Said President Biden, in his speech yesterday. You can encounter the line in context at the end of my previous post.
This post is to examine the idiom. What are we talking about when we say "stand in the breach"? I think of Shakespeare's "Once more unto the breach." It's about taking up a warlike frame of mind:
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man,
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood...
So "the breach" is a broken open place in some fortifying wall, and the idea is to move through that space, into battle. If they don't move forward, the argument is that they will pile up dead until their bodies fill that space — close the wall up.
But that's about using the breach as an entry point into battle, not just standing there, which seems to be a poor military tactic.
From about the same time period, there is the King James Version of the Bible (1611), Psalm 106:23:
23 Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them.
There, "the breach" is the broken connection between God and human beings, and Moses was able to stand in that breach. To say "I will stand in this breach" — as Biden did — is to draw a parallel between yourself and Moses. Does Biden mean that the country is broken open with angry Trumpsters on one side and the rest of the people needing mediation that Biden, like Moses, can bring? It's a funny analogy, because not only is Biden a strange Moses, but because the nefarious insurrectionists are in the God position.
The Oxford English Dictionary has an entry for the phrase "to stand in the breach." One definition of "breach" is "The product of breaking... esp. 'A gap in a fortification made by a battery’ (Johnson). Hence to stand in the breach (often figurative)." The only example it gives of standing in the breach that Psalm (in the King James Version).
Searching a bit more, I see that there are some translations of the Bible that have the phrase "stand in the breach" in Ezekiel 22:30: "And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none."
Trumpsters perk up at "a man among them who should build up the wall."
That's as far as I'll go in this blog post. I have a problem with understanding "the breach" as a break in a wall, because I don't see the effectiveness of simply standing there. I think it ought to mean a division between groups of people and serving as a mediator.
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98 comments:
"I will stand in this breach."
Who among us didn't immediately think of the Southern border?
"I will stand in this breach."
Then Biden returned to the White House and promptly called a lid on the day.
Biden's getting too big for his breaches
A friend of mine in Paris once told me that the French built the Maginot line which held firm until the Germans bumped into it.
Let’s hope no one jostles or bumps into President Biden.
I think he was trying to tell his staff that he had sheet his breaches again.
Then Biden returned to the White House and promptly called a lid on the day.
You beat me to it. Biden, The Tupperware lid standing in the breach between you and diarrhea…
Don’t forget to burp him.
Good line, Howard.
Military usage, which I believe Biden wants to invoke, is that there is a gap in the defenses and some entity (an individual or group) are standing in the breach (the gap) to prevent the enemy from getting through.
"There's Republicans inside the wire!"
what if breach is bigger than you?
He would be a great breach defender as long as he is dealing with his peaceful political opponents.
Nobody wants to go near him.
He poops his pants and smells really bad.
Are there even any Democrats that see Biden any any sort of pillar of strength or support?
At most, he’s the cadaver they stand in the way to confuse the opposition.
…or like in those self defense videos, he’s the confusing gibberish, a cognitive distraction to momentarily confuse and delay.
…or the kid brother in A Christmas Story, to lay there like a slug. It was his only defense.
Our Professor said...
Trumpsters perk up at "a man among them who should build up the wall."
... I have a problem with understanding "the breach" as a break in a wall,
I think that Jo Biden was taking credit FOR the breach in our border wall
if it wasn't for him, there would be MILLIONS less new democrats in the country now
Back in the days when fighting was done with swords and axes and spears, and bodies were defended with shields and armor, a lone warrior could stand in the breach (or, more likely, a half step behind) if the opening was narrow enough, and hold that space for a period of time while his comrades got themselves prepared to do battle. There is also the story of “Horatio at the Bridge”and in 1066 a lone Viking warrior succeeded in holding off Harold Godwinson’s army at Stamford Bridge while Tostig and Harald Hardrada’s army tried to armor up and prepare for battle. Yes, these were bridges and not breaches in walls, but the principle is the same.
Breach was Cold War lingo.
There’s a movie called Breach about catching America’s biggest traitor.
Americans who gathered in DC on Jan6 are now traitors… or something.
Regarding the French and the Magninot Line and the Germans bumping into it. What the Germans did was bounce and bounce hard off the Maginot Line. Had the French not been so diplomatic and continued the Maginot line along the Belgian border to the sea, WWII might have gone very very differently. The oft-maligned Maginot line (that may be a quote from a book I read a long time ago, but damned if I remember which one) stood fast against the initial German attack. But when the Panzer divisions took the long way around through Belgium, there was no stopping them with formations that had been drilled into defending the Line....and were nowhere near up to standing in open fields.
It's a funny analogy, because not only is Biden a strange Moses, but because the nefarious insurrectionists are in the God position.
I disagree (though I should say first, this is a horrific metaphor, if this was Biden's angle - much more likely he had in mind Henry V). Moses stands in the gap (breach) between God and the people who have abandoned his ways, in place of the judgment of God (a precursor to Jesus).
But again, if that's what Biden had in mind, what hubris! He is Moses? The Capitol is what, God's Kingdom? Our "democracy" is God?
And still worse, Moses is the leader of *those people*, you know, the baddies. Where in Joe's speech does he even hint at the idea that the perpetrators of "1/6" are redeemable, let alone the Chosen People?
Politicians rarely do literature or scripture well.
"I will shit in these britches."
The Federal Courthouse in Portland OR? Meh. Chopped liver.
Tim said...
Had the French not been so diplomatic and continued the Maginot line along the Belgian border to the sea, WWII might have gone very very differently.
yep!
What are the Two Things, that "everyone Knows" about WWI ?
*The Maginot line was stupid and pointless because(at the time) Defensive positions were useless
*The Horrible Thing about WWI, was that defensive positions (trenches) could NOT be taken
If you think about the Maginot line, it Beat the Hell out of Any trench ever made
Biden can't even stop the breach between his butt cheeks. He wears Depends. Maybe, he he can stand in the breach with a bag full of those. Otherwise, he'll need to leave the breach to answer Nature's call.
Prof A: I share your confusion which IMHO arises from Biden’s use of “stand” in the breach. That is a defensive posture and unlike Shakespeare’s meaning —to go through the gap, use it to attack the enemy (or die trying)— it makes Biden a passive figure, merely blocking some process being run by others. Maybe there is a whiff of sacrifice on his part: he will take the brunt of the foe’s assault, spare the rest of us the pain and loss. So he comes across as vaguely heroic, but more vague than heroic. It’s not leadership to plant yourself in a free-fire zone.
As metaphors go, I give his Teleprompter a C-.
He's fill the breech, as long as someone tells him to. Otherwise, Biden might misunderstand and go to the beach instead. He has a very expensive Beach House, doncha know.
As long as you have killers like Lt. Byrd and the attackers are 110 lbs. unarmed women, we don't need Biden. The only bodies that filled the Breach on 1/6/21 were old men and women protesters.
The Biden tactic is a siege against us that causes starvation behind the wall. Biden’s action is not a charge into a breach, but is a cutting off of our supplies of food and war materials by cutting off our energy supply of oil and gas. Everything else used by Biden is a fake news distraction from that on going starvation of energy. Remember Biden is owned by the Chinese Communist Army who bought him.
“I will stand in this breach” is every bit as dopey as “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”
Here I sit so patiently, waiting to find out what price you have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice.
Maybe Biden meant Jan6 marked the breakup of the United States?
If it was "worse than the civil war", and the outcome of the civil war meant we stayed together, what else could it mean?
I can't bring myself to say it, without sounding conspiratorial, but somethings would make sense if those who vehemently disagree with this administration were no longer considered Americans.
Welcoming illegals at the southern border, for example, could be seen as a re-population effort... and so on.
What could "Build Back Better" mean?
I thought that Henry V was in bad odor due to its jingoistic themes, but now that the left are the jingoists, by jingo, it’s all good.
Sure he'll stand in the breach.
If there will be soft-serve and pudding.
Who wouldn't?
His tough guy act is pathetic.
He's a frail, confused old man.
Give it a rest.
Don't you assume whoever wrote it meant to imply the protesters had broken into the Capitol (causing a breach or through a breach) and Biden is our hero that will stand and fight off those trying to get through to destroy democracy? Maybe he's like King Leonidas at the Battle_of_Thermopylae defending the pass (i.e. breach).
Let's be honest, though. He doesn't know what he's saying and the person that wrote it was merely trying to sound poetic. It's like bad legal writing. Or, if you prefer, a dead metaphor.
The German attack into Belgium was always the French plan. The purpose of the Manginot line was to force the Germans into Belgium and prevent a penetration elsewhere, because any attack into Belgium would a) delay the German advance, b) draw in the British, and c) allow the French to concentrate their forces across a smaller front, negating the German advantage in numbers and organization.
The French failure wasn't the Maginot Line, but in their assessment of the Ardennes as impassible to German armor.
Once more into the breach is an offensive cry of attack. I will stand in the breach I see as a defensive posture. Like plugging a hole in the dike with your finger, Biden will fill the breach with his own body. Put his body on the line for his beleaguered city.
After he's done storming the beaches of Normandy with Dan Rather and Brian Stelter.
Much of military tactics involves finding a way to attack your enemy from multiple sides, ideally from behind. One way to accomplish this is to concentrate your attack at one point in your enemy's line or wall, open a breach, then rush forces through the opening into the enemy's rear, thus opening a second direction of attack.
Your enemy of course doesn't want to be attacked from behind. So if and when a breach opens in their lines, they will rush reserve forces to the area to "stand in the breach". Which does not mean to just stand there, but to actively defend against the incoming attackers. It is a critically dangerous time for the defenders.
One example of many: At the Battle of the Crater in Petersburg, VA in 1864, Union engineers used explosives to blast a crater in the Confederate lines that was 170 feet wide. Union soldiers rushed into the opening, trying to reach the Confederate rear areas from where they could "roll up" the Confederate lines. But the confusion massive explosion caused as much confusion among the Union soldiers as it did among the southerners, and the Confederates plugged the breach with their own reinforcements, thus prolonging the Siege of Petersburg and the war. (this is of course a very simplified version of events.)
Earnest Prole said...“I will stand in this breach” is every bit as dopey as “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”
Possibly, but stand back and stand by was an off-the-cuff response to a journalist's question. Stand in this breach was a crafted line in a prepared speech.
So many comments. Moses saved the people from God's wrath? Didn't Moses kill 10 of the 12 tribes for their deplorable sin? Don't the woke think they have fairly simplistic messages, not from God but from self-assertion/victimhood/history, and many people who have not adopted the new truth are deplorable sinners?
But the confusion massive explosion caused as much confusion among the Union soldiers as it did among the southerners, and the Confederates plugged the breach with their own reinforcements, thus prolonging the Siege of Petersburg and the war. (this is of course a very simplified version of events.)
The troops that were originally slated to rush the crater were black. The powers that be thought that those troops would be slaughtered so they send in white troops who had no idea what to do: go around the crater, not in it. Their general was a drunk who kept in his bunker without following the action and directing the troops. A total debacle in the breach.
Recently released footage of the Capitol riot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5wABDrzg9I
Biden is more like the little boy w/his finger plugging the hole in the dike; that is a neat mental picture.
I’ve also heard “stand in the gap” as a Christian metaphor- which I believe, is prayer. I know there were many at the Jan6th rally who specifically attended to do just that : pray.
It seems to me that Democrat pols are speaking more and more in militant terms. We know that the corruptocrats in the DOJ/FBI probably stand ready to subordinate half the population. I wonder where the military will stand. Not the rainbow generals, the real military.
Joe Biden said...
"I will stand in this breach."
Immediately what came to my mind was that Biden had soiled himself.
https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2022/01/06/exclusive-fmr-lt-col-stuart-scheller-congress-took-turns-with-their-sound-bites-of-anger-directed-towards-the-generals-none-of-them-has-the-courage-to-challenge-the-dod-budget/
This man…
Lloyd W. Robertson: "Didn't Moses kill 10 of the 12 tribes for their deplorable sin?"
No.
All 12 tribes made it to the Promised Land and Moses, having sinned himself because, mortal, was at least allowed to see the land his people would inherit.
Didn't Moses kill 10 of the 12 tribes for their deplorable sin?
No.
Mr. Wibble @ 9:30: nice analysis of French strategy: block and channel. Which failed because French did not understand armor. It’s not a mobile pillbox to back up infantry (infantry accompanies armor to prevent defensive anti-tank tactics). Armor is used to punch holes in front lines and raise hell in the rear, destroy infrastructure and block crossroads, cause confusion and panic.
And now, back to Biden, standing in the gap and waiting to get hit by a depleted uranium long rod penetrator from the main gun. Our hero.
Such heroic words from such a dwarf of a man. And he might need help standing. Pathetic!
As a few commenters note, the metaphor is perfectly clear, albeit stale. If either a fortifying wall, or a line of infantry in tight formation, is breached, the defenders must rush that spot to repel the attack. They will not go through the breach on the offensive, they will stand in the breach on the defensive.
When we heard that line in the multiplex 30 years ago, the whole theater rose to our feet as one, chanting "Let's go, Branagh!"
The first part of the speech wasn't terrible on the page. There was much that was much that was untrue, but it was certainly dramatic. It seemed to me like whoever wrote it had been watching a lot of Ken Burns's The Civil War. The second half of the speech with its incessant attacks on "the former president" didn't even look good on the page.
You can’t love your country only when you win. You can’t obey the law only when it’s convenient. You can’t be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies.
Biden wants to be seen as taking a stand for democracy, but it's not hard to imagine a dictator saying exactly those words. You don't quarrel with the official vote count. You obey the decisions of the central committee. You don't question the official truth.
And remember your oath to the leader.
RIP, Sidney Poitier.
OT - but listening to the OSHA oral argument, that Sotomayor is one obnoxious person -- hostile and spewing factual falsehoods.
When we heard that line in the multiplex 30 years ago, the whole theater rose to our feet as one, chanting "Let's go, Branagh!"
The first part of the speech wasn't terrible on the page. There was much that was much that was untrue, but it was certainly dramatic. It seemed to me like whoever wrote it had been watching a lot of Ken Burns's The Civil War. The second half of the speech with its incessant attacks on "the former president" didn't even look good on the page.
You can’t love your country only when you win. You can’t obey the law only when it’s convenient. You can’t be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies.
Biden wants to be seen as taking a stand for democracy, but it's not hard to imagine a dictator saying exactly those words. You don't quarrel with the official vote count. You obey the decisions of the central committee. You don't question the official truth.
And remember your oath to the leader.
RIP, Sidney Poitier.
"I have a problem with understanding "the breach" as a break in a wall, because I don't see the effectiveness of simply standing there."
I think the intent of Biden's statement was to convey that he was willing to put his own physical body in harm's way to serve as the wall now that there's a breach. The metaphor seems good to me, even if it also seems like a blatant, self-congratulating lie.
Does this make Hunter a son of breach?
The only place Joe Biden “stands in the breach” is at the soft serve line at Golden Corral.
Standing on the burning deck whence all but he [sic] had fled is more courageous than standing in the breach, or in the breech for that matter.
Joe Biden just shitting in his breeches again.
A Forlorn Hope (as a military term) is a group of soldiers who are making a suicidal attack on a breach (or hoped for breach) in a fortification. See Wikipedia--or read some of Bernard Cornwell's "Sharpe" novels.
I figure that Cornpop and six little boys and girls from a kindergarten class could run right over Slow Joe as he "stands in the breach".
Ok, this is why it is better to read the thread first- too many clever people for me to be first.
Joe's a lot like one of those early calculators, blocky, slow and cumbersome but still having a couple of reliable functions. This is Joe's 'tough-talking guy from Scranton' function, the one where he thinks he's coming across as a hard-edged street-smart wise-cracking Joe. He can still reliably pretend to be an angry guy because let's face it, anger evokes a certain kind of similarity to honesty and lot of people still mistake it for character. The problem is, he's too old to do anything about being angry. Even if he tries to kick the dog, he'll fall over - and then the dog will bite him.
I wonder what would happen if any politician described Black rioters with such contempt and hostility and was so completely dismissive of their underlying concerns...I watched the Globe performance you posted. Biden doesn't put me in mind of King Henry. Henry's speech and the vigor with which he delivered it is a bit beyond Biden's range. Maybe Prospero and the baseless fabric of his vision is closer to the mark. In any event, Biden's insurrection is such stuff as dreams are made on and Biden's little life is rounded with a sleep.
Biden is Gandalf now?
Link
Does anyone think Biden has any idea what he meant?
"I will stand in the breach because trunalimunumaprzure!" Come on, man!
Does anyone think Biden has any idea what he meant?
The Henry Vth quote refers to standard siege tactics against a castle or fortified city. Right next to the city was a moat with a sloping top on the castle side. The final act of a siege came when cannon battered a section of the castle walls causing a portion of the walls to collapse into the moat, filling it up while leaving a hole or "breach" in the wall. The bravest attackers then rushed across the debris-filled section of the moat to try to break in through the breach while the defenders took the place of the lost wall with a human line until a pause in the attack enabled them to close up the breach with stones or beams. Henry V is saying: Don't allow a pause during which the castle defenders led by their king will fill up the breach; attack, break their line across the breach by killing them or fill the breach with your own dead bodies. That's the idiom - used by Shakespeare in a way typical of Henry's warlike spirit - and he was personally leading the attackers heading for the breach.
On January 6th the police stood in a line across entrances to the Capitol and then, one might say, metaphorically, the line was breached. At any rate, people went past into the Capitol. And so Biden is saying that he will stand "in the breach" as those police officers did. But I think he will get on a helicopter to Camp David at the first sign of trouble. I think he's spending half his time away from DC, avoiding being present at any potential physical breach.
But what about a more spiritual "breach?" What if Republicans win elections? Can democracy survive? Trump ..... Will Biden fill up the breach in Illinois with Chicago dead voters - including Bob Dole? And so on?
Biden's promise will be more honored in the breach than in the observance.
Clearly, Biden didn't come up with the phrase himself. At some point, though, be probably did understand what was intended. It was flattering and he likes that. It wakes him up a little. Whether he understood what he was reading when he read it, is less likely.
My dad told me that the cliff notes version of the Shakespeare play Henry V was called Hank the Pint.
Lol @wildswan
As was mentioned above, "standing in the breach," or more often, "standing in the gap," is used by many Christians as a phrase for prayer. For example, if a person is going through a difficult trial, his friends will "stand in the gap" on his behalf by praying for him. It conveys the bridging of the distance between God and man, and also the shoring up of a defensive wall against a storm.
And now you know... the rest of... the story.
Biden is an idiot in a city full of them.DC needs to be ignored.
Concerning the speech, I've seen many people (in the news, on Twitter, etc.) saying it was one of the greatest speeches ever. Even putting aside the content, that's ridiculous. I still can't believe this ancient fossil is our president. He can't speak one sentence without slurring his words or screwing it up. Every time he speaks it's an embarrassment. There's only one worse speaker in politics right now, and she's the vice president.
Ya know, Biden is a pretty hip guy. Perhaps he meant he will stand "in this bitch."
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=In%20this%20bitch
"[The devils] by the left bank wheeling chose their route;
But first in signal to their captain each
Thrust out his tongue; and, taking the salute
He promptly made a bugle of his breech" Inferno,Canto XXI, trans. Dorothy Sayers
Wildswan points out that going into the breach is offensive, rather than defensive and, indeed, the speech in Henry V Act 3 Sn 1 is Henry outside Harfleur urging his men in, so it does not anticipate Biden's rhetoric.
Biden's speechwriters conjure up a Biden bravely defending our Capitol from potential invaders, but the idea of sending out an old man with a sword to hold off the Proud Boys and other wild men doesn't seem like the best tactical move.
The Secret Life of Walter Biden.
How frequently does President Biden shit himself?
is his gait so still when he walks because he has shit himself and he's trying to keep it from running down his leg and onto the floor?
Could you imagine being such a lick-spittle toadie that you have to show this man deference and respect all the while your senses are screaming that the man has shit in his own pants.
Do you think that dr. Jill personally clans the shit off of him when he needs a changing?
Do you think dr. Jill wears gloves when she's cleaning the shit off of President Biden?
Do you think that dr. Jill has ever tasted Presidential shit? Has Melania?
Has President Biden shit himself more in one year than Trump did in his entire term?
“I will stand in this breach”
What he meant to say was......."Hold muh beer!! Watch this!!"
Biden reads his TelePrompTer competently most of the time, except for a few slips that are hilarious. The people writing his speeches are the problem and they are seriously out of touch with us Normals. I fear they will do irreparable damage to the country. For the moment we can only try to stay normal.
Says the guy who managed at least four draft referents and then had a son to take him out of the lottery.
Henge, I don't know if it's because he has a load in his pants, but I'm glad someone else has noticed Dementia Joe's odd gait.
MALARKEY!!!
"I have a problem with understanding 'the breach' as a break in a wall, because I don't see the effectiveness of simply standing there."
It's desperately simple. A wall, as in a fortification, is meant to keep people out. If the outsiders have created a breach in the wall--or even just discovered one that exists because of neglected maintenance--that's where they will try to come through. So naturally you will rush as many troops as you can afford to the breach, to try to stem their influx.
QED.
So will Biden's approval ratings soar after this brilliant speech?
"You can’t love your country only when you win"
That's exactly how the pussy-hat Resist!!! crowd acted after the 2016 election.
'Says the guy who managed at least four draft referents and then had a son to take him out of the lottery.'
If I recall, he had more deferments than Trump, who is constantly harangued by commies for being a draft dodger...
Joe Biden's new book:
Profiles in Senility.
Damn, everyone has beaten the horse already. (At least beating the dead horse can soften the flesh, I suppose . . . even 'forlorn hope' has been cited! Got to comment early to beat some of you other know-it-alls.
The Maginot Line worked as intended, as others have noted. And when the French and Germans fought the two battles that could be considered 'armor vs armor' in 1940, the French won.
It has always struck me as remarkable that Biden's draft . . . avoidance during the 60s has never been made an issue. I think it may be because of his status as a fixture of DC, agelessly bland and forgettable--ageless until recently, anyway.
And lately, he's started to remind me of Zorak the Evil Mantis. I think it's the defensive arms-up posture he goes into when speaking from a desk or podium.
As a cleaner-up-after-old-persons person for certain periods of my life, my amusement at the poop jokes is tempered by real-world experience.
Unfortunately, this comes across as extremely divisive. No matter how great the speech is, if you are talking about 'crushing your enemies', your enemies will not see it being so great.
boatbuilder said...
Does anyone think Biden has any idea what he meant?
I think he is scared.
And literally shitting his pants.
Dementia patients are in and out. Sometimes they are at full faculty. And they are pumping him up with amphetamines.
He has always had a violent and abusive personality. He is a classic bully persona. He is a rapist and a long history of abusing people underneath him. He invades the space of children and has publicly been a creep for 5 decades.
What we are seeing is the real Joe Biden. Incompetent. Mean. Corrupt.
He will get special footnotes in history after he becomes the first president driven out of office since Nixon. And there will be no rehabilitation for Biden. If Nixon hadn't done away with the gold standard and caused the 1970's malaise he would probably be in a good place history wise after the DC Regime that took him down falls.
Ann, I think the Henry V speech was misleading in that it caused you to consider how the side attacking the city (or other walled fortification) should optimally behave in the breach. "Stand in the breach" is what the defenders do.
You know what would have made it a truly great speech?
If Biden had said, "All in all, you're just another brick in the wall."
Bonus points if a bunch of kids with masks emerged behind him and started singing, as in the video. Hell, I'd vote for him if he did that.
“ Ann, I think the Henry V speech was misleading in that it caused you to consider how the side attacking the city (or other walled fortification) should optimally behave in the breach. "Stand in the breach" is what the defenders do.”
That seems like a vulnerable position. I think people inside the wall would fight whoever came through as they came through… but I don’t know. Any citations supporting fighting by standing in the breach? Again, the OED traces the phrase to the Moses verse with the breach not in a wall but a relationship.
Or I guess Moses is standing in a broken space in a wall that protects people form God and he dissuades God from coming in there.
When there is no one to stand in the breach:
The Walls of Constantinople Are Breached
After long weeks of siege, after the relentless pounding of the cannon that had been set up and directed by the Hungarian professional Orban, the walls at last broke. The Ottomans’ elite forces, the Janissaries, raced in to exploit the breach, and the defenders started to fall back from the walls. The city was about to be taken.
Through it all, Emperor Constantine refused to surrender and rallied both local inhabitants of the city and Latin Christians from Venice and Genoa, who were merchants who had worked in the city, all fighting together in defense of the beleaguered metropolis.
When the walls were breached, Emperor Constantine did something dramatic. He shouted out to all who could hear, ‘The City is lost, but I live’. With that, he tore off the emblems of his imperial rank, which marked him as the emperor, and like an ordinary soldier rushed into the thickest part of the fighting, and he was never seen alive again.
The breach is a very dangerous place:
Siege of Florence 1494
The French army was augmented by heavy cannon, rendering a lengthy siege moot. The French army proceeded to launch an assault on the city of Florence, blasting the gates with the cannon and breaching the Florentine defenses. The French proceeded to charge into the breach, where they were met by the two Florentine generals themselves. Piero de Medici was wounded, while Vitelli was killed. The demoralized and leaderless Florentine forces soon found themselves being overwhelmed, and the scattered Florentine troops retreated towards the piazza, where they made their final stand against the French. The French used a strategy of sending all of their units to charge the Florentine unit farthest away from them; this would allow for the Florentine units in between to be swamped by superior numbers and overwhelmed. The Florentine defenders fought to the death, with only a few surviving to be taken prisoner.
If a breach in the curtain wall--whether by battering or mining--is achieved but no assault party (forlorn hope) is able to get through it, the defenders would immediately start throwing up another line. They might dig a ditch and/or erect a barricade of gabions or what-have-you, working through the night to strengthen the new line of defense.
In some cases, entire populations might become defenders and their city itself a fortress. This happened at Saragossa in Spain, an epic bloodbath that featured women and children fighting against Napoleon's troops, house to house and room to room.
But as awful as sieges could be, if a fortress refused to surrender when honor allowed and reason required, the aftermath of an assault was usually an atrocity, sometimes lasting days. Again the Peninsular War has examples. That's only 200 or so years ago in Christian civilized Europe.
Holy sacred cow! I keep forgetting to post this--
"Metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man." Ortega y Gasset.
Ann, Yes! about Moses. Or so thinks the commentator at http://www.deusvitae.com/outlines/onestandsbreach.txt
I'll copy & paste all the relevant bits below, but the literal defense-of-a-breach-in-a-wall meaning of "stand in the breach" is in the first part.
Yes, it would be a very vulnerable position (though not as ghastly as what Catherine Douglas did to try to save James I of Scotland, ugh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Douglas).
From deusvitae:
Thus, to “stand in the breach” is to put oneself in the great place
of danger, to attempt to maintain the integrity of defense after it
has been compromised
1. Most who would defend an ancient city would be as those in
Jerusalem during the Babylonian siege: they would fight hard while
the wall maintained its integrity, but once the wall was breached,
defense would seem hopeless, and it would be every man for
himself (cf. 2 Kings 25:4)
2. To attempt to stand in the breach would mean almost certain death,
for the enemy would immediately direct all their strength toward
the breach to overwhelm its defenses
3. Thus, to stand in the breach would require selfless courage and
devotion to one’s people, a powerful attempt to maintain the
integrity of defense after the primary means of defense has been
compromised
III. One Who Stood in the Breach: Moses
A. The Psalmist sets forth Israel’s disobedience in the Wilderness,
declaring how YHWH would have destroyed them had not Moses “stood in
the breach” before Him (Psalm 106:21-23)
B. He refers to the events described in Exodus 32:1-14
1. While Moses was receiving the Law from God, the people grew
restless, and assumed Moses was no more; they asked Aaron to make
a god for them to serve, and he made them a golden calf
(Exodus 32:1-6)
2. YHWH informed Moses of this; His anger burned against Israel, and
He was about to destroy them and make a nation out of Moses
(Exodus 32:7-10)
3. At that point Moses asked why YHWH’s anger burned against Israel,
and how it would give the Egyptians reason to say that YHWH led
Israel out with evil intentions to destroy them in the Wilderness;
he asked YHWH to turn aside from His anger, remembering the
promise He swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exodus 32:11-13)
4. YHWH relented of the disaster He was about to impose on Israel
(Exodus 32:14)
5. Moses would go on to censure the people, and plague broke out
among them, but they were not entirely destroyed (Exodus 32:15-35)
C. Consider Moses’ selfless courage and devotion to his people
1. The Psalmist does well to express what Moses did as “standing in
the breach”: Israel had sinned grievously, and their integrity
had been greatly compromised
2. Moses had all kinds of reasons to step aside and let YHWH destroy
Israel
a. First and foremost, YHWH is the One speaking; Moses could have
asked who he was to stand in the way of YHWH doing His thing
b. He stood to personally benefit: we would no longer speak of the
nation of Israel, but the nation of Moses!
c. The people had sinned a great sin; didn’t they deserve
punishment? Why not let them get what they deserve?
3. Yet Moses loved his people, as recalcitrant, broken, and sinful as
they were, even when they were less than enthused about his
leadership
4. Moses also loved YHWH; such is why he reminded Him of the covenant
promise He made to the patriarchs as well as the blasphemy the
Egyptians would have reason to say
D. And so Moses took on the risk, stood in the breach of Israel’s
integrity before God, and in this way preserved the people of Israel
And here's a metaphorical usage from a speech I guess by a Senator opposing FDR's court-packing scheme (topical again, I am sorry to say):
"then comes the time when the representatives of the people, the men elected here, as the President says, must rise and stand in the breach and say, 'This far and no farther.' There is a Constitution; there are human rights; there is a Supreme Court. It is independent. And when we die it shall be independent. That is the way to prevent destruction."
https://books.google.com/books?id=r5lQAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=%22stand+in+the+breach%22+defense&source=bl&ots=XeFK8Z9jAm&sig=ACfU3U0SFt9LR25j76vN09x8bt-jOgbQsw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiUm_bZlKH1AhWflXIEHcM7DykQ6AF6BAgNEAM#v=onepage&q=%22stand%20in%20the%20breach%22%20defense&f=false
Sorry if others have said this, but it's late and I haven't checked all the prior comments.
In Henry V, "Into the breach" meant attack, attack attack!
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