ho-Lu and the king’s brother, Fugai.
Even though Sun Tzu’s life, philosophy and exploits were included in various ancient accounts, it remains historically suspicious that Master Sun’s name is absent from one of the major prime sources describing King Ho-Lu’s time period—TheZou Commentary. Nevertheless, by the time of the Han Dynasty (around 206 BCE-220 CE), The Art of War, and its supposed author, Sun Tzu, were widely known household names in China.
The unknowable truth about the history of Sun Tzu does not change the monumental influence brought about by The Art of War for multiple millennia. From ancient times to the present day, people of all walks of life have found inspiration and guidance from the writings of Sun Tzu. The Art of War is one of the few books that can claim to be cherished and embraced universally by soldiers, philosophers, capitalist businessmen and communist revolutionaries, alike.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Sources:
Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400)
“I do not choose to stuff with chaff and straw
My lengthy tale, I rather seek the corn.”
