The White Horse King: The Life of Alfred the Great by Benjamin R. Merkle Page B

was lingering long in his prayers.
    Whether Æthelred had expected Alfred to take longer to muster his troops or whether he had been overwhelmed by the moment, is unrecorded. It would be understandable if Æthelred had felt a little more fear than Alfred at the prospect of charging into this particular battle. Considering the fates of the previous Anglo-Saxon kings who had lost to the invading Northmen, there was a uniquely gory risk that the king took in picking up his sword for this fight.
    The Wessex army appeared to the Vikings to be much smaller than expected and were also transparently bewildered and unprepared for combat. The Viking commanders saw a welcome opportunity and commanded their men to attack. Alfred stood with only half of the Wessex army, looking confusedly about him, unsure whether he should wait for his brother to appear or quickly withdraw his men. Next the confusion turned to desperation when he saw the Viking men above, stretched out in battle array and beginning to advance. Unprepared and halved in strength, how could his men face the descending swarm?
    But it was clear that withdrawing his men was no longer an option. If he pulled his men from the battlefield, the Vikings would hotly pursue. Then the men of Wessex would be chased through the forests like hunted rabbits and their corpses strewn all along the Berkshire Downs. Alfred had run from the Viking army only four days before. As terrifying as the battle line before him may have been, he knew that he preferred to face the crashing wave of Vikings head-on, rather than to be hunted and cut down from behind.
    Alfred gave the command to form the shieldwall.

    Even as early as the time of Alfred, the shieldwall was already considered an ancient tactic, hearkening all the way back to the ancient Greek hoplites of the seventh century BC. It consisted simply of a line of men standing shoulder to shoulder with their shields overlapping one another, forming a continuous wall of protection. This line of shields was supported by a depth of approximately ten ranks of additional soldiers positioned behind the front line, leaning into the front rank to allow them to hold their ground and stay locked together (not unlike a rugby scrum). This tight formation had the potential to be virtually impenetrable, provided that the courage and endurance of the soldiers held. Having formed the shieldwall, the Wessex army was prepared to face the oncoming crush of the Viking horde. Alfred joined the shieldwall, standing shoulder to shoulder with his men. The notion of being led into battle by a man who wasn’t willing to personally lead the charge would have been unthinkable to the men of Wessex.

    As the two armies closed on each other, the various taunts and jeers of the Viking throng began to coalesce into a steady guttural rumble that rolled down the hillside. The deep rumble grew ever louder until that moment—after a seemingly interminable approach—when the first spear tip drove hard into the defiant shieldwall and the valley shook with the crack of the collision. Every nervous stomach, every quivering hand, every dry tongue, all foreboding fears and presentiments, were instantly transformed into resolution and determination; and the shieldwall erupted with a deafening war cry.
    Much to the surprise of the Viking army, the Wessex shield-wall not only held after the first impact, but it began to push the Viking force backward almost immediately after that initial impact. The sensation for Alfred’s men was probably similar to the feeling a boy has in his first athletic competition, when he suddenly realizes he is equal to his opponent who had seemed so invincible when considered from a distance. Emboldened by the initial success of the shieldwall, the Anglo-Saxons began to slash and hack their way forward, pushing hard against the Viking host, driving them back up the hillside.
    Alfred’s biographer later emphasized the rightness of the cause of the Wessex