LOOSE VS. FIRE

One of the many things I love about history is finding the origins to little things we take for granted. Among my favorites: prior to the latter 1800’s police as we think of them today did not exist. One of the first modern police forces was established in New York, primarily to handle the excessive population due to the influx of immigrants. To identify these police officers to the public they were given large badges that were made of copper. It became quite common for these men to be referred too as coppers and overtime this shortened to cops.

This is on my mind because a recurring problem I have had with Hollywood I have also found this afternoon in one of the books I’m reading. I suppose it particularly upsets me because this author has done a remarkable job of research and accuracy in his books, which take place between 500 B.C. and 300 A.D. It’s a common blunder created when people assume that words today meant the same thing before whatever happened to give them this meaning.

If I were to travel back to 1750 New York and called the local constable or night watchmen coppers, everyone would be looking at me funny or think I’d gone mad. Similarly, were I commanding a lot of archers during the Peloponnesian War and shouted, “Fire!” they would panic thinking the enemy had set our camp or some nearby terrain on fire, or possibly that a flamethrower was approaching our position (Yes, they had working and deadly efficient flamethrowers in 490 B.C.).

Today, we associate the word fire with, among other things, the discharge of any ranged weapon be it a gun, bow, catapult, cannon, etc.; however, this was not so prior to the advent of firearms.

Think about it. What purpose is their in saying fire to an archer? Fire has nothing to do with the use of bows, slings, catapults, ballistae, or trebuchets. Even in cases when arrows or whatever other projectiles may have been ignited, how would the soldiers know if their commander was calling for the regular launch of their weapons or ordering them to ignite their weapons and wait for him to say fire a second time. In fact the commanders of the time would actually say loose, release, let fly, or something along those lines.

A good place to look for this is in LOTR: Two Towers. As the Battle for Helms Deep begins Aragorn and Théoden both command their archers to attack. Aragorn gives the order correctly telling the elves to release their arrows. However, when Théoden give the command two of his subordinates incorrectly say “Fire!”

Not until the 1300’s when the first cannons, and later guns, began to appear on the battlefield would fire come to have its meaning. After a cannon, or gun, had been primed and loaded the commander would call “Fire!” instructing a man standing nearby to touch the torch he’d be carrying to the weapon, and thus discharging it.

The term was not common until the latter 1600’s when guns began to become the primary weapon for most armies. Due to the complexity of earlier cannons and guns the weapons were prone to misfire, and the men vulnerable to infantry and especially cavalry. The latter could easily charge across the field in the time it would take men to reload their guns.

As technology progressed torches were replaced by fuses, which at the time were small slow-burning pieces of rope. These fuses would be replaced by flint prior to the 1700’s, and so fire was no longer necessary. In describing the discharge of firearms men would often say spark after the use of flint began, but on the battlefield the command word remained fire. Eventually flint was replaced by percussion caps during the early 1800’s, and percussion caps were ultimately replaced in the late 1800’s by bullets as we know them today. In our time some people say shoot or shot when describing the discharge of firearms, not unlike when using flint had people saying spark, nevertheless the predominant word in the minds of people today remains fire.