Quotes About Warfare

Dealing with the Scots, my father had always said, was like trying to geld wildcats with your teeth, but luckily the wildcats spent much of their time fighting each other. Once

I kicked back my heels, but all I achieved was to ride out of the panicked mass into the path of the Danes, and all around me men were screaming and the Danish axes and swords were chopping and swinging. The grim work, the blood feast, the song of the blade, they call it.

They're frightened that we'll make a sally and kill them all," Ragnar said, "so they're going to sit there and try to starve us out.

Bernard Cornwell

King Alfred's dream was turning into reality. I am old enough to remember a time when the Danes ruled almost all of what is now England. They captured Northumbria, took East Anglia, and occupied all of Mercia. Guthrum the Dane had then invaded Wessex, driving Alfred and a handful of men into the marshes of Sumorsæte, but Alfred had won the unlikely victory at Ethandun, and ever since the Saxons had inexorably worked their way northwards.

The Tippoo's life seemed charmed. He stepped in blood, but none of it was his and it seemed as though he could not die, but only kill, and so he did, cold-bloodedly, deliberately, exultantly defending his city and his dream against the barbarians who had come to snatch his tiger throne.

We Irish know one thing above all others: an enemy forgiven is an enemy who will have to be fought over and over again.

I gazed at the far woods and knew our enemies were also sharpening their blades. They had to be confident. They knew the dawn would bring them a battle, victory, plunder, and reputation.

Ranks of men on foot, men with shields, men with weapons, a shield wall that was meant to awe us, and it did. A shield wall is a terrible thing. It is a wall of wood, iron, and steel with one purpose alone, to kill. And this shield wall was massive, a wall of painted round shields stretching wide across the ridge's flat top, and above it were the banners of the jarls, chieftains, and kings who had come to kill us.

A hall-burning," Rorik said bitterly. "Hall-burning?" "It happens at home," Rorik explained. "You go to an enemy's hall and burn it to the ground. But there's one thing about a hall-burning. You have to make sure everyone dies. If there are any survivors then they'll take revenge, so you attack at night, surround the hall, and kill everyone who tries to escape the flames.

Bernard Cornwell

the French, as they had always intended, broke their truce.

Men weeping because they had met the horror, and it was us. We were the wolf pack of Bebbanburg and we had taken back what Ida the Flamebearer had first won.

name's sake.' The men called out amen and some

Have you ever fought in a battle? I know you burned down my barns, but that isn't a battle, you stinking piece of rat-gristle. A battle is the shield wall. It's smelling your enemy's breath while he tries to disembowel you with an ax, it's blood and shit and screams and pain and terror. It's trampling in your friends' guts as enemies butcher them. It's men clenching their teeth so hard they shatter them. Have you ever been in a battle?

One thing I learned about the Danes was that they knew how to spy. The monks who write the chronicles tell us that they came from nowhere, their dragon-prowed ships suddenly appearing from a blue vacancy, but it was rarely like that. The Viking crews might attack unexpectedly, but the big fleets, the war fleets, went where they knew there was already trouble. They found an existing wound and filled it like maggots.

Soldiers were not paragons; they were scarred, vicious men who took delight in destruction.

Confusion is inevitable in battle, but indecision is unforgivable.

it's full of Frenchmen who are raping anything that isn't dead and probably things that are dead if they're still fresh

Bernard Cornwell

Clever doesn't win battles -Stupidity loses them.

The square would end with a huddle of bloodied men around the colors and the enemy would fall on them and for a few moments it would be steel against steel, and the sergeant reckoned he would give the flag to a wounded man and do what harm he could with the heavy, long-shafted axe. It was a pity to die, but he was a soldier, and no one had yet devised a way a man could live for ever, not even those clever bastards in Edinburgh.

Wessex. At the very least Alfred would pay

The first stone, thrown by Hellgiver, crashed through the roof of a dyer's house close to St Brieuc's church and took off the heads of an English man-at-arms and the dyer's wife. A joke went through the garrison that the two bodies were so crushed together by the boulder that they would go on coupling throughout eternity.