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Words from the Warlord

December A.S. XVII

Well, another War College has come and gone, and those people who attended have a new glow about them. You can see them here and there, and tell them from other mere mortals. They have a new spring to their step, an air of purposefulness about them, of confidence and wisdom. If you look closely you can detect a faint nimbus surrounding them, and if you listen closely in a quiet room, you can hear the gentle singing of angel choirs.

While the rest are easily identified by their plodding step, the look of bewilderment that perpetually alternates with despair on their benighted faces. You see them at a war, piteously heaving a deep sigh before hopelessly slogging into yet another battle.

To them, each battle is another dreary experience, drab in its sameness: a swirl of confusion and POW! CRUNCH! and the rest of the battle is spent as a doormat. Meanwhile, to add to their trauma, they see these joyous warriors 'with nimble step, who with glowing faces, wade, singing into battle.

My lords and ladies, this could have been avoided! They too could have known the joys of attending the War College at the Collegium Nebulorum. Alas that these poor lost souls must wait another year.

What happened? Those of you who went need no account. Those of you who were elsewhere are beyond help. But perhaps there were a few of you who were walking in the halls at a propitious time and caught a few golden words or peeked through a crack in the window shade and caught a VERY DIM view of a snap or pike thrust, or perhaps even a sally!

It is for those people, wandering about, half blind in the agonies of partial knowledge of the Warrior's Way that I will relate a few of The Golden One of the main strains that ran through the symphony of the War College was one also repeatedly stressed in this column: Teamwork. If this year's College could have a title it would have to be Teamwork and Organization. Teamwork and Organization Wins Wars. Everyone likes barbarians. They're fun and don't have to excuse themselves when they belch. But has anyone ever wondered why the dull drab Romans conquered the world instead of the neat exciting barbarians? Teamwork. The Romans managed to leave their debauchery and partying at home. On the battlefield they were all business.

If you attended the College, you learned how to form your own battle unit. Much the same material was covered here in an earlier column. If you are a barbarian you should find someone to read it to you.

But to capsulize the class, bring your team members together. Work together, set up drills and fight together. Go out afterward and talk about what you did. Be loyal to each other, protect each other, party together, in short, build an esprit de corps. The main thing is to learn to fight as a unit. Learn the strengths and weaknesses of your fellow teammates and what you can expect from each of them. Remember that a victory is shared by all as all in some way contributed, if only to slow an opponent down.

But to return to teamwork. It cannot be stressed enough how important teamwork is in the winning of a war. It makes an undisciplined rabble into an army. Lord Steven of Norham, in his analysis of that controversial battle, Agincourt, pointed out that it was not so much that the English won but that the French lost. "The French did everything," he said, "possible to lose." This matter has been hotly debated by greater scholars than I, and I do not wish to reopen hostilities (even though I suspect that it was directly due to the desertion of the Lithuanian contingent, the failure of the French army to provide waterwings for their horses, and the fiendish spiking of the local snails with Extra Strength Tylenol' which hopelessly shattered morale and wreaked havoc). Nevertheless, if the French army had been something more than a high-born rabble with a divided command; if they had sought victory first and personal glory second; had they exercised discipline and utilized strategy more appropriate to a battle than to a gold rush; had they attended the War College, they probably would have won. But, no.

Another fascinating idea put forth in the interests of furthering a feeling of authenticity in recreating medieval combat was in the use of heralds. In the middle ages, heralds were emissaries between kings. They drew up lists of the dead after the battles so that their families could be notified. They provided intelligence to their commanders as to who showed up on the enemy side. "Those arms belong to the Duke of Lancaster." The king of course knew who the Duke had brought with him. Heralds also would watch the battles from a safe remove, as they were neutral noncombatants, and take note of how the battle unfolded. They could bring back the news of what happened and who did what.

Since the soldiers of that time lacked dog tags, identity was done through the heraldry displayed on the person's shield or surcoat. If, the person lacked a device on his person, or some other means of being identified, he was just so much dead meat on the field. This would be a great reason to get your device registered and DISPLAYED. Aelfwyn Gyrthesdohtor, who gave the talk said that in addition to the fun and knowledge doing this would give the heralds, it also would add to that of the fighters.

Some experiments were held at the Red and Black war with Caid last year. She said that it really added a feeling of reality to the battle. After the battle ended, the heralds of both sides went through the dead, identifying them by sight and knowledge of their devices. One fighter reportedly told her afterward that it hit him while laying there: "It suddenly occurred to me, here I am, laying here dead, and these people are identifying my body to send word home to my family. If I didn't have my device on my shield, they would never know what happened and where I am." A chilling reality.

At a later court during the war, a roll of the dead was read. At the head, His Majesty, Frederick of Holland, King of the West. She said that this gave her chill. If it had been for real, we would be on a battlefield, far from home, and we would have just lost our king, a gravely serious matter.

I feel it would be really interesting to pursue this in that it would bring what we do that much closer to a true medieval recreation, rather than a bunch of stick jocks getting together to beat the dust out of each others' armour.

We also listened to Duke William of Houghton talk on the development of SCA strategy, and saw some old war films. The war stories alone were worth it.

The war with Atenveldt looms again over the horizon. They have had a War College for years. We beat them rather badly last time, do you think they will let that happen again? We won for a variety of reasons, too numerous to go into now. They will be training and working hard to trounce us next time. Only by hard training, forming battle units, and TEAMWORK, will we be able to prevent this. There is more to victory than being a hot fighter. A team of mediocre fighters who can work together can beat a disorganized group of Belts.

Atenveldtus delendus est.

Thomas Buttesthorn

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