I was just thinking about medieval warfare, and a question came up for me.
We’ve all seen the movies or documentary dramatizations. An army of rank and file redcoats (or redshields) stands poised on one side of a field. An army of rank and file bluecoats (or blueshields) stands poised on the other. Commanders meet in the middle to discuss terms of surrender, fail to come to terms, and return to their armies. Commands are given, then rounds of muskets (or arrows) are fired. Men die. Then the cavalry charges. More men die. Then infantry men charge with bayonettes (or swords and spears) and an all-out free-for-all battle of winner-take-all ensues. The battle is not over until every enemy is either dead or R.U.N.N.O.F.T.
That’s the movies. But did it really happen that way? Colonial reenactment societies seem to think so. I’ve read that siege warfare was more common than pitched battle, but pitched battle did indeed occur.
Why? Why agree to meet a possibly superior army on a field of combat rather than just razing or occupying a town? Why give an enemy a chance to muster the troops? If your objective is to take a town, why give the occupants a chance to wake up, have tea and eggs, and put on a suit of armor, and face you as an armed force? It seems that you’d stand a better chance at victory by just storming the castle or town.
Secondary question: Did this style of combat die out in 1914, and if so, why?
If you weren’t planning on fighting why would you go to all the trouble of going in the first place?
Up until the late-18th century, wars weren’t really fought on a country-vs-country basis. The war was a contest between two kings or two nobles or two armies. Each side gathered up as much force as they could and then they fought. As you note, they’d even sometimes agree on a time and a place for the battle so they wouldn’t have to go wandering around looking for each other. The key to winning wars was winning battles so there was no point for either side in trying to avoid the battles.
In the 18th century, a new concept began to develop - the idea of a “people’s war”. Battles were still important but leaders began to think that they could win wars by outlasting the enemy rather than just outfighting them. So avoiding an unfavorable battle became a useful strategy towards winning a war.
It is generally true that in ancient times armies had to agree to fight each other, or there was no battle. If one army retreated, then there was no battle.
But think about what retreating means. What is the purpose of the war? To control lands and cities so you can get their revenues. So if you retreat the other guy gets control of that area without fighting. If your army can’t meet the other guy’s army on the field of battle, you’ve already lost the war, so you’d negotiate rather than fight or run away.
And so most of the time there aren’t any battles because everyone can see that one side will win, and the other side will lose, and therefore the side that would lose the war pays tribute, or swears fealty, or whatever the local fashion dictates. It’s only when both sides think they can win a war that the war actually happens. And since you wouldn’t have started the war unless you thought you could win, therefore you fight rather than run away. Both sides think they can win, and at least one of them is wrong.
But also note that sometimes you can be forced to either fight or give up. Armies require enormous amounts of food. If you’ve exhausted your supplies your army is going to melt away as the men are forced to return to their farms. So you either surrender, or risk everything in battle, even though the odds of success are small.
And of course, sieges and such really were a common form of warfare. The weaker side retreats to the fortified strongpoint, the stronger side besieges the strongpoint, and then it’s a race to see which side succumbs to disease or starvation or political division first.
At least with a battle, win or lose the war is over. A siege tends to destroy the very thing you’re fighting over–control over the strongpoint. If the city is ruined after the siege then what was the point of the siege?
It died before that (for the most part). The answer is technology. Forces needed to be concentrated to be effective. Skrimishers had there plac but did not win battles. Widespread use of cartridged ammunition and repeating rifles killed the tactic.
Note, too, that even in medieval times there were examples of warfare conducted without this pitched battle notion. For example, in the Hundred Years War between England and France, the English were known for going on long raiding marches/rides through French territory, basically plundering what they could and destroying what they couldn’t plunder. The term for these was chevauchée IIRC. So it wasn’t always the case that warfare consisted of the iconic pitched battle.
Note, too, that the American Civil War was fought with tactics that were a combination of the pitched battle concept with the more modern mobile warfare concept.
Heh! I remember reading about when the Greeks first faced the invading Romans. The Greeks formed up on a plain expecting the Romans to follow suit; but the Romans simply bypassed them, occupied the city the Greeks had left defenseless and held the Greeks’ women and children hostage until the Greek forces surrendered.
Regarding seiges: it’s worth noting that the Japanese had a totally different tradition of fortification from the Europeans. In Europe the idea was to make defenses as impregnable and unassailable as possible. In Japan, the idea was to lure enemy forces into a sucker trap, and fight them from advantageous positions. The idea was to get the battle over with one way or the other, not hold out forever.
Sometimes the battle WAS the point of the fight. Many knights, particularly the younger ones, were spoiling for a fight. How else could they build their reputation but by kicking some ass like their older peers? Also, if you captured someone important, you got to hold him for ransom. I’m sure many of the steel tuxedo crowd fantasized about single-handedly capturing a king and getting a vast fortune out of it.
As for fighting for a city, you might destroy the infrastructure of the city. But the city’s location is still strategic. A city might control all the traffic on a river and therefore be a great place for tolls. Also, the invading army did get to loot a city. So there was financial incentive as well.
But as you point out, sieges were the most common occurence due to it being a sound and often successful means of the weaker side surviving.
Especially in the Middle Ages in some respects. The Hundred Years War is the example that proves the rule, really - large pitched battles ( as opposed to small skirmishes ) were relatively rare most of the time. The reason being that they simply were too risky for all parties concerned. As ancient and medieval armies generally suffered the bulk of their losses in defeat, losing often meant losing badly and decisively. Meanwhile the primacy of defensive works and the ubiquity of them ( castles ) meant that you risked little in the short run by drawing out the fighting. With that much at stake medieval rulers generally preferred to avoid fighting full-on battles unless they a.) felt they had a big advantage, or b.) they were desperate for one reason or another, or c.) they were vainglorious dolts, or d.) they were pressured into it by the social mores of the times. Often some combination of several of the above.
As an example of the last, the battle of Crecy was fought in large part because Philip IV was in a tight propaganda bind. He knew perfectly well that frontal assaults against prepared defensive positions was a bad idea. In 1339-1340 he had on a couple of occasions refused to fight Edward III under similar circumstances ( Edward, with his smaller armies and experience gained from fighting the Scots, always turtled in a very strong position on the battlefield ), completely frustrating Edward and causing his offensive campaign to sputter out weakly at enormous expense. But by using those very sensible Fabian tactics, Philip had caused himself to be ridiculed for refusing to give battle to significantly smaller forces. So heavily pressured by his nobility, he felt he finally had to engage Edward in 1346 and trust to weight of numbers to carry the day. It didn’t.
At another decisive battle, possibly the most decisive of the 13th century, Bouvines in 1214, it is likely Philip II Augustus of France never wanted to fight in the first place. Faced with opponents on two widely spaced fronts ( John of England in Poitou, John’s nephew the emperor Otto IV on the eastern border ), it appears that he preferred to just manoeuvre on interior lines until the heterogenous imperial army disintegrated from lack of money, supply and internal discord ( the young Hohenstaufen king of Sicily was on the rise and threatened Otto’s legitimacy ). But Otto, moving with unusual speed, caught Philip in a horrible position - over halfway across a bridge. Philip had to either sacrifice a large chunk of his best troops in the rear or turn and fight in an unfavorable position. With two bad choices, he took the risky option to turn and prevailed in the end.
The idea of pitched battle as something to be deliberately sought at all times to gain decision didn’t really arrive doctrinally until Marlborough at the opening of the 18th century and functionally only became a reality under Napoleon. And as noted died not that much longer after to better-ranged repeating gunfire and long-ranged field artillery.
Is it not true that Ye Olde Kings did not provide much in the way of food for their armies, instead relying on the soldiers themselves to steal what they needed
No in the starkest sense of the above. Even medieval rulers generally tried to pay attention to some level of provisioning. Supplies would be laid in at strategic fortresses, merchants would be contracted to provide a set number of goods at a fixed price, etc. - the importance of supply was always recognized. It’s a big reason why kings were always going broke in wars.
But yes in that logistics tended to be pretty undeveloped and in practice armies tended to live partly off the field until very recently. In home areas they’d requisition and “pay” ( or promise to and never actually do so ), in enemy areas they’d loot and more directly extort.
This was common practice quite late - in Louis XIV’s times, everyone was impressed with the massive magazines of supplies his minister established, allowing his armies to take the field weeks before anyone else coming out of winter. Yet at the same time a major strategic imperative remained the occupying of territory purely to extort money and supplies - “making war pay for war.” Up to 25% of France’s war time expenses in that era were so paid for.
I get what you’re saying Tamerlane but I seem to recall reading that the likes of Hannibal,Ghengis Khan and Attila did not provide for their men at all. I even think Alexander was included in this category
Their men/soldiers were given open licence to just take whatever it was they wanted, if the owners objected it was curtains for 'em
The history of logistics is an enormously complicated field that defies easy summation in a post, or the library of West Point, for that matter. However, supplying the troops was a major issue for all commanders, and I know two of the ones you name, Hannibal and Alexander, put a great deal of thought into it. While it is true that Hannibal lived largely off the land while in Italy, part of the reason was to demonstrate that he could – a large part of his strategy was to peel off allied states from Rome by showing he could operate with impunity in Rome’s strategic heartland. Alexander made supplying his troops a focal point of his campaign – delaying the main thrust for great lengths of time until he had secured the coastline to supply his troops by shipborne materials. He consciously wrested sea control from the Persians as a precursor to the main event for the explicit purpose of resupplying his troops.
Let us not forget that looking for stand-up battles has not disappeared, either. In WW2, several commanders looked for such a knockout blow. They didn’t totally get it, but they definitely found opportunities to face the enemy up-front. The major difference was that armies were now so large and spread out that “facing the enemy” might mean having week-long battles over five-hundred square miles.
Even today, militaries do tend to ask for stand-up fights at times. But they usually then bring in artillery fire and air bombings. (double grin)
Preciely – tactics, and to a certain extent strategy, turn on the idea that you force the enemy to accept battle by threatening something he must retain strategically. And you force him in situations that give you the advantage. If you have the smaller force, occupy a high point or a narrowing through which he must pass. If you have the larger one, menace something he needs to keep in a way that permist you to use all your larger force against him. Lee’s genius was that he almost never gave battle unless he was in a position with a good chance to win – even though the Union outnumbered him sometimes as much as 3:1. Russia’s traditional mode of fighting was to retreat from the invader until he’s overextended with overworked logistics, while mustering their own resources, then swoop in to defeat the invader. Of course, such maneuvering can get bizarre – in the Great Northern War between Charles XII of Sweden and Peter the Great of Russia, the decisive battles were fought in the western Ukraine and Turkish0-held Romania, as both forces kept moving southeast.
Keep in mind that like Polycarp is saying, the important things are to avoid battle if it’s not advantageous to you, for whatever reason. Those reasons could be numerical inferiority, bad terrain, bad positioning, or whatever.
That’s the trick- if you have a superior force, your general has to figure out how to compel the enemy to fight, and destroy them, while the inferior side should try to avoid fighting until they have a superior force of some kind- usually local superiority, really favorable terrain, or surprise. Think Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah campaigns, where his 17000 man force defeated a Union force of 60,000 because he never fought all 60,000 at one time, but rather fought them only when he had a local superiority.
Having a force to threaten is sometimes better than actually engaging the enemy, especially if you are outnumbered.
