The Silence of the Battlefields

 WHOEVER has had occasion, whether for study or for curiosity, to visit many of the battlefields of Europe, must have been especially struck by their silence. There are many things combining to produce this impression, but when all have been accounted for, something over remains¹. Thus it is true that in any countryside the contrast between the noise of the great fight that fills one’s mind and the natural calm of woods and of fields must penetrate² the mind; and, again, it is evident that any piece of land which one closely examines, noting all its details for the purposes of history, must seem more lonely and deserted³ than those general views in which the eye comprehends so much of the work of man; because all this special watching of particular corners, noting of ranges and the rest, make one’s progress slow, keep one’s eyes close fixed⁴ to things more or less near, and thus allow one to appreciate how far between men are save in the towns. But there is more than this. It can be proved that there is more. For the same sense of complete loneliness does not take a man in other similar work. He does not feel it when he is surveying for a map nor when he is searching for an historic site other than that of battle. But the battlefields are lonely.

[277]Some few, especially in this crowded island, are not lonely. Life has overtaken them, spreading outwards⁵ from the towns. By what a curious irony⁶, for instance, the racecourse at Lewes, with a shouting throng⁷ of men as the horses go by, corresponds precisely⁸ to the place where must have been the thickest of the advance on Montfort’s right as he led them to attack the King. Evesham is not lonely. Battle is full of houses and of villas⁹, and the chief centre of the fight is in a garden.

But for the most part the great battlefields are lonely; and their loneliness is unnatural¹⁰ and oppressive. In some way they repel¹¹ men. Trasimene is the lonely shore of a marsh¹². One would imagine that a place so famous would be in some way visited. One of the great sewers¹³ of cosmopolitan¹⁴ travel runs close by; one would imagine that the historic interest of the place would bring men from that railway to the shore upon which so very nearly the Orientals destroyed us. There is no such publicity¹⁵. Sitting at evening near those reeds, where the great fight was fought, one has a feeling, rare in Italy, commoner in the north, of complete isolation¹⁶. There is nothing but water and the evening sky, and it is so mournful that one might imagine it a place to which things doomed¹⁷ would come to die.

Roncesvalles, which means so little in the military history of Europe and so much in her literature, is a profound gorge¹⁸, cleft¹⁹ right into the earth 3000[278] feet, and clothed with such mighty²⁰ beech²¹ woods that for these alone, apart from its history, one might imagine it to be perpetually visited. It is not visited. No house is near it, save the huddled²² huts round the gloomy place of pilgrimage upon the farther side of the pass. A silence more profound, a sense of recession more complete, is not to be discovered upon any of the great roads of Europe—for one of the great roads goes by the place where Roland died, but very few travel along it.

Toulouse is popular and noisy; surrounded by so many small market gardens and so busy and humming a Southern life (detestable to quiet men!) that you might think no site near it was touched with loneliness. But there is such a site. It is the crest²³ beyond the city where Wellington’s victory was won. More curious still, Waterloo, at the very gates of Brussels, within a stone’s throw, one may say, of building sites for suburbs, is the only lonely place in its neighbourhood. That valley, or rather that little dip which is so great in military history and yet which did so little to change the general movement of the world, is the one deserted set of fields that you can find for a long way round. And the soil of Belgium, a gridiron of railways, stuffed with industry, a place where one short walk takes you from a town to a town anywhere throughout the little State, is still remarkable²⁴ for the way in which its battlefields seem to fend²⁵ off the[279] presence of man. The plateau of Fleurus, the marshy²⁶ banks of Jemappes, the roll of Neerwinden, all illustrate²⁷ what I mean.

If one considers in what two places since Christendom was Christendom most was done to save Christendom from destruction, one will fix upon the Catalaunian Fields and upon that low tableland in the fork of the two rivers between Poitiers and Tours. In the first Attila was broken, Asia from the East; in the second the Mohammedan, Asia from the South. The Catalaunian Fields have a bleakness²⁸ amazing to the traveller. Nothing perhaps so near so much wealth is so utterly²⁹ alone. Great folds of empty land that will grow little, that only lately were planted with stunted³⁰ pine trees that they might at least grow something, weary the eye. One dead straight road, Roman in origin, Gallic in its continuance, drives right across the waste. It is there that the Huns were broken. It is from that point that their sullen³¹ retreat eastward³² was permitted, as was permitted in 1792 the retreat eastward of the Royal Armies from their check in that same plain at Valmy; and Valmy also is intensely lonely, a bare ridge³³ despoiled³⁴ to-day even of its mill, and the little chapel³⁵ raised to the soul of Kellerman hides itself away so that you do not see it until you are close upon the place.

Poitiers has the same loneliness. The Mohammedan had ridden up from the Pyrenees, ricochetted[280] from the walls of Toulouse, but poured on like a flood into the centre of Gaul. Charles the Hammer broke him in the fields beyond Vouneuil. The district is populous³⁶ and the Valley of the Clain is full of pastures and among the tenderest of European valleys, but as you drift down stream and approach this place the plateau upon the right above you grows bare, and it was there, so far as modern scholarship can be certain, that the last effort of the Arabs was forced back.

That other battle of Poitiers among the vineyards, the Black Prince’s battle, one would imagine, could not seem lonely, for it was fought in the midst of tilled land full of vineyards and right above the great high road which leads south-east from the town. But lonely it is, and if you will go up the little gully where the head of the French column advanced against the English archers³⁷ upon the high land above, you will not find a man to tell you the memories of the place.

Cre?y was fought close to a county town; but the same trick of landscape or of influence is also played there. The town hides itself in a little hollow upon the farther flank of a hill, and though the right of Edward’s line reposed³⁸ upon it, and though it was within a bowshot of the houses that the boy his son was pressed so hard, yet Cre?y hides away from the battlefield. And as you come in by the eastern road, which takes you all along the crest of the English position, there is nothing before you but a naked and[281] a silent land, falling in a dip to where the first of the French charge failed, and rising in long empty lengths of fallow and of grass to where you can see, a single mark for the eye in so much loneliness, the rude cross standing³⁹ on the place where the blind King of Bohemia fell.

Loneliest of all, with a loneliness which perpetually haunts me whenever I write of it, is that battlefield which I know best and have most closely studied. It is the battlefield on which, as I believe, more was done to affect both military and general history than on any other—the battlefield of Wattignies. Here the Revolution certainly stood, to go under with the fall of Maubeuge, which was at the last gasp⁴⁰ for food, or, with the raising of that siege, to go forward. By the success at Wattignies the siege was raised. In military history also it is of great account, for at Wattignies for the first time the great mind of Carnot, the darting⁴¹, aquiline⁴² mind of that man whose school of tactics produced Napoleon, first dealt with an army. At Wattignies for the first time the concentration at the fullest expense of fatigue⁴³, of overwhelming force upon one point of the objective, came into play and was successful. Such tactics needed the Infantry⁴⁴ which as a fact were used in their development. Still, they were new. Now, Wattignies, where so much was done to change the art of war and to transform Europe, is as lonely as anything on earth. Lines of high trees, a wood almost uncultivated (a rare thing in France), a swept,[282] wintry upland without a house or a barn, a little huddled group of poor steadings round a tiny church, and against it all the while rain and hard weather driving from the French plains below: that is Wattignies. Up through those sunken ways by which Duquesnoy’s division charged you will not meet a single human being, and that heath over which the emigrant⁴⁵ nobles countercharged for the last time under the white flag is similarly bereft⁴⁶ of men. Nowhere do you more feel the unnatural loneliness of those haunted places of honour than in this which I believe to be the chief one of all the European fields.

1 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

2 penetrate   

v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解

参考例句：

• Western ideas penetrate slowly through the East.西方观念逐渐传入东方。
• The sunshine could not penetrate where the trees were thickest.阳光不能透入树木最浓密的地方。

3 deserted   

adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的

参考例句：

• The deserted village was filled with a deathly silence.这个荒废的村庄死一般的寂静。
• The enemy chieftain was opposed and deserted by his followers.敌人头目众叛亲离。

4 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

5 outwards   

adj.外面的，公开的，向外的；adv.向外；n.外形

参考例句：

• Does this door open inwards or outwards?这门朝里开还是朝外开？
• In lapping up a fur,they always put the inner side outwards.卷毛皮时，他们总是让内层朝外。

6 irony   

n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄

参考例句：

• She said to him with slight irony.她略带嘲讽地对他说。
• In her voice we could sense a certain tinge of irony.从她的声音里我们可以感到某种讥讽的意味。

7 throng   

n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集

参考例句：

• A patient throng was waiting in silence.一大群耐心的人在静静地等着。
• The crowds thronged into the mall.人群涌进大厅。

8 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

9 villas   

别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅

参考例句：

• Magnificent villas are found throughout Italy. 在意大利到处可看到豪华的别墅。
• Rich men came down from wealthy Rome to build sea-side villas. 有钱人从富有的罗马来到这儿建造海滨别墅。

10 unnatural   

adj.不自然的；反常的

参考例句：

• Did her behaviour seem unnatural in any way?她有任何反常表现吗？
• She has an unnatural smile on her face.她脸上挂着做作的微笑。

11 repel   

v.击退，抵制，拒绝，排斥

参考例句：

• A country must have the will to repel any invader.一个国家得有决心击退任何入侵者。
• Particles with similar electric charges repel each other.电荷同性的分子互相排斥。

12 marsh   

n.沼泽，湿地

参考例句：

• There are a lot of frogs in the marsh.沼泽里有许多青蛙。
• I made my way slowly out of the marsh.我缓慢地走出这片沼泽地。

13 sewers   

n.阴沟，污水管，下水道( sewer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sewers discharge out at sea. 下水道的污水排入海里。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Another municipal waste problem is street runoff into storm sewers. 有关都市废水的另外一个问题是进入雨水沟的街道雨水。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

14 cosmopolitan   

adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的

参考例句：

• New York is a highly cosmopolitan city.纽约是一个高度世界性的城市。
• She has a very cosmopolitan outlook on life.她有四海一家的人生观。

15 publicity   

n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告

参考例句：

• The singer star's marriage got a lot of publicity.这位歌星的婚事引起了公众的关注。
• He dismissed the event as just a publicity gimmick.他不理会这件事，只当它是一种宣传手法。

16 isolation   

n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离

参考例句：

• The millionaire lived in complete isolation from the outside world.这位富翁过着与世隔绝的生活。
• He retired and lived in relative isolation.他退休后，生活比较孤寂。

17 doomed   

命定的

参考例句：

• The court doomed the accused to a long term of imprisonment. 法庭判处被告长期监禁。
• A country ruled by an iron hand is doomed to suffer. 被铁腕人物统治的国家定会遭受不幸的。

18 gorge   

n.咽喉，胃，暴食，山峡；v.塞饱，狼吞虎咽地吃

参考例句：

• East of the gorge leveled out.峡谷东面地势变得平坦起来。
• It made my gorge rise to hear the news.这消息令我作呕。

19 cleft   

n.裂缝；adj.裂开的

参考例句：

• I hid the message in a cleft in the rock.我把情报藏在石块的裂缝里。
• He was cleft from his brother during the war.在战争期间，他与他的哥哥分离。

20 mighty   

adj.强有力的；巨大的

参考例句：

• A mighty force was about to break loose.一股巨大的力量即将迸发而出。
• The mighty iceberg came into view.巨大的冰山出现在眼前。

21 beech   

n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的

参考例句：

• Autumn is the time to see the beech woods in all their glory.秋天是观赏山毛榉林的最佳时期。
• Exasperated,he leaped the stream,and strode towards beech clump.他满腔恼怒，跳过小河，大踏步向毛榉林子走去。

22 huddled   

挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• We huddled together for warmth. 我们挤在一块取暖。
• We huddled together to keep warm. 我们挤在一起来保暖。

23 crest   

n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖

参考例句：

• The rooster bristled his crest.公鸡竖起了鸡冠。
• He reached the crest of the hill before dawn.他于黎明前到达山顶。

24 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

25 fend   

v.照料（自己），（自己）谋生，挡开，避开

参考例句：

• I've had to fend for myself since I was 14.我从十四岁时起就不得不照料自己。
• He raised his arm up to fend branches from his eyes.他举手将树枝从他眼前挡开。

26 marshy   

adj.沼泽的

参考例句：

• In August 1935,we began our march across the marshy grassland. 1935年8月，我们开始过草地。
• The surrounding land is low and marshy. 周围的地低洼而多沼泽。

27 illustrate   

v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图

参考例句：

• The company's bank statements illustrate its success.这家公司的银行报表说明了它的成功。
• This diagram will illustrate what I mean.这个图表可说明我的意思。

28 bleakness   

adj. 萧瑟的, 严寒的, 阴郁的

参考例句：

• It forgoes the bleakness of protest and dissent for the energizing confidence of constructive solutions. 它放弃了bleakness抗议和持不同政见者的信心，激发建设性的解决办法。
• Bertha was looking out of the window at the bleakness of the day. 伯莎望着窗外晦暗的天色。

29 utterly   

adv.完全地，绝对地

参考例句：

• Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民，把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
• I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。

30 stunted   

adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的

参考例句：

• the stunted lives of children deprived of education 未受教育的孩子所过的局限生活
• But the landed oligarchy had stunted the country's democratic development for generations. 但是好几代以来土地寡头的统治阻碍了这个国家民主的发展。

31 sullen   

adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的

参考例句：

• He looked up at the sullen sky.他抬头看了一眼阴沉的天空。
• Susan was sullen in the morning because she hadn't slept well.苏珊今天早上郁闷不乐，因为昨晚没睡好。

32 eastward   

adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部

参考例句：

• The river here tends eastward.这条河从这里向东流。
• The crowd is heading eastward,believing that they can find gold there.人群正在向东移去，他们认为在那里可以找到黄金。

33 ridge   

n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭

参考例句：

• We clambered up the hillside to the ridge above.我们沿着山坡费力地爬上了山脊。
• The infantry were advancing to attack the ridge.步兵部队正在向前挺进攻打山脊。

34 despoiled   

v.掠夺，抢劫( despoil的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• They despoiled the villagers of their belongings. 他们夺走了村民的财物。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The victorious army despoiled the city of all its treasures. 得胜的军队把城里的财宝劫掠一空。 来自辞典例句

35 chapel   

n.小教堂，殡仪馆

参考例句：

• The nimble hero,skipped into a chapel that stood near.敏捷的英雄跳进近旁的一座小教堂里。
• She was on the peak that Sunday afternoon when she played in chapel.那个星期天的下午，她在小教堂的演出，可以说是登峰造极。

36 populous   

adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的

参考例句：

• London is the most populous area of Britain.伦敦是英国人口最稠密的地区。
• China is the most populous developing country in the world.中国是世界上人口最多的发展中国家。

37 archers   

n.弓箭手，射箭运动员( archer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The next evening old Mr. Sillerton Jackson came to dine with the Archers. 第二天晚上，西勒顿？杰克逊老先生来和阿切尔家人一起吃饭。 来自辞典例句
• Week of Archer: Double growth for Archers and Marksmen. 射手周：弓箭手与弩手（人类）产量加倍。 来自互联网

38 reposed   

v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Mr. Cruncher reposed under a patchwork counterpane, like a Harlequin at home. 克朗彻先生盖了一床白衲衣图案的花哨被子，像是呆在家里的丑角。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记
• An old man reposed on a bench in the park. 一位老人躺在公园的长凳上。 来自辞典例句

39 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

40 gasp   

n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说

参考例句：

• She gave a gasp of surprise.她吃惊得大口喘气。
• The enemy are at their last gasp.敌人在做垂死的挣扎。

41 darting   

v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔

参考例句：

• Swallows were darting through the clouds. 燕子穿云急飞。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Swallows were darting through the air. 燕子在空中掠过。 来自辞典例句

42 aquiline   

adj.钩状的，鹰的

参考例句：

• He had a thin aquiline nose and deep-set brown eyes.他长着窄长的鹰钩鼻和深陷的褐色眼睛。
• The man has a strong and aquiline nose.该名男子有强大和鹰鼻子。

43 fatigue   

n.疲劳，劳累

参考例句：

• The old lady can't bear the fatigue of a long journey.这位老妇人不能忍受长途旅行的疲劳。
• I have got over my weakness and fatigue.我已从虚弱和疲劳中恢复过来了。

44 infantry   

n.[总称]步兵(部队)

参考例句：

• The infantry were equipped with flame throwers.步兵都装备有喷火器。
• We have less infantry than the enemy.我们的步兵比敌人少。

45 emigrant   

adj.移居的，移民的；n.移居外国的人，移民

参考例句：

• He is a British emigrant to Australia.他是个移居澳大利亚的英国人。
• I always think area like this is unsuited for human beings,but it is also unpractical to emigrant in a large scale.我一直觉得，像这样的地方是不适宜人类居住的，可大规模的移民又是不现实的。

46 bereft   

adj.被剥夺的

参考例句：

• The place seemed to be utterly bereft of human life.这个地方似乎根本没有人烟。
• She was bereft of happiness.她失去了幸福。