A belligerent puzzle from Cinephile today or, perhaps, not so much a puzzle as a lesson in military history. This post is a little later than usual because I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to resolve 31a and 7d. The puzzle itself was somewhat of a ‘battle’ in places, particularly the more obscure thematic entries, but overall quite enjoyable.
7d has just come to me hence the revision. Edit: And see the edit below for 31a.
Across
1 CANNAE homophone of ‘can e’ – the battle in south-eastern Italy where Hannibal defeated the Romans in 216 BC – Eileen will probably correct me here but I would have thought that it should have been ‘can I’
4 PHILIPPI PHI (Greek character) LIPPI (Italian painter) – the battle in eastern Macedonia where Octavian and Mark Antony defeated Brutus and Cassius in 42 BC
9 RETAIL dd
10 HASTINGS cd – 1066 and all that
12 WATERLOO *(LATER) in WOO (court) – another famous battle
13 SENLAC hidden in ‘choSEN LACking’ – a hill in southern England near Hastings. The battle fought here in 1066, in which William the Conqueror defeated Harold II, is known as the Battle of Hastings – hence the ‘Battle as formerly’ in the clue which refers to 10a
15 LOOS dd – a battle in World War I, which took place near Loos-en-Gohelle
16 THE NILE cd – the battle in which a British fleet under Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson surprised and largely destroyed a French fleet in 1798
20,21 BANNOCKBURN BANNOCK (cake) BURN (what Alfred did to them) – a battle in which the Scots under Robert the Bruce defeated the English and assured the independence of Scotland
25 ARNHEM RN (the fleet) in AHEM (expression of doubt) – a battle in 1944 during World War II
26 BLENHEIM dd – a battle in which the First Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy defeated the French in 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession
28 POITIERS PO (officer) I TIERS (rows) – the battle in 1356 in which the English under the Black Prince defeated the French
29 BARNET BAR NET (stop one going on line – prevent access to the internet) – a battle fought during the Wars of the Roses
30 EDGEHILL HEDGE (barrier) ILL (badly) – a battle in the English Civil War that took place near Edge Hill, Warwickshire
31 BALLAD ALL (everybody) in BAD (bath?) – I have been unable to determine how ‘bath’ equates with ‘bad’. Edit: ‘bad’ is German for ‘bath’ and is listed in the etymology for ‘bath’ in Chambers, and elsewhere, so perhaps this is one of Cinephile’s more outlandish clues.
Down
1 CORNWALL *(WORN) in CALL (cry)
2 NOTATION OT (books) in NATION (people)
3 AVIARY A (first) VIA (by) RY (rail)
5 HEAT HE (man) A T (time) – ‘heat’ = the hottest time = ‘summer’
6 LATTERLY *(TELLY ART)
7 PENULT cd – the last but one syllable, but I don’t understand the ‘something like nearly all of it’ and it is almost like ‘penalt[y]’, i.e. one letter different
8 INSECT IN (fashionable) SECT (religious group)
11 NOTHING THIN (without body) in NOG (drink)
14 KNUCKLE can go before ‘down’ and ‘under’ to give ‘work’ and ‘yield’ respectively
17 CAKE DISH CAKED (encrusted) *(HIS)
18 SUPERNAL SUP (drink) *(LEARN)
19 ANIMATED dd
22 SAMPLE MP (politician) in SALE (auction)
23 ANTING ANTI (in opposition) NG (no good)
24 INDABA IN (at home) A BAD reversed (not a good turn) – an important tribal conference or an international Scout conference
27 ORAL dd
Thanks, Gaufrid. This was a pretty difficult one, I thought.
German spa towns are generally named “Bad” something — Bad Ems, for example — so maybe for that reason C. thought it was fairer than simply giving us an English word and expecting us to know he was looking for the German translation.
15ac brought a smile.
I would be grateful if you could help me understand how 10ac (HASTINGS) is a cd.
Hi Gaufrid – thanks for all your hard work on the battles. I got most of them but was stuck on ‘The Nile’ – obvious once you are shown it. By the way, ‘Bad’ appears as the first name of many spa towns in Germany, indicating a town with baths, or can be a suffix as in Marienbad, or incorporated as in Wiesbaden.
I’m relieved that so many of the down clues were amenable to cold solving. With that assistance, I through before throwing in the towel on 1A, 24D and 3D (the first two being unknown to me).
I read “hastings” as being a nounal version of “to make haste”, which seems reasonable enough to me.
It might be a bit too recent (or obscure?)to merit inclusion, but did Cinephile miss an opportunity to shoe-horn in one last battle in the SE corner? If 19D was switched to ANIMATES then we could have had NABLUS at 31A (thereby avoiding the German bathtime experience).
Agentzero
Thanks for the explanation of the German spa towns. My reading of ‘Hastings’ was similar to that already expressed by Smiffy.
Octofem
Good to see you here again. Thanks also for the info re ‘Bad’.
Smiffy
“It might be a bit too recent (or obscure?)to merit inclusion, …..”
I wouldn’t have thought that 1918 was all that recent (though I suspect that you are referring to the later battle in 2002 🙂
Too obscure, probably. Googling ‘Battle of Nablus’ only generates a couple of dozen hits.
Hi Gaufrid
I saw your blog just before going out and had no time to respond. At that point, 31ac was bugging me, too, but the ‘bad’ penny dropped at the bus stop!
re 1ac, I pronounce this ‘Can I’, the Classical way, as you say: however, ‘ae’ is usually anglicised to ‘ee’ [cf ‘vertebrae]. [Conversely ‘i’ [Classically ‘ee’], becomes long ‘i’, as in ‘side’, in English {cf ‘radii’}]
I was reminded by this of one of my favourite Guardian clues which I found in the archive as being from 8th January, 2008: ‘Where Rome couldn’t win, Scots can’t.’
I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle – and knew [of] all the battles!
Thanks Eileen.
I knew I could rely on you to put me straight (I think, though I may now be even more confused 🙂 regarding 1a.
Well done for knowing all the battles. I had never come across ‘Senlac’ before, though the other less well-known ones were rattling around in the back of my brain somewhere.
17D Oh! Oh! Did I find a mistake? I think the cake is spelled Battenberg, not Battenburg. But I had never heard of that cake, nore of the one in 20A, bannock. At least I knew all the battles!
John
According to Chambers it can be Battenberg, Battenburg or Battonberg.