A battle cry is a yell or chant taken up in battle, usually by members of the same combatant group. Battle cries are not necessarily articulate, although they often aim to invoke patriotic or religious sentiment. Their purpose is a combination of arousing aggression and esprit de corps on one's own side and causing intimidation on the hostile side. Battle cries are a universal form of display behaviour (i.e., threat display) aiming at competitive advantage, ideally by overstating one's own aggressive potential to a point where the enemy prefers to avoid confrontation altogether and opts to flee. In order to overstate one's potential for aggression, battle cries need to be as loud as possible, and have historically often been amplified by acoustic devices such as horns, drums, conches, carnyxes, bagpipes, bugles, etc. (see also martial music).
Battle cries are closely related to other behavioral patterns of human aggression, such as war dances and taunting, performed during the "warming up" phase preceding the escalation of physical violence. From the Middle Ages, many cries appeared on standards and were adopted as mottoes, an example being the motto "Dieu et mon droit" ("God and my right") of the English kings. It is said that this was Edward III's rallying cry during the Battle of Crécy. The word "slogan" originally derives from sluagh-gairm or sluagh-ghairm (sluagh = "people", "army", and gairm = "call", "proclamation"), the Scottish Gaelic word for "gathering-cry" and in times of war for "battle-cry". The Gaelic word was borrowed into English as slughorn, sluggorne, "slogum", and slogan.
The War Cry is the official news publication of The Salvation Army. Today national versions of it are sold in countries all over the world to raise funds in support of the Army's social work.
The first edition of The War Cry was printed on 27 December 1879 in London, England. In 1880, US Salvation Army Commissioner George Scott Railton published the Salvation News, a small newsletter. He published the first US edition of The War Cry in January 1881 in St. Louis, Missouri. Between 1920 and 1970, each U.S. territory published its own individual version of The War Cry. In 1970, the Salvation Army's US National Headquarters started publishing a nationwide version of The War Cry.
Now the night lays dark and cold
Upon a world at sleep
Across he world sweeps a crimson haze
Now the virgin's seal is broken
The fertility rite is complete
And the seed is sown in a holy place
Born a child of the underworld
The fire and flame
Born a child of the underworld
Desire and pain
Born a child of the underworld
Evil prevail
Born a child of the underworld......
Now the day is slowly fading
The 12th night is comed
Prepare soon the virgin shall give birth
To the son of Satan, Child of Hell
Spread the news across the universe
Satan's child is born tonight by womb untouched and
pure
All Hell rejoice the birth of the Son
Laced in sin
Child of Hell
The spirit of lust and pain
Baptised in sacred angel blood
Now Evil can prevail
Born a child of the underworld
The fire and flame
Born a child of the underworld
Desire and pain
Born a child of the underworld
Evil prevail
Born a child of the underworld......
So light the 13 Candles
[Repeat chorus]