# Speechifying before battle in olden times **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 17, 2007, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964 "2007-08-17T17:37:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2007, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/21 "2007-08-18T00:48:49Z")
[QUOTE=FlightlessBird] Was it like a stump speech? Where he would give it a few hundred times leading up to battle? [/QUOTE] Morgan did something very like this the night before Cowpens, going from one group of soldiers to the next and exhorting them. He had a little “stump speech” he would go through which culminated in him ripping off his shirt to show the scars on his back from a whipping the British had given him during the French and Indian War. (One whipping deserves another, I suppose, was the message of the speech.) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2007, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/22 "2007-08-18T03:32:38Z")
The immortal words of Prince Harry before the Battle of Bosworth Field: _“Now I’m afraid that there’s going to have to be a certain amount of violence. But at least we know it’s all in a good cause, don’t we?”_ (As recorded in the historical recreation, _The Black Adder_.) ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2007, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/23 "2007-08-18T14:48:22Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] Whoosh. [/QUOTE] 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2007, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/24 "2007-08-18T15:07:11Z")
[QUOTE=Malodorous] Before the battle of Trafalgar, Nelson used flag signals to communicate “England expects that every man will do his duty”. [/QUOTE] He wanted it to be “England confides …” (i.e., is confident). “Expects” was substituted because there was a single flag for it, whereas it would have been necessary to spell out “confides”. ---
**Author:** ![dotchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@dotchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dotchan)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2007, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/25 "2007-08-18T17:03:20Z")
…and, of course, maybe in ye olden days the troops were first gathered in a natural acoustical amplifier so the general could be heard. …or the order was shouted down the ranks (this is where brevity is of utmost important). …or someone just happened to hear the general’s remarks to his closest people and recorded it for posterity. …or the general just wrote his own words himself later, after he comadeered a glorious victory. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![DeadlyAccurate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@DeadlyAccurate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadlyAccurate)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2007, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/26 "2007-08-18T18:33:42Z")
[QUOTE=dotchan] …or the order was shouted down the ranks (this is where brevity is of utmost important). [/QUOTE] The ultimate game of Telephone. “Up, Men, and to your posts! Don’t forget today that you are from Old Virginia!” "“Up and at 'em! Don’t forget today that you are an old Virginian. Purple monkey dishwasher.” ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2007, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/27 "2007-08-18T18:52:28Z")
[QUOTE=DeadlyAccurate] The ultimate game of Telephone. “Up, Men, and to your posts! Don’t forget today that you are from Old Virginia!” "“Up and at 'em! Don’t forget today that you are an old Virginian. Purple monkey dishwasher.” [/QUOTE] “What’d he say?” “I think he said, ‘Blessed are the cheesemakers.’” ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2007, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/28 "2007-08-18T21:56:49Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] There’s no need to rally any but the frontline troops. . [/QUOTE] And/or a gathering of the commanders and lieutenants. For instance in the scene of old 'arry speaking on Crispin’s Eve, the setting seems to have him addressing a gathering of captains, NOT the massed ranks. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2007, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/29 "2007-08-19T00:47:52Z")
[QUOTE=Chez Guevara] [The Historical Reality of Ancient Battle Speeches](http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Classics/bcj/14-04.html). [/QUOTE] Hey, a historian who agrees with me. Always a good sign of accuracy in historians. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Punkyova](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@The\_Punkyova](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Punkyova)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2007, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/30 "2007-08-19T05:40:27Z")
[QUOTE=msmith537] Also less olden but: Patton “Men, all this stuff you’ve heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans traditionally love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, big league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost, and will never lose a war… because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.” [/QUOTE] Spoken by a man whose grandfather died in the Confederate Army, and who believed as a child that the portraits of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were God the Father and God the Son. (Yes, he’s probably speaking for effect, but I think it’s ironic.) ---
**Author:** ![Aquila\_Be](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a698b9/32.png) [@Aquila\_Be](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquila_Be)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2007, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/31 "2007-08-19T10:01:29Z")
I’m not sure that these can be classified as inspiring or as despairing words uttered by Jean La Valette, Grand Master, Knights of Malta, mid May 1565 before the Great Siege of Malta, before a gathering of all of his knights and lieutenants in the Cathedral. > [@](#): > > “It is the great battle of the Cross and the Koran which is now to be fought. A formidable army of infidels are on the point of invading our island. We, for our part, are the chosen soldiers of the Cross, and if Heaven requires the sacrifice of our lives, there can be no better occasion than this. Let us hasten then, my brothers, to the sacred altar. There we will renew our vows and obtain by our faith in the sacred Sacraments, that contempt for death which alone can render us invincible.” Followed in late May 1565 by another inspiring? despairing? speech given to his fellow knights after hearing the bad news that reinforcements were not on their way, as originally hoped. > [@](#): > > “We now know that we cannot look to others for our deliverance! It is only upon God and our own swords that we must rely. Yet this is no reason to be disheartened. Rather the opposite, for it is better to know the truth of one’s situation than be deceived by specious hopes. Our faith and the honor of our Order are in our own hands. We shall not fail.” As it turned out, there was a happy ending, just like in the movies. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2007, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/32 "2007-08-19T10:35:18Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] Hey, a historian who agrees with me. Always a good sign of accuracy in historians. 😃 [/QUOTE] I was actually concerned nobody would read that link. It carries a lot of detail for the OP but suffers from poor presentation, whereas your contribution scores on succinctness and punctuality. You did, however, omit to mention one specific type of battle exhortation: > [@](#): > > …A similarly helpful passage is found in Livy’s description of the Samnite wars, when a Samnite general is captured while riding along the line and exhorting his army: > > _They seized the general Staius Minatius, who was advancing and exhorting the ranks (adeuntem ordines hortantemque); when the horsemen who were with him scattered, they surrounded him and brought him, captured and settled on his horse, to the Roman consul._ (Livy X.20.13) I bet he was embarrassed when he got back home. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2007, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/33 "2007-08-23T01:30:54Z")
“Guards Stand up” by Wellington at the battle of Waterloo. Napoleons Imperial Guard were made up of the bravest,best trained and most experienced soldiers in the French army and had never been defeated in all of the battles of the Napoleonic Wars. They were usually held back until the battles decisive moment and then sent in to finish hings. At Waterloo the British Guards whom the Imperial Guard had never faced had been ordered to lie down by Wellington partly to lessen the heavy casualties being inflicted by the masses of French Artillery and partly to surprise the oncoming enemy. After standing up the British Guards fired one volley into the I.G. and then bayonet charged them,the shocked I.G. fled before them causing consternation throughout the French Army who had never seen them fallback in the face of the enemy and who in turn began a general retreat. Their shout being Le Guard Recule! Not a very glamorous speech but very effective. To the honour of the I.G. when the battle was just about over and their shattered remanentswere asked to surrender to overwhelming force their reply was Merde!(shit) and they were then slaughtered by British Artillery. ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2007, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/34 "2007-08-23T03:59:47Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] Hey, a historian who agrees with me. Always a good sign of accuracy in historians. 😃 [/QUOTE] Actually, I don’t think she agrees with you at all. Her concluding paragraph: > [@Kimberly Henoch](#): > > Thus for the most part, Hansen’s theoretical distinction between pre- and post-deployment formats of battle exhortations is well supported by an analysis of battle speech settings by later ancient historians, although some post-deployment speeches could not have occurred in the format suggested by the historians. These historians’ descriptions also expand upon and validate Hansen’s concerns for logistical difficulties in speech-giving. However, contrary to Hansen’s final conclusion, their very awareness of these difficulties and the strategies they record for overcoming them, as well as their inclusion of historical events that depend on such exhortations, demonstrate the historical reality of battle speeches. Because the historians, many of them experienced military men, acknowledge the logistical difficulties that may have prevented commanders from giving battle speeches and often describe them confronting and overcoming these problems, **the logical conclusion must be that these difficulties did occur, and therefore that the speeches did as well.** Emphasis added, link provided again ([The historical reality of battle speeches](http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Classics/bcj/14-04.html)) for convenience. **Exapno** , the type of speech that you’re talking about, and that Staius Minatius was captured while delivering, is what Hansen refers to as a post-deployment speech. But Henoch provides evidence of more long-winded pre-battle, pre-deployment speeches, as well. For instance Hanno, with his army of mercenaries, was unable to stand before them and give them a good shouting to, so he gave the general message to the subordinate commanders and had them deliver the speech to their own units. Someone upthread mentioned Gettysburg. The crowd for the various parts of the program is estimated at wikipedia as being around 15,000. I expect you have to speak from the diapragm for that type of oration… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2007, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/35 "2007-08-23T05:23:56Z")
In looking again at the information on Queen Elizabeth’s speech to the troops at Tilbury, I find that it was “re-delivered” after she gave it. [Here’s the letter of witness (and participant) Dr. Leonel Sharp on the subject](http://tudorhistory.org/primary/tilbury.html): > [@](#): > > The queen the next morning rode through all the squadrons of her army, as armed Pallas, attended by noble footmen, Leicester, Essex, and Norris, then lord marshall, and divers other great lords. Where she made an excellent oration to her army, **which the next day after her departure, I was commanded to re-deliver to all the army together** , to keep a public fast. And in the field of short exhortations, there’s **Low Dog** ’s rallying cry at the **Battle of the Little Big Horn** : [“This is a good day to die! Follow me!”](http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/program/episodes/six/goodday.htm) ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2007, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/36 "2007-08-23T14:32:28Z")
[QUOTE=msmith537] Also less olden but: Patton “Men, all this stuff you’ve heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans traditionally love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, big league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost, and will never lose a war… because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.” [/QUOTE] Patton’s [actual speech](http://www.pattonhq.com/speech.html) was a lot more “colorful” than the one in the movie - he didn’t really say “fornicating” or “horse dung”. After reading it, I really, really, wish they had let George C. Scott use that version: “We’re not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we’re going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We’re going to murder those lousy Hun cocks_ckers by the bushel-f_cking-basket.” It doesn’t really apply to the OP though - he was speaking to the Third Army before D-Day, while they were still in England, so it wasn’t a “battlefield speech.” ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2007, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/37 "2007-08-23T15:30:30Z")
[QUOTE=muldoonthief] Patton’s [actual speech](http://www.pattonhq.com/speech.html) was a lot more “colorful” than the one in the movie - he didn’t really say “fornicating” or “horse dung”. [/QUOTE] Thanks for that link. I especially enjoyed this Patton quote: “An army without profanity couldn’t fight its way out of a piss-soaked paper bag.” ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2007, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/38 "2007-08-23T21:36:49Z")
Here are two good pre-battle messages, although the second was printed and distributed, not actually spoken to the troops in person: “The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.”_- George Washington, Address to the Continental Army before the Battle of Long Island (August 27, 1776)_ * * * "You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our French comrades against the invasion of a common enemy. You have to perform a task which will need your courage, your energy, your patience. Remember that the honour of the British Army depends on your individual conduct. It will be your duty not only to set an example of discipline and perfect steadiness under fire but also to maintain the most friendly relations with those whom you are helping in this struggle. "The operations in which you are engaged will, for the most part, take place in a friendly country, and you can do your own country no better service than in showing yourself in France and Belgium in the true character of a British soldier. Be invariably courteous, considerate and kind. Never do anything likely to injure or destroy property, and always look upon looting as a disgraceful act. You are sure to meet a welcome and to be trusted; your conduct must justify that welcome and that trust. "Your duty cannot be done unless your health is sound. So keep constantly on your guard against any excesses. In this new experience you may find temptations both in wine and women. You must entirely resist both temptations, and, while treating all women with perfect courtesy, you should avoid any intimacy. “Do your duty bravely. Fear God. Honour the King.” _- Lord Kitchener, Field-Marshal, Guidance to British Troops (August 4, 1914)_ ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2007, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/39 "2007-08-23T21:55:44Z")
Interesting points of emphasis from Kitchener. Was this the first time that Britain and France had fought on the same side? ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2007, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964/40 "2007-08-23T22:48:43Z")
England and France formed an alliance against Imperial Russia in the Crimean War (1854-1856). I can’t think of an earlier occasion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speechifying-before-battle-in-olden-times/415964.md?page=3)