This paper reviews progress during the past decade in understanding the brittle compressive failure of ice. Evidence is presented for the frictional crack sliding-wing mechanism and for the role of localized fragmentation. The ductile-to-brittle transition is explained in terms of the suppression of crack growth and is modeled in terms of Ashby-Hallam wing crack mechanics and Riedel-Rice crack-tip creep. The brittle compressive strength is related to ice-ice friction. Modeling and experiment suggest that the transition strain rate of cracked ice scales as (crack size)(-1.5) and that its brittle strength scales as (crack size)(-0.5), at least for small specimens. Possible size effects are noted.