Here’s a thought: Why don’t we get some of the medieval re-enactment groups to prove/disprove this? I mean, if we’ve got folks out there willing to do the math on whether or not Star Wars weaponry is more powerful than Star Trek, then surely we can find a large enough group that’s willing to bash the bejeesus out of one another for a couple of hours to prove which is the better tactic.
jiHymas: Well going all the way back to Muc’s contribution ( via Anahita ), there are persistent references to the Macedonian calvary of Philip and Alexander being arrayed in a wedge formation ( as opposed to the Thessalians who were arrayed in a rhomboid ). As in this article: http://www.ne.jp/asahi/luke/ueda-sarson/GranicusNotes2.html
This account by Arrian mentions Alexander leading a wedge of calvary at Gaugamela, but we might be having that cuneus translation issue again, as Flavius Arrianus was definitely post-Livy. His second mention of a wedge in relation to the same battle would seem to be a metaphorical wedge, rather than a formation description, insomuch as it was an ad hoc grouping of calvary and infantry: http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/ArriCamp.html
- Tamerlane
Holy smokes, Tamerlane! Are you googling on “wedge” and reading every entry in its entirety?
As I’ve stated before, I know very little about classical warfare, much preferring the early medieval period. But what must be borne uppermost in mind when considering classical cavalry tactics is: the Romans didn’t have stirrups.
No stirrups means you can’t engage in hand-to-hand fighting very well, which means you don’t even think about charging, in the medieval sense. They may very well have manuvered in wedges - and probably did, there’s lots of potential advantages in that - but it was a very different battlefield back then, for they could not charge!
Remember how terrified the Romans were of the British war-chariots with the scythes sticking out of the axels? Now there was a shock weapon worth having … but they would not have been so impressed by it if cavalry charges, in our sense, were part of their training.
Well, there’s the Regia Anglorum group mentioned above, who do a lot of Viking stuff (not just battles! It sounds like a lot of fun, really). But there are limits to the re-enactment and I consider J.K. Siddom’s defense of the “pig-snout” wedge tactic in his book to leave a lot of critical questions unanswered. Never the less, given the work he’s done I am prepared to say ‘Maybe. Just maybe. Sometimes. And the saga references could very well all be the result of one drunken incident where the Vikings made mincemeat of hugely outnumbered, barely armed peasants, and the whole thing was considered such a joke it became legendary. So there.’
jiHymas, British chariots didn’t have scythed wheels. Too dangerous to your own side, let alone the enemy. Exactly how chariots were used and why they were superseded by cavalry is still a matter or dispute and is another thread entirely. (See the Society of Ancients www.soa.org Guardroom pages for some of the debate but IIRC most was discussed in print.)
Pre-stirrup cavalry was principally a non-shock weapon. Most firepower (anachronistic, I know, but a useful term) was delivered by missiles - bows or javelins. Cavalry road up to the enemy, launched their weapons and ran away. Mounted archers did it at a longer range (hence the Parthian shot) Roman javelin armed cavalry was exceptionally skilled at this (Roman cavalry manuals exist and have been published). Some armoured shock cavalry were developed – Alexander’s Companions, Parthian cataphracts, Sassanid clibanarii, Roxolani and Sarmatian cavalry and Roman responses to some of the above - but never became as ubiquitous as the medieval charging cavalry.
There are a number of possible reasons why.
- Technology – no stirrups. Any form of cavalry fighting other than by using missiles is difficult without stirrups. Might just have been too bloody hard.
- Wealth – the ancient civilisations were simply not rich enough to develop and support large numbers of heavily armoured cavalry.
- Organisation & training – to be good as a cavalryman requires lots of training. Either as a full time professional soldier (Rome) or as a nobleman of independent means (Parthians, Sassanids) or both (Alexander’s Companions). Until the rise of a wealthy nobility to support nobles of independent means in large numbers (i.e. post Charlemagne), there weren’t enough people with the time to become skilled heavy cavalrymen.
Any combination (or none) of the above may be valid reasons. My personal WAG is number 3.
Note that the preferred Roman response was to use heavy infantry against shock cavalry, not other cavalry. Rome’s own shock cavalry had a pretty feeble track record.
Cavalry vs. cavalry was also principally missile-to-missile combat rather than hand-to-hand, although some no doubt took place. I expect the easy target was the horse – usually an unprotected and unwilling conscript. Kill or disable the horse and the dismounted cavalryman is much more vulnerable. Since nobody is allowed to target or hurt a horse in cavalry re-enactments, it makes them a pretty meaningless exercise.
When infantry broke and ran away, then it became extremely vulnerable to cavalry. Stabbing a fleeing man in the back with a hand-held javelin or sword, or shooting at his back from six feet or less, is easy killing from horseback.
Alexander’s Companions were known as hard-charging, lance using cavalry. Indeed, it was their distinguishing characteristic, so often noted that it suggests they were pretty much unique (I include the Successor state equivalents in this category). They were also expensive to recruit, train and maintain. They were never used to frontally charge formed, steady infantry, but to exploit gaps or to hit infantry in the flank or rear, or who were already on the point of breaking.
Which brings me, finally, to the discussion in wedges. The references to wedges may be describing the effect, rather than the intent. Hitting a line of wavering infantry and with a line of cavalry will have a number of effects, happening simultaneously. (Remember, the cavalry were charging in multiple lines, not quite nose to tail but still close and part of the same unit.)
In some places, the infantry run. The cavalry break through, one or two men leading, the others stacked up behind. In other places, the infantry hold and stop or slow down the cavalry. The effect is a series of penetrations, each led by one or two men. Viewed from behind the breaking infantry, it seems as though a series of wedges have hit and penetrated the line. If there’s only one penetration, it looks like just one wedge. This is, of course, nothing more than a WAG.
I remember a quote from the 19th Century of the description of a cavalry charge. I can’t cite it, unfortunately, as I can’t remember any other details. A cavalry trooper had been asked what a charge was like. He said it was like a handful of dried peas thrown at a window. First one hits, then another then more and finally the bulk of the handful followed by a few stragglers. The first man was usually seen struggling with his horse to slow it down, so as not to arrive unsupported and get himself killed.
As for the meaning of cuneus, it was used pretty vaguely. Same as hoplite (armoured, large shield, used a short thrusting spear in one hand for hand-to-hand combat, usually fought in 8 ranks) was sometimes used to describe Roman legionaries (armoured, large shield, heavy javelins, used a sword for hand-to-hand combat, usually fought in 8 ranks) and phalangite was used to describe both a hoplite and a real phalangite (lightly or not armoured, small or no shield, 15 feet plus pike, held in two hands, usually fought in 16 ranks.) A good reference is Peter Connolly’s Greece and Rome at War, which is at home and I haven’t read in quite a while so some of the above may be wrong. 
See, I told you I didn’t know much about classical warfare!
Good post, Go Alien, very informative.
Wow, I should read GQ more often. Let me add a few points where I can.
With respect to the Battle of Hastings, there is no evidence whatsoever in the main primary sources that “wedges” were used against the fixed Anglo-Saxon position. For my degree thesis I personally reviewed the narrations of battle in several major sources: the Bayeux Tapestry, the Song of the Battle of Hastings, the Deeds of Duke William by William of Poitiers, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and one or two lesser sources whose names elude me.
William of Poitiers, the most reliable source for battle narrative, does not even use the word cuneus. He uses the more literary term acies to describe the “battle line.” His terminology, like that of most medieval and classical chroniclers, is so literary and vague that it renders meaningful analysis of tactics an exercise in frustration. Even professional soldier/chroniclers like Ammianus Marcellinus fall into this Tacitean trap.
While many enthusiasts can bring to bear a great deal of technical knowledge to the ancient and medieval battle narratives, they inevitably overlook fundamental problems of genre and diction. Latin historiography employs special literary diction that in many ways avoids unnecessary mundanity or precision. This unhelpful trend is especially prominent in Tacitus and Livy, and was passed on to Ammianus and to the educated medieval chroniclers.
Hence this Tacitus quotation from Richard Burton:
…is extremely suspect. The following translation is mine, if I may.
Unfortunately, Tacitus doesn’t really tell us anything at all. To add to the confusion, the turma is the word Vegetius uses to describe a standard cavalry unit. It’s not a formation, but simply a number of cavalrymen in an independent cohort.
Don’t believe me? See for yourself. This page contains fifteen examples of Tacitus’ use of the word cuneus. It’s loose and dirty.
This is getting to the limits of my knowledge, but here goes anyway.
IIRC, turma the was term used originally for the 300 odd horsement who were messengers for the legion (the late republican-early imperial legion, that is) rather than a combat unit. Combat cavalry was usually provided by units not attached to legions. However, the Roman military system existed, in its full-blown form, for the best part of eight hundred years (250BC to 500AD) and saw a lot of evolution in organisation, equipment and terminology, so we should really time stamp every use of a term.
Vegetius should be used with caution. He was a deliberately archaizing (if that’s not English, sorry, but you know what I mean) author who had an agenda - convincing Theodosius the Great that he (Vegetius) was a splendid chap and should be promoted to a government sinecure. (Cite, again the Society of Ancients. Much discussion over the last year or so.)
He was quite inventive (his armoured chariot for one) but was not describing contemporary military practice rather some idealised ancient system that should be adopted now (c.400AD) to restore the empire to its former greatness. Also, IIRC, he was not a practicing soldier. Ammianus is a much better authority.
The earlier posts remarking on the wide circulation of Vegetius in medieval libraries but lack of implementation of his theories lends support to the idea that he was writing about fantasy not real military situations.
One of the big problems with primary and near primary sources is that the writer assumed a lot of knowledge in his readers. I’m sure that William of Poitiers’ readers knew exactly what he meant by the term acies so he didn’t have to explain it. Nine hundred year later, we have to guess.
This is getting to the limits of my knowledge, but here goes anyway.
IIRC, turma the was term used originally for the 300 odd horsement who were messengers for the legion (the late republican-early imperial legion, that is) rather than a combat unit. Combat cavalry was usually provided by units not attached to legions. However, the Roman military system existed, in its full-blown form, for the best part of eight hundred years (250BC to 500AD) and saw a lot of evolution in organisation, equipment and terminology, so we should really time stamp every use of a term.
Vegetius should be used with caution. He was a deliberately archaizing (if that’s not English, sorry, but you know what I mean) author who had an agenda - convincing Theodosius the Great that he (Vegetius) was a splendid chap and should be promoted to a government sinecure. (Cite, again the Society of Ancients. Much discussion over the last year or so.)
He was quite inventive (his armoured chariot for one) but was not describing contemporary military practice rather some idealised ancient system that should be adopted now (c.400AD) to restore the empire to its former greatness. Also, IIRC, he was not a practicing soldier. Ammianus is a much better authority.
The earlier posts remarking on the wide circulation of Vegetius in medieval libraries but lack of implementation of his theories lends support to the idea that he was writing about fantasy not real military situations.
You are absolutely spot on in your analysis of Vegetius. I couldn’t have said it better, myself. He was ultimately convinced that the Roman army should be reorganized along quasi-Augustan principles and its problems would evaporate. History seems to indicate otherwise.
Whoops…looks like I was remembering reading the wrong stuff in a couple of the wrong books - the only source on my personal bookshelf that specifically describes the cavalry formation Bruce’s army used is Nigel Tranter’s excellent Bruce Trilogy As Tranter based his novels on his own historical research, this does not provide cites-within-cites. He also wrote several well respected histories of Scotland based on his own research, none of which I am fortunate enough to own at the moment.
While this seriously curtails my continuing contribution to the subject, I support Tranter’s contention that Sir Robert Keith formed his light cavalry into a wedge in support of the Bruce’s army. It’s the same reason that nails are sharp - it’s hard to hammer a bar into a post, but if you sharpen the bar into a spike, it’ll go right in.
Well, yes…I mean, no…ummm…sorta…but not really…uhhh…shut up! 
Go alien, Maegiln: Good posts :).
- Tamerlane
Well, yes…I mean, no…ummm…sorta…but not really…uhhh…shut up!
Go alien, Maeglin: Good posts :).
- Tamerlane
Excellent! When the world is getting you down, there is nothing quite like an interesting, well researched and closely reasoned – yet thoroughly pointless – discussion!
**
Except that’s not really how it would work. The point might just get chewed off, instead. No doubt, that’s what many ancient writers were picturing, though.
I still vote for the idea that a wedge would be employed as an attack formation because it carried it’s own reinforcements. Think about it. If you broke through a line and threw reinforcements into the gap, what would the breakthrough resemble? A wedge, more or less. If you were trying to create a breakthrough in an enemy line at a certain point, what would you do? You’d concentrate some of your forces along a fairly narrow front and attack at a specific point. This would inevitably look sort of like a wedge.
When it comes to Vikings, they often weren’t fighting pitched battles, they were raiding. If you’re moving through unknown countryside with a relatively small body of highly trained fighters, how would you organize them if you were facing a larger, but poorly trained and poorly armed group of locals?
You wouldn’t want to shake out into a long, thin skirmish line because of the defender’s numerical advantage. So what formation would you use for this kind of engagement?
Excellent! When the world is getting you down, there is nothing quite like an interesting, well researched and closely reasoned – yet thoroughly pointless – discussion!
**
Except that’s not really how it would work. The point might just get chewed off, instead. No doubt, that’s what many ancient writers were picturing, though.
I still vote for the idea that a wedge would be employed as an attack formation because it carried it’s own reinforcements. Think about it. If you broke through a line and threw reinforcements into the gap, what would the breakthrough resemble? A wedge, more or less. If you were trying to create a breakthrough in an enemy line at a certain point, what would you do? You’d concentrate some of your forces along a fairly narrow front and attack at a specific point. This would inevitably look sort of like a wedge.
When it comes to Vikings, they often weren’t fighting pitched battles, they were raiding. If you’re moving through unknown countryside with a relatively small body of highly trained fighters, how would you organize them if you were facing a larger, but poorly trained and poorly armed group of locals?
You wouldn’t want to shake out into a long, thin skirmish line because of the defender’s numerical advantage. So what formation would you use for this kind of engagement?
Well, I would advance in line with flanks refused (assuming frontal assault was the best option). This might look much like a wedge to observers; I might even describe the formation as a wedge to non-specialists such as saga-writing scalds; it’s even possible I might use the word ‘wedge’ in my orders, though this last point will particularly require the input of a scholar familiar with the language.
Note that according to Paddy Griffith (ibid, Chapter 7, referencing Snorri Sturluson (1178-1241), Sagas of the Norse Kings, trans. Samuel Laing, London, Dent, 1930, 1961) the outnumbered Norsemen at the Battle of Stamford Bridge refused their flanks all the way 'round into a circle.
And it is even possible, if the locals’ training and experience is such that they can only maintain a shield wall in the absence of anything going seriously wrong, that I might use the Svinfylking formation to ensure things went seriously wrong for them as quickly as possible - but I have grave doubts as to whether I would chance it otherwise. The absence of the formation at Hastings, the best documented battle of the period (and the equal absence of an explanation to contemporaries as to why the formation was not used) argue strongly against the formation being part of standard battle tactics.
Well, we’ll have to disagree. If you come across any references that would shed light on the subject, please post!
Thanks Maeglin! I can hear my old high-school Latin Teacher now … ‘James, you mean after 30 years, you still have difficulty with this?’
Is your thesis available electronically anywhere? Can you eMail it to me? Sell me a copy? Let me know.
R. Allen Brown, founder of the Battle Conference of Anglo-Norman Studies, claims immodestly, but straightforwardly, that “Amongst modern accounts [of the Battle of Hastings] it is difficult not to put my own first, there being little serious opposition in the neglected field of medieval military history, i.e. Brown, ‘The Battle of Hastings’, Battle iii (1980)”. ("The Normans and the Norman Conquest, 1985, Boydell Press, ISBN 0 85115 427 1 (hardback) 085115 367 4 (paperback), Chapter 5, note 115).
Would you go along with this?
Tamerlane, I seem to be running out of things to say here (though I do have a few books on order, and will annoy everybody by resucitating an old thread if there’s anything relevent in them when they arrive), but thanks for all your posts! Your devil’s advocacy has, at the very least, provided a focus for my own efforts and rekindled my interest in a field I’ve somewhat neglected for the last little while.
The following is from P. G. Foote and D.M. Wilson, The Viking Achievement, Sidgwick and Jackson 1980, ISBN 0-283-97926-7 (paperback) 0-283-35499-2 (hardcover).
‘Calque’ is a linguistic term for the process whereby compound words in one language become compound words in another language by translation of the parts; thus, the English ‘penninsula’ comes from the Latin paen insula, ‘almost island’ and becomes the German halb-insul ‘half island’ by a calque.
Anyway, it seems a bit odd to me that the word used for a dark-ages Viking battle array should be a calque on the Latin…could this be taken as meaning that priestly recorders of Sagas (and learned saga-writers themselves) talk about the formation not because it was a well known Viking formation with a well-known Norse name; but because they had read of the formation (and its fabled effectiveness) in Latin and stuck it in their works to explain (or give an academic veneer to) the success of Vikings in battle?
I am nowhere near qualified even to guess at the answer, or to muse on its meaning…but it’s an interesting point. Any Old Norse linguists out there?
But if you fail to engage the entire line, you run a serious risk of being outflanked.
This is hardly my field of expertise, but from what I know from reading early medieval chronicles, the cavalry itself was not usually strong enough to create distortions in a sturdy shield-wall. William the Conqueror first ordered his archers and then a wave of infantry first, before letting the cavalry attack the wall. The utility of this tactic is consistently brought up in connection to the endless argument regarding the Norman lance position, that is to say, whether the Norman cavalry “charged” with their lances “couched.”
There are ample resources available about this debate, so I really don’t want to waste much time with it here.
Ha! Well, if it is any consolation, Tacitus is not an easy author. I should have read a few lines before and after the quoted passage, just to get some sense of the context. As it is, my translation is inelegant.
I don’t know, actually. It’s been several years. And I misspoke: my history thesis was actually about Norman chronicles (one of which being William of Poitiers), but my work on the Battle of Hastings was for an independent study during a previous semester. Same deal, shorter paper.
I have immense respect for R. Allen Brown, and in this case I would absolutely agree with him. At the time his work was written, BoH studies were still pretty dominated by soldier-scholars like Sir Charles Oman, whose Art of War in the Middle Ages dates back to 1898. Many of his assumptions about the skill of professional soldiers, medieval tactics, and especially the ability of great commanders were essentially unchallenged for years.
It wasn’t until J.F. Verbruggen’s The Art of Warfare in Western Europe During the Middle Ages (1977) that Oman was seriously challenged. Brown really was on the forefront of Hastings studies, and to a large extent, he still is.
Now, of course, the very best is Contamine. If you are interested in this subject and haven’t read it yet, I highly suggest that you do so.
The only ones I have ever seen advance this claim are Foote and Wilson. They discredit themselves in the beginning with:
Oh? Do they cite any? My searches reveal that this phrase is only used in Vegetius, who discusses essentially Augustan military principles. I’d love to hear about some of the other literary references.
As far as I understand it, there is really no telling which language has been calqued, since the term could have easily been transmitted by means of the “barbarians” who lived on the frontiers of the Empire. For all I can tell, both the Romans and the vikings copied someone else entirely.
**
But remember, with the vikings, for the most part, we’re not talking about stand-up battles, we’re taking about raiding. In a sense, viking raiders were always outflanked. They relied on better arms, better training but most of all, on speed, mobility and organization.
I think Jhymas’ explanation of how a wedge-shape would be a natural formation to adopt is pretty compelling. If you are facing, untrained and largely leaderless peasants, you don’t have to worry to much about them re-grouping and counter-attacking, especially not quickly. Once they begin to break, they’ll just run. So the idea, if you’re an outnumbered raider, is to break their formation as quickly as possible, grab the loot and get out.
Fair enough, I was still considering it in terms of pitched field battles. Which the vikings fought perhaps more often than most people guessed. Stanford Bridge is the first to come to mind, and the historical record is full of field battles in which they fought many opponents on the field, especially the English and even other Vikings.
Raiding and pitched battles are to very different things. The numbers are pretty much irrelevant, it’s the intent of the participants that matters.
The raider doesn’t look for a fight, he is basically just a well-armed bully. By being better armed and better organised, he is trying to intimidate the victim into giving up his cow, his money or his wife. Like all bullies, standing up to the raider forces him elsewhere. If there are enough on both sides and the raider chooses to fight, there is a pitched battle, e.g. Brunaburgh (sp).
The participants in a pitched battle are trying to destroy their opponents’ capacity to fight. For the Vikings, an unstated aim of winning pitched battles was to allow subsequent unopposed raiding. There were loads of English-Viking pitched battles – most during the 9th century invasion of England by the Danish Great Army. Stamford Bridge (in Yorkshire, not Chelsea :)) was just the last in a long tradition. The English put up a good enough fight so that the country was called England, not Daneland. But winning Stamford Bridge lost Hastings for Harold.