i didnt know alexandert the great was tutored by aristotle

i read a story about a monkey who used a gesture that meant i think your OK to lure another smaller monkey closers so she could beat it up basically.

I love that you share so much history here, Setanta. It wasn't my favorite subject in school, but you make it interesting.

Your last statement seems to me more of a current event. (History repeating itself over and over again?)

OGIONIK wrote:

i read a story about a monkey who used a gesture that meant i think your OK to lure another smaller monkey closers so she could beat it up basically.

This man is a veritable treasure trove of quotations suitable for sig lines. OGIONIK is fast becoming one of my favorite posters.

That's extremely hard to say, simply because military practice has always changed with the passage of time. Leadership counts for a good deal, which explains in no small measure how Frederick II was able to make so much of what was basically a scattered and indefensible state such as Prussia was in the 18th century. I'd rather not hazard an opinion on such a question, which, when one considers how much different military conditions are from one age to another, in fact, often, from one generation to another, is actually a meaningless question.

Among those who were great innovators, i would say that almost none existed in the ancient world (and in fact, i only say "almost none" because i have no doubt that there are any number of people willing to rush in and propose their own favorite candidates for such an honor). In the ancient world, Sun Tzu, a Chinese general about whom little is known for certain, seems to have been the most intelligent, and the most innovative thinker. That is only speculation, however, since we don't know the state of military practice 2,500 years ago in China, so one can't really say just how innovative he might have been. His book, The Art of War, is such a perceptive insight into military operations that it is studied profitably to this day. It also contains very perceptive insights into diplomatic relations, and both its military and its diplomatic prescriptions are carefully observed and practiced by business men the the far East in our own times.

From ancient times, battles were fought in parallel order, which means both sides lined up facing one another, and then had at it. Often, in fact, usually, cavalry would be placed on one flank or the other, and would attempt to break the enemy's line by a sudden charge (this, in fact, is what Alexander and his household cavalry did at the battle of Issus, when he first met and defeated the Persian Emperor with his main army). However, since both sides tended to do this, it often just resulted in a mounted brawl on either end of the main riot. Battles were, therefore, usually decided "at the push of the pike," meaning a bloody, ham-handed and brutal stand up fight until one side or the other broke. As soon as one side starts to run away, they are likely to pay a very heavy price in killed or wounded. This is why, even though the attacker usually suffers more than the defender, attacking, if properly handled, is preferable to standing on the defensive, because if it works, you can make your enemy pay a very high price, and perhaps even destroy them, despite your initial losses. That is why leadership matters so much. Alexander's leadership was of a paltry kind--he would throw himself recklessly into the fray, and that would inspire his Life Guard to a berserker frenzy to save his life. Iulius Caesar, by contrast, displayed true leadership, both in the military and the political spheres. On several notable occasions, Caesar won great victories even though his forces were outnumbered, and he commanded the loyalty of his troops, and of the common people of Rome, as his main rival, Pompey the Great, was never able to manage.

So, one can pick and choose among the great leaders of the past to attempt to make claims for who was the greatest. It is a game i generally don't care to play.

Most differences in the effectiveness of troops in history have depended on the exploitation of weapons, or weapons skills, such as the Goths with their "heavy cavalry," or the Mongols with their mounted archers--and of course, the Romans dominated the battlefields of the ancient western world for nearly a thousand years because of the steady discipline of their heavy infantry. There are, however, some few people who stand out since the era of firearms, because firearms worked such a radical change on the terms of tactical combat (don't confuse tactics with strategy; strategy determines where you fight, and often why--but tactics is the "art" or "science" of how, in detail, you fight). Firearms first make a difference in warfare at the end of the Hundred Years War, when Jean and Gaspard Bureau organized the artillery of the the King of France in the 15th century, and finally ended the domination of the English in that war and in France. Essentially, though, there had been no changes in tactics worthy of note. However, in the 15th century, the Bohemians (among others in Europe) became master makers of hand-held firearms, and when their religious hero Jan Hus was tricked by church leaders, and burned at the stake as a heretic, they rebelled against the Austrian masters, and for the first time in history, a force which relied almost exclusively on firearms dependably and repeatedly defeated those who attacked them. Those fights, though, were in rough country, and the Hussites would travel about in wagon trains, and would circle the wagons and shoot down their opponents when the Austrians attempted to attack them.

But in the 16th century, the revolt of the Dutch began, and they fought the Spanish for more than 80 years to secure their independence (i won't go into an explanation of why Spain then owned Holland), and things changed radically late in the 16th century. The spirit and great leader of the rebellion was William of Nassau, William the Silent. But he was assassinated in 1584, and his son Maurice, although lacking authority, began to organize the rebellion, and became its true leader, even when other men were given the command of the armies which fought the Spanish. The Dutch frequently hired German, English and Scots troops to fight the battles, which usually meant that German, English or Scots officers commanded the troops. Maurice read extensively on military theory, especially siege theory, and applied what he read in real life, on the campaign, and on the field of battle. Holland is hardly a country where cavalry would be trained and used, but Maurice created an effective Dutch cavalry, and a tradition which would last the Dutch right through the Napoleonic wars more than 200 years later. Still, Maurice, despite his reforms to make the infantry effective and reliable, instituted no innovations in tactical practice. But he did one thing which stunned Europe and heralded a new age of warfare. He stopped the attack of Spanish heavy cavalry with an infantry line, using firearms alone. It was unheard of, and in fact, was discounted by many at the time as a fluke. I can't give you a specific date at the moment, but it would have been in the 1580s or -90s.

What was more important than that, however, was that Maurice so impressed Gustav Vasa, that he hired Dutch officers to come to Sweden to instruct his officers and army, and sent Swedish officers to Holland to study and serve under Maurice. This only became important after Gustav Vasa was dead, though. He was the first king of the Vasa dynasty, and his successors ran into trouble almost immediately. Without going into the detail, the son of Gustav's third son became king in 1611, when he was just 17 years of age. That was Gustav Adolf, known to history as Gustavus Adolphus. I could write pages about him, but i will only take notice here that his "pure" Swedish army (the army before it became a majority of German levies) was trained to a standard and a tactical practice which was unknown in Europe in the 17th Century. At the time the opening phases of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) was being fought, Gustav Adolf was fighting his uncle in Poland. Unfortunately, there are no good records of his campaigns, or how he fought there--we only know that the contest swayed back and forth, but that Gustav eventually defeated the Poles and his uncle (their elected king), even though he was fighting far from home and was usually outnumbered.

In 1630, however, he landed his army in northern Germany, and was come as the defender of German Protestants. There he burst upon the European military scene like a shell exploding in the dark night. His strategic sense was sound, and his initial actions were to secure his base, and to seek allies, or to frighten anyone in his path who might betray him. The main Imperial commander, Count Tilly was marching toward the north, and had arrived in Saxony in the spring of 1631, where Gustav Adolf met him with an army comprised of the Swedes, and Saxons who had been sent along with him by their reluctant Duke. As with almost all battles since time immemorial, the two armies lined up facing one another in parallel order. The Imperialists had a wooded ridge on their right, so almost all of the cavalry was put on their left flank, under the command of Gottfried Graf zu Pappenheim, a talented but mercurial Imperial officer. The Imperialists and the troops of the Catholic League were placed in huge blocks--in those days, a regiment (1500 men at full strength) would usually form in a solid block, fifty men wide and thirty men deep. But Tilly had the habit of putting many regiments together, with ten thousand men in each formation, 200 men wide and 50 men deep. They relied primarily on the pike (a long spear-like weapon, from 10 to 16 feet long, which a huge, ugly combination spear-head and ax at the business end), with some men using firearms on the flanks.

The Swedes lined up in a formation which the Imperialists did not understand, and which they viewed with contempt. When Maurice had broken the charge of the Spanish cavalry, his men were lined up ten men deep. But Gustav had modified this further (possibly from his experience campaigning in Poland), and he spread his army out in a long, thin line, with battalions of about 600 men in three lines, and relying upon muskets and short swords. In the intervals between the formations were light field guns which were placed to create a crossfire on any attacker in front of the line. Small detachments of cavalry stood behind and supported the guns, and although the bulk of the cavalry was on the Swedish right flank (facing Pappenheim), they were not in a huge solid block like the Imperialists, and a large amount of the cavalry was posted in small groups behind the center of the line.

In contempt, Pappenheim, against the orders of Count Tilly, launched his massive block of cavalry at the thin lines of Swedish horse. Their sheer momentum pretty well guaranteed initial success, but they were galled as they advanced by the fire of the small guns placed between the Swedish battalions, and as they drew near the Swedish cavalry, the nearby Swedish infantry battalions wheeled and poured a heavy fire of musketry into them. Pappenheim was sure that he was driving the Swedish horse, but in fact, they were running away by policy. Cavalry doesn't attack at a gallop, as they show it in the movies (until the Prussians did it a century later, but that's another tale), but usually start at a walk and work up to a trot, and come in for the kill at a canter. Nonetheless, this wears out the horses, and disorganizes the line. The Swedes retreated until Pappenheim's troopers were well and truly disorganized, at which point they turned, and supported by the reserves from the center, launched a counterattack which put the Imperial cavalry to a flight. They were severely punished on their way back to their own lines by the fire of the Swedish infantry and the small guns, too.

This was all too much for the Saxons, though, and they promptly ran for Dresden as fast as their fat little legs would carry them. It would appear that Tilly had the advantage. He had about 35,000 troops over all, and Gustav now had less than 24,000. But several factors have to be taken into account. Pappenheim's foolishness had cost Tilly the use of most of his horse, since they were worthless for the rest of the day, and had suffered badly from the Swedish small arms and artillery fire. On the other hand, the Swedish cavalry was largely unhurt, and had quickly returned to their starting positions, and were there to continue to protect the Swedish right flank. The desertion of the Saxons probably actually helped Gustav, because they weren't in the way any longer.

Tilly couldn't use the small cavalry force on his right, because they would have become disorganized attempting to cross the wooded ridges, so he threw his huge blocks of infantry into the gap where the Saxons had been, and then stopped them cold, so that they could turn about and reform, facing the Swedish left flank. The only problem with that was that the Swedish left flank wasn't there any longer. As the Imperialists were marching up, Gustav had drawn in his line, wheeled his battalions (easy to do because they were in small groups), and Tilly was now facing the bulk of Gustav's army, unhurt, and "un-fatigued." The attempted Imperialist attack turned into a disaster. The Swedes were using muskets, an innovation which was lighter and fired faster and more accurately than the firearms in common use up to that time. Tilly had quite a few musketeers himself, but they were on the flanks of his huge blocks of pikemen, and he had to stop the entire affair so that they could go to the front to fire--meanwhile, the Swedes were pouring in the musketry, and the small field guns in the intervals of the battalions were throwing solid shot into ranks 50 men deep, and were killing and mangling hundreds every minute. To "sweeten" the pie, the Swedish horse, now unthreatened, lead an attack on the Imperial artillery, knocking them out of the fight, and turning many of the guns on Tilly's huge blocks of infantry. The Imperialists broke before they could come "to the push of the pike." And that was the battle of Breitenfeld, near Leipsic.

Battles continued to be fought in parallel order, even by the Swedes. But a new sense of mobility, and the use of combined arms (infantry working in cooperation with cavalry and artillery) was introduced. Most of western Europe had thought little of the Swedes and the King before this battle--and even afterward, they didn't understand what had happened to Tilly. Many military observers had considered it a fluke. But some people paid attention, and new ideas began to circulate in European military circles. They would be applied, piecemeal, here and there in the wars which succeeded the death of Gustav (he was killed at the Battle of Lützen the following year, a few miles from the scene of his first great triumph), but it would not be until just before the French Revolution that any army would devise an entirely new system of tactical, organizational and operational method, when the French army was reorganized following the American Revolution.

That, of course, would take pages and pages more to explain. It is worth noting that both Clausewitz and Napoleon both considered him to be one of the greatest military commanders of all time.