Speaker 1: Eight oh six, a fifty five KRCD Talks station. A
Speaker 1: very happy Friday Eve to you, Hi, and please to
Speaker 1: welcome to fifty five KRC Mornings. I'm a next guest
Speaker 1: author Michael Walsh. He has written quite a few books,
Speaker 1: Last Stand. You probably read quite a few of them.
Speaker 1: Author of Last Stands, more than fifteen other novels and
Speaker 1: nonfiction book, classical music critic for Time Magazine at one
Speaker 1: point received the two thousand and four American Book Awards
Speaker 1: Prize for Fiction for his gangster novel There's Another One
Speaker 1: You Can Read and All the Saints. He wrote popular
Speaker 1: columns from National Review, which he used under a pseudonym
Speaker 1: to put into the book Rules for Radical Conservatives, There's
Speaker 1: One for You, and his other books Devil's Pleasure and
Speaker 1: The Fiery Angel are examples of the enemy heroes and
Speaker 1: triumphs and struggles of Western civilization, which allows us to
Speaker 1: pivot over to the book we're talking about today, his
Speaker 1: new book, A Rage to Conquer Twelve Battles that change
Speaker 1: the course of Western history. Michael Walsh, Welcome to the
Speaker 1: Morning Show. It's a real pleasure to have you on today.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Brian So.
Speaker 1: There are a lot more than twelve battles, and I
Speaker 1: suppose a lot of them could have impacted Western history.
Speaker 1: First off, what interested you in this topic? And then
Speaker 1: how did you whittle all of the wars that have
Speaker 1: been waged by man over the years down to the
Speaker 1: twelve that you selected.
Speaker 2: Well, I've been very interested in military history my whole life.
Speaker 2: I was born actually on the Marine Corps base in
Speaker 2: Campellshire in North Carolina, and my father was a Marine
Speaker 2: officer who fought in Korea and elsewhere. So that's part
Speaker 2: of my upbringing. And as you mentioned, I read a
Speaker 2: book called Last Dance four years ago which was quite successful,
Speaker 2: and that examined why men fight when everything seems to
Speaker 2: be lost, But they don't cut and round, they fight.
Speaker 2: So this book is an outgrowth of that book, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to look at twelve battles and the commanders
Speaker 2: who led them to talk about masculinity again and talk
Speaker 2: about what it takes to be successful at what is,
Speaker 2: unfortunately one of the most fundamental human endeavors there is,
Speaker 2: which is warfare.
Speaker 1: Now I want to approach is sort of in reverse order,
Speaker 1: and we could start with the Trojan War and Achilles,
Speaker 1: which I'm very interested in talking with you about. But
Speaker 1: the last one, the most recent challenge, the Battle of
Speaker 1: nine to eleven and how it was ultimately lost by
Speaker 1: the United States. Would you put a little more flesh
Speaker 1: on the bones of that conclusion. I think I get
Speaker 1: your point, But that was just my attention gravitated toward that,
Speaker 1: considering it wasn't, you know, a traditional form of warfare
Speaker 1: unless you look at sort of maybe our invasion of.
Speaker 2: Iraq. Well, that's turned out to the most controversial part
Speaker 2: of the book. And I remember when an author writes
Speaker 2: a book, he's finished the text about a year before
Speaker 2: it comes out. So it's not like blogging or anything.
Speaker 2: It's it's you have to into this well in advance
Speaker 2: and try to figure out what readers are going to
Speaker 2: be interested in. But nine to eleven struck me as
Speaker 2: an example of a commander President Bush who didn't understand
Speaker 2: the rules of warfare and didn't have the stomach to
Speaker 2: fight the battle that needed to be fought, unlike all
Speaker 2: the other guys in the book, which include you mentioned Achilles,
Speaker 2: who's you know, quasi fictional, but obviously it's based on
Speaker 2: somebody real wayback. But Caesar and Constantine the Great and
Speaker 2: General Patten and the other people I talked about, And
Speaker 2: so as a result, we didn't really believe that war
Speaker 2: was declared on us. And if you think we won
Speaker 2: the Battle of nine to eleven, go to the airport
Speaker 2: and see if they let right.
Speaker 1: That's a great point, you know, behind all this the
Speaker 1: whole idea of warfare though, Michael, I'm a profound constitutionalist,
Speaker 1: little l libertarian, am I. But we end up launching
Speaker 1: missiles and dropping bombs and taking people out in foreign
Speaker 1: lands that we against him. We have no declaration of war.
Speaker 1: And you know, with technology being pervasive, more and more
Speaker 1: foreign actors and folks that we might not consider friendly
Speaker 1: to us have that technology and could equally do the
Speaker 1: same thing to us that we're doing to them. Congress
Speaker 1: never declares war. Are you get an authorization? You used
Speaker 1: a military force to deal with nine to eleven and
Speaker 1: it ends up lasting twenty plus years to serve as
Speaker 1: a justification for conflicts literally everywhere.
Speaker 2: Well, it's disgraceful. It's part of the forever war mindset,
Speaker 2: which is true of people at both parties, by the way,
Speaker 2: and if you don't think so, just look at one
Speaker 2: of the Senators from South Carolina John love Child, who
Speaker 2: never saw war he personally didn't want to fight in,
Speaker 2: but didn't want somebody else to fight in. The fact
Speaker 2: is that we got more declared on us, and we
Speaker 2: simply refused to accept it. So this event happened, and
Speaker 2: then we refused to address the issue. We went to
Speaker 2: other countries which had little or nothing to do with it.
Speaker 2: Uh cut to twenty some years later, and we even
Speaker 2: immediately pull out of Afghanistan. It was a disgrace. And
Speaker 2: that's what I said in the book.
Speaker 1: Well, I think you're probably in good company with my
Speaker 1: listening audience on those conclusions, sir. Now back to Achilles again.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons I was drawn to that is
Speaker 1: because there is a lot of fictional element associated with Achilles,
Speaker 1: like the Achilles Heel story. But what was his importance?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: Ilium?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yeah, said Troy. Yeah. The Iliad, which is one
Speaker 2: of the foundational great poem along with the Odyssey of
Speaker 2: Western Culture, talks about something that we now know happened.
Speaker 2: We're not sure to what a steate did, and Homer
Speaker 2: comes down to us himself as a semi mystical figure,
Speaker 2: but something happened there. But what's great about the Iliod
Speaker 2: first fall to great great work of art, and secondly,
Speaker 2: it does describe in graphic and gruesome detail how warfare
Speaker 2: was conducted around roughly one thousand BC. Uh, and that
Speaker 2: is the beginning of the West's first clash with the East.
Speaker 2: So the obviously the Greeks were on the western side
Speaker 2: of this divide and the Trojans uh Troy is now
Speaker 2: and where western Turkey is Uh, they were the east.
Speaker 2: And this is a theme that runs throughout Western history.
Speaker 2: Alexander's fight, Alexander's fighting the Persians. Uh, there's this constant
Speaker 2: battle within Rome against the Parthians, who are also sort
Speaker 2: of quasi Persians, which is one of the threads of
Speaker 2: the book. But you have to start with the very
Speaker 2: first war story and that's.
Speaker 1: It understood, and fast forward over to the Crusades, the
Speaker 1: first crouquete Crusades.
Speaker 2: Bohemond, Yes, yeah, no one has heard of Beaulamonte except
Speaker 2: for the.
Speaker 1: First time, sir. This is it man, I've just been
Speaker 1: introduced to Bauhemont.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, he's an amazing figure and he is the
Speaker 2: hero of this particular chapter because he won two critical
Speaker 2: battles in the First Crusade, which was recalled by the
Speaker 2: Pope in response to the Byzantine Emperor, the emperor of
Speaker 2: the eastern part of the old Roman emperor Empire, to
Speaker 2: liberate the holy sites of Christianity. So this was in
Speaker 2: the very late eleventh century, and Beauma was a great,
Speaker 2: big Norman. The Normans had just conquered England like thirty
Speaker 2: years before, and many of the Normans joined the Crusade
Speaker 2: and went to the Holy Land to fight. And Beaumont
Speaker 2: himself was a Norman from southerns had conquered the lower
Speaker 2: part of Italy and Sicily and ruled it for many,
Speaker 2: many years. So Beaumont led his troops, and he was
Speaker 2: a giant of a man. He was a tactical genius
Speaker 2: and was able to stave off defeat in the very
Speaker 2: first battle the Crusaders fought against the Turks, and he
Speaker 2: was able to win and keep a whole the siege
Speaker 2: of Antioch and caused that city which was crucial to
Speaker 2: the path to Jerusalem, which he then took for himself.
Speaker 2: And he kind of drops out of the crusading narrative.
Speaker 2: But in two places he really stepped up and shows
Speaker 2: the superiority of Western arms and also the size that
Speaker 2: the Franks were much bigger than the Turks, and they
Speaker 2: had a problem. The Turks were very mobile, kind of
Speaker 2: like American Indians against the cowboys or the cavalry in
Speaker 2: the American West that come in, shoot run away, come
Speaker 2: in and shoot run away. And the crusaders were frustrated
Speaker 2: they could never get their hands on them. Well, Bowman
Speaker 2: finally did and fend it off. This ambush. They could
Speaker 2: have ended the crusade at a little place called Dora
Speaker 2: Lam and then regrouped and they marched Bellvoid Antioch and
Speaker 2: in a brilliant siege took Antioch against vastly, vastly superior numbers.
Speaker 1: Now, in terms of the crusades, you said, the Pope
Speaker 1: issued this, you know, request, and everybody needs to go
Speaker 1: there to help out. And I understand this was was
Speaker 1: it largely viewed by people as a legitimate, you know,
Speaker 1: calling from God, like that this was a necessary religious
Speaker 1: thing to do, because you know, over the years, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of speculation that well, now there's there's a
Speaker 1: bunch of Europeans that wanted to go plunder and look
Speaker 1: for treasure as opposed to liberate the country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well there's an answer for that, which is but
Speaker 2: the first crusade was successful, most of them went home.
Speaker 2: They didn't stay. Himself was a Lackland who took part
Speaker 2: of the turf that was conquered, and so did the others,
Speaker 2: But most of them went home. And a point I
Speaker 2: make over and over again in the book is that
Speaker 2: almost all these wars have some religious component, and from
Speaker 2: the earliest time, success in war was contributed to your God,
Speaker 2: and failure meant that you had not lived up to
Speaker 2: the demands of your God. You hadn't prayed hard enough,
Speaker 2: sacrificed hard enough, you had you lost because of insufficient fabelity.
Speaker 2: This is a constant theme throughout Western history. It's very
Speaker 2: very interesting and it makes sense.
Speaker 1: You know, if you'd believe in a supreme power and
Speaker 1: you're beholden to them, and you actually have a belief
Speaker 1: system that involves you know, God and acts of God,
Speaker 1: then yeah, you're going to step up to the plate
Speaker 1: because basically your soul is contingent upon it where you're
Speaker 1: going to end up in the afterlife.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, Well, you also got a complete remission of
Speaker 2: sins if you went on the cru that was part
Speaker 2: of the deal. And also what's interesting is the Church
Speaker 2: guaranteed your property because the Church was the only power,
Speaker 2: you know, the Roman Empire having fallen five hundred years earlier,
Speaker 2: six hundred years earlier. Uh, and you were immune from lawsuits.
Speaker 2: And there was there was a bunch of upside. A
Speaker 2: lot of them died on the route trip France and
Speaker 2: what's now Germany, uh, all the way to the east,
Speaker 2: to the eastern edge of the Mediterranean. But there were
Speaker 2: some some bennies, shall we say, uh with it, But
Speaker 2: I would say it was mostly fueled by religious ardor.
Speaker 2: And that was true with the Muslim side too. They
Speaker 2: believed in the prophet. They were they were undefeated up
Speaker 2: to that point. They had never encountered any opposition that
Speaker 2: stood up. They rolled through the remnants of the Roman Empire,
Speaker 2: they rolled over Persia, conquered Iran, Islami sized Iran. They
Speaker 2: were they were used to success. And the first time
Speaker 2: they came up against the Franks and got walked and
Speaker 2: they were it taught them something to and and this war,
Speaker 2: now that particular war has been going on for a
Speaker 2: thousand plus years, that's the Israel Gaza conflict. That's where
Speaker 2: that starts.
Speaker 1: It's amazing that that has been raging for that long.
Speaker 1: And you did bring up the travel. I was going
Speaker 1: to ask you about that in terms of the the
Speaker 1: the crusades, that that distance in the time it would
Speaker 1: take to get from point A to point B to
Speaker 1: fight and then come back home. I'm just I suppose
Speaker 1: that we're still under a feudal system then, correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, more or less, the kings of Europe had not
Speaker 2: really quite emerged yet. So what that's called the Princess
Speaker 2: Crusade because remember, there's no France, there is no Germany
Speaker 2: right as we know it. So these were little princeings
Speaker 2: of various little principalities around Europe that that got together
Speaker 2: and organized an army, uh and they had specific leaders
Speaker 2: and they accomplished that. It's an amazing logistical feat when
Speaker 2: you stopped to think about it, that they came all
Speaker 2: that way by land and sea, over a terrible terrain,
Speaker 2: and lost a lot of their people, but they just
Speaker 2: kept going. And there were times they didn't want to go,
Speaker 2: but they felt they had to go, and so they
Speaker 2: seized upon any sign that God was with them, most
Speaker 2: famously at Antioch, where they were getting They were having
Speaker 2: a very hard time with the giant Turkish army, and
Speaker 2: then one of them discovered what he purported to be
Speaker 2: the holy the tip of the Holy spear that had
Speaker 2: pierced Christ's side at the time of the crucifixion, and
Speaker 2: using this rusty piece of iron, they went into battle
Speaker 2: holding it up and won. So naturally they thought God
Speaker 2: was on their side. At the Crusader motto was DEUSLOVL
Speaker 2: God wills it, and they would shout at us they
Speaker 2: would move into battle. Fascinating stuff.
Speaker 1: Fascinating stuff, Michael Walsh, the name of the book, A
Speaker 1: Rage to Conquer twelve battles that changed the course of
Speaker 1: Western history. Michael, what we've done for you and for
Speaker 1: my listeners problem primarily because they're going to want to
Speaker 1: get a copy of the book. It's on my blog
Speaker 1: page of fifty five carosee dot com. My listeners know
Speaker 1: where to go and get a copy of the book.
Speaker 1: There's a link to to where to buy it. And
Speaker 1: it's well received on Amazon and if a fascinating range
Speaker 1: of topics again from the Trojan War all the way
Speaker 1: through nine to eleven. I appreciate you talking with my
Speaker 1: listeners and me today Michael and spending some time here,
Speaker 1: and thanks for writing the book and documenting this important history.