Novel: The Lord of the Rings (Trilogy) Author: J. R. R. Tolkien Available: Currently available in bookstores around the world.

    World War One of the Ring

    A number of articles and videos have surfaced recently that allude to author J. R. R. Tolkien’s experiences during the First World War. Alas, they are short on specifics, giving a broad overview of what occurred, rather than going into any detail about his actual wartime experiences. But, maybe they don’t have too. You see, I think Tolkien told us about them himself. Perhaps it was his way of dealing with what was one of the most obscene and mind numbing experiences imaginable; life in the trenches in WWI. Or, it could have just been for inspiration; he was simply reinterpreting his memories to fit them into the context of the story. Either way, much of what he experienced in World War One makes its way into The Lord of the Rings, and often, in the most surprising of places.

    Take Hobbit Holes, for instance. Frodo lived in a dry, well lit Hobbit Hole. Not some damp and dreary hole, but-okay, most of us know how it goes from there. How does that relate to WWI? During the First World War large, almost spacious underground bunkers were built at regularly spaced intervals along both trench lines. The bunkers had wooden floors, cooking areas, sleeping areas, reinforced ceilings, why, the Germans even went so far as to line their bunkers with concrete, making them not only more blast resistant, but also more comfortable for the soldiers. Whenever one side or the other started throwing artillery shells around, the soldiers would head for the bunkers where, from twenty feet below the earth, they would ride out the attack. Sometimes, they were down there for a while. When prepping an area for a major battle, both sides would pound a wide swath of the front with thousands of guns, often for weeks, or even months at a time. And the men would be forced to stay down below, like submariners, only coming up for a few minutes each day to get a quick breath of fresh air (more on this later). From Tolkien’s comments, we get the impression that, as a proper British officer, he made certain his men kept a tidy bunker.

    Which is not to imply that he was a martinet; considering the number and variety of diseases that ravaged the trenches throughout the Great War, his was a most wise and sagely precaution, which undoubtedly saved lives. (There were more deaths from disease than from combat during WWI. And this despite the fact that generals on both sides often incurred casualties of a hundred thousand or more during major battles. Even with all that carnage, microscopic viruses still managed to claim more lives than inept leadership.)

    One of the things that puzzled me the first time I read The Lord of the Rings was why, with all the magic floating around, Tolkien chose to have the mighty Saruman use a crude black powder petard to bring down a section of wall during the assault on Helm’s Deep. Later, after I had learned a bit more about the author, and came to understand that he had spent time in the trenches, I realized exactly what it was that he was describing. You see, in WWI, there were not only trenches and bunkers, but, even deeper than that; there were also tunnels, too. These tunnels were low cramped affairs, dug by engineers of both sides. Their purpose was quite simple; the engineers would dig a tunnel from their own lines to the enemies, and they would hollow out a large compartment at the far end. Then, they would stuff as much explosive into the compartment as it would hold, and attach a very long fuse. Climb out of the tunnel, light the fuse and ten or twenty minutes later a section of the opposing line would disintegrate. Although Tolkien may have only heard of such an attack, from the vividness of his description, one can’t help but get the impression that he may have actually witnessed such an incident firsthand.

    And then there is, of course, Mordor. The blasted land. Dark, dreary, lifeless. A land of shadows, where nothing green grew. That is, sadly, a mostly accurate description of No Man’s Land, the expanse, often of less than one hundred yards, that lay between the two trench lines. Here, the ground was so churned up by the shelling, that it was nothing more than cratered earth, the surface blackened by fire and explosion. As for the craters-some of them were only filled with brackish water and the occasional corpse, while others were repositories for nebulous pools of deadly mustard gas, which could burn a man’s skin or blind him, or sear his lungs raw if he was unfortunate enough to inhale it. All the trees on or near the battlefield, if not destroyed outright, were stripped not only of their leaves, but also of most of their branches and limbs; the result of repeated concussive blasts from the shelling. But, perhaps the most hideous thing of all was the smell-the stultifying odor of raw earth, human waste, and the unburied dead; a noxious, charnel house blast so intense and pervasive that one first encountered it some twenty miles (over 30 kms) from the front. Man has yet to create a true hell on earth (although this doesn’t seem to discourage him from trying), but life in the trenches during the First World War does come close.

    There’s definitely more (much, much more) to be said on this topic (I haven’t even gotten into the characters, yet), but I’m already running long. So, I’ll just close with this. When I first read of Middle Earth, it seemed like a far off, mythical world of magic and adventure, totally removed from this, our “best of all possible worlds.” And, indeed, that may be a valid interpretation of Tolkien’s masterpiece. Still, the more deeply I delve into this epic tale and the underlying reality upon which it was constructed, the more familiar and recognizable that fantastic world seems to become.