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Now, the sky-shaking war drum is sounded again...
This article is close to 10,000 words, but it is definitely worth reading. I will use the analysis of the plot of The Lord of the Rings to sort out an unknown but important historical context in Europe. Please read in your free time.
In the previous article " The Code of "Lord of the Rings" (Part 1): Who is the European civilization afraid of? In "Lord of the Rings" and the novel of the same name, we interpret the metaphors of Elder Tolkien in the movie "Lord of the Rings" and the novel of the same name. The plot, analyze how the prototype of this epic battle (the Lord of the Rings Holy War) happened.
1
Before opening, untie a deduction left by the last book. As we mentioned above, the ruined old capital of Gondor, the "Star Fortress" Osgilius, corresponds to the Roman city in real history.
The fallen "Tower of the Moon" Minas Ihir (Minas Devil's Cave) corresponds to Constantinople,
So what does Minas Jano (Minas Tirith) refer to in the heavy colors of the new capital of Gondor and the place where the battle took place in "Lord of the Rings"?
In fact, I have guessed from the comments of many friends that Minas Jano corresponds to Vienna.
Today, when we talk about Vienna, we think that it is just a garden city in central Europe, and the capital of music. But few people realize that this city has served as the "New Rome" imperial capital for hundreds of years in modern times and the forefront of defending Christian civilization. Known as "The Shield of Christ" or "The Shield of Europe." Just like the three cities of “Star Fortress”, “Tower of the Moon”, and “Tower of Sunset” in the novel The Lord of the Rings stand side by side, in the hearts of Europeans in that era, Vienna’s status was also comparable to that of Rome and Constantinople. It seems to condense the last hope of Gondor in the reality of the "Roman Empire"-it is conquered, and Rome will perish. You may find it strange, didn't Rome end up long ago? Yes, if you look up Chinese textbooks of world history, the answer you get is that after the division of East and West Rome, the Western Roman Empire had already perished in 476. But in fact, this point in time was defined very later-that is to say, the Western Roman Empire was actually "dead" by later generations. At least the people in the Middle Ages did not think that Rome was finished. West Rome was said to have died at the end of the 18th century. A British historian named Edward Gibbon published his new book "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire".
This is actually a set of masterpieces, and I recommend it to those who are interested in Rome. In the book, in order to give the first part of the book an end, Yoshimoto forcibly found an event that had not been taken seriously before: in 476, the barbarian captured the city of Rome. According to the previous general drama, the barbarian After the leader forced the Roman emperor to abdicate, he should accept the title of "Roman Emperor". But this time the brutal king who came to Rome to fight the autumn wind, this old brother is called Odoac, a straight boy, and proudly said to the Roman Pope who was busy coming to present the crown: "The strong will crown themselves." So he refused to accept it. The imperial crown of Rome. So this pretending sentence was pulled out by Yoshimoto and made a fuss: Seeing that, the Roman legal system was broken at that time, the empire was subjugated, and Europe entered the Middle Ages, ah, how dark and miserable... But it is a pity In fact, Europeans living in the Middle Ages did not have the high historical consciousness of Yoshimoto. They still felt that they were living in the Roman Empire, but the emperor often changed and the "New Rome" often moved their capitals. In fact, among the barbarian kings of northern Europe, there was Odoac's second stunner who didn't want the Roman crown. This principle is the same as that of the ancient Chinese Caotou King who must have made Yuxi an emperor and declared himself to be the emperor of the previous dynasty: the name Bai gave you, why not? In 800 AD, Charlemagne, the common ancestor of Germany and France, officially accepted the coronation of the Pope and became the "Emperor of Rome."
Since then, this Roman crown has been passed down to the German states by Otto I. In the era of Frederick I of Barbarossa, the prefix "Holy" was added to the "Roman Empire" and it was formed. We are familiar with the "Holy Roman Empire".
Note that the Holy Roman Empire was actually the heir to the legal system of the Western Roman Empire in the concept of Europeans at that time. In theory, it actually has the legal system of all-Western European Christian countries. Even throughout the Middle Ages, when the Pope had a good relationship with the Shinra Emperor, he occasionally issued an edict or something to remind Christians to respect the "Emperor of Rome." But such words are basically useless. First of all, Xiaoqiang like Britain and France did not want to listen to this "fake emperor". Spain and North Africa were in the hands of Muslims. Southern Italy was under the control of the Eastern Roman Empire, and the north was the sphere of influence of the Papal State. Therefore, the place where the "Roman Emperor" really had the final say was left with Germany. In fact, this area of orthodox Rome has never been ruled. So throughout the Middle Ages, the French, the old enemy of the Germans, said that the country was “neither sacred nor Rome”. By the time of the Renaissance, the master Voltaire added “not even more imperial”, and this made it into France at that time. The "Three Lian of Quality" that people must talk about when they "humiliate their morals".
The whole pitiful look is indeed a bit like Gondor before the "Return of the King" of Aragon in Middle-earth.
2
The "Roman Empire" in the Middle Ages has such a nondescript attribute, which is also perfectly inherited by the Gondor Empire in the novel "Lord of the Rings". Anyone who has seen the movie should have the impression that the Gondor Empire was under the escrow of the regent for a long time, and this long-time escrow was unbelievable, since the last King Gondor was deceived by the leader of the ordination Angmar Witch King. The royal family was extinct from the beginning of the disappearance, and the country was regent by the former palace minister's family.
Coincidentally, history was crowned as the "Roman emperor", and Charlemagne, who created the Roman legal system in the Middle Ages, was born in the family of the Merovingian dynasty. It was not until the time of his father Pepin III (the short child Pepin). Orthodoxy was confirmed by bribing the Pope.
During this period of history, Tolkien got his initial inspiration for writing about the House of the Regent. Strictly speaking, although the title of "Holy Roman Emperor" is glamorous, it is just as bad as the "Regent of Gondor". For this, not only are they uncomfortable with the French nearby, but even the heretic Turks are even more uncomfortable. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Turkish sultan, like all barbarian kings who perished in Rome (except Odoyak), considered himself the successor of the Roman Empire. And in order to force Europeans to recognize their legal system. The easiest way that the sultans can think of is to conquer this new capital of "fake Rome"-Vienna, where the Habsburg family has long been entrenched.
Therefore, conquering Vienna has always been the primary goal of the Turkish sultans, and the first to try this was Suleiman the Great.
I have an idea, although it is quite certain, it may be very politically incorrect in the West at the moment- the person of Emperor Suleiman should be the prototype of the demon Sauron described by Tolkien. This is not just because the two names have similar pronunciations in English (Suleman, Sauron). It is also because Suleiman may be the Muslim closest to destroying the West. His early years of wise martial arts and the tyrannical and blackening of his later years are indeed a bit of the shadow of the demon Lord Sauron.
In 1529, Emperor Suleiman led 300,000 renkers of Belgrade and Budapest, and occupied the whole of Hungary, and went all the way to the city of Vienna, making the first siege of Vienna in history. Suleiman the Great, who was conquered by himself, was so proud that he would make the whole of Europe convert to Allah. But in distress, the entire Christian world broke out with astonishing unity at that time. The Pope promulgated religious parables asking believers to gather in Vienna for a "holy war", and a large number of volunteers rushed to the capital of the Holy Roman Empire to participate in the war in the name of "Crusades".
At that time, the Holy Roman Empire led by the Habsburg dynasty was still physically healthy. Not only did the princes in the territory listen to the emperor's greetings, what's more, the Habsburg dynasty also jointly ruled the emerging empire Spain.
So in the first Siege of Vienna, Suleiman's offensive was met with head-on attacks from coalition forces from almost all of Western Europe. The unprepared Emperor Suleiman finally returned home. His plans for European expansion have finally come to a halt. Soon, the Ottoman Empire fell into civil strife as he became faint and eventually passed away in his later years, and Europe took a sigh of relief with the death of the monarch. In "Lord of the Rings", the opening is a tribute to this period of history-Sauron's attempt to conquer the entire Middle-Earth, encountered joint resistance between humans and elves, the human monarch Elendil and his son, and the elven supreme king Gilgalad Form the "Last Alliance" to resist Sauron together.
This is the "Last Alliance Battle" at the beginning of "Lord of the Rings" and in the end, it was also Sauron's unexpected death, which gave Middle-earth a chance to breathe... Just ask if you like it. But what do you say in World of Warcraft? "It has been four years since the Alliance and the Horde fought side by side to resist the invasion of the Burning Legion. Although the Azeroth continent was successfully saved, the fragile agreement between the Horde and the Alliance has long since disappeared. Now, the shock The drum of heaven, once again sounded..."
Yes, after resisting the conquest of Emperor Suleiman. Europeans thought their civilization was safe. What happened next left Europeans with a narrative model carved in their bones-the alliance would collapse and the "devil" would come back.
3
In June 1683, an emergency report was introduced to the court of Vienna. Mohammed IV, Sultan of Turkey, assembled a total of 250,000 troops and 150 troops from the Sudanese soldiers, Anatolians, Berbers in North Africa, Arabs in the Middle East, Tatars in the Far East and other servant states. The army of type artillery has been assembled in Belgrade. We are advancing vigorously to the west, with the same goal: to conquer Vienna.
At this time, more than a hundred years have passed since the last war. The Holy Roman Empire has long lost its courage. The emperor not only lost its union with Spain, but the empire was also plunged into unprecedented civil strife. From 1618 to 1648, the long-supplied religious contradictions in the Holy Roman Empire erupted. The melee between Protestantism and Catholicism began. The surrounding countries subsequently chose sides and fought off. This was the famous Thirty Years' War.
The Thirty Years' War, the "European Civil War" that drained the blood of Christians. In this battle, under the repeated attacks of France, Sweden and other countries, the Catholic League was retreating steadily. In the end, as the leader of the Catholic League, the Habsburg dynasty was forced to sign the "Westphalian Contract" and cede the gods. A large number of territories in Romania, the Netherlands and Switzerland separated from the empire, and recognized the sovereign status of the German princes, and practiced religious freedom in the empire. In this way, the prestige of the "Roman emperor" has disappeared, the German population has been greatly reduced, and nearly half of the German-speaking men have died in this war. The Holy Roman Empire at this time can be said to have existed in name only. Misfortunes never come singly, the imperial capital Vienna suffered another major plague after the war, leaving only one third of the population before the war. As a result, before the war of 1683, Vienna could mobilize less than 20,000 defenders, and it almost became an isolated and empty city. On the other hand, in the Ottoman Empire, something went wrong in the more than one hundred years after the death of Emperor Suleiman. During this period of time, the rate of Ottoman's expansion slowed down. The side effects of the "Jericheni system" began to appear. The Sudanese soldiers began to endure, and the Sudan's control over it gradually weakened. It gradually evolved into a huge interest group with severely reduced combat effectiveness. Later, it even grasped the right to abolish the Sudan. . But at this darkest moment, Sultan Mohammed IV, who considered himself the rebirth of Suleiman the Great, ascended the throne. Mohammed IV is not a Ming prince, but he is indeed a diligent man. After he came to power, he used an iron fist to suppress opponents and corrupt officials. He killed 30,000 officials at all levels within five years and actively launched a campaign against him. The foreign war in Europe shifted the contradictions, and Turkey began to rejuvenate.
Mohammed IV, in fact, regardless of his character, manner of imperialism, or vanity, this guy is even more suspected of the rebirth of Emperor Chongzhen. But Mohammed IV knew that his achievements had not really been able to catch up with Suleiman the Great. If he wanted to achieve his full success, he had to take down the fortified city, Vienna, where the emperor did not get what he wanted. So the offense finally started in 1683. The preparations made by Mohammed IV for this offensive cannot be said to be inadequate. At least diplomatically, he restored the "blasphemy alliance" with France and instigated France to cooperate with him. "The eldest daughter of God" France played a role in this period of history, much like the white-robed wizard Saruman who allied with Sauron in "Lord of the Rings".
In the novel, Saruman's support during the attack of the Sauron Demon Army is to send troops to attack the Valley of the Helm, and secondly to send his men Grima, who ingeniously corrupted Hiurdon, the king of the Luo Khanate, and made him No soldiers can help the Kingdom of Gondor. In real history, in order to deal with the Habsburg dynasty, France has signed an alliance with Suleiman the Great since Francois I in the 16th century. In the reign of French King Louis XIV, in order to cooperate with Mohammed IV, the "Sun King" also made two moves. On the Western Front, France sent troops to attack Lorraine and the lowlands, which originally belonged to the Holy Roman Empire, in response, leaving behind the Alsace-Lorraine issue that has been fighting between Germany and France for a long time. In the East, France sent ambassadors to use diplomatic power to bribe Polish nobles with whom it had been acquainted with, so that they could contain King Jan Sobieski and not fulfill the agreement reached between Poland and the Habsburgs to intervene in the upcoming battle of Vienna. .
Probably this feeling... After these preparations were made, at the end of May 1683, Mohammed IV paraded and sworn in Belgrade and announced the start of the "jihad". But what is strange is that after everything is ready, Sultan Mohammed IV does not intend to lead the army to launch this aspiring general offensive. He stayed in Belgrade for hunting, and handed over the command to his Grand Vizier (Prime Minister) Carla Mustafa.
This detail proves that Mohammed IV did not have the grandeur of Suleiman the Great after all, but was more "chicken thief" than his ancestors. Mohammed IV feared that he would bear the responsibility for defeat. His wishful thinking was that if the war was won in such a time, the credit would be his Sultan. If the war was unfavorable, he would throw the pot to the Grand Vizier, and he would bear the war. The culpability of failure. So Kara Mustafa, who resembled the Angmar Witch King, the leader of the ring spirits, shouldered the heavy responsibility of the Back Pot Man and set off officially. Behind him, the eager and ambitious gaze of the Sultan was watching.
4
The Holy Roman Emperor who "lined" Carla Mustafa was Leopold I. This emperor looks like this, let's feel the "reign" of this "Roman emperor":
It is not surprising that the emperor grew up like this, because the Habsburg dynasty relied on marriage to collect territories. As a result of inbreeding with close relatives, the later, the more serious the problems of genetic deterioration and genetic diseases. No matter how beautiful the painter is, he can't save it. The role of the Emperor, who "does not look like a benevolent monarch," in the battle of Vienna corresponds to the regent King Dineser II in "Lord of the Rings". They are doing three things like: First, when the enemy army is about to be near the city, they are still drinking and having fun, hunting and picnicking, and they are completely literate and happy. Second, when the enemy finally learned of the arrival of the enemy's army, despite the opposition of the officials who stood by for assistance, without knowing the strength of the Turks, he blindly ordered his army to rush out of Vienna and send it away, which made the strength of Vienna even more empty. Third, after the first two were invalid, the treatment was finally given up. On the eve before the Turks were near the city, they took their families and pets out of Vienna and hid in Linz...
Therefore, in "Lord of the Rings", the mental breakdown and blind command of King Nesser II are really restored... In short, after Emperor Leopold's communication operation, the guard mission in Vienna seems to be even more hopeless. But the East is not bright, the West is bright, and the emergence and choices of some historical figures in times of crisis have changed the seemingly established historical trend. The first was Innocent XI, who was the pope at that time.
The pope from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment era is often synonymous with corruption, but the Pope of Innocent XI can be called a fighter in the pope. After he came to power, through strict economy, punishment of corruption, and reform of fiscal and taxation policies, the Holy See was able to reverse the dilemma that the Holy See had been unable to make ends meet and depended on selling indulgences to survive. In the Battle of Vienna, Pope Innocent XI played a role like Gandalf-he wrote a personal letter to every Catholic monarch who might send troops to aid, especially to the powerful Polish-Lithuanian monarch. Yang Sobieski not only emphasized the covenant and doctrine, but also promised to pay a lot of money in return.
Under his superb political skills, Jan Sobieski was moved and started his gorgeous performance. Jan Sobieski, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, was later known as the "hero who saved the Christian world", and it was only the battle under Vienna that gave him this title.
Obviously, he is also the main prototype of Rohan King Ushidon. In fact, Poland at the time was a country similar to the Kingdom of Rohan in the novel "The Lord of the Rings". In the novel, during the five hundred years of its founding, the Kingdom of Rohan is a country that struggles to survive among many disasters such as the four battles, the war with the half-orcs, the long winter, the plunder of the Dunlanders and many other disasters. In reality, Poland's situation is similar to it. Both countries also use volunteer cavalry as their main combat force. In the novel, the Rohan nobleman usually obtains fiefdoms. In wartime, he must prepare his own horses, bucklers, spears, long swords, helmets and armor to respond to the king’s Conscription, and this system is almost a replica of the Polish wing cavalry in the 16th and 18th centuries.
The tactics used by the two cavalry armies are also very similar. In the "Lord of the Rings" movie, the Rohan cavalry lined up in a dense array of cavalry to launch a frontal charge against the orcs' spears, which left a deep impression on people. However, in the actual military, this kind of cavalry formation of densely formed frontal "hard resistance" infantry is rarely seen. The only explanation seems to be that Tolkien had drawn inspiration from the tactics of the Polish Winged Cavalry. Winged cavalry are often organized into squadrons of 150-200 people, lined up in two dense rows knee-to-knee. Outstanding equestrian skills allow them to charge in such a dense formation, and long lances can guarantee them. The spear stabbed before the opponent pierced the opponent. Such a huge impact, coupled with the same excellent melee ability of the wing cavalry, often brings devastating blows to the enemy.
If there has ever been a unit in real history that has perfectly performed the frontal assault of the Rohan Cavalry in "Lord of the Rings" and still fights as smoothly as mercury, it seems that only the Polish Winged Cavalry.
5
Edoras Howard Shore-The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers (The Complete Recordings) The shock that made the Wing Cavalry famous in history occurred on September 12, 1683. In the early morning of this day, with a signal flare across the early morning sky, Polish King Jan Sobieski appeared on the high ground north of Vienna.
He saw a spectacular and terrifying siege. Since July of the same year, the Ottoman army of 250,000 has been attacking the city of Vienna for two full months. The tunnels dug by artillery and engineers repeatedly blasted the walls of Vienna, and the defenders in the city continued to rush into the gaps and surge up. The Turkish soldiers fought desperately. Under the frantic impact of countless cannon fodder, the defending line collapsed several times. Even the Ottomans had already planted the crescent flag on the city head of Vienna, but they were still hit by the superior firepower of the defenders. Return. There are many historians of later generations saying why Vienna, which is at an absolute disadvantage in strength, can hold on for so long, but two reasons are undeniable-first, the training of the Thirty Years' War made Europeans a blessing in disguise, and the design of Star Castle in Vienna at this time The tactics of the defenders, and the quality and application of artillery have been slightly higher than those of the Ottomans on the opposite side. Secondly, to blame Mohammed IV for "slipping his shoulders." The Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa, who replaced him, was afraid of the firepower of the defenders and did not dare to damage the elite of the Sudanese soldiers. Whenever the cannon fodder opened the gap, he did not dare to send the elite to attack, causing the Ottoman to lose. The best chance to capture Vienna. What Yang Sobieski saw was that although Vienna was in a precarious position, it still stood upright, and the bells of the St. Stephen’s Church in the center of the city were still encouraging the soldiers to make the final battle.
A smile crossed the corner of the Polish king's mouth, and he waved slightly to the attendant beside him, who blew his horn. Behind the cover of the hills is a full 80,000 Christian reinforcements! It cannot be said that Mustafa is completely unprepared for the arrival of reinforcements led by Yang Sobieski. On September 10, before the reinforcements were assembled, Mustafa also convened a military meeting to discuss countermeasures. But Mustafa made a fatal mistake at the meeting-the "Jericheni education" he had received since childhood made him seriously underestimate the strength and combat determination of the Christian coalition. The city of Vienna is "at your fingertips" in the front, and enemy reinforcements are "insignificant" in the back. After thinking about the KPIs Sultan had set for him, Mustafa decided to divide his forces, siege the city while defending the position without delay. He felt that although the troops were divided along the way, the Ottoman army still had 150,000 people at this time, and there was more than enough to pack up the coalition forces who came to aid. But the development of things far exceeded his expectations. On September 12, the decisive battle began. Jan Sobieski first ordered the infantry composed of the German states to attack from the left flank, and the Ottoman army immediately challenged. And because of underestimating the number of reinforcements, Mustafa misjudged that the left wing was the main attack direction of the coalition forces. In order to prevent the position from being surrounded by coalition forces, he transferred most of his mobile forces to the left wing to start a bloody battle with the coalition forces. By the end of the battle at 6 pm, the Ottoman army gradually showed a state of fatigue of division veterans, and the line began to loosen. At this time, Jan Sobieski suddenly ordered the cavalry to move. Under the leadership of 3,000 Polish winged cavalry, as many as 20,000 coalition cavalry suddenly launched a patrol on the empty right wing of the Turks!
Seeing this, Mustafa was shocked and hurriedly ordered the musketeers and spearmen to form a phalanx to resist. But it was too late. The platoon fired by the musketeer was submerged in a flash like a pebble thrown into the raging waves. The lancers in the array felt the earth tremble violently along with the galloping wall on the opposite side, and they made a loud bang that seemed like a reminder for them!
then. The huge army formed by the Turks, which consisted of more than 100,000 people, collapsed almost at the moment of the battle with the Wing Cavalry.
During the military service, 16,000 Ottoman Turkish troops were annihilated and 5,000 were captured. The myth that the Sudanese soldiers are invincible has since been broken. And after the big victory, Jan Sobieski imitated Caesar and wrote to the Pope in Latin, saying: "Venimus. Vidimus. Deus vicit."-I came, I saw it, and God had the victory.
Comparing the Lord of the Rings, we will find that Tolkien is so fond of this hearty victory to save the Christian world. So much so that the "Battle of the Helm Valley" and "The Battle of Palano Plains" in his works are almost all re-enactments of this battle.
If there is a difference, it's just that in the latter battle, Tuo Lao combined a bit of the shadow of the battle of Sharon in history where Western Rome and Visigoth jointly resisted Attila the Hun. In the Battle of Sharon, the old Visigoth king Theodoric was killed when he led the cavalry charge, and Tuo Lao also let the old king of Rohan, the Rohan, who led the cavalry charge, died on the battlefield.
One more thing, in fact, in these two fictitious battles, Tuo Lao also buried a stalk from Shakespeare's masterpiece "Macbeth": "Unless the trees move" and "No man can kill me".
Therefore, I want to emphasize that although Tolkien claims that his novels do not allude to any history, he is indeed a "master of burying the stems", and his works have allusions and allusions to the past history and literature. In real history, the Battle of Vienna in 1683 was the same as the "Battle of Paliano" in the novel, which was a turning point. After the defeated general Mustafa fled back to Belgrade, he was quickly convicted and executed by Mohammed IV, who was eager to abdicate.
This kind of "Chongzhen behavior" made the iron fist that relied on the Sudan reluctantly maintained the Ottoman Empire even more centrifugal. Looking at the timing, European countries reunited under the call of Pope Innocent XI and launched the "Great Turkish War". The siege of the Christian country caused the Ottoman Empire to suffer an unprecedented defeat. Turkey lost Hungary, Twasirania, and a large number of European territories west of the Dnieper River, and has never expanded in Europe ever since. So far, the Islamic "New Rome" that once made the entire Christian world tremble and feared that it would dominate Europe has gone from prosperity to decline. It became the "sick man of West Asia" and it began
However, the metaphor of "Lord of the Rings" has not yet been fully explained. Who is the Returning King Aragorn who is repeatedly emphasized in the book?
There is actually a prototype for him, and if you follow the news, you will not be unfamiliar. Why did the author make Frodo, the hobbit from the Shire, the hero who ultimately destroyed the Demon Sauron? The most important thing is, as a British, why did Tolkien write such a story? In fact, there are many interesting historical stalks buried in this. I will continue to interpret it for you in the next article. Stay tuned.
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