by Caleb Carr
“ponies” Gibbon writes, “Once again, I had no luck in persuading my translator to tell me what the original word for ‘ponies’ or ‘pony’ was, in the Manuscript, which is something of a pity, as it might have helped to clarify the origins of this subspecies of the horse, a ‘subspecies’ that may have a longer history than the ‘species’ itself, at least in northern Europe: for there are those who believe that ponies were animals bred and then abandoned by several migrating tribes that originated in Asia and were, like their ponies, smaller in stature than their conquerors, the Europeans and the contemptible Byzantines, with their enormous armored warhorses.” Gibbon’s disdain for the Byzantine Empire has already been noted; and although the actual word “pony” was just over a century old, in his day, the species or subspecies had many other, much older names in other parts of Europe. —C.C.
“the Kreikisch called the fire automatos” Gibbon writes, “The translator used, no doubt for the benefit of his contemporary readers, the most recent form of the Greek word for ‘automatic,’ while remaining with the Broken dialect’s term for Greek itself, Kreikisch, since we have seen it before. There is no point to explaining too early what the term ‘automatic fire’ implies, as the text will do as much; but as to the question of whether or not it was a myth, it is sufficient to say that chemists have attempted to re-create this most mysterious subcategory of ‘Greek fire’ without success, although various other formulas for Greek fire have been tested with far happier results; and, as Caliphestros’s represented a particularly volatile form of the substance, we must continue to wonder, until some chemist can prove or disprove the notion, whether or not this part of the story is indeed legend, or mere myth.” While it would be unfair, yet, to say why Gibbon’s assessment is wrong, we should at least note that it is, and state that what “the sorcerer” Caliphestros was brewing was a weapon familiar in both its component parts and its assembled whole to modern armies, especially the American; and that the fact that it had disappeared from the world for almost a thousand years, in Caliphestros’s time, and would do so, following Broken’s history, for another twelve hundred ought not shock us: if there is one lesson to be learned from the Manuscript and all the details of the history of Broken, it is that the trend of civilization, as we are learning once again in our own time, is not always upward or forward. —C.C.
“Kafra’s infernal piss” Here is an entry about which Gibbon could have known little, even anecdotally, and even less scientifically; yet he, not atypically, chose to comment upon it because nearly every report of the scientific composition of the “fire automatos,” or automatic fire, had and has come down to us through Byzantine sources, and therefore would have roused the great scholar’s prejudiced ire to no small extent. Thus, when he says that “this aspect of the tale of the invasion of Broken must be viewed with jaundiced eyes, to say the very least, as the types of ‘authorities’ upon which it is based spring from a society well-versed in both exaggeration and mendacity,” it is far less a statement of true fact than of those same personal prejudices. It was the Byzantines, after all, who would devise new forms of Greek fire so devastating that their use influenced battles of immense importance: see, for example, J. R. Partington’s excellent A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder.
Within such authoritative texts, as well as within the Broken Manuscript, we find not only effective refutation of Gibbon’s willful ignorance, but tantalizing evidence as to what it was that the mysterious “missing ingredient” that separated automatic fire from more common forms of Greek fire might have been. And in this context, the account in the Broken tale is not only not to be viewed “with jaundiced eyes,” but is in fact to be taken quite seriously. For not only do all the other elements involved in the substance’s creation—everything from naphtha to asphalt—match the description that the narrator gives of the stench given off by Caliphestros’s creation, as well as of its consistency, but the manner in which it was said that those elements must be transported—in brass containers—conforms to reality as well. But it is several other aspects above all—the description, violence, and action of the flame produced—that give us an additional and, perhaps, key revelation: for the fire automatos used at Broken is described as burning primarily “white,” not the usual range of fiery colors, at the time, and as doing so into, not atop, its target. This is extraordinarily reminiscent of what we today know as “white phosphorus,” a controversial twentieth-century weapon (particularly, again, regarding its use by the United States in Third World countries), the antecedent of which, carbon disulfide, was known to have been used on more than one historical occasion: in an Irish nationalist attempt to destroy the Houses of Parliament, among others. Fire created using such elements can indeed be ignited by water, and made to burn fiercer the more one throws water upon it; and European chemists at work before science’s great suppression at the hands of the Catholic Church would have been very capable of mastering the creation of such a substance. Did they? The Broken Manuscript certainly suggests as much; and it is therefore, again, typical that we are suspended, in this key aspect, between what we read, what Gibbon originally thought of it, and what modern military history and science tell us might have been possible, if viewed without prejudice. —C.C.
“sarbein” Neither Gibbon nor his translator could make sense of the origins of this Broken dialectal term; however, the great scholar was wise enough to draw a correct (although perhaps obvious) conclusion from its use: “Neither the translator of the document nor I could make sense of this term, save that, placed in context, it seems apparent that it refers to ‘greaves,’ those armored leggings worn for centuries by warriors in both the East and the West, from the age of bronze to that of iron and steel; although how the Broken dialect should have formed such a unique term for them remains a mystery.” And, again, we confront that fact that, in Gibbon’s day, very little scholarly work had been done into either Gothic, or the various manners in which Gothic and German could and did become hybridized: bein being even the early German term for “leg,” and sarwa the Gothic plural for “armor.” Thus, we can now fairly confidently solve another problem that frustrated Gibbon, who knew both the question and the answer, but not how the two were connected. —C.C.
the basic rules of Broken infantry training Here, Gibbon is not at all confused, and one gets the feeling that this fact gives him some relief: “The exchange outlining how Arnem and his son will meet attackers who lack formal military training not only gives us some idea of why the Broken Army was so feared, but once again of how much to heart the kingdom’s founder, Oxmontrot, had taken the better elements of Roman military tactics. Any late Roman commander would have been pleased and proud to have men willing to form up in such seemingly close and perilous, but ultimately fearsome and victorious, formations; it was, indeed, the inability of too many Roman commanders to convince (or even try to persuade) their men to muster the courage to carry on the close-order tactics of the early empire—tactics that had allowed Rome to establish her dominance over so much of the Western world—that was a contributing factor to the downfall of the great empire.” Nothing needs to be added to this explanation, save another reminder of how Oxmontrot, unlike so many “barbarian” tribal leaders in northern Europe, did not view the way the Romans fought as alien and even inhuman, but sorted through those tactics to pick out the pieces that would best serve his new kingdom: an impressive accomplishment, to say the least. —C.C.
ALSO BY CALEB CARR
The Italian Secretary
The Lessons of Terror
Killing Time
The Angel of Darkness
The Alienist
The Devil Soldier America Invulnerable (with James Chace)
Casing the Promised Land
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CALEB CARR is the critically acclaimed author of The Alienist, The Angel of Darkness, The Lessons of Terror, Killing Time, The Devil Soldier, and The Italian Secretary. He has taught military history at Bard College, and wo
rked extensively in film, television, and the theater. His military and political writings have appeared in numerous magazines and periodicals, among them The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He lives in upstate New York.