• Corpus ID: 163446164

The Garden of Forking Paths

@inproceedings{Borges1941TheGO,
  title={The Garden of Forking Paths},
  author={Jorge luis Borges and Donald A. Yates and Robert R. Snapp},
  year={1941}
}

• J. Borges, Donald A. Yates, R. Snapp
• Published 1941
• History

bBasil Henry Liddell Hart served in the British Army during World War I, fighting on the Western Front. He rose to the rank of Captain, and later in life became a military historian. Serre and Montauban are two towns in northeast France, north of the Somme River. The Battle of the Somme, fought within and across labyrinthine networks of trenches from July 1–Nov. 18, 1916, was one of the bloodiest and most futile episodes in modern warfare, resulting in a net shift of the western front by about 6 miles at a cost of 1.5 million lives. The map below describes the British assault on German troops planned for July 1, 1916, one of the most intense days of fighting. The solid curves denote the initial front lines for the British (red) and German (blue) troops. Note that the River Ancre flows through the town of Albert, and eventually into the Somme, which in turn flows through the city of Amiens, coincidentally the site of one of the first church labyrinths. The reference to the month of July in line 4 is almost certainly an intentional departure from reality. Liddel Hart actually writes, “The bombardment began on June 24; the attack was intended for June 29, but was later postponed until July 1, owing to a momentary break in the weather. This postponement, made at French request, involved not only the spreading out of ammunition over a longer period, and a consequent loss of intensity, but a greater strain on the assaulting troops, who after being keyed up for the effort, had to remain another forty-eight hours in cramped trenches under the exhausting noise of their own gunfire and the enemies retaliation—conditions made worse by torrential rain which flooded the trenches.” [8]