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Subject: medieval operational strategy
deleeuw    8/10/2004 1:23:35 AM
Hey all, Stupid question: In the middle ages (or even ancient times, for that matter), how was there any real military strategy per se? If there were so few units--only one army usually -- and not many objectives, but only a castle basically, there really is no "art of war" required. I know I'm missing something here. Thx
 
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Disgruntled Taxman    RE:medieval operational strategy   8/11/2004 12:43:28 PM
THANK GOD SOMEONE ASKS! I thought my military historical knoledge wont be challenged here. Seige warfare is mostly a Midieval action. Battles happened much more before then. Rome invented Western-style Seige warfare. Ok, now, it varried really. As in all battles, it would eventually become a pushing match. However, the idea of the Pincer was originated in Ancient time under Hannibal. He flanked the Romans and killed 55,000 of em in a day. Alexander the Great invented the "Sword and Sheild". He used his pikemen to hold the center and his calavry to flank the enemy. His father created Psychological warfare. Battle of Marathon. A man named Miltiadies, to prevent being surrounded, streched his center thin and increased the numbers on flanks. In the battle of Lectra, the Theban force made their force look like a "/" to fight the Spartans, which if the enemy tried to flank them, the Thebans would break through the center. They also combinded calvary to assit their flank. Every single battle tactic basicly came from the Ancient times. Battles from then seemed to be shoving matches for a couple reasons... 1) The historians didnt understand battle tactics as well back then. It wasnt until the enlightenment that battle tactics was studied as we know it. Thats possibly the reason why men such as Alexander was so great, he payed attention. 2) The soldiers had only 1 view of the enemy and couldnt tell who was where. Hannibal struck Rome before Rome could strike Carthage. An idea later discussed by Napoleon and Clausewitz and many others.
 
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jastayme3    RE:medieval operational strategy   8/15/2004 2:50:31 PM
In those days organization and communication were low . Therefore it was really tactics that had dissapeared and not strategy. What tactics existed was in the deployment. If a commander could think of some sneaky trick on the spot it could make the difference. There was no possiblity for controlling a battle, unless one had a reserve of some sort. Once troops were engaged they must win, run, or die. There was certainly strategy. It had to do with outwitting an enemy before the battle. It was common to use the lack of food as a weapon. If a countryside was wasted or an armies foragers killed off than an army starved. Therefore a commander was more important in the guerre d'chase than in the actual battle
 
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stratego    RE:medieval operational strategy   9/11/2004 10:52:55 PM
Yes. In a sense, the battle itself had only tactics, because the units were so small, the strategy was the lead-in to the battle. Medieval battles seemed to have a lot of manouvering around before fighting, trying to get the enemy to run out of food, or maybe even lose his nerve. Medieval forces tended to be really small, a little raid or ambush might affect morale. Ancient battles seemed to have less of this kind of thing. I tend to believe there was probably less of a food surplus in ancient times, and there was more of a tendency to try to have a battle quickly, maybe before everyone ran out of food! That's slightly toungue in cheek, but not much. Also, some ancient battles we look at are the ancient Greeks (Sparta & Athens, etc.) who did not have calvary. It takes a lot more willpower and conditioning to manouver around endlessly without calvary. (Stonewall Jackson did it in the Civil War, but he had faith. He also did a lot of hitting mixed in with his maonouvering, sorry to go off topic.) The ancient Greeks formed phalanxes, literally almost a hammer made of people. To some extent, they hit into each other as hard as they could, like a couple of Sumo wrestlers, see who could get more momentum. The pahalanx tends to be inherently rigid and difficult to manouver with and be tactical with. However, the Spartans apparently did it. While they always denied an interest in strategy and claimed it was all "toughness" the claim is doubtful (though the toughness was real.) Ancient battles were so small people used to sit on the sidelines and observe them. One such observor said the Spartans seemed to shift from one position to another in a "casual" and "natural" way. It just looked like someone said, "Hey, lets reform with a shift to the right here." This sounds, in fact, like the result of extensive training, in the same way that a jazz quartet's "spontaneous improvisations" require great skill. The Romans reformed the phalanx with the manipule. This was like a checkerboard---with both squares of men and empty squares. The empty squares made the structure much more flexible. The Romans instituted a formation called the "manipule".
 
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jastayme3    RE:medieval operational strategy comments on phalanx   9/20/2004 10:47:16 PM
I never could figure out what that looked like. The front line of the phalanx wasn't suicidal, so they wouldn't have just crashed into each other, like football lines. Would they have wiggled their necks trying to dodge spears in the last seven feet? One cringing while another jumping forward? They say the second rank would have pushed the first but that would have just knocked them over. They probably would have advanced in a slow walk rather than a charge. A lot of it would be psychological and would hinge on who had the most confidence-the first to break had no escape because of the man behind him. I doubt that was intended-"fight or else" seems to be rather alien to the Ancient Greek version of political correctness. However he couldn't get through his comrades behind and he had to turn his back so he would be sure to be skewered. However fear would have to overcome reason somewhere along the line-probably at the wing first where their was room to fly. This really belongs in another post, I put it here because of the talks of phalanxes
 
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stratego    RE:medieval operational strategy comments on phalanx   9/30/2004 11:11:35 PM
You posted in the right spot. I don't know too much, but they all did have shields and helmets.When they were lined up like that, that also meant a shield on either side for most guys. The enemy, being in a similar configuration, couldn't do anything too fancy to get past your shield, like bayonet moves. So, as I understand it, the two masses collided and the physical momentum was a large factor, but probably not a lot of deats at the first imapact. Generally, after that impact (if I'm getting it right) one side was more or less intact and the other side partially dispersed. At this point, the guys on the dispersed side tend to get masssacred. Not to completely obviate your point about the disadvantages of being in the front row.
 
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z0b    RE:medieval operational strategy   10/5/2004 4:35:43 AM
Ummmm, there's enough Medieval strategy known today to fill several libraries and that's only what we know now. The concept that it was two sides in a Phalanx running at each other is quite ridiculous. The Greeks wern't idiots, in fact they were intelligent enough to work out that the earth moved around the sun, the concept of the atom and democracy. They would not just run at an enemy - neiher were medieval people stupid. Disgruntled Taxman just touched on the thousands of different strategies, and there are many, many more and just like today it depended on what kind of units you had, the terrain, espionage and counter espionage etc. Also not all armies were small even though you may think that Hastings was a big, important battle. Hastings was a minor scirmish in a irrelevant backwater to the big movers and shakers of the time. There are reports of armies over of well 100 000 taking the field when we're talking about the big empires of Byzantium, the Middle East and China. They would include a huge variety of troops who of course all had special purposes, such as horse archers and light scirmishers for harrassing an enemy, and everything from disciplined professional heavy infantry to local conscripted peasantry. Sorry for the rant, but this is my specialty.
 
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jastayme3    RE:medieval operational strategy   10/10/2004 1:52:38 AM
Also it might be noted that much of what we refer to as war in history is better classified as disorder or crime. The Vikings who sacked Lindisfarne for instance had no operational strategy. All they wanted to do was plunder the monestary and be out before the local sherrif arrived with a large number of men and a great desire to hang them all. This the Vikings were quite able to do and their only real worry was being hijacked on the way back by one of their own. In other words for a campaign to have a strategy there must actually be a campaign. That said there were various tricks that a canny chieftain would know that would certainly qualify as "operational strategy". These were dependant of course on the capibilities of forces. The Vikings liked to sail upriver to strike far inland. Alfreds answer to the vikings was to build a number of stockades. If all the spoil is guarded then the invaders will start to desert. This method was a common method all over Europe in fact all the way to Byzantium. The Byzantines(who really weren't what we think of as "early medieval anyway-I.E. technology and culture were relativly sophistacated)were able to elaborate this by herding the peasants into walled cities and then ambushing the forayers wall the main army covered the ambushers. The Byzantines had a sophisticated combined-arms army, and had all the classic textbooks and some of their own. They were professionals rather then learning in the Prince Daddy telling junior campfire stories method. This sometimes works well(it produced Charlemagne, Alfred and Genghis Khan) but depends on Prince Daddy's interpretation of his experience and Junior's interpretation of Daddy, rather than a standerdized doctrine. The Prince Daddy method has produced a few geniuses, however it has also made a lot of Juniors early guests at Valhalla. Wheras a Byzantine officer could be counted on to be competant. Also medieval strategy depended on treachery as much as battle, or manuver. Every Medieval army was really an "alliance". No ruler could field a large enough force to make an impression without making arrangments with his vassals, for contributions in men and money, as well as hiring mercenaries. "Regulars" did exist-the small band of men the ruler kept around him-however they weren't enough. Straightforward conscription was problematic-the peasants were usually untrained("usually"-some were pretty tough fellows)and were better as tax revenue. Because of this all Medieval Warfare centered to a large degree on intrigue. People fought for their own interests to a large degree and if a commander could be convinced that those no longer lay with the ruler he was nomminally fighting for. For instance Cyrus the Great once won a battle because an opposing commander had had his son cruely executed on a whim and therefore had a grudge against his own King and was happy to defect.
 
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Caesar Maximus    RE:medieval operational strategy   6/22/2005 11:41:53 PM
One example of medieval operational strategy was the thematic system developed under Heraclius in the Byzantine (East Roman) Empire, and further enhanced after the Muslim invasions. This reduced the size of the old roman provinces, and produced a class of citizen soldiers that allowed for rapid concentration of force, and troops of considerable quality (mostly). It allowed the Romans to defend their realm even though outnumbered by their Islamic neighbours. The East Romans had a massive border to defend, despite the Empire being much reduced from its earlier glory days. Even with only the Balkans and Asia Minor to call their own, they maintained forces of 150,000. The Caliphate at its height fielded far more than this. Raeding of the wars between these 2 superpowers is for me far more interesting than the small scale battles of western Europe. Espeically the great counteroffensives into Syria and Bulgaria during the 10thC.
 
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