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The Guard dies, but does not surrender!
The concept of the guard was born at the dawn of humanity. The term guard was used to describe elite units of warriors, the personal retinue of tribal chiefs, and later, despots. The pharaohs of Egypt, the lords of Ashur, and the bloodthirsty Assyrian kings all had their own guards. These were the best fighters, but in truth, they did not rush to die; on the contrary, they longed to live, to feast sumptuously, and to dress well. They were skilled in battle, often deciding the outcome of a fight. They stood as a formidable wall before the throne, embodying the power of the state. But they did not know how to die. And that is why our story is not about them.
Our story is not about the gold-armored Praetorian Guard of the Roman caesars, nor about the noble regiments shining with the splendor of their equipment at palace reviews; our story is not about the heroes of palace coups or the conquerors of the coquettish hearts of royal ladies-in-waiting. Let someone else tell of them.
Precious clothes, gilded helmets, silver spears—this was the look of the immortals, the tinsel guard of eastern lords. For many years it seemed invincible, frightening enemies with its menacing appearance and contrived glory, but it faltered before three hundred Spartiates, who were taught how to die, but whom they forgot to teach how to retreat.
Truly, in that moment, the real guard was born: a guard of spirit, a guard of honor. There were many such warriors who placed honor above all else. They were not always called guardsmen, but they were indeed so.
Leonidas's Spartiates and Epaminondas's Sacred Band, the Companions of Alexander the Great and the Tenth Legion of divine Julius, the Knights of the Round Table and Lazar's Serbs, the knights of same-named Svyatoslav and Sobieski's hussars [Jan Sobieski—a Polish king (17th century), who repeatedly defeated the Turks], Swiss mercenaries and Maltese Hospitallers [members of the Order of St. John; in 1565, the Hospitallers defeated a Turkish army attempting to capture Malta], Suvorov's wonder-bogatyrs and Napoleon's world-shaking "grumblers."
Perhaps we have not mentioned many—the unyielding Scottish Highlanders and the militia of Moscow Prince Dmitry, the warriors of Roland and Cromwell's "Ironsides" ["Ironsides"—an elite cavalry created by O. Cromwell; played a decisive role in the wars between the English Parliament and King Charles I], Kleber's revolutionary soldiers [Kleber—a famous French general during the Great French Revolution and the Directory] and Blücher's Landsturm.
Perhaps we should also mention the heroes of Shipka, and the "Varyag," and the brave Belgians who for three whole weeks held back the "steamroller" of the Kaiser's army, and von Spee's "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau" ["Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau"—German cruisers that entered an unequal battle against an English squadron; Admiral von Spee, commanding the German ships, refused to lower the flags and perished along with 2000 sailors, including two of his sons]. Perhaps, although it was another century.
The Guard—whatever drove it: protection of the hearth, knightly pride, military brotherhood, greed—but above all, there was honor. The guardsmen left no lavish monuments or palaces to their descendants; they left something greater—a great memory that defines history.
Thus, it is almost indisputable that the homeland of the guard was Sparta, truly a state-guard. Heroes are not born; heroes are raised. In Sparta, they raised heroes. Here, one could not help but be a hero. A Spartiate going to battle was given a shield and he could return either with it, as a victor, or on it—lifeless, carried by loyal friends who had crushed the enemy. He who threw away his shield ceased to be a Spartiate. He no longer belonged to the special caste of warriors—the Hellenic guard.
The Guard inspired admiration. It was adored. Hymns were composed in its honor. In the mind of a Hellene, the Spartiates of the Thermopylae era were likened to titans, great heroes. And this veneration sometimes influenced them more strongly than courage. In those wretched moments when sticky fear crept in, a Spartiate remembered that he was a hero, equal in spirit and valor to his god-like ancestors. And does a god-like hero have the right to turn his back on the enemy? And so the Spartiates refused to leave the battlefield for the sake of saving their lives. The age of Sparta's glory was the age of Hellas's glory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhAKkPOjRVs
However, the ancients rightly noted—sic transit gloria mundi [thus passes earthly glory (Lat.)]. Any glory becomes nothing if it is not confirmed by daily action. The Spartan guard dissolved in inter-Hellenic squabbles; it was consumed by a golden rain that blinded the eyes of the gerontes. With the sunset of the guard began the sunset of Hellas. This sunset was beautiful, truly—many nations would have envied such a sunset—but still, it was a sunset followed by night. There was, admittedly, a short surge—the decade of Epaminondas's glorious victories. Three hundred warriors bound by divine friendship—they fought not for profit, not for themselves, not even for the fatherland, but to save a bleeding comrade. It is no wonder they were victorious. But at the same time, they were overshadowed by the glory of the invincible Epaminondas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mg7r1f-D0U
When the great bearch was gone, the Theban guard sank into oblivion.
Then came the Companions—the "friends" of Alexander the Great. Noble by birth, they were fearless in battle. There were very few of them, a few hundred, perhaps a thousand. Ptolemy, Lysimachus, Seleucus, Perdiccas, Hephaestion, Philotas, Parmenion. But the onslaught of the Companions crushed enormous armies. And there were dozens of battles. And there were great victories at Granicus, Ipsus, Gaugamela. And there were losses. Some "friends" perished in clashes; others were sucked into the swamp of conspiracies. Those remaining declared themselves Diadochi [Diadochi (successors—Gr.)—the generals of Alexander the Great who divided his empire after the ruler's death] and tore the great empire to shreds.
The Tenth Legion was never called a guard by Julius. But Caesar sent it to the most dangerous places, which means he considered it as such. The Triarii [the most experienced warriors forming the third line of a Roman legion] of the Tenth Legion bore scars received in clashes with Helvetians, Belgae, Germans, Averni, Carnutes, Aedui [Gallic tribes conquered by Julius Caesar]; they remembered Pharsalus, Thapsus, Munda [battles of the civil war in Rome in which Julius Caesar crushed his main opponents]. The Tenth Legion was Julius's child, and he, in turn, was its soul. The Guard ceased to exist when the soul died, pierced by the daggers of Brutus and Cassius. And then appeared the Praetorians, those janissaries of antiquity, whose valor consisted only in overthrowing and elevating caesars to the throne.
The Knights of the Round Table turned into a beautiful legend. And Lancelot is doomed to fight eternally with a dragon—a dragon eternal and undying. And Roland's Frankish knights fell in a gorge under the blows of curved Basque swords, and Lazar's brave Serbs carpeted the Kosovo field with their bodies [site of the battle between the Turkish army and the combined forces of Serbs, Bosnians, and Albanians; the Turks won a complete victory and captured Serbia and several neighboring states].
The pagan retinue of Svyatoslav vanished into oblivion, tamed not by the Roman spear, but by the cross. Sobieski's dashing szlachta traded honor for revelry and pride.
But let us return a few steps back to the early Middle Ages—the era of the power of Arabs and Vikings. Norman drakkars shook the world from Algeria to Scotland, from northern Rus to North America, which at that time was not yet America, but Terra incognita [unknown land (Lat.)]. The Normans laid waste to the lands of the Franks, Germans, Italy, Sicily, Spain, Portugal. "A buroxe North Mannorum libera nos, Domine!" [save us, Lord, from the fury of the Normans (Lat.)]—prayed a Europe frozen with terror at the appearance of predatory dragon-noses. The Normans were distinguished by frenzy and cruelty, but the most frenzied were the berserkers, who laughed in the face of death. Yes, they wished to die, but only so that they might live. Live in beautiful Valhalla. Odin's children did not seek death; they sought salvation in death. Jumping with a sword into a crowd of enemies, the berserkers screamed with happiness, believing they had escaped the horror of Hel, and as they died, they looked to the sky for beautiful Valkyries.
Paradise awaited Muslim warriors too. But the frenzy of the Vikings was akin to honor; the heroism of Muslims was religious fanaticism, for the mujahideen [Islamic warriors waging a holy war against infidels] believed in God, while the Vikings believed more in the sword. Neither were guardsmen. They did not fear death, but paradise was behind their backs. Behind the backs of the Spartiates, however, were the fatherland, homeland, Tartarus, and honor.
For four centuries, Swiss mercenaries were the mainstay of many European sovereigns. They fought for money, but they worked it so conscientiously that they crushed those who fought for glory. A tiny detachment of Swiss protected the unfortunate French king even when he was forsaken by the people, the nobility, and the army. This was a guard honestly earning its money. It ceased to exist the moment mercenary work died and national armies appeared.
Came the age of great revolutions, wars, and upheavals. An age of giant slaughter for possession of the world. An age of emperors and generals. An age brief and formidable. An age that contained countless battles. This was the age of the great guard. This was the age of its death.
Bassano, Holabrunn, Austerlitz, Jena, Auerstedt, Preussisch-Eylau, Friedland, Zaragoza, Aspern, Wagram, Smolensk, Borodino, Maloyaroslavets, Krasny, Berezina, Bautzen, Kulm, Katzbach, Lützen, Champobert, La Rothière, Lannes, Brienne, Dresden, Leipzig, Ligny... [The most bloody battles of the Napoleonic Wars.]
Hundreds of thousands of brave warriors laid down their heads in these bloody battles.
And finally, there was Waterloo, a small village south of Brussels, which entered history by its name only because Wellington's headquarters were located there. Had Napoleon won, this battle would have been called the Battle of Belle Alliance. But he lost and therefore:
WATERLOO.
Year 1815, month June, eighteenth.
On this day, Napoleon's old "grumblers" fell. They died because on this day everyone was dying. On this day died the gendarmes of Delor and Vathier, the chasseurs of Lefebvre-Desnouettes, the dragoons of Somerset, and Cook's guard companies. On this day died the Grey Scots and Duhem's Young Guard. On this day the guard died, for its age had passed. In place of valor and courage, sword and bayonet, came the strategy of Clausewitz and Moltke [Clausewitz—a prominent military theorist; Moltke—his student and follower], the conical bullet, and the rocket. The individual was leaving; the masses were arriving.
It was not Waterloo that killed the Guard. At Waterloo, guardsmen died—perhaps the best of the best—but not the guard. Its executioners became the steam engine and boulevard newspapers, bloomers and parliaments, the battleship and a sated society. It was buried by feminists and communists, speakers, Quakers, theosophists, Labourites, and mercy societies. It was buried by hypocrisy and polished prosperity. It was buried by time itself.
The Guard could have surrendered to the mercy of the victors and become an interesting anachronism evoking a kind smile, like the English monarchy or Disney-like phantom castles, but it preferred to die, leaving the material world only the lavish tinsel of uniforms—the dried shell of a dead body.
The sailors of "Varyag" and "Scharnhorst" still sang their death song:
And from the faithful pier we shall go to battle
Toward the death that comes for us...
But the guard was already dying, and in its agony, the cry of Cambronne could be heard.
The Guard dies, but does not surrender!
It has always been so. For the greatness of the guard is not in bearskin hats or silver shields. Its greatness is in modest obelisks erected at Thermopylae and Borodino, at Leuctra [site of the battle between Peloponnesian and Theban forces (371 BC); the Thebans under the command of Epaminondas dealt a crushing defeat to the enemy] and Waterloo. Its greatness is in the feat of the Russian hussar Melissino [A.P. Melissino—a Russian hussar, regiment commander; in 1813 near Dresden he performed an act of self-sacrifice, charging on horseback into the bayonets of an enemy square; the enemy formation was broken, and Melissino received several mortal wounds and died on the spot] and in the twenty-five wounds of Lannes [Jean Lannes—Marshal of France, one of the most famous commanders of the French army; commanded troops in many battles; mortally wounded in the battle of Esling], who died from the twenty-sixth. It is in the short word "merde," shouted before the muzzles of enemy cannons.
So when does the guard die?
Then, when one cannot take a step back because the lives of friends, the outcome of the battle, and the fate of the fatherland are at stake—when honor is at stake. The Guard always dies.
All reserves had already been exhausted. And then the phrase that has since become great rang out:
- Throw the Guard into the fire!
And the guard went into the fire. As it had done many times. But on this evening, everything was different. With cries of "long live the emperor!" the guardsmen marched toward enemy batteries, toward the retreating army. They marched toward their own death. On this day they could no longer bring victory; they could only die. Die without shaming their honor and glory. But is that not enough?
The Guard died. But did not surrender.
The concept of the guard was born at the dawn of humanity. The term guard was used to describe elite units of warriors, the personal retinue of tribal chiefs, and later, despots. The pharaohs of Egypt, the lords of Ashur, and the bloodthirsty Assyrian kings all had their own guards. These were the best fighters, but in truth, they did not rush to die; on the contrary, they longed to live, to feast sumptuously, and to dress well. They were skilled in battle, often deciding the outcome of a fight. They stood as a formidable wall before the throne, embodying the power of the state. But they did not know how to die. And that is why our story is not about them.
Our story is not about the gold-armored Praetorian Guard of the Roman caesars, nor about the noble regiments shining with the splendor of their equipment at palace reviews; our story is not about the heroes of palace coups or the conquerors of the coquettish hearts of royal ladies-in-waiting. Let someone else tell of them.
Precious clothes, gilded helmets, silver spears—this was the look of the immortals, the tinsel guard of eastern lords. For many years it seemed invincible, frightening enemies with its menacing appearance and contrived glory, but it faltered before three hundred Spartiates, who were taught how to die, but whom they forgot to teach how to retreat.
Truly, in that moment, the real guard was born: a guard of spirit, a guard of honor. There were many such warriors who placed honor above all else. They were not always called guardsmen, but they were indeed so.
Leonidas's Spartiates and Epaminondas's Sacred Band, the Companions of Alexander the Great and the Tenth Legion of divine Julius, the Knights of the Round Table and Lazar's Serbs, the knights of same-named Svyatoslav and Sobieski's hussars [Jan Sobieski—a Polish king (17th century), who repeatedly defeated the Turks], Swiss mercenaries and Maltese Hospitallers [members of the Order of St. John; in 1565, the Hospitallers defeated a Turkish army attempting to capture Malta], Suvorov's wonder-bogatyrs and Napoleon's world-shaking "grumblers."
Perhaps we have not mentioned many—the unyielding Scottish Highlanders and the militia of Moscow Prince Dmitry, the warriors of Roland and Cromwell's "Ironsides" ["Ironsides"—an elite cavalry created by O. Cromwell; played a decisive role in the wars between the English Parliament and King Charles I], Kleber's revolutionary soldiers [Kleber—a famous French general during the Great French Revolution and the Directory] and Blücher's Landsturm.
Perhaps we should also mention the heroes of Shipka, and the "Varyag," and the brave Belgians who for three whole weeks held back the "steamroller" of the Kaiser's army, and von Spee's "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau" ["Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau"—German cruisers that entered an unequal battle against an English squadron; Admiral von Spee, commanding the German ships, refused to lower the flags and perished along with 2000 sailors, including two of his sons]. Perhaps, although it was another century.
The Guard—whatever drove it: protection of the hearth, knightly pride, military brotherhood, greed—but above all, there was honor. The guardsmen left no lavish monuments or palaces to their descendants; they left something greater—a great memory that defines history.
Thus, it is almost indisputable that the homeland of the guard was Sparta, truly a state-guard. Heroes are not born; heroes are raised. In Sparta, they raised heroes. Here, one could not help but be a hero. A Spartiate going to battle was given a shield and he could return either with it, as a victor, or on it—lifeless, carried by loyal friends who had crushed the enemy. He who threw away his shield ceased to be a Spartiate. He no longer belonged to the special caste of warriors—the Hellenic guard.
The Guard inspired admiration. It was adored. Hymns were composed in its honor. In the mind of a Hellene, the Spartiates of the Thermopylae era were likened to titans, great heroes. And this veneration sometimes influenced them more strongly than courage. In those wretched moments when sticky fear crept in, a Spartiate remembered that he was a hero, equal in spirit and valor to his god-like ancestors. And does a god-like hero have the right to turn his back on the enemy? And so the Spartiates refused to leave the battlefield for the sake of saving their lives. The age of Sparta's glory was the age of Hellas's glory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhAKkPOjRVs
However, the ancients rightly noted—sic transit gloria mundi [thus passes earthly glory (Lat.)]. Any glory becomes nothing if it is not confirmed by daily action. The Spartan guard dissolved in inter-Hellenic squabbles; it was consumed by a golden rain that blinded the eyes of the gerontes. With the sunset of the guard began the sunset of Hellas. This sunset was beautiful, truly—many nations would have envied such a sunset—but still, it was a sunset followed by night. There was, admittedly, a short surge—the decade of Epaminondas's glorious victories. Three hundred warriors bound by divine friendship—they fought not for profit, not for themselves, not even for the fatherland, but to save a bleeding comrade. It is no wonder they were victorious. But at the same time, they were overshadowed by the glory of the invincible Epaminondas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mg7r1f-D0U
When the great bearch was gone, the Theban guard sank into oblivion.
Then came the Companions—the "friends" of Alexander the Great. Noble by birth, they were fearless in battle. There were very few of them, a few hundred, perhaps a thousand. Ptolemy, Lysimachus, Seleucus, Perdiccas, Hephaestion, Philotas, Parmenion. But the onslaught of the Companions crushed enormous armies. And there were dozens of battles. And there were great victories at Granicus, Ipsus, Gaugamela. And there were losses. Some "friends" perished in clashes; others were sucked into the swamp of conspiracies. Those remaining declared themselves Diadochi [Diadochi (successors—Gr.)—the generals of Alexander the Great who divided his empire after the ruler's death] and tore the great empire to shreds.
The Tenth Legion was never called a guard by Julius. But Caesar sent it to the most dangerous places, which means he considered it as such. The Triarii [the most experienced warriors forming the third line of a Roman legion] of the Tenth Legion bore scars received in clashes with Helvetians, Belgae, Germans, Averni, Carnutes, Aedui [Gallic tribes conquered by Julius Caesar]; they remembered Pharsalus, Thapsus, Munda [battles of the civil war in Rome in which Julius Caesar crushed his main opponents]. The Tenth Legion was Julius's child, and he, in turn, was its soul. The Guard ceased to exist when the soul died, pierced by the daggers of Brutus and Cassius. And then appeared the Praetorians, those janissaries of antiquity, whose valor consisted only in overthrowing and elevating caesars to the throne.
The Knights of the Round Table turned into a beautiful legend. And Lancelot is doomed to fight eternally with a dragon—a dragon eternal and undying. And Roland's Frankish knights fell in a gorge under the blows of curved Basque swords, and Lazar's brave Serbs carpeted the Kosovo field with their bodies [site of the battle between the Turkish army and the combined forces of Serbs, Bosnians, and Albanians; the Turks won a complete victory and captured Serbia and several neighboring states].
The pagan retinue of Svyatoslav vanished into oblivion, tamed not by the Roman spear, but by the cross. Sobieski's dashing szlachta traded honor for revelry and pride.
But let us return a few steps back to the early Middle Ages—the era of the power of Arabs and Vikings. Norman drakkars shook the world from Algeria to Scotland, from northern Rus to North America, which at that time was not yet America, but Terra incognita [unknown land (Lat.)]. The Normans laid waste to the lands of the Franks, Germans, Italy, Sicily, Spain, Portugal. "A buroxe North Mannorum libera nos, Domine!" [save us, Lord, from the fury of the Normans (Lat.)]—prayed a Europe frozen with terror at the appearance of predatory dragon-noses. The Normans were distinguished by frenzy and cruelty, but the most frenzied were the berserkers, who laughed in the face of death. Yes, they wished to die, but only so that they might live. Live in beautiful Valhalla. Odin's children did not seek death; they sought salvation in death. Jumping with a sword into a crowd of enemies, the berserkers screamed with happiness, believing they had escaped the horror of Hel, and as they died, they looked to the sky for beautiful Valkyries.
Paradise awaited Muslim warriors too. But the frenzy of the Vikings was akin to honor; the heroism of Muslims was religious fanaticism, for the mujahideen [Islamic warriors waging a holy war against infidels] believed in God, while the Vikings believed more in the sword. Neither were guardsmen. They did not fear death, but paradise was behind their backs. Behind the backs of the Spartiates, however, were the fatherland, homeland, Tartarus, and honor.
For four centuries, Swiss mercenaries were the mainstay of many European sovereigns. They fought for money, but they worked it so conscientiously that they crushed those who fought for glory. A tiny detachment of Swiss protected the unfortunate French king even when he was forsaken by the people, the nobility, and the army. This was a guard honestly earning its money. It ceased to exist the moment mercenary work died and national armies appeared.
Came the age of great revolutions, wars, and upheavals. An age of giant slaughter for possession of the world. An age of emperors and generals. An age brief and formidable. An age that contained countless battles. This was the age of the great guard. This was the age of its death.
Bassano, Holabrunn, Austerlitz, Jena, Auerstedt, Preussisch-Eylau, Friedland, Zaragoza, Aspern, Wagram, Smolensk, Borodino, Maloyaroslavets, Krasny, Berezina, Bautzen, Kulm, Katzbach, Lützen, Champobert, La Rothière, Lannes, Brienne, Dresden, Leipzig, Ligny... [The most bloody battles of the Napoleonic Wars.]
Hundreds of thousands of brave warriors laid down their heads in these bloody battles.
And finally, there was Waterloo, a small village south of Brussels, which entered history by its name only because Wellington's headquarters were located there. Had Napoleon won, this battle would have been called the Battle of Belle Alliance. But he lost and therefore:
WATERLOO.
Year 1815, month June, eighteenth.
On this day, Napoleon's old "grumblers" fell. They died because on this day everyone was dying. On this day died the gendarmes of Delor and Vathier, the chasseurs of Lefebvre-Desnouettes, the dragoons of Somerset, and Cook's guard companies. On this day died the Grey Scots and Duhem's Young Guard. On this day the guard died, for its age had passed. In place of valor and courage, sword and bayonet, came the strategy of Clausewitz and Moltke [Clausewitz—a prominent military theorist; Moltke—his student and follower], the conical bullet, and the rocket. The individual was leaving; the masses were arriving.
It was not Waterloo that killed the Guard. At Waterloo, guardsmen died—perhaps the best of the best—but not the guard. Its executioners became the steam engine and boulevard newspapers, bloomers and parliaments, the battleship and a sated society. It was buried by feminists and communists, speakers, Quakers, theosophists, Labourites, and mercy societies. It was buried by hypocrisy and polished prosperity. It was buried by time itself.
The Guard could have surrendered to the mercy of the victors and become an interesting anachronism evoking a kind smile, like the English monarchy or Disney-like phantom castles, but it preferred to die, leaving the material world only the lavish tinsel of uniforms—the dried shell of a dead body.
The sailors of "Varyag" and "Scharnhorst" still sang their death song:
And from the faithful pier we shall go to battle
Toward the death that comes for us...
But the guard was already dying, and in its agony, the cry of Cambronne could be heard.
The Guard dies, but does not surrender!
It has always been so. For the greatness of the guard is not in bearskin hats or silver shields. Its greatness is in modest obelisks erected at Thermopylae and Borodino, at Leuctra [site of the battle between Peloponnesian and Theban forces (371 BC); the Thebans under the command of Epaminondas dealt a crushing defeat to the enemy] and Waterloo. Its greatness is in the feat of the Russian hussar Melissino [A.P. Melissino—a Russian hussar, regiment commander; in 1813 near Dresden he performed an act of self-sacrifice, charging on horseback into the bayonets of an enemy square; the enemy formation was broken, and Melissino received several mortal wounds and died on the spot] and in the twenty-five wounds of Lannes [Jean Lannes—Marshal of France, one of the most famous commanders of the French army; commanded troops in many battles; mortally wounded in the battle of Esling], who died from the twenty-sixth. It is in the short word "merde," shouted before the muzzles of enemy cannons.
So when does the guard die?
Then, when one cannot take a step back because the lives of friends, the outcome of the battle, and the fate of the fatherland are at stake—when honor is at stake. The Guard always dies.
All reserves had already been exhausted. And then the phrase that has since become great rang out:
- Throw the Guard into the fire!
And the guard went into the fire. As it had done many times. But on this evening, everything was different. With cries of "long live the emperor!" the guardsmen marched toward enemy batteries, toward the retreating army. They marched toward their own death. On this day they could no longer bring victory; they could only die. Die without shaming their honor and glory. But is that not enough?
The Guard died. But did not surrender.
