Thursday, June 28, 2012

War Elephants



Walls Of Hue, Vietnam  Engraving 1880




Riding elephants into battle, and retaining some semblance of control has always been very hard for me to wrap my brain around.  I can understand using them to pull heavy gun's to the front, in preparation of the battle, but to control them when the shooting started must have been just a herculean effort.  We tout individual's as being "great trainers" given their effort's in the circus ring.   Compared to riding dozens and dozens of them into a blinding, smoke filled battle,  even a one foot stand seem's to me to be a very weak accomplishment.  It is really, really hard to grasp and conceive of the skill and knowledge that was required to maintain and control a war elephant with chaos raging all around. 

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