XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: jcb@inf.ed.ac.uk   
      
   On 2013-03-13, Stan Brown  wrote:   
   > I don't think more than a very few of Sauron's troops felt actual   
   > loyalty to him, the way that say Patton's troops did.  Maybe I'm   
   > reading too much into the Orcs' conversations that are recorded in   
   > LotR, but I get the impression that all of them, except the very top   
   > level, operated out of fear of torture more than any general   
   > commitment to the cause.   
      
   I don't know. I suppose Shagrat counts as top-level, but the "big   
   slave-driving devil" in Mordor, was surely a company commander at   
   best, and he seemed to be enjoying his job.   
   How many soldiers in any war are actually committed to the cause? Even   
   in the second world war, where there was a cause other than pure   
   land-grabbing, many ordinary Allied soldiers were basically fighting   
   because they were required to. (Read Spike Milligan's autobiography   
   for a cynical and amusing take on being a WW2 soldier.)   
   A similar degree of cynicism is found, much more understandably, among   
   WW1 soldiers on both sides, isn't it? It's not just the war poets who   
   were cynical.   
   I don't know - I'm no expert on WW history, but that's the impression   
   I've gained.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)