I find these points illuminating because it reminds me that people back in the day were not primitive idiots. There was a very sensible logic to how they waged war. Ultimately, everyone back then wanted to live comfortable long lives like we do.
Another point: After losing so many troops in a singular battle, the Romans changed their tactics. Instead of grouping their entire army as a massive 80,000-man strong Phalanx, they split up their armies into smaller groups, so that their eggs weren't all in one basket anymore.
Hannibal's trick to encircle and kill many roman troops in a single battle was never going to be repeated: the Romans learned of their mistake and made the necessary reforms to protect their troops.
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The Battle of Cannae would go down in history as a military example of how to line up all your troops for potential slaughter. Future generals and tacticians would forever know of that battle and how to avoid those conditions.
Most generals and soldiers would seek a battle of annihilation: if destroying the entire enemy force is possible they will attempt it. The problem is, its very, very difficult to achieve in practice.
As such, simply routing the enemy, is sufficient for most military goals.
A Legion numbered 3000-6000 combat troops around the time of Cannae. The Romans had mobilized additional forces for this battle, and this included an increase in the number of legions as well as the size of some. It is probably more accurate to say that about eight legions (Romans and allies) were destroyed.
Fun fact: the South East Asia was safe guarded from the Mongolian invasion because they was stopped 3 times at Vietnam. The Mongolian had heavy casualties from all 3 of the grand campaigns, despite overwhelming number and was forced to retreat.
The entire Song military of 1m+ and god knows how much irregulars first exhausted its supplies by chasing a more mobile enemy across the central plain, and then defeated with "defeat in details" taken to its extreme, after Song understood that they can't match Mongols in open fields, and decided to go on defensive.
As Mongols set on fire more and more cities, Song's giant military started emptying granaries as they retreated south. With each lost commandry, Song was loosing more and more of its grain production, while having to dig deeper, and deeper into its reserve.
During the second invasion wave, Mongols had to set just few more major granaries on fire for Song military's grain consumption to exceed its production. After that their supply shortage started to snowball, and they lost almost all of its military to rout and desertion within a few years.
> Pitched battles were far more common in the ancient world (think Persia, Macedon, Rome, etc) – this is a product of the larger size and greater organizational capabilities of those armies.
Consequently also in antiquity, most engagements where sieges rather than set piece battles.
The whole "battles were rare, sieges where common" is a trope I believe some YouTubers started, but I don't think there's any solid pattern. Ancient armies pillaged the countryside to provoke encounters. Steppe peoples did pitched battles all the time because they didn't build walls. Medieval Europe may have had more sieges than battles because of religious homogeneity, but you can see how that model falls down soon in the thirty years war: if you don't engage the enemy they'll loot and pillage you to oblivion. Your people see how you are unable to protect them and desert you.
Another distinguishing factor is the widespread building of castles. During the classical era, fortifications were less useful because there were powerful states that could capture them anyway. But when even the nominal king or emperor had trouble mustering a force of fifty thousand men, the castle vs. the siege (and the raid) dominated most warfare. During the classical area many of those same places would have been sparsely populated, and certainly not well fortified.
Defensive structure really only made sense in specific border regions. There however large empires certainty did invest in such defenses. Border cities that were ready to be under siege and that could host an arriving army.
I'm not sure how "exceptional" a multi-generational war was in medieval or ancient times.
There were Five Crusades between ~1100 and ~1300 for example. The Chinese Warring States period was 475 BCE to 221 BCE. Japanese Sengoku period (A similar "Warring states" era) was 1467 - 1600. The Hundred Years' War was 1337 to 1453.
There were times of peace, and then there were times of conflict. Sometimes conflicts that last centuries.
What is interesting about that particular war though is that it did span the literal generations of the Barca family, of which Hannibal was a member, and for whom at least two full generations that I know of all became leading generals in the Carthaginian army.
Rome is also somewhat unique in that they were basically in a state of perpetual war after a certain point in their history. War begat war, especially as the territory grew and the results of victory were wealth and prestige for the families involved.
I would argue that the Romans allowed themselves to be surrounded in the Battle of Carrhae by forming into a block. They got pinned and were badly defeated.
Had to google this one.
> A rout /raʊt/ is a panicked, disorderly and undisciplined retreat of troops from a battlefield, following a collapse in a given unit's command authority, unit cohesion and combat morale (esprit de corps).
Wikipedia has more https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rout
Killing seems to be a lot easier when done to a fleeing enemy. Something about running away makes one a juicy target.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.L.A._Marshall
Some veterans and historians have cast doubt on Marshall's research methods.[15] Professor Roger J. Spiller (Deputy Director of the Combat Studies Institute, US Army Command and General Staff College) argues in his 1988 article, "S. L. A. Marshall and the Ratio of Fire" (RUSI Journal, Winter 1988, pages 63–71), that Marshall had not actually conducted the research upon which he based his ratio-of-fire theory. "The 'systematic collection of data' appears to have been an invention."[16] This revelation has called into question the authenticity of some of Marshall's other books and has lent academic weight to doubts about his integrity that had been raised in military circles even decades earlier.[17]
In his 1989 memoir, About Face, David H. Hackworth described his initial elation at an assignment with a man he idolized, and how that elation turned to disillusion after seeing Marshall's character and methods firsthand. Hackworth described Marshall as a "voyeur warrior", for whom "the truth never got in the way of a good story", and went so far as to say, "Veterans of many of the actions he 'documented' in his books have complained bitterly over the years of his inaccuracy or blatant bias".[18][19]
"On Killing" was not written by S.L.A. Marshall, but by Dave Grossman.
I know a few people have attempted to check this thesis by examining how many historical weapons we have are loaded, or reconstructing battles with laser beams. I'm still skeptical because it's so counterintuitive and old science never replicates, but I don't think "On Killing" has fallen apart yet.
- Most humans naturally don’t want to kill
- Getting soldiers to do so causes them serious trauma
The psychological model put forth in On Killing matches the Milgram Experiments. The specific elements being proximity and relation to both the authority and the target.
Modern armies have adapted their training to account for the proposed human reluctance to kill a fellow human and seem to have lowered that threshold effectively.
Further, other historians have found more evidence to support the notion that most soldiers did not partake in killing. These include muskets containing multiple balls, or staging a battle against a band of cloth, finding much higher accuracy than when firing at a real enemy.
Then again, the author claims that violence in media is partly at fault for our current woes. A notion that I believe has been disproven.
The relationship between media and violence may not be direct, but I suspect it's there.
To my knowledge, much was just shield bashing, posturing, and manoeuvring. It’s very hard to convince a group to close in on an enemy.
Problem is, that would make for a very dull film. Logistics, waiting, posturing, passively starving out a city. No speeches, no charging sword aloft.
The notion that we’re only marginally more intelligent than our ancient predecessors is quite a beautiful one I think.
That said, roman were the first in 100s years to achieve that, so its fair to say that most of the time you are right.
"Total War: Warhammer II" underlines both these statements.