Masters of the Battlefield
Page 62
Connected to assessing strengths and weaknesses is using them to outmaneuver or outthink an opponent. Alexander played on—indeed relied upon—the Persians’ sense of security in their positions at all of his battles with them. At Ilipa, Scipio negated the usually devastating effect of the Carthaginian elephants by means of a complex maneuver that placed cavalry and light infantry nearest them, so the elephants’ size and strength were negated by swarms of arrows and javelins from the more mobile Roman forces. Frederick’s classic outflanking move at Leuthen made moot the entire Austrian army position.
Conversely, the weakness of using Hussite peasants for soldiers became a strength when they proved far more mobile—able to use their wagons and farm implements for military purposes—and far more motivated than their opponents. The use of smaller forces to divert larger ones is probably the most effective way of benefiting from weakness. Han Xin’s smaller force backed up against the Wu River at Jingxing focused the enemy attention away from the cavalry thrust to the rear. The Mongol tactic of the feigned retreat was always to give the impression of weakness or defeat.
Perhaps even more important than the coup d’oeil is the ability to foresee an opposing commander’s moves. Sun Tzu wrote, “Know yourself and know your enemy and in a hundred battles you will not be defeated.” This is the most consistently illustrated characteristic of the generals in this study.
It helps of course when an opponent is predictable or overconfident, as were the Roman generals Hannibal faced—Tiberius Longus at the Trebia River and Flaminius at Lake Trasimene; much the same Roman attitude resulted in the slaughter at Cannae. Belisarius took advantage of the overzealous Persian cavalry at Dara to strike both their attacking forces in flank or rear. Žižka knew that once the armored knights deployed they would not shy away from attacking his peasant wagenburgs, and thus defeated them multiple times. Subedei’s opponents never caught on to the feigned retreat. Oda knew Takeda would throw his cavalry at him at Nagashino. Marlborough knew at Blenheim and Ramillies that the enemy would use villages as strong points, so he held them there and broke through weakly held portions of their lines elsewhere. At Rossbach Frederick took advantage of a command divided between two generals who were both sure of their abilities. And perhaps no commanders in any battle in history were as manipulated as the Russian and Austrian emperors at Austerlitz (though Mack at Ulm is in the running for the honor). Finally, Wellington’s conversation with Picton just before Waterloo was a telling illustration of taking advantage of enemy habits: “Well, here they come in the same old way.” “Yes, and we shall beat them in the same old way.”
CAN THE STUDY OF THESE GREAT CAPTAINS confer any advantages today at the tactical and grand tactical levels of combat? Without question. At heart, whatever the abstraction that might have applied to their thinking, the actions taken by these great commanders of the past involve terrain and the deployments and are mainly boots-on-the-ground concepts. New technology does not make irrelevant history’s lessons. As George Patton wrote to his son: “To be a successful soldier you must know history. Read it objectively.… What you must know is how man reacts. Weapons change, but the men who use them change not at all.”8
GLOSSARY
Terms are synthesized from the U.S. Army Field Manual 100-5, Operations, pp. 7-01–7-09.
Characteristics of the Offense
1. Surprise—Commanders achieve surprise by striking the enemy at a time or place or in a manner for which it is not physically or mentally ready. Knowing the enemy commander’s intent and denying his ability to conduct thorough and timely intelligence is crucial.
2. Concentration—The ability to mass effects without massing large formations is essential for achieving and exploiting success. Attacking commanders manipulate their own and the enemy’s concentration of forces by some combination of dispersion, concentration, deception, and attack.
3. Tempo—The rate of speed of military actions; controlling or altering that rate is essential for maintaining the initiative.
4. Audacity—A key component of any successful offensive action. A simple plan, boldly executed, requires audacious leaders to negate the disadvantages of numerical inferiority.
Tactical Offense Forms
1. Movement to Contact—An offensive operation conducted to develop the situation and to establish or regain contact. It may also include preliminary diversionary actions and preparatory firing.
• Approach march—used when a commander is relatively certain of the enemy’s location and is a considerable distance from the enemy.
• Search and attack—conducted by smaller, light maneuver units to destroy enemy forces, protect the force, deny area to the enemy, or collect information.
• Reconnaissance in force—a limited-objective operation by a considerable force to obtain information and to locate and test enemy dispositions, strengths, and reactions.
• Meeting engagement—the desired result of a movement to contact.
2. Attack—The purpose of an attack is to defeat, destroy, or neutralize the enemy. The same fundamentals apply to each type of attack. The differences lie in the amount of planning, coordination, and preparation before execution.
• Hasty attack—the most likely result of a meeting engagement. The forces at hand are used with minimal preparation to destroy enemy forces before they can concentrate or establish a defense.
• Deliberate attack—fully synchronized operations that employ the effects of every available asset against the enemy defense.
• Spoiling attack—mounted from a defensive position to disrupt an expected enemy attack. One strikes while the enemy is most vulnerable: during his preparations for attack.
• Counterattack
• Raid
• Feint and demonstration—A feint is designed to divert enemy attention from the main effort; it is a shallow, limited-objective attack. A demonstration is a show of force in an area where a decision is not sought; no attack is made.
3. Exploitation—The attacker extends the destruction of the defending enemy force by maintaining offensive pressure.
4. Pursuit—An offensive operation against a retreating enemy force, following a successful attack when the enemy cannot form an organized defense; its object is the destruction of the opposing force.
NOTES
Introduction
1. “Greatest Military Leaders” at George Patton Historical Society Library, http://pattonhq.com/militaryworks/leaderslist.html, 28 Oct. 2012.
2. Basil Liddell Hart, Scipio Africanus: Greater than Napoleon (Cambridge, MA: DaCapo Press, 1994 [1926]), p. xi.
3. Daniel L. Byman and Kenneth Pollack, “Let Us Now Praise Great Men,” International Security 25 (4), Spring 2001, p. 107.
4. Kimberly Kagan, The Eye of Command (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), p. 200.
5. David Chandler, Marlborough as Military Commander (Staplehurst, Kent: Spellmount, 2003 [1973]), pp. 318–19.
Chapter 1. Epaminondas
1. Nepos, Vitae, 2.1.
2. Ibid., 3.1–3.
3. Lynn, Battle: A History of Combat and Culture.
4. Spence, The Cavalry of Classical Greece, p. 151.
5. Xenophon, Hellenica, 6.4.11, in Xenophon in Seven Volumes.
6. Pritchett, The Greek State at War, vol. 1, pp. 134–43.
7. Luginbill, Othismos, p. 56.
8. Goldsworthy, “The Othismos, Myths and Heresies”; for another overview of the controversy, see Stylianou, Historical Commentary on Diodorus Siculus, appendix “The Nature of Hoplite Fighting,” pp. 552–55.
9. Starr, Ancient World, pp. 211–12.
10. Diodorus, Library, 15.52.3–4.
11. Sextus, Stratagems, 1.12.5.
12. Diodorus, Library, 15.53. 4; 15.54.1.
13. Frontinus, Stratagems, 1.11.6.
14. Hamilton, Agesilaus, p. 187.
15. Polyaenus, Stratagems, 2.3.15.
16. Diodorus, Library, 15.55.2.
17. Xenophon,
Hellenica, 6.4.13.
18. Devine, “Embolon: A Study in Tactical Terminology,” pp. 201–17.
19. Buckler, “Epameinondas and the ‘Embolon,’” pp. 134–43.
20. Goldsworthy, “Othismos,” p. 8.
21. Xenophon, Hellenica, 6.4.13–14.
22. Ibid., 6.4.15.
23. Ibid., 7.5.24.
24. Nepos, Vitae, 9.4
25. Cawkwell, “Epaminondas and Thebes,” p. 261.
26. Delbruck, Warfare in Antiquity, p. 166.
27. Hanson, “Epameinondas.”
28. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts, p. 107.
29. Hanson, Soul of Battle, p. 46.
30. Goldsworthy, “Othismos,” pp. 24–25, citing V. H. Davis.
31. Hanson, “Epameinondas,” pp. 199, 206.
32. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts, p. 122.
33. Liddell Hart, Strategy, p. 34.
Chapter 2. Alexander
1. Plutarch, “Alexander.”
2. Hamilton, “Alexander’s Early Life,” p. 119. This work provides a good overview of Alexander’s upbringing, with references to the best known works of its time, which was the mid-1960s.
3. Hammond, “What May Philip Have Learnt as a Hostage in Thebes?”
4. Griffith, “Philip as a General and the Macedonian Army,” p. 58.
5. Borza, “What Philip Wrought,” pp. 107–8.
6. Delbruck, Warfare in Antiquity, p. 179.
7. Jones, The Art of War in the Western World, p. 22.
8. Different views of this issue are covered in Markle, “The Macedonian Sarissa, Spear, and Related Armor,” pp. 329–30.
9. Jones, Art of War, p. 22; Heckel and Jones, Macedonian Warrior, pp. 13–18.
10. Worley, Hippeis, p. 155.
11. Barker, Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars, p. 88.
12. Tarn, Hellenistic Military, p. 65.
13. Hamilton, Alexander the Great, pp. 68–69.
14. Hammond, The Genius of Alexander the Great, p. 89.
15. Green, Alexander of Macedon, pp. 228–29.
16. Kutta, “Warfare in the Age of the Peloponnesian Wars and Alexander the Great,” p. 16.
17. British Museum, BM 71537.
18. Diodorus Siculus, Library, 17.5.3–6.3.
19. On Darius’s background, rise to power, and reign, see Badian, “Darius III”; also, for an overview of the state of the Persian Empire upon Alexander’s invasion, see Briant, Histoire de l’empire perse.
20. For a more complete look at Alexander’s campaigns to suppress rebellions after Philip’s death, see Arrian, The Anabasis of Alexander, and Hammond, “Alexander’s Campaign in Illyria.”
21. For an overview of the ancient and modern (as of 1974) sources and an analysis of the Granicus battleground, see Nikolitsis, The Battle of the Granicus. For a deeper look into the battle and its relevance to the overall Persian campaign, see Devine, “Demythologizing the Battle of the Granicus.”
22. For a look at Alexander’s route of march and the establishment of supply bases, see Engels, Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army, ch. 2.
23. Keegan, The Mask of Command, p. 26.
24. Arrian, The Anabasis of Alexander, 2.6–14.
25. Green, Alexander of Macedon, p. 228.
26. Warry, Warfare in the Classical World, p. 80.
27. Delbruck, Warfare in Antiquity, p. 192.
28. Hammond, The Genius of Alexander, p. 89.
29. Delbruck, Warfare in Antiquity, p. 195.
30. Keegan, The Mask of Command, p. 83.
31. Curtius, History of Alexander, 4.2.4–5.
32. Keegan, The Mask of Command, p. 82.
33. Ravilious, “Alexander the Great Conquered City via Sunken Sandbar.”
34. Kern, Ancient Siege Warfare, pp. 213–15.
35. Curtius, History of Alexander, 4.4.14, 16.
36. Hamilton, Alexander the Great, p. 165.
37. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts, p. 119.
38. Curtius, History of Alexander, 10.5.26–29. http://luna.cas.usf.edu/~murray/classes/aa/source08.htm,
39. Borza, “The Conquest of Persia,” p. 141.
40. Montagu, Greek and Roman Warfare, p. 30.
Chapter 3. Han Xin
1. Sima, “Biography of the Marquis of Huai-yin,” p. 180. Westernized spelling of the Chinese language has changed over the years. At the time of this publication (1947), the Wade-Giles method dominated. Since the late 1960s, the Pinyin form has been the accepted method of spelling. Hence, Han Xin becomes Han Hsin in Wade-Giles. Any quoted spelling in the Wade-Giles method will not be altered unless the change is markedly different.
2. Sima, “Biography,” p. 182.
3. Sima, Records of the Grand Historian, pp. 164–65.
4. Information on weaponry and organization from C.J Peers, Soldiers of the Dragon, pp. 33–46; Richard Nable collection; “Ancient Bronze Weapons”; and “Weaponry of the Bronze Age.”
5. Sima, “Biography,” p. 185.
6. Sima, Historical Records, p. 122.
7. Paludan, Chronicle, p. 29.
8. Haichen, Wiles of War, p. 74.
9. Ah Xiang, “Han Dynasty,” asserts 500,000 to 600,000; Hardy, Worlds of Bronze and Bamboo, p. 105, gives 560,000.
10. Haichen, Wiles of War, p. 75.
11. Sima, Historical Records, pp. 128–29.
12. Sawyer and Sawyer, One Hundred Unorthodox Strategies, p. 169; the translator John de Francis in Sima, “Biography,” p. 189, n.42, discusses this in more detail, suggesting: “More probable than the use of airtight pontoons or wooden tubs was the use of log rafts or the flat-bottomed scows which are used today as ferries on the Yellow River.”
13. Sima, Records of the Grand Historian, p. 168.
14. Ibid., p. 169.
15. Sima, “Biography,” p. 192.
16. Haichen, Wiles of War, p. 140.
17. The Wei River discussed in this section is in modern Shandong Province and is not the same Wei River mentioned earlier that flows eastward past Chang’an to intersect the Yellow River.
18. Sima, Records of the Grand Historian, p. 71.
19. Sima, Historical Records, p. 133.
20. Sawyer and Sawyer, One Hundred Unorthodox Strategies, p. 172.
21. Ibid., pp. 172–73.
22. Sima, Records of the Grand Historian, p. 179.
23. Ibid., p. 74.
24. Sima, Historical Records, p. 136.
25. Ibid., pp. 136–39; the last hours of Xiang Yu’s life have been dramatized in the opera and film Farewell My Concubine.
26. Sawyer and Sawyer, Seven Military Classics, p. 172.
27. Ibid.
28. Sima, Records of the Grand Historian, p. 169.
Chapter 4. Hannibal
1. Polybius, Rise of the Roman Empire, 3.11.
2. Livy, Hannibal’s War, 21.10
3. Ibid., 21.3–4.
4. Goldsworthy, Punic Wars, pp. 157–58.
5. Hyland, Equus, p. 174.
6. Polybius, Rise of the Roman Empire, 3.114.
7. Warry, Warfare in the Classical World, p. 111.
8. Sabin, “Face of Roman Battle,” p. 10.
9. Connolly, “Roman Army in the Age of Polybius, p. 162.
10. The nature of fighting in a manipular formation, and the multiple views of how it may have been done, are discussed in Sabin’s “The Face of Roman Battle,” in The Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 90; also see Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts, pp. 172–92, for a more psychological view of the Roman armies.
11. Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, p. 180.
12. Polybius, Rise of the Roman Empire, 3.68.
13. Ibid., 3.70.
14. Livy, Hannibal’s War, 21.55.
15. Appian, Foreign Wars, 2.7.
16. Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, p. 191.
17. Polybius, Rise of the Roman Empire, 3.75.
18. Dodge, Great Captains, p. 43.
19. Mommsen, The History of Rome, book 3, ch. 5, http:/
/ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_mommsen_3_5_5.htm.
20. Livy, Hannibal’s War, 22.3.
21. Polybius, Rise of the Roman Empire, 3.80.
22. Livy, Hannibal’s War, 22.3.
23. Polybius, Rise of the Roman Empire, 3.82.
24. Livy, Hannibal’s War, 22.4.
25. Polybius, Rise of the Roman Empire, 3.84.
26. Livy, Hannibal’s War, 22.6.
27. Ibid., 22.4.
28. Polybius, Rise of the Roman Empire, 3.112.
29. Appian, Foreign Wars, 4.20.
30. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 79.
31. Goldsworthy, Punic Wars, p. 205.
32. Connolly, “Roman Army in the Age of Polybius,” pp. 148, 162.
33. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 82.
34. Polybius, Rise of the Roman Empire, 3.115.
35. Goldsworthy, Punic Wars, pp. 209–10.
36. Alexander, How Wars Are Won, p. 275.
37. Meikeljohn, “Roman Strategy and Tactics from 509 to 202 BC,” pp. 12–13.
38. Delbruck, Warfare in Antiquity, p. 319.
39. Livy, Hannibal’s War, 22.50.
40. Goldsworthy, Punic Wars, p. 213
41. Von Schlieffen, Cannae, p. 3.
42. Alexander, How Wars Are Won, p. 274.
43. Goldsworthy, Punic Wars, p. 157.
44. Dodge, Great Captains, p. 64.
45. Ibid., pp. 63–64.
Chapter 5. Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus