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The Nitpicker's Guide to Ancient Warfare: Courage
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FriendlyGhost
Haunting history in a good way
(Another) good article, thanks.
I think this can feed into the concept of 'victory disease' - i.e. an army/country/group wins (perhaps against the odds), then wins again, then again, which leads to their leaders (and maybe some of the soldiers) starting to think that winning is inevitable and the opposition beginning to think that nothing can stop them, which then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course, as soon as they do lose a fight/battle (or even just fail to win it convincingly), they're proven not to be invincible, which can quickly lead to their forces beginning to doubt themselves and/or their leaders, coupled with the opposition gaining heart.
The most common example is a modern one: the Nazi victories at the start of the 2WW were based as much on luck as on skill, but the more they won, the more it seemed like they would keep winning - until they didn't (e.g. Stalingrad, El Alamein, etc).
In ancient times, the Persian invasions of Greece are also good examples. Persia seemed like an unstoppable juggernaut, until Marathon proved that it wasn't. Had Darius not invaded, so Marathon had not happened, would Xerxes have been more successful if he still decided to invade? Without the example of Marathon, maybe more Greek polities would have decided not to fight. Who knows?
I don't think I've expressed what I mean very well, sorry!
(Edited to add a missing word.)
I think this can feed into the concept of 'victory disease' - i.e. an army/country/group wins (perhaps against the odds), then wins again, then again, which leads to their leaders (and maybe some of the soldiers) starting to think that winning is inevitable and the opposition beginning to think that nothing can stop them, which then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course, as soon as they do lose a fight/battle (or even just fail to win it convincingly), they're proven not to be invincible, which can quickly lead to their forces beginning to doubt themselves and/or their leaders, coupled with the opposition gaining heart.
The most common example is a modern one: the Nazi victories at the start of the 2WW were based as much on luck as on skill, but the more they won, the more it seemed like they would keep winning - until they didn't (e.g. Stalingrad, El Alamein, etc).
In ancient times, the Persian invasions of Greece are also good examples. Persia seemed like an unstoppable juggernaut, until Marathon proved that it wasn't. Had Darius not invaded, so Marathon had not happened, would Xerxes have been more successful if he still decided to invade? Without the example of Marathon, maybe more Greek polities would have decided not to fight. Who knows?
I don't think I've expressed what I mean very well, sorry!
(Edited to add a missing word.)
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I think we have a tendency to neglect this in modern (or mid-20th century, perhaps) descriptions and fiction, because authors are reacting against the idea that 'élan' would win the Great War against machine guns, and instead go too far the other way and think it all comes down to technological superiority.
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Yes, the machine gun was one of those inventions that gave so much advantage to the side that had it, that it did pretty much outweigh anything else, certainly you can not overstate the effect it had on the wars on the Africa. Hilaire Belloc with '“Whatever happens, we have got, the Maxim, and they have not.” does tell the story of new imperialism pretty well, for only using 11 words.
But even with that, you still had say the Ashanti/British Battle at Kokofu in 1900 where the Ashanti, as a deliberate tactic, kept firing until the maxim jammed and the British had to retreat. One of the reasons why the machine gun was so devastating was that it broke armies spirit and forced them to flee. If you held your ground instead, the casualties were terrifying but the longer the battle went on, the more likely it is to overheat or jam and so be taken out of action. Admittedly that only works with one maxim and Kokofu was ultimately captured when the British just came back with two.
But yes, I think that era of battle where technological advantage so clearly outweighed élan has warped our view of the importance of (to use Davis's favourite word) cohesion. Where as for huge amounts of human history, the latter was the major factor.
I'm going into areas I know a lot less about but I think you see a lot of that machine gun mindset leaking through in the histiography of WWII, where there's often an overemphasis on miracle weapons like the tanks and the planes, whereas the poor morale and leadership of the French Army was as big a factor in the blitzkrieg working.
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Although it is easy to overstate the impact that the machine gun had on WWI. It's important to remember that, despite the "Lions led by Donkeys" myth that became entrenched from around the 1960s, the majority of offensives on the Western Front were initially successful. The difficulty was not gaining the first-day objectives. It was exploiting from that point, and holding the gained ground against counter-attack. Analysing the situation would be a lengthy process, and a far better writer (Bret Devereaux) than I am has already done it:
Collections: No Man’s Land, Part I: The Trench Stalemate
This week (and next) I want to build a bit off of our discussion of Victoria II and talk a bit about World War I and in particular the trench stalemate on the Western Front. That trench stalemate i…
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One can argue that barbed wire was as crucial factor on the Western Front as machine guns.
Now that is a point I hadn't considered as such, and may well be worth its own little section. The balance between confidence and over-confidence. On a digression, for the American Civil War, there was a general acceptance that regiments went through five stages as they gained battlefield experience:
1. Green. Absolutely raw, prone to confusion and stupid actions, slow and generally disorganised.
2. Normal. That's what the word means.
3. Experienced. Sometimes called battle-hardened or veteran. Able to carry out most instructions with a minimum of fuss. Need leadership, but otherwise, it's just a matter of explaining the basics.
4. Elite. Self-explanatory.
5. Spent. War weary. They've just been pushed too far. Quick to avoid getting into rough situations or, indeed, any situation where they might be shot at. They've just had enough.
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I think its important to remember that defending was more dangerous than attacking in the First World war on a tactical level and strategically the casualties normally evened out with the side with better training, more weight of numbers at the right point, better positions, etc. etc. etc. coming out on top.
Yeah you're behind a barbed wire and a machine gun, but that's why the enemy drop mountains of exploding steel on top of you and move forward in infiltration parties, dig under or drive straight over.
It wasn't that the armies of 1914 had too much Elan and not enough tech, they had too much Elan and not enough tactics or understanding of the technology. WWII similarly very much required far more than mere technology to win battles.
I don't really know how to sum this up other than the side that has great morale and okay technology and a decent plan is going to wipe the floor with a high technology enemy with shit morale or a bad plan. I don't think colonial wars do it justice because whilst it might not be spears vs machine guns it was rifles vs artillery, machine guns, disciplined soldiers and the representatives of global empires.
Yeah you're behind a barbed wire and a machine gun, but that's why the enemy drop mountains of exploding steel on top of you and move forward in infiltration parties, dig under or drive straight over.
It wasn't that the armies of 1914 had too much Elan and not enough tech, they had too much Elan and not enough tactics or understanding of the technology. WWII similarly very much required far more than mere technology to win battles.
I don't really know how to sum this up other than the side that has great morale and okay technology and a decent plan is going to wipe the floor with a high technology enemy with shit morale or a bad plan. I don't think colonial wars do it justice because whilst it might not be spears vs machine guns it was rifles vs artillery, machine guns, disciplined soldiers and the representatives of global empires.
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See, for example, Vietnam.
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Sure but all that last sentence says is there is a level of resource disparity that makes up for bad planning and shit morale.
Would high technology be an accidental way of getting bad planning? "We have such an advantage, how hard can it be?"
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Islandlwana, yeah.
That describes a lot of post-WW2 US war planning (with a specific emphasis on air power because it worked in 1944) - though certainly not unique to the US either in the post-war, technology supremacist era.
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New technology can be prone to that if one hasn't worked out how to use that technology effectively. See, for example, the first uses of tanks on the Western Front, when no-one was quite sure whether to use them as breakthrough tools or supporting infantry, spread out along the line or concentrated, and so on.
New technology also tends to be unreliable.
To move back to the pre-modern era I'm generally covering, new technology was often not as effective as the technology it was replacing. Compare and contrast longbows with early firearms. On every count, the longbow was technically better. But the firearm was the way of the future ...
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Yeah but it's so high that it only happens when the top ten percent fight the bottom ten percent and those matchups nearly always come with the side with more firepower also having more elan.
And more often than not its still the weight of material superiority rather than its sophistication that tells.
Like it's not that technology has no relevance for warfare. It's that tech alone is one of the least significant factors compared to just about anything else.
Morale, leadership, logistics, tactics all normally come into play more than who has more shines until you really get to shit tier small arms and nothing else against combined arms formations. And even then the Italians more than aptly proved there is a level of incompetence that can level playing fields that have no business being level.
The Americans in Vietnam also fucked around a lot and found out.
The combined Western World had total air, artillery and freaking space superiority in Afghanistan and it ended up mattering not at all in the longer term.
Wars are just infinitely more than the sum of their parts.
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I agree about the weight of material superiority being generally more important than sophistication (though not always, Morocco vs Songhai at Tondibi was won entirely because of cannons rather than anything else, the Songhai were a disciplined army with superior resources and a decent plan, to stampede cattle towards the Moroccan army and then charge afterwards once the ranks had been broken. Only the Moroccan cannons were something the Songhai were unaware of and they started the cattle enough that the stampede was reserved and the Songhai ranks were the ones broken. It was a perfect example of a secret weapon winning a battle).
Disagree about the side with more firepower also having more elan. Sometimes sure, it helps a lot to have a government give you lots of guns to make you feel confident.
But a lot of colonial armies had dreadful morale, due to being formed by essentially conscripts under foreign officers, to the extent that sniping white officers and then watching the black men just desert straight away was a winning tactic that several armies deployed.
Like the British armies in 1870s South Africa were just dreadful in terms of basic discipline, but while their record wasn't spotless they did pull out at least some wins. Spanish armies in the Rif, were probably the worst army you will ever see in terms of discipline, cohesion, morale and planning but ultimately resources told.
Having the resources of a colonial empire behind you, meant you could get away with really poor elan.
I think we mostly agree. The Franco Dahomian War was a war between two relatively evenly equipped forces, only one was used to fighting modern warfare and one wasn't and that lack of training and leadership and belief was key. And like you say there are plenty of examples of superior technology not ultimately helping you if you plan badly or your troops don't want to be there. I mentioned Islandlwana above but Annual is probably a better example.
I just perhaps rate material superiority and sophistication higher as a factor than you do, while still agreeing that leadership and morale are important.
I recall reading while researching it for LTTW that the Dahomeans had turned to European muskets in the 1700s as a means of defeating the invading Oyo Empire army, which failed, and shortly before that the Dahomeans had also defeated the Allada states despite the latter having been supplied with European muskets. Before the Maxim gun, it wasn't all about technology (as you say).
An army of peasants could be trained to use firearms in a campaigning season or so, which is an advantage that rather trumps most of the others in a context of poor state capacity and constrained budgets.
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Another good article. Looking forward to the book.
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And I'm looking forward to finishing the thing.
At present, I am in the processing of discussing disease casualties in pre-modern armies in a section entitled: "The Logistics of Poo."