Warren Ellis: Crécy

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Not exactly Simon Schama...

From one of my favorite GNs of the past few years, Warren Ellis and Raulo Caceres' Crécy from Avatar/Apparat.

I have posted my favorite pages, but to remain under the limit they're not consecutive mostly. Afraid you'll just have to read the whole thing after this, and it's still in print so do that.



A few words about arrowheads. And the Welsh.



And because the French would not allow commoners in the army and got unprepared mercenaries instead, and because the English had an army of trained commoner longbowmen, this happened. After the battle, we tie off loose ends, and learn the origin of a certain English gesture.


The reason for the gesture was that when archers were caught, those fingers were cut off. It was proof you could still fire an arrow.
All story and artwork (c)2007 Warren Ellis and Raulo Caceres

Comments

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

And then he met the British. And the Russians. I'm sorry, that should read "And then he met RUSSIA."

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

Good point about "Russia" as a land itself. Talk about people repeating mistakes others made before them, you'd think Hitler had never read history. Napoleon conquered or subjugated nearly all of continental Europe, then decided he was on a roll and should invade Russia. (In winter no less, if I'm recalling correctly).

Have you read Conan Doyle's Brigadier Gerard stories? Very droll and ironic, told by a blindly patriotic French soldier who blissfully misunderstands what goes on around him but which the reader understands.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Never actually read any Doyle directly.

I should also add that the Brits took up the "only fight the weak" policy of France during their imperial period, when natives attacking with sharpened fruit were more their speed. This of course was usually after they let corporations, like Cecil Rhodes' DeBeers or the East India Company, do most of the slaughtering and land-stealing first. (The first use of Maxim guns, the first true military machine guns and fearsome, savage weapons they were, was not by the British military, but by Cecil Rhodes' own men against the Matabele in what became Rhodesia, and is now Zimbabwe.)

[dejadrew.insanejournal.com]

From the always applicable Kate Beaton. (http://harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=41)

[pyynk.insanejournal.com]

Napoleon conquered or subjugated nearly all of continental Europe, then decided he was on a roll and should invade Russia. (In winter no less, if I'm recalling correctly).

Pretty close. It wasn't so much that he initially invaded during winter, just that winter came while the Russians were delaying the French so that Russia could defeat them.

[fungo_squiggly.insanejournal.com]

Psh, everyone gets their plans fucked up in Russia.

It's like it's compulsory or something.

[cmdr_zoom.insanejournal.com]

To the point that the Russians finally got tired of jumped-up Europeans taking a run at them every so often and decided to create their own little empire as, among other things, a buffer zone.

[da_reap]

On the other hand, Mongols.

Took them out with a winter campaign, no less.