My reading of late has centred on a re-appreciation for, and, to some extent, a re-discovery of, the art of war in antiquity (or thereabouts). I suspect that recent discussions on the SWC regarding Roman COIN operations and Luttwak’s rekindling of interest in Byzantine strategic thought may have had something to do with it. Nonetheless, the works consulted over the past weeks comprise;
The Interlinear Translation of the Anabasis of Xenophon. There has been renewed interest in Byzantine strategy, especially in the recent article by Edward Luttwak in Foreign Affairs and reading the original really is enlightening if only for comparing what Xenophon actually says with Luttwak’s, and other commentators, interpretations.
The works by Theodore Ayrault Dodge (c. late 19th Century) though having been largely superseded, by the work of (for instance) Adrian Goldsworthy with respect to Roman Warfare, still repay reading if only for the wealth of information and depth of analysis Dodge provides. Which see;
Alexander and the Macedonian Art of War,
Caesar and the Roman Art of War and
Hannibal and the Carthaginian Art of War.
Indeed, Dodge’s observations regarding Caesar’s Gallic campaign are no less true of today’s small wars;
(From Dodge’s, Caesar and the Roman Art of War); Statecraft counts for much in a great captain's work. Caesar's policy in Gaul was on the whole so harsh as scarcely to rate as policy at all. This is the civil aspect of the matter. From another point of view it was as masterly as the problem was difficult. Caesar had to conciliate some tribes while attacking other neighbouring and friendly tribes. He had to supply himself while destroying victual for the enemy. He had to elevate part of the people in order to suppress another part. He had to play one half of the population against the other half. He had a population of eight million Gauls to oppose his dozen legions.(p.341)
Richard D. Hunt, Queen Boudicca’s Battle of Britain. Using primary sources (Caesar, Cassius Dio, Suetonius and Tacitus) Hunt reconstructs the events that led to the “Iceni uprising” (covered in Chapter VIII). Hunt gives a masterful account of the political background, tribal composition of Britain, Roman polices and Boudicca’s CoA and resultant aftermath in a book numbering only 137 pages all told (as a writer of crime fiction, rather than a historian, he also writes a cracking narrative). I often thought of the tribal uprisings in Iraq when I read this book and of the travails of an occupying power attempting to reorganise a foreign land (though the Romans came to annex not liberate). The parallels are striking right down to the complex interplay of carrot and stick and patron-client relations employed by the Romans towards Britain’s tribes and their “notables”. Caesar and Tacitus knew the importance of understanding the “Human Terrain” something which has recently come into vogue (but which is nothing if not common sense- “know your enemy” and all that);
Nor were they lax in IPB...(says Caesar) By far the most civilised inhabitants are those living in Kent[sic!], a purely maritime district, whose way of life differs little from that of the Gauls. Most of the tribes in the interior do not grow corn but live on milk and meat, and wear skins. All the Britons dye their bodies with woad, which produces a blue colour, and this gives them a more terrifying appearance in battle. Their wear their hair long, and shave the whole of their bodies except the head and the upper lip. Wives are shared between groups of ten or twelve men, especially between brothers and between fathers and sons; but the offspring of these unions are counted as the children of the man with whom a particular woman cohabited first[!](p.11)
And like Petraeus in Iraq the Roman governor Publius Ostorius Scapula, sent to bring order and replace his ineffectual predecessor, inherited a situation in Britain, writes Tacitus in his Annals, that was nothing short of...(Says Tacitus) Their strength is in their infantry. Some tribes also fight from chariots. The nobleman drives, his dependants fight in his defence. Once they owed obedience to kings; now they are distracted between the jarring factions of rival chiefs. Indeed, nothing has helped us more in war with their strongest nations that their inability to co-operate. It is but seldom that two or three states unite to repel a common danger; fighting in detail they are defeated wholesale.(p.16)
And what of Roman motivation to invade? Perhaps those of a cynical bent will find parallels here too......chaotic. Convinced that a new commander, with an unfamiliar army and with winter begun, would not fight them, hostile tribes had broken violently into the Roman province. But Ostorius knew that initial results are what produce alarm or confidence. So he marched his light auxiliary battalions rapidly ahead, and stamped out resistance. The enemy dispersed and were hard pressed.p.47
In fact, seen in the perspective of antiquity Boudicca’s uprising is little different to those experienced by the Allies in Iraq (sans AQI and WMD of course; although the idea of equating Boudicca with people like Moqtada As-Sadr makes my stomach churn). Obviously, the Allies in Iraq were nothing like Rome and her Legions when it came to COIN; today’s RoEs are more humane (for good or ill) and less brutal than were Roman SOPs. Yet, skilfully applied violence works; nothing like a swift sharp blow to the head to bring people to their senses (as riot police know full well). Who knows, maybe one day an Iraqi will write about the uprisings against the US and Allies with the same fond if critical commemoration that one usually affords to lost causes. Perhaps over time even they will appreciate the ‘civilitas’ which they were bequeathed however strange and unappealing it may have appeared to them beforehand and however “alien” America and her allies may appear now.(...says Tacitus) Britain yields gold, silver and other metals, to make it worth conquering.(p.11)
B.H Liddell Hart, Scipio Africanus: Greater than Napoleon. Originally written in 1926 by the irascible B. H. Liddell Hart of “indirect Approach” fame the book purports (if the introduction is anything to go by) to be a biography of the famous roman general Scipio Africanus but is instead a history of his campaign against Hannibal in North Africa during the 2nd Punic War. Indeed, the work is really rather more of a study of the generalship of Scipio vs. Hannibal with an admixture of Roman domestic political shenanigans thrown in. However, unsurprisingly for Hart, he often falls into the trap of attributing Scipio with having discovered principles that Hart would later popularise. I find the following quote ironic for being a refutation of what one of my old university lecturers called the fallacy of “Liddell-Hartism”; i.e., that the indirect approach worked only if the enemy was caught napping or decided to stand still while Hart’s forces manoeuvred around him. In this quote Hart seems to comprehend the importance of needing to hold or fix the enemy in order to develop a “decisive” manoeuvre;
In the sphere of tactics there is a lesson in his [Scipio’s] consummate blending of the principles of surprise and security, first in the way he secured every offensive move from possible interference or mischance, second in the way he “fixed” the enemy before, and during, the decisive manoeuvre. To strike at an enemy who preserves his freedom of action is to risk hitting the air and being caught off one’s balance. It is to gamble on chances, and the least mischance is liable to upset the whole plan. Yet how often in war, and even in peace-time manoeuvres, have commanders initiated some superficially brilliant manoeuvre only to find that the enemy have slipped away from the would be knock-out, because the assailant forgot the need of “fixing” and the tactical formula of fixing plus decisive manoeuvre is, after all, but the domestic proverb, “First catch your hare, then cook it”. (p.43)
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