Heavy Metal History

By SCS member Nick Palmer

Q: What does a Swedish heavy metal group have in common with the Salonika Campaign Society ?
A: A mission to increase awareness of the lesser known events in military history.

Sabaton, a five-piece heavy metal band from Sweden, has been playing its brand of very loud, fast, intense, military-style rock for nearly 20 years. They have built a sizable following of dedicated fans world-wide and have headlined rock festivals throughout Europe. They have released over a dozen albums and their most recent releases, ‘The War to End All Wars’, and ‘The Great War’, have concentrated entirely on recounting specific events and features of the world wars, on a mission to inform as well as entertain. Indeed, the band has its own YouTube channel (Sabaton History) that presents documentary-style shows using their music as the context.

I recently agreed to accompany my teenage son, a keen heavy metal fan, to an upcoming concert by Sabaton, in Cardiff. In addition to securing a good pair of ear plugs, I decided to read up on the band and subsequently ended up being thoroughly immersed in their website. Of particular interest from the SCS perspective is track no.9 on ‘The War to End All Wars’ album which is entitled ‘The Valley Of Death’. As I discovered, it is based on the Battles of Doiran and, interestingly, the story-through-song is told mainly from the perspective of the Bulgarian defenders. In particular it highlights their great skill, resourcefulness and bravery in what are considered great victories in Bulgarian military history against a stronger Allied force.

The detailed information on the Sabaton website is supplemented by a link to, and transcription of, a special edition of the Sabaton History Channel which focuses on the ‘The Valley of Death’ , and the events that it refers to. The fifteen-minute show is presented by an actor/historian called Indy Neidell who has an extensive repertoire in this field. His account seems to be well researched and he presents very enthusiastically with a number of interesting graphics and photos. Towards the end, he is joined by Sabaton’s bass guitarist, Par Sundstrom, and he explains that the song was written partly in response to the demands of their Bulgaria-based fans. Subsequently, the band performed the song live for the first time ever when they headlined the ‘Hills of Rock Festival’ in Plovdiv, Bulgaria on 23 July 2022.

YouTube clips show that the song went down a storm with the partisan crowd, unsurprisingly. The closing lines of “The Valley of Death” summarise what is regarded as a triumph of defence:

For white, green and red,
For the nation they’re fighting for,
The British are done,
Three times the defence of Doiran has been won.

In addition, the Sabaton website and the YouTube video make an appropriate reference to the poetry of Owen Rutter, “Tiadatha”, which was partly based on his experiences at Doiran. The extract used is as follows:

Had you been there when the dawn broke,
Had you looked out from the trenches,
You’d have seen that Serbian hillside,
Seen the aftermath of battle,
Seen the scattered picks and shovels,
Seen the scraps of stray equipment,
Here and there a lonely rifle,
Or a Lewis gun all twisted.
Seen the little heaps of khaki,
Lying huddled on the hillside,
Huddled by the Bulgar trenches,
Very still and very silent.

Nick Palmer

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Our thanks go to SCS member Nick Palmer for researching and writing this article. Thanks Nick!

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References

• Page on Sabaton web-site.
• YouTube video: ‘The Valley of Death – The Battles of Doiran – Sabaton History 115 [Official]’

• The blurb accompanying the video: “The Bulgarian defences in the Lake Doiran region were pretty much the best defences any country had anywhere in the Great War, which the Entente forces discovered as they tried time and again and failed time and again – to break the front. “
• Hills of Rock Festival, Plovdiv, 23 July 2022, with introduction from the singer about the song:

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