Talk:Prisoners of War
| Information about this edition | |
|---|---|
| Edition: | Extracted from Adventure magazine, June 10 1925, pp. 03-66. |
| Source: | https://archive.org/details/AdventureV053N0119250610 and Roy Glashan's Library (via Gutenberg.net.au) |
| Contributor(s): | icame.isaw |
| Notes: | Accompanying illustrations may be omitted |
| Proofreaders: | icankered |
A note by Talbot Mundy concerning the story[edit]
From the Camp-Fire section ("A Meeting Place for Readers, Writers and Adventurers") of the magazine, pp. 175-176
SOMETHING from Talbot Mundy in connection with his complete novel in this issue. His conception of Julius Cæsar has stirred up quite a lot of argument and we'll try to hear the pros and cons at Camp-Fire pretty much in full before we're through. Let's keep open-minded until we hear the evidence on both sides.
What appeals to me most about this period of history is that there is almost nothing definitely known about it. Of course, there are plenty of theories, but most of those are contradictory, although for the most part based on Julius Cæsar's Commentaries. But it can not be too often pointed out that Julius Cæsar was beaten in Britain—twice, in 56 and 55 B. C, and therefore that his account is tainted, to put it mildly, by deliberate and very skillful advocacy of his own case.
THERE is plenty of room for opinion, in view of the scarcity of known facts about the Britons. For instance, not even the most dogmatic and cocksure historians (of the type who wrote text-books when I was at school) pretended to know whence the Britons actually came. But it seems certain that those in the southeast of Britain had been there for at least three centuries at the time of Cæsar's invasion; that they possessed a rather cultured, almost ridiculously chivalrous, fair-haired ruling caste; did not build with stone, but were experts in metal work (such as bronze, gold and silver), marvelous horsemen; and were much given to rivalry. It is also suggestive that, after Cesar's return to Rome, where he was thoroughly ridiculed for his failure against the Britons, British ornaments and even British chariots with basket-work sides and bronze wheels became the height of fashion—which is hardly likely to have been the case if the Britons were such "painted savages" as some historians have tried to make them out to be. Don't forget: they defeated Cæsar twice, when he was at the height of a series of successful campaigns; and so severely that he made no effort to return and conquer them.
THE coasts of Britain and Gaul were as close together as those of England and France today. In fine weather one coast can be seen from the other along a shore-line of a hundred miles or so from either side, and (again in fine weather) the craziest kind of cockleshell boat could cross the Channel without much danger. (I have myself sailed both coast-lines in a sloop not thirty-five feet long, and I know men who have done it in open boats.) So it seems to me ridiculous that Britain should be thought of as isolated from the known world (at the time of Cæsar's invasion or at any other time); and, in view of the fact that they had minted money, spoke a language almost identical with that of Northern Gaul, occasionally shared chiefs in common with the Gauls (as for instance the Atrebates) and possessed a highly developed Druidic philosophy with its accompanying social system, it seems highly probable that they were not barbarians at all.
FOR instance again, scores of roads in Britain have been attributed to the Romans, which on subsequent careful investigation show no trace of Roman origin, although the Romans may have repaired some of them and may have used others as a base for their own magnificent lines of communication. The Britons did make roads (and good ones) long before the Romans conquered them.
The Britons possessed tin, iron, gold, pearls, and traded in them, receiving in exchange, among other things, purple dye which must have come from the Mediterranean; so they were in contact with what is commonly regarded (although without too much proof) as the highest civilization of that period. They had a trading point at Vectis (probably the Isle of Wight) where the tin was assembled in ingots and shipped in foreign bottoms. There are references in the Old Testament (Isaiah) to the Isles of the Sea, and there is ground for supposing those Isles were Britain and Ireland; at any rate, the theory is next to impossible to disprove.
AS TO whether or not Lunden (London) existed as a town in Cæsar's day opinions are about equally divided. I have chosen to assume it did exist, as Caswallon's capital, for reasons that are too long to give here in full. But there is no doubt that the Thames existed and provided a safe, convenient anchorage for foreign ships. Ludgate Hill is Ludd's Gate Hill, and Ludd was a god of the Britons. The site of St. Paul's Cathedral must have been as habitable and convenient then as now. And it is at least suggestive that important Christian churches are very often, if not nearly always, to be found on the sites of previous pagan temples or places of worship. Add to that admittedly hazy argument, two facts: that less than a hundred years ago some of the stakes were still in place in the bed of the Thames, placed there by Caswallon and his men to hold the ford near Lunden against Cæsar; and the Nore (the Thames estuary) lay wide open to the eastward, inviting commerce and invasion. It is hardly likely the Britons would not have built a town and fortified it at the one place where traders and sea-pirates could disembark in the very heart of their country.
AND that brings up the subject of the "Northmen" and their ships—a long and equally contentious one. The written records of the Northmen's longships do not commence until two or three hundred years later than the period of this story; and it seems to be assumed by some historians that the Northmen developed a type of ship and learned to navigate it, suddenly, at about the time when the Roman occupation of Britain was drawing to a close. But this is so contrary to all the teachings of history that I, for one, refuse to consider it seriously. Neither customs, architecture, ships nor geographical conditions are developed in a day, or in a hundred years. The clipper ship, for instance, was the outcome of a thousand years' experience, generation after generation of designers adding some refinement until at last the almost perfect "mistress of the seas" was launched from the ways of Maine and Massachusetts.
The remains of Viking ships discovered in Sweden and in England, though admittedly of a period somewhat later than this story, all show an exquisite "sweetness" of line and "sea quality" that could not possibly have been developed except by generations of experience. And there is no way of making that kind of experience except by navigating rough seas. Men do not navigate rough seas for amusement, as a rule, but under the impulse of necessity or for the sake of profit. And conditions in Norway, Sweden and Denmark must have been much the same (as to climate and geography) as today. In other words, the Northman's harvests used to fail and he fared forth in his beautifully constructed ships to seek holding elsewhere. Britain—the Humber, the Wash and the Mouth of the Thames—lay openly inviting, with nothing but the steep and dangerous North Sea passage between him and plunder. Which, again, brings us back to the Britons:
UNLESS they had been something vastly removed from savages, they would surely have been overwhelmed by the constant raids and invasions in force that, I believe, took place. Undoubtedly, as all historians admit, there was an appreciable percentage of Norse blood in the Britons on the East coast. I infer from that, that the Britons were able to "absorb" their prisoners and the occasional raiders who made good their footing; which is a sign, not of a barbarous people, but of a rather highly cultured one, that treated prisoners humanely, had no objection to intermarriage with them, and could offer something better to the invader than the social conditions he had left behind.
I take it, for instance, that if the American Indian had possessed, on the whole, a superior culture to that of the white man who invaded his country, he would have absorbed the white man instead of being overwhelmed by him. Britain even absorbed the Romans, who became "more British than the Britons" and prided themselves on it, in spite of their loyalty to the Rome that many of them never saw.
The British culture (whatever that was) profoundly influenced the Romans who came in contact with it—swallowed the Saxons, Angles and Jutes later on, who in turn absorbed the Normans. Each host of invaders overran the country, imposing new conditions and new customs; but the climate, and something else (perhaps the pagan culture of the Druids) persisted—doubtless with changed names and obliterated details—through it all. So I don't feel guilty of anachronism when I show Caswallon as a gentleman, not altogether unlike one of those modern English squires—a little stupid, a little "insular," but a perfect sportsman—who led his men to death against the Germans on the Marne.—Talbot Mundy.