Britney Spears said:
Here's some cross posting from an ancient history board:
I personally find his enitrely western-centric view of ancient warfare to be completely unrealistic. His assertion in The Western Way of War that the Greeks INVENTED the pitched battle is pantently false, as there are plenty of sources, including biblical ones, that portray the Sumerians and Assyrians, the spiritual ancestors of the Persians, fighting very bloody pitched battles. His model for Phalanx warfare during the Persian Wars is at best, conjecture, since his sources (Herodotus and Polybius) don't really give any real tactical details of phalanx combat, and as I understand very few people in the field share his interpretations. The general conclusion that democratic societies produce superior warriors is easily disproven in the ancient context.
I think I've got most of those titles straight, I can't really claim to be much more of an amature when it comes to the ancient Mediteranean (Talk to me about medieval Chinese or Mongol battles any time), but a lot of Hanson's conclusions seem pretty suspect ( agenda driven and overly simplistic to suit his layman audience perhaps) even to me, and his far-right political leanings don't help either.
Maybe a_majoor can clarify further, since he's apparently a big fan of VDH.....
Yes I am, and in the spirit of the holiday season, I will attempt to help out here ;D
Dr Hanson's arguments about the roots of western warfare have evolved, drawing from sources as varied as the ancient historians, archeological evidence, reconstruction on the lines of the German historian Max Delbruk and so on. The short summary of his argument is the ancient Greeks evolved the system of democracy through the idea of property rights; each farmer owned his own land, and because the amount of labour the farmer, his family and personal servants or slaves could invest was finite, each farmer in the district was able to have a farm roughly the same size and productivity as his neighbours. Since each farmer was economically at the same level as his peers, each had an equal vote in the assembly, and each had an equally compelling reason to turn out with his peers to defend the district from raiders and others who would seek to plunder or despoil the farms. This is the genisis of the Greek Phalanx. Other cultures had also derived the idea of fighting in close order, but the reason behind this was different, mostly as a counter to the chariot "cavalry" of the ancient Egyptian or Mesopotamian armies.
The motivation of the Classical Greeks for fighting was also different, rather than fighting for plunder, the Classical Greeks were usually fighting each other in a dispute over land or water rights, and
as farmers, needed to resolve the issue as quickly and economically as possible. The two armies would march into position, do the ritual sacrifices to the Gods and listen to the speeches of their generals, don armour and put the question to the test of arms. The battle was also the war, and the decision was made on the spot, allowing the surviving farmers to go back to their fields. Indeed, the Classical Phalanx was all there was to Greek armies, the use of light troops and cavalry was excluded by convention, tactics and equipment (light troops and missile cavalry was unable to make a dent against close packed troops in heavy armour, lessons learned again and again in later ages), until they were exposed to foreign practice in the Persian wars. Later, many of the conventions and restraints that had been put on warfare went out the window in the Pelloponessian Wars, and Greek, Hellenistic and later Roman warfare evolved to become far more destructive than anything seen before. Certainly few other ancient civilizations were able to handle these armies, and only when the parent civilization decayed and the organizing principles were lost or corrupted were they defeated in the field.
The check sum to this argument was the Mycenean civilization. These people lived in Greece, spoke almost the same language and worshipped the same Gods, yet were organized in a "palace culture" civilization. Only the lords and their personal retainers were equipped in full armour, and they engaged in celebratory combat for the purpose of gaining plunder and personal glory. When you read the Iliad, it is a series of individual duels which form the core of each battle scene, rather than the organization and manoeuvre of formed bodies of troops. (The mass of Infantry retainers probably formed small shield walls for their lords to fall back behind and re-arm, and probably hoped to make names for themselves by displays of bravery if opponents tried to storm the shield wall and steal the stripped armour and other spoils of battle). Archeological evidence supports this interpretation of Mycenean warfare.
Hanson's assertations are not about pitched battle per se, but rather the idea that for the Greeks, victory should be decided by shock action, as well as the idea that forces should stand and fight, rather than run away. Both the battle of Salamis and Thermopylae were rude shocks to the "Great King" and his forces, the usual response was for forces to melt away when faced by overwhelming odds. Since the Greeks were peers fighting for their own property and alongside their own neighbours and friends, they had far greater motivation than the enslaved soldiers and sailors of the Persian Empire (even a Satrap was reffered to as "my slave" in correspondence from Xerxes or Darius).
As Infanteer says, some of his constructs are very tenuous (the continuous liniage of the Western Way of War from the Classical Greeks to modern times is a very weak argument in my view), but the idea that democracies and free market economies provide the basis of powerful, flexible and almost unbeatable armies is well established in history.
I cannot claim knowledge of ancient Chinese warfare, and only limited knowledge of the Mongols, so a one to one comparison isn't possible by me in this forum.
) went to the woods because their tactics were more effective there; whether it be conventional battle or "ranging". Since the beginning of the 20th century, weapons systems have become so lethal that moving to the field is asking for death - especially if one is underequipped. Cities provide less-well off fighters a force multiplier.
