No Replacement For Displacement

Steven Den Beste has a good article on military history today. I have some criticisms of it, of it, some of it on the periphery, some of it on point. Due to the length of it, I am going to split my response up into a multiple parts.

Steven says that Philip of Macedon revolutionized the military by creating the Phalanx, and the disciplined army. While Philip did change the face of ancient warfare, it wasn't by introducing the concept of soldiers in ranks to create a phalanx. That concept had been created by the Greek city states at least a century beforehand.

The Greek citizen soldiers used a phalanx with a number of well armored soldiers arrayed in ranks with shields and shorter spears than the Macedonian version. The Greek phalanx would use the shield wall to batter their opponent with corresponding spear thrusts. The Greeks routinely defeated Persian armies who did not use the greek method of warfare, even when heavily outnumbered. The Three Hundred Spartans were able to hold off a Persian army of thousands at Thermopylae for quite a while before being overwhelmed(and that only due to another Greek's treason), and in turn gave the Greeks the time to raise an army and throughouly defeat the Persian army. This defeat would be repeated ad infinitum--disciplined Greeks going up against undisciplined Persians, and driving the Persians from the battlefield with comparative ease.

Philips major improvement was in changing the phalanx and integrating cavalry and archers into the army. The Persians had used these arms of battle against the Greeks as well, but did not use them with any efficacy. The Greeks disdained missileers and cavalry in general. Philip integrated cavalry and missileers into his army using the same ideas of discipline that applied to the phalanx. He also changed the phalanx from relying primarily on shields as its key component to one relying primarily on the long spear. This gave the Macedonians a critical advantage over the Greeks, which allowed them to conquer Greece, and then allowed Alexander to conquer Persia.

Update: OK, this isn't really an update. Actually, it is part of my learning experience as to the limitations of Blogger software. Anyway, to continue:

The model of the Macedonian phalanx returns a number of times over history, not ending for good until the 17th century. Swiss Pikemen operated very similar to the Macedonian phalanx, though the Swiss model was I believe a bit more flexible and faster on the battlefield than the Macedonian phalanx.

Later on in his post, Steven writes:

Instead of emphasizing initiative on the part of the individual soldier, the new tactics required the soldier to dutifully follow orders without thinking. Obedience was the great virtue. The ideal soldier listened well and did what he was told; if the men of the phalanx didn't all obey orders the same way then the cohesion of the phalanx was destroyed and its combat power was greatly reduced.

The next two and a half thousand years of war continued this trend, and the most successful armies were those whose men were the most obedient and disciplined. The Roman Legions gained their strength from the coordinated use of their shields and swords, and you find the same thing right up until the Napoleonic era, by which point this had become extremely elaborate.

While discipline and obedience were important, individual initiative was as well, even in antiquity. In Greek combat, veteran soldiers were placed in the rear of the Phalanx, so they could spur on the more green soldiers in front and prevent them from breaking. In Roman combat, legionnaries had to exercise individual initiative by necessity. In open combat each legionary was responsible for defending approximately 2 meters of frontage of the century to which he was assigned. He was to use the shield to bludgeon his opponent and the short sword to stab and chop at his opponents weak points continually. Against barbarian opponents, who carried large swords or axes, this gave the Roman an enormous advantage over his opponent, since in close combat the short sword could stab at the armpit of his opponent, or chop at the arm of an opponent who has missed. This was extraordinarily exhausting, and it was expected for a legionnary to break off combat and retire to the rear to recuperate as his comrades would move in to take his place.

This gave the Legion a massive increase in flexibility over the phalanx, which did not have that provision. This does not seem like much individual initiative, but it was. Soldiers in the rear ranks had to pay attention to the physical condition of their comrades in the front rank, and be prepared to take his place should he falter. Also, it shows that individual initiative, discipline, and unit cohesion are not mutually exclusive. Commanders of smaller formations had the ability to issue orders on their own initiative, which was part and parcel of the entire army. Barbarian(non-western) armies would try to break the line of Roman armies and almost invariably fail, because Centurions had that capability to react on their own. Barbarians did not have that capability, and once the line broke, the army fled. It wasn't until the Germanic tribes had adapted and improved upon Roman tactics(plus some help from the stirrup) would Rome fall.

As weapons improved, and the ability of the individual infantryman to kill at ranges developed, individual initiative became more, rather than less important. Skirmishing tactics became more important with the advent of the musket, and could have a devastating effect on soldiers in ranks, as was demonstrated at Fort Duquesne in the French and Indian war, Lexingon & Concord in the Revolutionary war, and the Spanish insurrection in Napoleon's time. Also, the initiative of individual soldiers did matter even in conventional set-piece battles. As a result of the Revolutionary War experience, British soldiers at the time of Napoleon were probably the best in the world. There were required as much to act as skirmishers as well as regular soldiers. They were trained to act on their own initiative when necessary. They could form a line of two soldiers deep who could fire as quickly as continental armies could with three. They could act either as light infantry or heavy infantry based on the situation. Non-coms would be relied on to lead to an extent not seen in other western armies, and completely absent from non-western ones.

What Steven is observing is not a revolution, but an evolution. Obedience and discipline are as much a part of the modern army as it was in antiquity. In Barbarian armies, obedience was there, but discipline and individual initiative generally were not. In almost every conflict in recorded history, Western armies have shown more individual initiative than their non-western counterparts, and this initiative has paid off in handsome dividends on the field of battle. It has been expected for a soldier in a western army to take the place of his commander, whether it be private->sargeant, sargeant->lieutenant, lieutenant->captain etc.

This also explains why targetting an enemy commander is so brutally effective a tactic with non-western armies, while it is generally less so with western ones. If a captain falls on the field of battle, a senior lieutenant will take his place, the lieutenant's platoon sargeant will take over the lieutenant's platoon, the senior squad leader will take over the platoon sargeant position, and a PFC might take over the squad. This can be best shown by the difference in how the British army behaved after the death of Braddock at Fort Duquesne, where Washington was able to rally his troops and organize a retreat, and the Incas at Cajamarca, where the capture of the Inca king Atahualpa caused the entire Incan army to flee, and allowed Pizzaro to rule the city with only 150 troops.

In military affairs, individual initiative has always matterd. The difference is that now with information technology and instantaneous communications, commanders can explort that initiative in ways that were unimaginable as recently as 50 years ago.