Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Carnage and Culture
Picture Credits for Insert
List of Maps
Preface
ONE - Why the West Has Won
ENLIGHTENED THUGS
THE PRIMACY OF BATTLE
IDEAS OF THE WEST
THE WESTERN WAY OF WAR
PART ONE - Creation
TWO - Freedom—or “To Live as You Please”
THE DROWNED
THE ACHAEMENIDS AND FREEDOM
THE PERSIAN WARS AND THE STRATEGY OF SALAMIS
THE BATTLE
ELEUTHERIA
THE LEGACY OF SALAMIS
THREE - Decisive Battle
ANGLES OF VISION
THE MACEDONIAN MILITARY MACHINE
KILLING SPREE
DECISIVE BATTLE AND WESTERN WARFARE
FOUR - Citizen Soldiers
A SUMMER SLAUGHTER
HANNIBAL’S JAWS
CARTHAGE AND THE WEST
LEGIONS OF ROME
THE IDEA OF A NATION-IN-ARMS
“RULERS OF THE ENTIRE WORLD”— THE LEGACY OF CIVIC MILITARISM
PART TWO - Continuity
FIVE - Landed Infantry
HORSE VERSUS FOOT
THE WALL
THE HAMMER
ISLAM ASCENDANT
DARK AGES?
INFANTRY, PROPERTY, AND CITIZENSHIP
POITIERS AND BEYOND
SIX - Technology and the Wages of Reason
THE BATTLES FOR MEXICO CITY
AZTEC WAR
THE MIND OF THE CONQUISTADORS
SPANISH RATIONALISM
WHY DID THE CASTILIANS WIN?
REASON AND WAR
SEVEN - The Market—or Capitalism Kills
GALLEY WAR
LEGENDS OF LEPANTO
EUROPE AND THE OTTOMANS
CAPITALISM, THE OTTOMAN ECONOMY, AND ISLAM
WAR AND THE MARKET
PART THREE - Control
EIGHT - Discipline—or Warriors Are Not Always Soldiers
KILLING FIELDS
THE IMPERIAL WAY
ZULU POWER AND IMPOTENCE
COURAGE IS NOT NECESSARILY DISCIPLINE
NINE - Individualism
FLOATING INFERNOS
THE ANNIHILATION OF THE DEVASTATORS
THE IMPERIAL FLEET MOVES OUT
WESTERN AND NON-WESTERN JAPAN
SPONTANEITY AND INDIVIDUAL INITIATIVE AT MIDWAY
INDIVIDUALISM IN WESTERN WARFARE
TEN - Dissent and Self-Critique
BATTLES AGAINST THE CITIES
VICTORY AS DEFEAT
AFTERMATH
WAR AMID AUDIT, SCRUTINY, AND SELF-CRITIQUE
Glossary
EPILOGUE - Western Warfare— Past and Future
AFTERWORD - Carnage and Culture after September 11, 2001
For Further Reading
About the Author
Also by Victor Davis Hanson
Copyright Page
Carnage and Culture
For Donald Kagan and Steven Ozment
Picture Credits for Insert
Alinari/Art Resource, NY, (Darius and Xerxes at Issus); (Issus); (Hannibal)
AP/Wide World Photos (Yorktown hit); (Tet Offensive)
Army Signal Corps Collection/National Archives (Yamaguchi)
Art Collection, Naval Historical Center (Japanese carrier/Battle of Midway painting)
Bettmann/CORBIS (Salamis); (Darius and Xerxes); (bombers in V formation)
CORBIS (Mexico City, Cortés, Montezuma )
CORBIS/U.S. Navy/UPI (pilots)
Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY (Cannae)
Giraudon/Art Resource, NY (Poitiers); (massacre of Aztecs); (Persian soldiers)
The Granger Collection, New York—Page 1, bottom left (Themistocles ); (Alexander the Great); (Spanish besieged); (Lepanto); (defeat of Ottoman navy)
Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS (King Cetewayo, Lord Chelmsford); (surviving soldiers)
Copyright © Hulton Getty/Liaison Agency ( Rorke’s Drift)
Louvre, Paris, France/Peter Willi/Bridgeman Art Library (Gaugamela)
Underwood & Underwood/CORBIS (Zulu warriors )
U.S. Navy/National Archives (Yorktown in dry dock)
Werner Forman/Art Resource, NY (Poitiers/Frankish version)
List of Maps
The Battle of Salamis
The Battle of Gaugamela
The Battle of Cannae
The Battle of Poitiers
The Battle of Tenochtitlán
The Battle of Lepanto
The Battle for Rorke’s Drift
The Battle of Midway
Major Battles of the Tet Offensive
Preface
THROUGHOUT THIS BOOK I use the term “Western” to refer to the culture of classical antiquity that arose in Greece and Rome; survived the collapse of the Roman Empire; spread to western and northern Europe; then during the great periods of exploration and colonization of the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries expanded to the Americas, Australia, and areas of Asia and Africa; and now exercises global political, economic, cultural, and military power far greater than the size of its territory or population might otherwise suggest. While the chapter titles reflect key elements of this common Western cultural tradition, they should not imply that all European states always shared exactly the same values, or that these core institutions and practices were unchanging over some 2,500 years of history. While I grant that critics would disagree on a variety of fronts over the reasons for European military dynamism and the nature of Western civilization itself, I have no interest in entering such contemporary cultural debates, since my interests are in the military power, not the morality, of the West.
Consequently, I have deliberately concentrated on those West-East fault lines that emphasize the singular lethality of Western culture at war in comparison to other traditions that grew up in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. These valid generalizations should not imply that at times there were not real differences among particular European states themselves or that Western and non-Western cultures were either monolithic or always at odds with each other. And while I discuss larger issues of government, religion, and economy, my primary aim is to explain Western military power, not the general nature and evolution of Western civilization at large.
This is not a book, then, written for academic specialists. Instead, I have tried to offer a synthesis of Western society at war for the general reader across some 2,500 years of history that concentrates on general trends, rather than an original work of primary research within a defined historical period. I have used formal scholarly citations in parentheses in the text only for the longer direct quotations—although detailed information concerning factual material is derived from primary sources and secondary books and articles discussed at the conclusion of the book.
I have many to thank. Sabina Robinson and Karin Lee of CSU Fresno’s Honors Program were effective proofreaders. Katherine Becker, a doctoral student in Ohio State University’s military history program, helped with editing and bibliographical duties. Once more my colleague in classics at CSU Fresno, Professor Bruce Thornton, read the entire manuscript and saved me from numerous errors. Dr. Luis Costa, dean of the School of Arts and Humanities at CSU Fresno, provided a timely research grant that allowed me to visit a number of libraries and to see the manuscript through final submission. I owe him once more a debt of gratitude.
I have also learned a great deal about We
stern warfare from the works of Geoffrey Parker, John Keegan, and Barry Strauss, and from conversations and correspondence with Josiah Bunting III, Allan Millett, Geoffrey Parker, John Lynn, and Robert Cowley. I wish to thank Charles Garrigus, Donald Kagan, John Heath, Steven Ozment, and Bruce Thornton for their continued friendship. Donald Kagan and Steven Ozment have taught me much about Western civilization in the past decade; both have served as model custodians of our cultural heritage in often scary and depressing times. Correspondence with Rita Atwood, Nick Germanicos, Debbie Kazazis, Michelle McKenna, and Rebecca Sinos was of great help during the writing of the manuscript.
Ms. M. C. Drake, professor of theater arts and design at CSU Fresno, drew the original version of the maps. I owe her a great deal of thanks. My literary agents, Glen Hartley and Lynn Chu, have been friends for more than a decade and have given me advice and support that I could not have found elsewhere. They have been my lifeline from a rather isolated farm south of Fresno to the complex and often baffling world of New York. By the same token, I owe my editor at Doubleday, Adam Bellow, appreciation, for the present book and for others in the past.
My wife, Cara, proofread the final typeset manuscript; once more I thank her for her continual support—and for the maintenance of sanity in a household of three teenagers, six dogs, seven cats, a bird, one rabbit, a creaking 120-year-old farmhouse, and sixty acres of money-losing trees and vines. My three children, Susannah, William, and Pauline, once more took up many of my responsibilities on our farm and in our household that helped to allow me to finish this book.
V.D.H.
Selma, California
September 2000
ONE
Why the West Has Won
When the trumpet sounded, the soldiers took up their arms and went out. As they charged faster and faster, they gave a loud cry, and on their own broke into a run toward the camp. But a great fear took hold of the barbarian hosts; the Cilician queen fled outright in her carriage, and those in the market threw down their wares and also took to flight. At that point, the Greeks in great laughter approached the camp. And the Cilician queen was filled with admiration at the brilliant spectacle and order of the phalanx; and Cyrus was delighted to see the abject terror of the barbarians when they saw the Greeks.
—XENOPHON, Anabasis (1.2.16–18)
ENLIGHTENED THUGS
EVEN THE PLIGHT of enterprising killers can tell us something. In the summer of 401 B.C., 10,700 Greek hoplite soldiers—infantrymen heavily armed with spear, shield, and body armor—were hired by Cyrus the Younger to help press his claim to the Persian throne. The recruits were in large part battle-hardened veterans of the prior twenty-seven-year Peloponnesian War (431–404 B.C.). As mercenaries, they were mustered from throughout the Greek-speaking world. Many were murderous renegades and exiles. Both near adolescents and the still hale in late middle age enlisted for pay. Large numbers were unemployed and desperate at any cost for lucrative work as killers in the exhausted aftermath of the internecine war that had nearly ruined the Greek world. Yet there were also a few privileged students of philosophy and oratory in the ranks, who would march into Asia side by side these destitute mercenaries—aristocrats like Xenophon, student of Socrates, and Proxenus, the Boeotian general, as well as physicians, professional officers, would-be colonists, and wealthy Greek friends of Prince Cyrus.
After a successful eastward march of more than 1,500 miles that scattered all opposition, the Greeks smashed through the royal Persian line at the battle of Cunaxa, north of Babylon. The price for destroying an entire wing of the Persian army was a single Greek hoplite wounded by an arrow. The victory of the Ten Thousand in the climactic showdown for the Persian throne, however, was wasted when their employer, Cyrus, rashly pursued his brother, Artaxerxes, across the battle line and was cut down by the Persian imperial guard.
Suddenly confronted by a host of enemies and hostile former allies, stranded far from home without money, guides, provisions, or the would-be king, and without ample cavalry or missile troops, the orphaned Greek expeditionary infantrymen nevertheless voted not to surrender to the Persian monarchy. Instead, they prepared to fight their way back to the Greek world. That brutal trek northward through Asia to the shores of the Black Sea forms the centerpiece of Xenophon’s Anabasis (“The March Up-Country”), the author himself one of the leaders of the retreating Ten Thousand.
Though surrounded by thousands of enemies, their original generals captured and beheaded, forced to traverse through the contested lands of more than twenty different peoples, caught in snowdrifts, high mountain passes, and waterless steppes, suffering frostbite, malnutrition, and frequent sickness, as well as fighting various savage tribesmen, the Greeks reached the safety of the Black Sea largely intact—less than a year and a half after leaving home. They had routed every hostile Asian force in their way. Five out of six made it out alive, the majority of the dead lost not in battle, but in the high snows of Armenia.
During their ordeal, the Ten Thousand were dumbfounded by the Taochians, whose women and children jumped off the high cliffs of their village in a ritual mass suicide. They found the barbaric white-skinned Mossynoecians, who engaged in sexual intercourse openly in public, equally baffling. The Chalybians traveled with the heads of their slain opponents. Even the royal army of Persia appeared strange; its pursuing infantry, sometimes whipped on by their officers, fled at the first onslaught of the Greek phalanx. What ultimately strikes the reader of the Anabasis is not merely the courage, skill, and brutality of the Greek army—which after all had no business in Asia other than killing and money—but the vast cultural divide between the Ten Thousand and the brave tribes they fought.
Where else in the Mediterranean would philosophers and students of rhetoric march in file alongside cutthroats to crash headlong into enemy flesh? Where else would every man under arms feel equal to anyone else in the army—or at least see himself as free and in control of his own destiny? What other army of the ancient world elected its own leaders? And how could such a small force by elected committee navigate its way thousands of miles home amid thousands of hostile enemies?
Once the Ten Thousand, as much a “marching democracy” as a hired army, left the battlefield of Cunaxa, the soldiers routinely held assemblies in which they voted on the proposals of their elected leaders. In times of crises, they formed ad hoc boards to ensure that there were sufficient archers, cavalry, and medical corpsmen. When faced with a variety of unexpected challenges both natural and human—impassable rivers, a dearth of food, and unfamiliar tribal enemies—councils were held to debate and discuss new tactics, craft new weapons, and adopt modifications in organization. The elected generals marched and fought alongside their men—and were careful to provide a fiscal account of their expenditures.
The soldiers in the ranks sought face-to-face shock battle with their enemies. All accepted the need for strict discipline and fought shoulder-to-shoulder whenever practicable. Despite their own critical shortage of mounted troops, they nevertheless felt only disdain for the cavalry of the Great King. “No one ever died in battle from the bite or kick of a horse,” Xenophon reminded his beleaguered foot soldiers (Anabasis 3.2.19). Upon reaching the coast of the Black Sea, the Ten Thousand conducted judicial inquiries and audits of its leadership’s performance during the past year, while disgruntled individuals freely voted to split apart and make their own way back home. A lowly Arcadian shepherd had the same vote as the aristocratic Xenophon, student of Socrates, soon-to-be author of treatises ranging from moral philosophy to the income potential of ancient Athens.
To envision the equivalent of a Persian Ten Thousand is impossible. Imagine the likelihood of the Persian king’s elite force of heavy infantry— the so-called Immortals, or Amrtaka, who likewise numbered 10,000— outnumbered ten to one, cut off and abandoned in Greece, marching from the Peloponnese to Thessaly, defeating the numerically superior phalanxes of every Greek city-state they invaded, as they reached the safety of the Hellespont.
History offers a more tragic and real-life parallel: the Persian general Mardonius’s huge invasion army of 479 B.C. that was defeated by the numerically inferior Greeks at the battle of Plataea and then forced to retire home three hundred miles northward through Thessaly and Thrace. Despite the army’s enormous size and the absence of any organized pursuit, few of the Persians ever returned home. They were clearly no Ten Thousand. Their king had long ago abandoned them; after his defeat at Salamis, Xerxes had marched back to the safety of his court the prior autumn.
Technological superiority does not in itself explain the miraculous Greek achievement, although Xenophon at various places suggests that the Ten Thousand’s heavy bronze, wood, and iron panoply was unmatched by anything found in Asia. There is no evidence either that the Greeks were by nature “different” from King Artaxerxes’ men. The later pseudoscientific notion that the Europeans were racially superior to the Persians was entertained by no Greeks of the time. Although they were mercenary veterans and bent on booty and theft, the Ten Thousand were no more savage or warlike than other raiders and plunderers of the time; much less were they kinder or more moral people than the tribes they met in Asia. Greek religion did not put a high premium on turning the other cheek or on a belief that war per se was either abnormal or amoral. Climate, geography, and natural resources tell us as little. In fact, Xenophon’s men could only envy the inhabitants of Asia Minor, whose arable land and natural wealth were in dire contrast to their poor soil back in Greece. Indeed, they warned their men that any Greeks who migrated eastward might become lethargic “Lotus-Eaters” in such a far wealthier natural landscape.
The Anabasis makes it clear, however, that the Greeks fought much differently than their adversaries and that such unique Hellenic characteristics of battle—a sense of personal freedom, superior discipline, matchless weapons, egalitarian camaraderie, individual initiative, constant tactical adaptation and flexibility, preference for shock battle of heavy infantry—were themselves the murderous dividends of Hellenic culture at large. The peculiar way Greeks killed grew out of consensual government, equality among the middling classes, civilian audit of military affairs, and politics apart from religion, freedom and individualism, and rationalism. The ordeal of the Ten Thousand, when stranded and near extinction, brought out the polis that was innate in all Greek soldiers, who then conducted themselves on campaign precisely as civilians in their respective city-states.
Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power Page 1