War is not a new topic or phenomenon. It has been with us for all of recorded history, a brutal fact and the stuff of legends and storytellers. Michael Walsh attacks the topic with a focus on historical and legendary Last Stands. It is more than mere dry military history that is tackled in the book. He does not seek to prettify or wax romantic about war, or adjacent topics, even with poetry included. He gives the gruesome details of severed limbs, soldiers being cleft in half even on their mounted steeds and the bloody, gore-filled business that war was and is.
What he addresses besides the bloody business of it all is the why and how of these battles, the history, the motivations of the soldiers and commanders from large scale great battles to small ones all ending in a Last Stand. He often focuses on an individual or individuals that bring the battle and what happened into the very personal. He makes the men and the history come alive.
The prologue and introduction are essential reading and lets the reader know where Walsh stands on what he thinks constitutes heroism and why men sacrifice all for home and hearth at the personal level and in the grander scheme of great causes and love of country. He includes personal anecdotal details from his own family history that illustrate some of this as well as reaching into eons past of history that brings in the politics then and now that always influence culture and war. One may agree or disagree with his outlook, but it is worthy of study and it reaches into today.
Walsh is an excellent wordsmith and not afraid to use Latin terms or ancient quotes in it. Nor is he shy in using complex words and phrases in English. He makes clear what he means, but if you need to, look it up. He gives an overview of what battles he put in the books and why and some ones he left out and why along with the panoply of history, culture, politics and religion they all fit into. He does prestigious and copious footnotes in each chapter and they are well worth the time to stop and read them. Many of them give either explanation or nice bits of trivia that further add to the story and actually make it "fun" if that's possible considering the subject matter, but even things like humor are found in the fog of war, whether in the downtime or otherwise. He does not hesitate to quote works of antiquity, including the bible, (although this is not a religious book per se), it does point out how religion had some impact on the views of war. and of more modern works done by historians or cultural writers to make a point and always gives credit where it's due. With some of the quotes or excerpts, he also explains that what certain terms mean now is not what they meant anciently and how certain modern views square as to what the historical view was of certain concepts and what we might wisely take away from some of it. The introduction stays and returns to the themes surrounding heroism. It is lengthy, but worth the time.
The rest of the book goes chapter to chapter in a timeline of historic battles that became Last Stands starting with one now more familiar to the modern reader and movie goer: Thermopylae, 480 BC. Even if you think you know all of the story, Mr. Walsh goes into great detail about the battle and even the ritual preparations before it, along with messages sent by the defenders to be delivered to spouses knowing it would likely be received after their certain deaths in battle. It also puts forth that not only Walsh, but many historians, ancient and modern, consider Thermopylae to be the battle that both saved and launched Western Civilization. Again, the footnotes and excerpts from works of antiquity are well worth the time.
The next chapters deal with Cannae, 216 BC and Teutoburg Forest, 9 AD and the disasters both battles were on both Republican Rome and Imperial Rome with a lot of background of how deeply the Greek influence was on Rome from the start and the aftermath and influence those battles had on Ancient Rome.
There are a number of chapters that go over two battles and how those battles have either historical relation to each other or share a number of elements and lessons. Some chapters go over a single, but significant battle and it's implications historically, philosophically and it's modern implications.
Each chapter can stand alone as a single or double story of an event(s), but there are elements that can string them altogether. It is worth reading the chapters in succession and then going back for certain favorites or to glean something missed in the first pass.
The chapters that stand out for me are: Thermopylae, for its impact and implications on Western Civilization, Grant at Shiloh, for the fact that it was a battle filled with last stands and had it been lost, the Civil War itself might have been lost and the Union not survived. It came close, everyone was caught unawares. It focuses on Grant's genius as a general and his leadership rallying his troops, something that has been long neglected and is rightfully being revived in this volume and elsewhere. Summed up by Grant himself in his memoirs, "It was a case of Southern Dash and Northern pluck and endurance." And Grant's memoirs are recently gaining a new audience as well they should. There was even another author to emerge from the battle, Lew Wallace, who wrote "Ben Hur: A Tale Of Christ", which became on of the best selling novels of the 19th century made into the academy award winning movie starring Charlton Heston and remake of it it done just a few years ago. Both the battles of the Civil War and it's many participants still reach into our lives today. The last chapter is marked as the Epilogue, but one that caps off the book nicely with a first-person account of the Battle of Chosin Reservoir from the Korean War. Michael Walsh's father, 1st Lt. John J. Walsh, is a decorated veteran of that battle and others. Much of the account is in his own words and as of the printing of the book, he is still with us. He gives excellent details of the battle itself with his son giving the background of his father's growing years and family history, school years that gave him the nickname of "Iron Mike" and the events that led him to his military service and what his war time experiences were and how they were shaped by his upbringing in America and his family background, including how it relates to today. These are valuable accounts we should cherish and seek to get as many as possible with the veterans of those eras fast becoming part of history. For this account alone, yet also with other accounts and elucidations in this volume, I highly recommend this book.
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About the author
Force of arms, and the willingness to use them, is the sword and shield of Western civilization
Michael Walsh worries the West has lost cultural confidence that was its hallmark for 2500 years. In his tour de force Last Stands: Why Men Fight When All Is Lost he looks at why men over the ages have been willing to fight against overwhelming and often, against impossible odds, facing certain death. He views it as a sign of civilizational vigor.Walsh surveys 17 epic battles from Thermopylae to Chosin Reservoir where his father fought with distinction. He describes Thermopylae as the first great last stand and the model for many that followed. It was “a noble cause – defending Greece, and therefore of the West – but “a militarily hopeless situation.” Critically there was “the will to fight on, to the end, when at least for a time retreat was possible but thought shameful.” Walsh asks rhetorically if the West still has a concept of what it’s “like to live – and die – nobly?” The courage of Greeks at Thermopylae, Texians at the Alamo, Chinese Gordon at Khartoum, and Hungarians and Croats at the Siege of Szigetvar defy the sensibilities of sophisticated, feminized 21st-century Western men.At the Siege of Szigetvar Zrinyi exhorted his troops to fight and die like men declaring:“Let us not recoil, then, from going to our deaths,Which will give us a path to eternal joy;Today, soldiers, we must lose our lives,And today all our trials end.We have lived nobly, let us die nobly,Give the entire world an example by it;Today we bring dignity upon our names,This gilds all past actions.”“When all was lost, they turned a potential rout into a last stand by adhering to discipline, trust in their drill and training not to spare them from a fate that was almost certainly theirs, but from shame, disgrace, and dishonor.”“While technology may change, human nature is immutable.” Leonidas’s, Hannibal’s, Anielewicz’s, Roland’s, Harold’s, Röist and Zrinyi’s, Davy Crockett’s, Jean Danjou’s, Grant’s, Sitting Bull’s, Bromhead’s, Chinese Gordon’s and Pavlov’s soldiers differed in their weapons “but not a whit in their elemental masculinity.”Walsh contends war is an intrinsic part of the human experience – and so it has been – and that “Nothing will stop war, especially good intentions” as evinced in the Kellogg-Briand Act. Overwhelming strength and steely will however, can be a good deterrent. Would-be aggressors rarely seek overwhelmingly stronger foes.“Force of arms, and the willingness to use them, is the sword and shield of Western civilization.” But modern Western man “shies away from actual victory on the grounds it would somehow be rude or unfair.”Walsh writes magnificently. Last Stands is an engaging and worthwhile read, and offers lessons for the West today, lessons ignored at our and our way of life’s peril.
Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2022
Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2021
Walsh surveys 17 epic battles from Thermopylae to Chosin Reservoir where his father fought with distinction. He describes Thermopylae as the first great last stand and the model for many that followed. It was “a noble cause – defending Greece, and therefore of the West – but “a militarily hopeless situation.” Critically there was “the will to fight on, to the end, when at least for a time retreat was possible but thought shameful.” Walsh asks rhetorically if the West still has a concept of what it’s “like to live – and die – nobly?” The courage of Greeks at Thermopylae, Texians at the Alamo, Chinese Gordon at Khartoum, and Hungarians and Croats at the Siege of Szigetvar defy the sensibilities of sophisticated, feminized 21st-century Western men.
At the Siege of Szigetvar Zrinyi exhorted his troops to fight and die like men declaring:
“Let us not recoil, then, from going to our deaths,
Which will give us a path to eternal joy;
Today, soldiers, we must lose our lives,
And today all our trials end.
We have lived nobly, let us die nobly,
Give the entire world an example by it;
Today we bring dignity upon our names,
This gilds all past actions.”
“When all was lost, they turned a potential rout into a last stand by adhering to discipline, trust in their drill and training not to spare them from a fate that was almost certainly theirs, but from shame, disgrace, and dishonor.”
“While technology may change, human nature is immutable.” Leonidas’s, Hannibal’s, Anielewicz’s, Roland’s, Harold’s, Röist and Zrinyi’s, Davy Crockett’s, Jean Danjou’s, Grant’s, Sitting Bull’s, Bromhead’s, Chinese Gordon’s and Pavlov’s soldiers differed in their weapons “but not a whit in their elemental masculinity.”
Walsh contends war is an intrinsic part of the human experience – and so it has been – and that “Nothing will stop war, especially good intentions” as evinced in the Kellogg-Briand Act. Overwhelming strength and steely will however, can be a good deterrent. Would-be aggressors rarely seek overwhelmingly stronger foes.
“Force of arms, and the willingness to use them, is the sword and shield of Western civilization.” But modern Western man “shies away from actual victory on the grounds it would somehow be rude or unfair.”
Walsh writes magnificently. Last Stands is an engaging and worthwhile read, and offers lessons for the West today, lessons ignored at our and our way of life’s peril.
Force of arms, and the willingness to use them, is the sword and shield of Western civilization
Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2021
Michael Walsh worries the West has lost cultural confidence that was its hallmark for 2500 years. In his tour de force Last Stands: Why Men Fight When All Is Lost he looks at why men over the ages have been willing to fight against overwhelming and often, against impossible odds, facing certain death. He views it as a sign of civilizational vigor.Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2021
Walsh surveys 17 epic battles from Thermopylae to Chosin Reservoir where his father fought with distinction. He describes Thermopylae as the first great last stand and the model for many that followed. It was “a noble cause – defending Greece, and therefore of the West – but “a militarily hopeless situation.” Critically there was “the will to fight on, to the end, when at least for a time retreat was possible but thought shameful.” Walsh asks rhetorically if the West still has a concept of what it’s “like to live – and die – nobly?” The courage of Greeks at Thermopylae, Texians at the Alamo, Chinese Gordon at Khartoum, and Hungarians and Croats at the Siege of Szigetvar defy the sensibilities of sophisticated, feminized 21st-century Western men.
At the Siege of Szigetvar Zrinyi exhorted his troops to fight and die like men declaring:
“Let us not recoil, then, from going to our deaths,
Which will give us a path to eternal joy;
Today, soldiers, we must lose our lives,
And today all our trials end.
We have lived nobly, let us die nobly,
Give the entire world an example by it;
Today we bring dignity upon our names,
This gilds all past actions.”
“When all was lost, they turned a potential rout into a last stand by adhering to discipline, trust in their drill and training not to spare them from a fate that was almost certainly theirs, but from shame, disgrace, and dishonor.”
“While technology may change, human nature is immutable.” Leonidas’s, Hannibal’s, Anielewicz’s, Roland’s, Harold’s, Röist and Zrinyi’s, Davy Crockett’s, Jean Danjou’s, Grant’s, Sitting Bull’s, Bromhead’s, Chinese Gordon’s and Pavlov’s soldiers differed in their weapons “but not a whit in their elemental masculinity.”
Walsh contends war is an intrinsic part of the human experience – and so it has been – and that “Nothing will stop war, especially good intentions” as evinced in the Kellogg-Briand Act. Overwhelming strength and steely will however, can be a good deterrent. Would-be aggressors rarely seek overwhelmingly stronger foes.
“Force of arms, and the willingness to use them, is the sword and shield of Western civilization.” But modern Western man “shies away from actual victory on the grounds it would somehow be rude or unfair.”
Walsh writes magnificently. Last Stands is an engaging and worthwhile read, and offers lessons for the West today, lessons ignored at our and our way of life’s peril.
Images in this review
Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2021
Top reviews from other countries
Nik Blaskovic
It makes a different kind of sense
Reviewed in Australia on May 17, 2021