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squire
Half-elven
Sep 22 2016, 11:37am
Post #1 of 6
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**Party Business** - The Great Quiz for the Great War
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For this year’s Tolkien birthday celebration, we remember that 100 years ago, in 1916, young Lieutenant Tolkien fought in the Battle of the Somme. It was one of the Great War’s bloodiest episodes. He was the first to admit that the experience seared him, and greatly influenced his later works of fantasy literature.
Can you identify 1) The book and chapter in which the following quotes appear; and 2) The connection they may have to Tolkien’s experiences in the Great War?
1. Busy as ants hurrying orcs were digging, digging lines of deep trenches in a huge ring, just out of bowshot from the walls; and as the trenches were made each was filled with fire, though how it was kindled or fed, by art or devilry, none could see.
2. They had a struggle to get out of the thicket. The thorns and briars were as tough as wire and as clinging as claws. Their cloaks were rent and tattered before they broke free at last.
3. The land about them grew bleak and barren, though once … it had been green and fair. There was little grass, and before long there was neither bush nor tree, and only broken and blackened stumps to speak of ones long vanished.
4. … and of iron and flame they wrought a host of monsters …. Some were all of iron so cunningly linked that they might flow like slow rivers of metal … and these were filled in their innermost depths with the grimmest of the Orcs with scimitars and spears; others of bronze and copper were given hearts and spirits of blazing fire, and they blasted all that stood before them with the terror of their snorting or trampled whatso escaped the ardour of their breath;
5. …they sat without speaking under the shadow of a mound of slag; but foul fumes leaked out of it, catching their throats and choking them …. they came to a wide almost circular pit, high-banked upon the west. It was cold and dead, and a foul sump of oily many-coloured ooze lay at its bottom.
6. … and about Vingilot were gathered all the great birds of heaven and Thorondor was their captain, and there was battle in the air all the day and through a dark night of doubt.
7. As far as their eyes could reach…, there were camps, some of tents, some ordered like small towns. One of the largest of these was right below them. Barely a mile out into the plain it clustered like some huge nest of insects, with straight dreary streets of huts and long low drab buildings.
8. … he caused vast smokes and vapours to be made, and they came forth … A wind came out of the east, … and they fell, and coiled about the fields and hollows, … drear and poisonous.
9. Then there was a crash and a flash of flame and smoke. … a gaping hole was blasted in the wall. A host of dark shapes poured in. … ‘They have crept in the culvert again, while we talked, and they have lit the fire of Orthanc beneath our feet.’
10. … he whizzed three times over the heads of the crowd. They all ducked, and many fell flat on their faces. The dragon passed like an express train, turned a somersault, and burst over Bywater with a deafening explosion.
Answers below in white text:
Wait – did you really try? Remember our boys in the Somme, and finish the job!
1. LotR V.3, ‘Siege of Minas Tirith’. Trenches are one of the greatest symbols of the Western Front; the addition of fire suggests the chemical technology behind an innovation of the war: flame-throwers.
2. LotR VI.2, ‘The Land of Shadow’. The thorns recall the use of barbed wire in No-Mans Land on the Western Front.
3. Hobbit 11, ‘On the Door-step’. The Desolation of the Dragon recalls the destroyed landscape of rural France.
4. Book of Lost Tales 2.III, ‘The Fall of Gondolin’. Melko’s mechanical dragons bring the technology of the armored tank into a fantasy of Elves and Goblins. (He later abandoned this idea and it does not appear in the Sil.)
5. LotR IV.2, ‘The Passage of the Marshes’. The scene evokes the cratered landscape of the Front, where poison gas lingered in the relative safety of the shell-holes.
6. Sil 24, ‘Of the Voyage of Earendil and the War of Wrath’. The warplanes of the Allies and Germany fought for control of the air as the troops on the ground watched and waited for the attack to begin.
7. LotR VI.2, ‘The Land of Shadow’. The gridded streets and utilitarian buildings of military bases were not invented in the Great War, but they had an impact on anyone who lived in one all the same.
8. Sil 13, ‘Of the Return of the Noldor’. The Germans first introduced poison gas, waiting for the East wind to carry it against the allied lines.
9. LotR III.7, ‘Helm’s Deep’. This recalls the use of subterranean mines to blast through the opposing trenches, just before an attack.
10. LotR I.1, ‘A Long-expected Party’. A common expression to describe being in the trenches under a barrage of artillery shells was that they ‘whizzed’ overhead ‘like an express train’. (Every train traveler knew how expresses raced through local stations at high speeds, creating a vacuum and then a shock wave of sound and air pressure.)
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Archive: All the TORn Reading Room Book Discussions (including the 1st BotR Discussion!) and Footerama: "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
Dr. Squire introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
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Bracegirdle
Valinor
Sep 22 2016, 12:34pm
Post #2 of 6
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Connections: Trenches, deep trenches.
Edited: Ooops, your white-out can be discerned by the keen-of-eye. Not sure if you meant it so.
Also #1 should be chapter 4, The Siege of Gondor. 
Thanks for the quiz squire…
‘. . . the rule of no realm is mine . . .
But all worthy things that are in peril . . . those are my care.
For I also am a steward. Did you not know?'
Gandalf to Denethor
(This post was edited by Bracegirdle on Sep 22 2016, 12:45pm)
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Gianna
Rohan
Sep 22 2016, 1:19pm
Post #3 of 6
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1. Book V, "The Siege of Gondor". Trenches is an obvious connection, and fire from shells and grenades and such.
2. Book VI, "The Land of Shadow1. "Tough as wire and as clinging as claws" suggests barbed wire.
3. Book III, "Flotsam and Jetsam". The once beautiful lands of Europe, blackened and destroyed by war.
4. I'm not sure about this one; it sounds like the Silm but I recently reread it and don't remember this passage.
5. Book IV, "The Black Gate Opens". Gas fumes.
6. The Silm, "Of Earendil and the War of Wrath" (or whatever). Air battles.
7. Book VI, "The Land of Shadow". The dreary camps of the armies.
8. Another one I'm not sure about.
9. Book III, "Helm's Deep". Bombs and shells.
10. Book I, "A Long Expected Party". The bombing of civilian England.
"The men of the East may search the scrolls,
For sure fates and fame,
But the men that drink the blood of God
Go singing to their shame."
-G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse, Book I
------
My fantasy novels
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dormouse
Half-elven
Sep 22 2016, 2:11pm
Post #4 of 6
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Not sure how many I can manage, but....
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Don't think I can tell you any of the chapter names and numbers without looking them up, so on that I'm an epic fail, but
1. Is the siege of Minas Tirith from 'Return of the King' and the First World War connection would be trench digging, also the flame throwers which were used on the Somme. I can't remember if Tolkien was anywhere near one but he would have known about them even if he didn't see one.
2. That, I think, has to do with Sam and Frodo in the crossing of Mordor (again, 'Return of the King' - chapter something like 'The Land of Shadow') - in FWW terms maybe you're thinking of the barbed wire thickets that protected the oppositing front lines and were at least as bad as that and in many cases a death trap.
3. The Hobbit - 'the Desolation of the Dragon' (or similar!). It's a perfect description of much of the once-green farmland between Albert and Bapaume 100 years ago, when the battle of the Somme was at its height. Or, for that matter, of Ypres, Verdun and so on, but the Somme is the one Tolkien knew.
4. That's the Fall of Gondolin, from the Book of Lost Tales. FWW connection the tanks first used by the British army in the Battle of Flers-Courcelette on the Somme, exactly 100 years and a week ago.
5. Sam and Frodo again, crossing the Dead Marshes in 'The Two Towers' - chapter I think 'The Passing of the Marshes'. It evokes the shell-holes and the general poisoning of a landscape subjected to high explosive and various types of gas.
6. Silmarillion - 'Of The Voyage of Earendil'. As for the FWW connection, are you thinking of the war in the air, but with early aeroplanes rather than eagles?
7. Return of the King - 'the Land of Shadow' again, describing the scenes Frodo and Sam see in Mordor. There were lots of military camps set up in the back areas of France and Flanders, away from the fighting lines, with tents and huts that must have looked a lot like this (except that British soliders were noted for their tendency to plant flowers when they stayed anywhere long enough!)
8. Could be Mordor again, but I think it's the Silmarillion, when the Noldor return to Beleriand and besiege Morgoth in Thangorodrim. And I think you're thinking of the poison gas used by both sides on the Somme.
9. The Two Towers and Helm's Deep. Underground tunnels and (explosive) mines were used extensively on the Somme, where the chalk lent itself to deep digging. Each side was constantly trying to undermine (literally) the other's trenches.
10. Fellowship of the Ring, 'A Long-expected Party.' That's part of Gandalf's firework display. As for the war connection, I s'pose that would be the nightly routine in the front lines, with shells, grenades, mortar bombs and so on passing overhead (or, if you were unlucky, exploding in the trench.) There are photographs of the trench lines at night that look rather like a firework display.
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood and every spring
there is a different green. . .
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Sep 23 2016, 2:29am
Post #5 of 6
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The LINK to that best-of-all Rap Battles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAAp_luluo0!
I know some of these right off:
1. LotR Book 5, Siege of Gondor. Trenches, trenches everywhere, the Front was long, long trenches.
2. LotR Book 6, Land of Shadow. Warfare in the wooded areas with no benefit of path-ways.
3. The Hobbit, On the Doorstep, as the company travel from Lake-town to the Mountain. Fire-blasted ruins everywhere.
5. LotR Book 4, Passage of the Marshes. Bomb-blasted craters.
7. LotR Book 6, Land of Shadow. The dreary encampments.
9. Who can forget this! LotR Book 4, Helm's Deep! Walls destroyed by explosions.
10. LOL, LotR Book 1, A Long-Expected Party. Shades of the planes dropping bombs!
A most excellent quiz, squire, and it highlights the emotion of Tolkien's descriptive prose. Thank you!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
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grammaboodawg
Immortal
Sep 23 2016, 9:55pm
Post #6 of 6
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And a wonderful tribute for our Good Professor! Thanks so much!
1. Return of the King: Siege of Gondor - It is so easy to imagine the trenches Tolkien was buried in with his fellow soldiers. It must have been like digging your own grave at time.s
2. Return of the King: The Land of Shadow - Frodo and Sam as they run to escape the oncoming army in Mordor. I've heard the same description of trying to deal with the hedges the soldiers had to crawl and break through on the battlefield.
3. The Fellowship of the Ring: The Great River - a description of the Brown Lands that were devastated from evil. After such a long and horrid war, I'm sure all of the lands Tolkien saw fit this description.
4. This one has me stumped... but it makes me think of Isengard and Saruman's prep for war. With what must have seemed like endless weaponry, it'd be easy to imagine the constant crank-out of metal, flame, and destruction.
5. The Two Towers: Passage of the Marshes - The stench of death in the battlefield must have seemed like this.
6. Another one that has me stumped! But the imagery of air battles and planes filling the sky is chilling!
7. The Return of the King: The Land of Shadow - Frodo and Sam looking out on the endless enemy camps! Tolkien must have been one little person in a land filled with tents and war preparation!
8. It's obvious I know more about LotR than any of the works! Wow! But I know there was a lot of poisonous gases used during the Battle of the Somme. Horrific!
9. The Two Towers: Helm's Deep - This would not only be something that would have happened to Tolkien on the Battlefield, but it makes me think of the bombing of cities... all over Europe.
10. The Fellowship of the Ring: A Long-Expected Party - I'm sure the incoming shells and flames from the enemy lines felt just like this!
We have been there and back again.
TIME Google Calendar
6th draft of TH:AUJ Geeky Observations List - November 28, 2013
4th draft of TH:DOS Geeky Observations List - May 15, 2014
5th draft of TH:BotFA Geeky Observations List - January 30, 2015
TORn's Geeky Observations Lists for LotR and The Hobbit
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