War: A History in 100 Battles

For most of those on ancient or modern battlefields, the willingness to fight is dictated by the options available. Social pressure, demands for sacrifice, harsh discipline, respect for comrades – often drawn from the same area or tribe – and temporary loyalty to a cause or a person combine to prevent mass desertion. Most accounts of battle from the ordinary soldier show that the event itself is dominated by a psychological commitment to combat once the point of no return has been reached. After weeks of marching and camping, actual battle can be exhilarating as men are overtaken by waves of pent-up adrenalin. Unsurprisingly, fear also exists widely in battle, yet fear does not debilitate those who fight. William Wharton, an American novelist who served at the front line in Europe in 1944, found that he was ‘scared more than most people’, but he controlled his fear because of his companions: ‘I discover the difference between being scared and being a coward is having other people find out.’ Small-group loyalty has almost certainly been the key to combat in battle because most soldiers and sailors see only a miniature part of the conflict in which they are involved, fighting side-by-side with the few men around them, the battlefield hidden by dust (in early battles), smoke (in later conflicts) or the accident of geography. In hand-to-hand fighting, found in battles across the whole historical span, there is little sense of any order or shape to the battle: the enemy in front of you has to be killed or maimed or he will kill you. At that moment, religious enthusiasm, loyalty to the king or the national ideal become meaningless. Battle is really a description of thousands of small fights for survival, which merge into the single contest once historians give them some narrative shape to explain who won and who lost.

For a large part of 4,000 years of recorded conflict, men have fought because of what they were promised or hoped to find when the enemy, whether on a battlefield or in a siege, is defeated. Looting – whether for treasure, slaves or sex – runs through the accounts of thousands of battles. The huge Ottoman army gathered by Sultan Mehmet II to besiege Constantinople in 1453 may have been attracted to the idea of jihad against the bastion of Orthodox Christianity, but as one observer noted of the repeated and fruitless attempts to storm the city, the soldiers ‘ran towards certain death for booty’. When the city was taken, Mehmet allowed only a day of looting instead of the three customarily allowed under Islamic law, but the eyewitness accounts render a squalid picture of Ottoman soldiers on the rampage, taking anything portable, tying together groups of inhabitants to be dragged off to slavery, raping both women and young boys. Soldiers were often not paid regularly for their service before the last few hundred years (though mercenaries would only fight if they thought they would profit from it with cash, salaries or loot), so they would take any perquisites of war they could find. At Poltava in 1709, Russian troops stripped their Swedish enemies naked on the battlefield, dead and wounded, and took away the boots and tunics as their just deserts. In much classical and early warfare, stripping the dead could provide a moment of good luck, as officers and commanders often took their cash or jewels with them in case they were appropriated in their absence. The capture of the Turkish commander’s ship at Lepanto in 1576 revealed his entire fortune in chests below decks, and the coins and jewellery were distributed among the incredulous marines and sailors who found it.

The possibility of booty was immediate before the professionalization of the military and its support organizations in the nineteenth century. For much of the previous 3,500 years covered by the battles in this book, armies were complex social units, accompanied by women and children, often in large numbers, and a motley crew of retainers, servants and labourers bringing the supplies and guarding any treasure. Wives commonly accompanied the march and awaited the outcome in the baggage train. Other women were brought along, voluntarily or otherwise, to service the sexual needs of the men. Hundreds of women would be employed preparing food, moving supplies, mending uniforms or helping to dig trenches. Ottoman armies numbered by chroniclers in the hundreds of thousands usually contained a whole community of followers, wives and concubines; the core of fighting men was only a smaller fraction of the whole. In Europe, the large train of women had been gradually suppressed by the seventeenth century, partly to allow armies to become more mobile but also on moral grounds. Women came to be excluded from military occupations and were left behind in the garrison towns. Those women who accompanied the army were widely regarded as prostitutes. This explains the savage killing of hundreds of women after the Battle of Naseby in the English Civil War. Puritan soldiers punished the women for their immorality, even though a number of them were the wives of Royalist officers. As women came to be excluded from military life, so battles became a male domain, occasionally invaded by a handful of women who wanted to serve as soldiers (an estimated 30 to 50 in the French Revolutionary Wars, 400 in the American Civil War). In the modern age, the identification of battle as an expression of male identity was a central feature of much pacifist writing by women, most famously in Virginia Woolf’s 1938 critique of posturing manhood, The Three Guineas. Since the First World War, women have once again come to form an important auxiliary arm to the regular forces, but now they are uniformed and organized, and bear no resemblance to the vast baggage-trains of earlier times.

In addition to the prospect of booty, soldiers have also been sustained, or alarmed, by religious symbols, superstitions, visions and omens. There are obvious reasons why appeals to the supernatural were important. Belief in a god or gods or the power of the sacred was common to almost all armies throughout history. Since victory was never certain, soldiers and their commanders searched for some sign that they enjoyed divine protection; indications that the opposite might be the case did not necessarily stop soldiers fighting, but it could be deeply demoralizing. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus described arguments in Athens over how to interpret the Delphic Oracle when the priestess predicted that an enemy from the east would bring inevitable woe to the city – ‘from the topmost roofs trickles black blood’ – but that all-seeing Zeus ‘gives a wooden wall’ for ‘divine Salamis’. The pronouncement was difficult to interpret, though it was widely regarded as a signal of impending doom. But the Athenian Themistocles insisted that the wooden wall meant ships, and that the city should spend its accumulated wealth on procuring a new fleet. His view prevailed and the Persian fleet was destroyed at Salamis a few months later. In the later siege of Constantinople, when the fearful Greek population of the city awaited the Ottoman onslaught, there was an eclipse of the full moon that left just a thin lunar crescent, symbol of their Islamic enemy. The inhabitants saw this as a profound omen of the city’s collapse; the Ottoman army rejoiced at such a clear indication of divine favour and a few days later the city was in their hands. Battles were fought by soldiers blessed by priests, buoyed up by favourable auguries and omens, or certain that death in a sacred cause would ensure a life hereafter.

The conditions of most battlefields were such that superstitious expectation offered a thin ray of hope that somehow, amidst the sheer arbitrariness of combat, you might survive where others perished. The context of fighting across the ages has been universally grim. Soldiers often fought after a long march, already exhausted, with bleeding or blistered feet. They were at the mercy of the weather, and mud, rain or snow made a tough assignment tougher still. Dirt, insects, infection and hunger added to a soldier’s routine woes. The anti-hero in Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front complains that his experience of war is only ‘despair, death, fear … an abyss of suffering’. The searing stories of the retreat of Napoleon’s Grande Armée from Russia in 1812 show what price ordinary soldiers paid for their leaders’ grand ambitions, as well as the civilians unlucky enough to be in the path of a desperate army. In battle, the physical demands are hard for anyone who has not experienced it to grasp. After the Battle of Blenheim in 1704, the defeated Comte de Mérode recorded that he had fought continuously for thirty hours, despite suffering an injured and swollen knee, had had no sleep, no food, and just one swig of water. This could be a soldier’s tale from any battle. ‘Why,’ asks William Wharton, ‘do humans, especially military humans, want to do things the hard way?’ Soldiering before the age of aircraft and long-range artillery was an inefficient way of utilizing manpower that too often had soldiers fighting in a daze of exhaustion, at the end of their tether, bleeding from unnoticed wounds, and all because of what their commanders asked of them. Small wonder that time and again in battle accounts, from swigs of rum before a naval engagement to the half pint of brandy served to Napoleon’s soldiers just before Austerlitz, alcohol is used to revive flagging spirits, to dull sharp fears or to combat the freezing climate.

Heat was just as debilitating as cold and a great many of the 100 battles recorded here were fought in searing temperatures and dry conditions that quickly turned the battlefield into a fog of churned-up dust or sand. The critical resource in all kinds of weather, more important for soldiers than any weapon, was water. It is what every wounded soldier asks for first. A shrewd commander makes sure that the army is camped near a supply of fresh water or that water can be ferried to the battlefield. Richard the Lionheart only won the battle at Arsuf because Crusader ships plied along the coast leading to Jaffa with barrels of water for the exhausted, sweaty Europeans in his army. Even then, men died of heat exhaustion on the way. It is hard to imagine having to fight amidst all the clamour and gore of the battlefield for hours on end with no prospect of water to assuage the debilitating effects of dehydration. American army recruits in the Second World War did ‘water hikes’ to prepare them for the reality of battle, marching 100 kilometres (60 miles) over two days in warm weather with just a 1-litre (2-pint) canteen to last the whole time. ‘My mouth starts sticking to itself,’ wrote William Wharton, ‘my tongue to the top of my mouth, my teeth to my lips, my lips to each other.’

There comes a moment in most battles whose outcome is decided in a day or so of combat when one side or the other senses victory and the other senses defeat. Since most soldiers can see little more of the battlefield than what is immediately around them and are given almost no information in the midst of a battle, the way that sense is communicated comes either from the exhortations of commanders if victory seems likely, or the flight of leaders who realize that they have lost. The effect when a commander flees – as at Bannockburn in 1314 when Edward II turned tail – can be immediately damaging. Flight or surrender is a fast-moving infection. Once it is evident, the willingness to continue fighting evaporates with a startling speed. One of the strangest phenomena in battle is the moment when soldiers, who only minutes before are firing muskets or hacking away at the enemy, realize that they have to save themselves. Of course, surrender was often not an option, and there are numerous accounts of battles ancient and modern in which a unit of soldiers or horsemen is annihilated where it stands, surrounded by a sea of enemies. What that moment of certain death means, when men are observed fighting with a frenetic energy against all the odds, self-evidently cannot be known. But where it is possible to flee, at the exact moment when confidence in the outcome collapses, soldiers do so, sometimes in good order, but in a great many battles in complete panic. They are then pursued, hunted down and butchered. Napoleon’s Imperial Guard at Waterloo hurled themselves into the fray with determination, but shortly after, as Wellington’s lines moved forward, they could be seen on their knees weeping and calling for mercy. Soldiers in flight experience a psychological transformation now that their only concern is to save themselves rather than to protect the group.

For ordinary soldiers, the comprehension that they have won a battle can take time to sink in, partly because a large battlefield is a messy and incoherent whole, in which fighting might continue for longer in one small part while overall victory is assured. The Battle of Austerlitz was essentially won by Napoleon by mid-day, but the fighting did not finish at one end of the field for another four hours. Even commanders often have only a hazy view of how a battle is going. They have relied until recently on primitive forms of communication once battle is joined. Very few armies imitated the Mongols, whose commanders would seek high ground in order to signal with coloured flags to their units about their movement on the battlefield. Navies were better adapted to complex signalling, but even here a naval mêlée could easily mask the overall balance of the battle. Otherwise, even with the advent of radio, it could be difficult to direct embattled units or to be confident that plans were being fulfilled. Victory slowly emerged from the literal fog of war only when the enemy abandoned the field, surrendered, or was surrounded and killed.

Victory in battle is clearly likely to be exhilarating and soldiers and sailors indulge that victory in a variety of ways, though time and again they are evidently too exhausted, too damaged and too thirsty to do anything more than occupy the ground. Organized pursuit of a broken enemy, even if strategically sensible, is risky with exhausted men and in many famous cases failed to materialize. The aftermath of battle can be anti-climactic for the winners, particularly the wounded, who die later in droves after battles ancient or modern, their thankless task achieved at an awful cost. Nor is there any guarantee that once the fight is over, there will be food and water available.The Swedish victors at Breitenfeld had to wait until the following morning before they were given anything to eat or drink. The soldiers who survive know what they have done and will use it to weave their own personal narratives, heroic or otherwise. In earlier battles they were often rewarded at once to avert potential disaffection or mutiny and to maintain discipline among men now liberated from the tension of combat.

However exhilarating victory might be, at least for a bittersweet moment, battles seldom decided a war, and victory in one battle could quickly be tarnished by defeat in the next. Beaten soldiers or sailors returned home understanding the nature of their failure, even if glad to have survived. Japanese soldiers were encouraged to kill themselves rather than remain alive and dishonoured. One young conscript in the 1930s recorded in his diary that he was given a knife by his mother so that he could ritually disembowel himself if he was captured. The homecoming could be a mixed blessing even for the victors. The sailors who helped to defeat the Spanish Armada in 1588 were delivered to ports in England a few weeks later with no pay and no means of finding food or shelter save begging. Winning a battle could also be costly for the fortunate commander. The Roman general Flavius Aetius, who defeated Attila the Hun, was battered to death by his jealous emperor in person when he returned to Rome. The victor of Ain Jalut, where the Mongols were finally stopped in their tracks on their way to Egypt, was murdered by jealous officers on his way home. Battle is an event in its own right, with its own history and outcome, but what is made of the battle depends on the wider historical context, political as much as military. Winning in this sense really is only half the battle.

In some cases, battles have been used to serve as symbols or myths to endorse a particular political order or to encourage a shared cultural identity, and have soon assumed a historically abstract character, important for what they might mean for future generations and often surrounded by embellishments that turn the account from historical reality into a comfortable legend. For most ancient and early medieval battles, historians rely on accounts that are literary representations of what might have happened, largely devoid of detail and usually written long after the event. The eleventh-century epic French poem Chanson de Roland was based loosely on a battle that took place at Roncesvalles three centuries before, but its purpose by then was to enshrine notions of Christian nobility in French culture. The famous battle on the ice at Lake Peipus in 1242, where Alexander Nevsky drove back the German invader, was distorted by centuries of myth-making, and in the twentieth century it was adopted as a central motif of Soviet propaganda against the fascist enemy in the Second World War. The Battle of Britain and the Battle of the Somme have become central epic accounts in the search for a British identity, symbols of endurance and courage. Other battles are appropriated as foundation moments – the Battle of the Volturno River in 1860 cemented the unification of Italy; Marengo paved the way for Napoleon’s empire; Actium in 31 BCE became the founding battle of the Augustan age and the triumph of Octavian. There is also a history of how battles have been remembered once they are transformed over time into legend, distinct from the history of the battles themselves.

‘Battle’ as the key element of warfare for at least the past 4,000 years may nevertheless be dying out. The American belief that there is now a fundamental ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ (RMA) – prompted by the new possibilities opened up by cyberwar and precise drone strikes – might make battle in a conventional sense obsolete. The exploitation of the ‘cognitive domain’ suggests that enemies could be subject to psychological pressures and threats that produce disorientation and uncertainty sufficient to obviate the need for actual killing. Perhaps the world is about to enter on one of those long periods of tranquillity detected by archaeologists when they examine the hidden record of prehistoric violence. Or then again, perhaps not.

CHAPTER 1 LEADERSHIP

In our current age, ‘leadership’ is taught as a classroom subject, as if everyone could become a leader if they paid enough attention and did their homework. The history of warfare through the ages should be enough to disabuse us of this illusion. The quality of leadership has varied widely in battle. The fact of command does not turn an indifferent officer into a true leader, any more than a leadership seminar today can turn someone into a leader of tomorrow. Indeed, it is possible for a leader to emerge quite independent of the formal military structures, as the success of Spartacus as leader of the slave rebellion against Rome, or the victory of the iconic Che Guevara in the Cuban Revolution, have both demonstrated. Successful military leaders are usually defined by their successes, but in many conflicts this means success on the battlefield, once, twice or many times, rather than success in war. Napoleon Bonaparte and Erich von Manstein are two such figures whose qualities of leadership are not in doubt, with an impressive list of battle successes, but both faced historical forces that doomed their efforts to eventual failure.

What, then, defines leadership in battle if it is not ultimate strategic or political triumph? This is a difficult question to answer because the nature of battlefield leadership has changed considerably through time. When rulers and generals led their men in person, leadership was based partly on the bravery and fighting skill they displayed as an example to their men. When a leader fell or was killed, the effect on those fighting around him could be disastrous, as it was in the medieval battle of Legnano when the German king, Frederick Barbarossa, fell from his horse in the fighting and disappeared from view. Leaders who ran risks were respected; those who sat prudently on a nearby hill or in their tent relied on lesser commanders to win the loyalty of their troops and sustain their will to fight. In modern wars, the leaders seldom shared the dangers of battle and could be remote from the action. Their skill lay in working out the operational strategy that would secure victory, and their qualities were managerial as well as physical. Even then, knowledge that the leader was there, in contact, was still important. When Napoleon retired hurriedly from the disastrous campaign in Russia in 1812, he doomed his remaining, hopeless troops.

The most distinguished battlefield leaders have been those who combined a grasp of operational reality, a willingness to be imaginative with new technology and tactics, a courage and confidence communicated to those around them, and a willingness to share the dangers of combat. When Alexander the Great went calmly to his tent to sleep on the night before the Battle of Gaugamela, his nervous officers were uncertain how to react. Alexander assured them that victory was certain and, according to the ancient accounts, slept soundly. The overwhelming majority of battles through recorded history suggest that soldiers and sailors fought on the day for their leader rather than for any great ideal, whether religious, political or national. This explains how fighters from very different ethnic or cultural or national communities, often pressed involuntarily into service, could still fight side-by-side against the common foe. The battlefield was a community all of its own in which leaders of whatever kind played a decisive part in holding that community together.

It is obvious in any history of battles that leadership is not a universal quality among military leaders, and many of those on the losing side were poor planners, with little grasp of the battlefield, were overconfident or arrogant in their assessment of the enemy, or were simply lacking in the necessary courage and optimism their forces needed. Such leaders can be found in many of the battles selected here. On the other hand, it was possible to have two leaders of evident quality pitted against each other, where only one could win. The Battle of Hastings perhaps comes closest to that model. It would be difficult to fault Harold for what went wrong that day and no-one would consider it a historical anomaly had he won the field rather than William. This is a reminder that even leadership was seldom enough on its own, which is why innovation, deception, raw courage or good fortune were there to supplement it.