Warfare and Culture in World History, Second Edition 9781479844265

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Warfare and Culture in World History

Warfare and Culture in World History Second Edition

Edited by Wayne E. Lee

NEW YORK UNIVERSIT Y PRESS New York

NEW YORK UNIVERSIT Y PRESS New York www.nyupress.org © 2020 by New York University All rights reserved References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lee, Wayne E., 1965– editor. Title: Warfare and culture in world history / edited by Wayne E. Lee. Description: Second edition. | New York : New York University Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019039487 | ISBN 9781479800001 (cloth) | ISBN 9781479862436 (paperback) | ISBN 9781479842216 (ebook) | ISBN 9781479844265 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Military art and science—History. | War and society—History. | Political culture—History. | Military history. Classification: LCC U27 .W345 2020 | DDC 355.0209—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019039487 New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books. Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Also available as an ebook

Contents

List of Maps and Figures

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Preface to the Second Edition

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1. Warfare and Culture Wayne E. Lee

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2. The Last Campaign: The Assyrian Way of War and the Collapse of the Empire

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3. Disciplining Octavian: A Case Study of Roman Military Culture, 44–30 BCE

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4. Herding the Enemy: Culture in Nomadic Warfare

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Sarah C. Melville

Lee L. Brice

Timothy May

5. How Spanish Was the Spanish Conquest? Reexamining Spanish Success in the New World

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6. Of Bureaucrats and Bandits: Confucianism and Antirebel Strategy at the End of the Ming Dynasty

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7. The Battle Culture of Forbearance, 1660–1789

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8. Success and Failure in Civil War Armies: Clues from Organizational Culture

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9. Imagining African Warfare: War Games and Military Cultures in German East Africa

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James B. Wood

Kenneth M. Swope John A. Lynn II

Mark Grimsley

Michelle Moyd

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10. German Military Culture and the Colonial War in Southwest Africa, 1904–1907

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11. Connecting Culture and the Battlefield: Britain and the Empire Fight the Hundred Days

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12. The American Culture of War in the Age of Artificial Limited War

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Isabel V. Hull

David Silbey

Adrian R. Lewis

About the Contributors

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Index

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Maps and Figures

Maps

The Assyrian heartland, ca. 640 BCE

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The central Mediterranean during the late Roman Republic

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The Mongol Empire in 1216

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Seventeenth-century Ming China

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Schutztruppe deployment map, German East Africa

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German Southwest Africa

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Figures

Figure 9.1. Askaris and auxiliaries on parade ground

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Preface to the Second Edition

War suffuses human history, and it very likely suffused much of human prehistory as well. Creating a book designed to cover even a fraction of that experience is a major challenge in case selection. We are grateful to New York University Press and our editor there, Clara Platter, for allowing us to expand our original selection of cases for this new edition. One concern about the original volume was that too much of it remained generally Western. We now add important new work on the Mongols, on Spanish and Aztec views of the “Conquest” in Mexico, and on the entangled military cultures in Germany’s East African colonies. Most of the original essays remain unchanged, but Sarah C. Melville has updated some of her references, especially in respect to new archaeological work within the Assyrian domains. In addition, Adrian R. Lewis significantly expanded his essay to deal with new analyses of race and gender, as well as some recent data on the recruitability of Americans. His essay has also changed to reflect ongoing conflicts. My introductory chapter has been heavily rewritten but hews to the spirit of the original in laying out five different “levels” of cultural analysis and in relying primarily on this book’s chapters as the primary examples for each level. The revised chapter 1 now also discusses some other surveys of cultural military history, and of course it incorporates the new contributions by Timothy May, James B. Wood, and Michelle Moyd. We hope this volume continues to broaden our understanding of the complexity of warfare, a habit that humans have yet to unlearn or discard.

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Warfare and Culture Wayne E. Lee

Ideas matter in warfare. Machine guns may kill, but ideas decide where to place them, how to crew them, and when the most effective moment is to begin firing them. The answers to those questions might seem obvious now, but in fact the answers varied for different times and places, reflecting an evolving process of ideas interacting with technological capability.1 Military historians have been adept at explaining where machine guns, or other weapons, came from, and they are now increasingly attentive to the origins of the ideas that brought them to bear on the battlefield. Traditionally, however, when historians examined such ideas, they often explained them simply as rational calculations of advantage: Soldiers put machine guns in what they deemed were the best places, where they would do the most damage. Over the past few decades, however, this perspective has been changing. A real paradigm shift has emerged in military history, in which historians are closely examining how societies conceptualized war, weapons, violence, military service, and a host of other ideas that produced specific battlefield effects. Rational now is understood to be a highly idiosyncratic and contextual adjective. Rather than a single objective solution to a given problem, specific ideas or “solutions” emerge from a web of overlapping influences, mental and material, rooted in past ideas, modified by changing conditions, and perhaps best summed up by the word culture. This book arises from the ongoing work of military historians to contextualize war and military institutions more deeply within the culture that produced them. This trend reflects the cultural turn within history more generally, but more recently, it has also coincidentally reflected the interests of national militaries—primarily those of the United States and Britain. Jeremy Black has even characterized aspects of the historical 1

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interest in war and culture as a part of the military’s pendulum swing from a focus on technological transformation to one more interested in “cultural factors.” He is surely correct with respect to military history as used to support analysis related to ongoing or presumed likely military operations. There is no doubt that many historians flocked to the problem of the “military revolution” and the related ideas of a “revolution in military affairs,” in part due to institutional military interest in those issues after Vietnam and especially after the 1991 Gulf War. From the mid2000s, however, frustration with the intractability of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan led militaries and supportive scholars to flock back to so-called cultural explanations.2 Most of the cultural analysis conducted or examined here, however, is less presentist and reflects longer, slower changes in the historiography of war. In addition, this book addresses the relationships between culture and war within the broad context of world history. US universities are increasingly attuned to the needs of the “globalizing” world. Economics, immigration patterns, security concerns, and other such issues all suggest the need for citizens educated in the history and condition of the world, not just the United States. Warfare and Culture in World History contributes to that effort by providing case studies from both inside and outside the Western experience of warfare. It is our sense that for too long, military history has been taught from an exclusively “Western” perspective. Doing so has limited our ability to see the wide array of possible military responses to technology, to material circumstance, to social organization, and so on. Comparing France with Britain has real value, and indeed doing so often exposes surprising variables; but it can be even more enlightening to compare, for example, Britain with Japan. Comparing two societies with vastly different assumptions or, better, different cultural conceptions of war brings those assumptions to the surface, as they become clearer by contrast. Or in some cases, we might detect the overriding influence of material factors that seem to generate similar results despite different cultural conceptions.3 Taking a world history perspective is not, though, to discard the significance of the Western experience. It not only is the heritage of the country in which this book is published but also is the military system that dominates the world. Explaining war’s origins, nature, and, yes, its “culture” in the Western experience therefore matters. A quick glance at the table

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of contents shows that Western warfare dominates in this book, but we hope nevertheless to provide a broad comparative perspective, both chronologically and geographically. Although using a world history approach helps provide a framework for contrasts, the real unit of analysis in this book is culture, especially its impact on the operational behavior of armies. The title of this book is deliberately specific. It does not pretend to be a comprehensive examination of all aspects of culture and war. It is restricted to the impact of culture on warfare, on the behavior of people and armies in combat. It is not about war causation or policy, or about the cultural products generated by war. Culture, however, is a vast, amorphous, and potentially troublesome word, so some explanation is required. In the simplest sense, claiming culture as a tool of analysis is simply about striving for a more holistic examination of the relationship between a society and the wars it fights. According to this definition, a cultural approach merely seeks to avoid technological determinism, or the study of battles otherwise divorced from their social context. But such a simplistic, essentially negative, definition does not get us very far, nor does it do justice even to so-called traditional military history, which has long been sensitive to social and political context. We need, therefore, to be more specific about what is meant by culture and what we gain from using culture as a category of analysis.

Culture As will quickly become clear to the reader of this book, there is more than one way to define culture, and especially, there is more than one behavioral or organizational level at which to seek it. The problem of defining it, especially in its sense as a source of specific ideas or choices, occupies virtually every humanistic discipline and has gained considerable input from anthropology and evolutionary psychology as well.4 Without recapitulating the long evolution of the use and meaning of the term, I suggest that in essence, any group of humans living or working together over time develops “habitual practices, default programs, hidden assumptions and unreflected cognitive frames” that inform their choices; they will have created “a repertoire or ‘tool kit’ of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct ‘strategies of action.’”5 Crucially,

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if the community persists (whether it is a state, a tribe, an institutional military, an army in the field, or a squad of soldiers in combat), it will then transmit that repertoire to the next generation “through teaching, imitation, and other forms of social transmission.” Finally, such transmission occurs not merely through words but also through symbols and actions.6 I suggest this cobbled-together definition because it immediately offers several things to us. First, it insists that culture provides a repertoire of choices; it does not limit individual possibility, but it shapes individual vision. Second, this definition reminds us that the evidence for culture can be found in action as well as words. Discernible repeated patterns of behavior reveal the underlying cultural assumptions behind these choices. Third, this definition indicates a program of research: cultural values must be transmitted to survive, and especially in an institutional context like a modern military, the process of “teaching, imitation, and other forms of social transmission” can be found in doctrine, training, theoretical literature, and stated policy. Fourth, this definition cautions against assuming too much from that visible recorded form of transmission: the “hidden assumptions” must also be teased out because they may in fact contradict stated policy. Fifth, this definition works at multiple levels of human community formation: societal, organizational, or even incidental. Finally, and crucially to this book, it demands that we investigate the role of all these aspects of culture in shaping choices, and for the military historian, that must include operational or battlefield choices. And thus we circle back to how military historians have dealt with culture. To grossly generalize, military history in general has gone through three great “waves.” Its oldest form—dating back to Herodotus and Thucydides—sought primarily to explain the decisions of states and generals and to tease out a narrative showing a causal chain that explained victory or defeat. Primary variables in that analysis included technological advantage, numbers, geography, leaders’ decisions, movement in the campaign space, and so on. Some historians now deride such studies as “drum and trumpet” history, but it arguably retains its place.7 Beginning more or less in the 1960s, many military historians shifted to a so-called war and society approach, broadening the umbrella to ask who the men (mostly men) were doing the fighting, why

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they were there, what they experienced, and how they related to their home society. Also emerging at the same time was the “way of war” approach—something that would slowly morph into a cultural study of warfare. B. H. Liddell Hart had opened the door to this idea, and that phrase, in 1932, suggesting that Britain had traditionally relied on a specific combination of maritime strategies and careful alliances with Continental powers to fight its wars. Liddell Hart claimed to have identified this as a consistent pattern, repeated over centuries, and he was in fact advocating a return to that approach after the catastrophe of World War I.8 In the United States, Russell Weigley’s 1973 The American Way of War articulated a different set of patterns defining US strategy, evolving from an early reliance on attrition strategies to a firmer commitment to strategies of “annihilation” in virtually all of the United States’ modern wars. At the time, part of Weigley’s message was the failure of such strategies in the nuclear-constrained environment after World War II.9 Although Liddell Hart was making a case about grand strategy and Weigley was making one about operational preference, both identified patterns that they implied represented fundamental preferences built into British or US society. For them, the pattern was itself the evidence— the continuity over time, they argued, was obvious—once pointed out. This notion of a way of war, at whatever level, spawned hosts of studies, either also about Britain or the United States or about other states or nations, including Germany, China, Celts, Native Americans, and so on.10 Critically, Victor Davis Hanson and then John Keegan in the 1980s and 1990s generated the notion of a “Western” way of war, which they contrasted to an “Eastern” way.11 The details of these two supposed ways of war are almost immaterial, as they were immediately, widely, and correctly derided by specialists, particularly the notion of continuity over the long span from ancient Greece through to the twentieth-century United States—not to mention the problematics of defining the West or the East.12 Even so, the implied, and at points openly claimed, moral superiority of their Western way rendered the description attractive in certain conservative political circles, and Hanson’s ideas in particular were deployed as political currency in the lead-up to the 2003 war in Iraq.13 The way of war paradigm was seductive, however, and rightly so, but only if handled with care.14 It does indeed seem that a given society or military develops a set of practices about how it fights wars; such

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practices may even persist after becoming dysfunctional. Unfortunately, the way of war approach tends to overemphasize stability, overfocus on institutional militaries, and overlook the different levels or sources of cultural influence on military activity. Ultimately, historians recognized that culture was adaptive and shifting, with not only variations by region and over time but also variations within a single society depending on the institution or organization in question. Recognizing this variation and adaptability meant that the cultural study of war had to become more specific. Less lumping, more splitting. This need for splitting applies not just to societies but also to the different levels at which one can investigate the interaction of warfare and culture. War and culture studies have proliferated, and many works could be discussed here as examples of this problem and attempts at solving it. Instead, however, the remainder of this chapter uses the examples of the chapters in this book to discuss the different levels of cultural analysis, how they overlap, and what we gain by asking questions in this way.15 I suggest that military historians can investigate at least five levels or types of culture: societal, strategic, organizational, military, and soldiers’.16 Military organizations, or even just groups of people coalescing to embark on a violent mission, are in some sense a subset of their parent society. They therefore bring with them to the military environment all their societal culture’s values and assumptions, some of which may directly relate to warfare. Indeed, those societal cultural values, not least gender values, probably played a very large role in determining who was fighting and who was not. But analyzing linkages between societal culture and battlefield behavior can be extraordinarily difficult. Sometimes the fundamental assumptions that organize and (more or less) regulate an entire society seem to be a long way from the specific choices that a society makes in wartime. Contributors Kenneth M. Swope, David Silbey, Timothy May, and Adrian R. Lewis all try to tease out the longtangled threads that connect a society’s values to its wartime choices. May begins at the most fundamental level, asking how the normal practices of nomadic life and subsistence formed not only the nomads’ skill set for warfare but also their attitudes toward their enemies. May acknowledges that historians have long dwelled on the tight relationship between nomads’ hunting techniques and both their skill with bows and

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their application of certain hunting tactics to the battlefield, but May points out that the real basis of nomadic life was herding, not hunting. Nomads applied their skill as herders to their operational techniques, but this herding way of life also affected how they viewed and treated their sedentary opponents. This insight applies to most, if not all, nomadic societies, but May looks closely at how Chinggis Khan altered some of the basic societal dynamics of Mongol society to weld it into an imperial power capable of conquering much of Eurasia. He changed the Mongols’ culture, and they changed the world. Wood’s analysis of the Spanish conquests in the first century of European expansion is also conducted at the societal level. His conclusions may surprise some readers. Older explanations of Spanish victories pointed to technological differences: gunpowder, horses, armor, and steel swords. Wood fears that more recent explanations exclusively emphasize either disease or Spanish use of local allies or both. He acknowledges that both the older and newer explanations were important, even critical, to Spanish success, but he insists that we must also examine more fundamental aspects of Spanish culture. In his view, it was not their military culture that mattered so much as a broader, fierce ideological commitment that held individual entradas together and spurred the sending of so many expeditions in the first place. Cortez and Pizarro are the most famous, but the full conquest involved “an average of thirteen major expeditions per decade,” or if one counts subsequent continuations, we find “311 expeditions or an average of thirty-one per decade.” And the men on those expeditions brought with them a willingness to use theatrical, terroristic, and ultimately overwhelming violence. As Wood writes, “The conquerors regarded even the most highly advanced native cultures as savage, cruel, and idolatrous, fit only to serve as subjects of themselves, the crown, and the church.” Theirs was a success built not on new, gunpowder-equipped, drilled infantry techniques but rather on a peculiarly Spanish view of the world and of their presumed place in it. Whereas historians have long recognized the martial culture of the Spanish, there has been an equally long tradition of assuming that Chinese society strongly preferred to cultivate civilian values (wen) over more martial ones (wu), and therefore China has struggled to field truly effective militaries. In Kenneth M. Swope’s case study from the late Ming

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dynasty, he finds it “too easy to characterize imperial Chinese officials as ‘Confucian’ or pacifistic.” Instead, he provides a detailed narrative of how one set of imperial commanders, who technically were “civilians,” negotiated the competing tugs of Confucian values, which favored mercy for peasant rebels, against the recommendations of other equally civilian factions, who favored strategies of extermination. Indeed, the “culture” in play here was not “Confucian” or “a rational military establishment” so much as a culture of competition within the imperial court that fostered the production of competing solutions solely or primarily for the purpose of gaining and keeping the emperor’s favor. Swope’s narrative has many twists and turns, but considered as a whole, it is emblematic of the constant interaction of what I have elsewhere called “mind and matter”: logistical, topographic, and demographic limits profoundly shaped conscious choices about how to solve the peasant rebellion.17 Equally powerful were notions of the appropriate relationship between the emperor and his subjects, between civilian officials and the emperor, and between civilian officials and their military subordinates. These relationships depended on more than mere institutional structure; they turned around a contested imagination of the role of power in an ordered polity. Silbey discusses the cultural “needs” of the Dominions, especially Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, and how they were slotted into the operational plans for “British” offensives in 1918 in France. There are complexities here: British officers, with their own cultural predilections, dominated the planning process, but they felt compelled to acknowledge the explicitly articulated demands of their Dominion subordinates. In turn, those subordinates were moved by their nations’ emergent nationalist feelings about their own unique qualities to demand special roles in the order of battle. In cyclical fashion, demanding and being given a special role as “shock troops” for the offensive further contributed to a culture of nationalism in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Here Silbey treats nationalism as a specific aspect of societal culture, in some ways one of the oldest components of any self-defined society: the desire to stand apart, to reinforce distinctiveness. In the context of imperial war planning, that desire had specific operational consequences. Lewis also situates his analysis at the societal level. He finds a dramatic transformation in the American public’s understanding of war in the years after World War II, a transformation that has contributed to, if

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not demanded, a particular set of operational tendencies within the US military establishment. American disenchantment with limited war, and a simultaneous willingness to substitute technological cost for personal sacrifice, has led to a tendency to rely on airpower, to avoid the commitment of ground forces, to count on the surgical application of force, and to ignore both the long-term budgetary costs and the short-term human costs of those choices. Several of these chapters that analyze culture at the societal level have an explicit or implicit argument about the impact of a prejudiced vision of one’s opponent. The rigid ideological view of the conquistadors included an expansive form of violence to be used against Indians. Mongols’ disdain for sedentary peoples, in May’s words, led them to see such opponents as needing to “be tamed or broken like one would do with a horse.” Explaining wartime violence as a product of cultural prejudice or racism is a common form of historical analysis, perhaps made most famous in John Dower’s examination of the Pacific theater in World War II.18 But his analysis, like some of those here, goes beyond merely pointing to the escalation of violence because of cultural difference. He also finds that such cultural blinders produced mistaken strategies, strategies that failed to understand the opponent’s strength or intentions. Patrick Porter’s Military Orientalism is a thoroughgoing critique of how Western militaries have all too often viewed their Eastern opponents through a warped lens and have thereby failed to generate viable strategies.19 Furthermore, this process of encountering the other is interactive and shifting: both Michelle Moyd and Wood explore the need to use an alien other’s resources and capabilities, while simultaneously fearing or reviling those others for their strangeness. All of these interactions then have an impact on how one fights and, furthermore, on how soldiers experience combat.20 Racial or ethnic prejudice is one way that societal culture filters down into battlefield behavior, but Lewis makes a more comprehensive claim about the relationship between US societal culture and US “strategic culture” in which the former was determinative of the latter. Strategic culture is a more specific category (or level), focusing specifically on how members of a military or political elite approach the problem of winning. Leaders’ decisions and choices tend to be conscious and reflective, perhaps based on careful calculations of available resources and

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their knowledge of the situation.21 The term first emerged as part of a US effort to explain Soviet or Chinese intentions, but in many ways, the whole genre of “way of war,” as discussed previously, is a rough equivalent to the notion of a strategic culture. And as the way of war literature suggests, even the conscious weighing of moral and material factors is conditioned by past experience, beliefs, and expectations about the nature of war and what actions would not only define victory but also produce it. Like Lewis’s, Sarah C. Melville’s chapter on the surprisingly sudden end of the Assyrian Empire combines societal and strategic culture in her analysis, and she further emphasizes the potential consequences of an emerging competitor that did not share the assumptions of that culture. Melville sees the Assyrians as having been participants in a shared urban Mesopotamian set of values about war, in which war’s function and its limits were clear even to competing or successive empires. The Assyrians did, however, have one key idiosyncrasy. They had come to strongly prefer offensive operations, even when on the strategic defensive. After all, she argues, “The Assyrians had perfected an extremely effective system of conquest and control that brought peace to their heartland (excluding occasional civil wars) and much of the empire as well. This situation profoundly shaped the Assyrians’ concept of how war should and would be waged but inevitably seduced them into taking the heartland’s invulnerability for granted.” Likewise, Isabel V. Hull’s chapter describes imperial German strategic culture, particularly as affected by German societal and political culture, but she focuses on how Germany’s peculiar strategic culture became so fixed in the army’s institutional fabric—indeed, in its “organizational” culture—that it continued to pursue certain operational/battlefield habits even when they had clearly become dysfunctional.22 As she notes, organizations develop “habits, basic assumptions, default programs, and scripts that seem so obviously correct and natural that those inside the organizational culture have trouble thinking beyond or against them.” For a military, some of those basic assumptions are about victory and its pursuit, and thus “strategic culture” is a kind of subset of organizational culture. Faced in some ways with a challenge not unlike that facing Swope’s Ming commanders—pursuing elusive “rebels”—the German military simply shifted into its accustomed operational practice. What

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followed was a “logical unfolding of the German military’s standard operating procedures on the levels of both doctrine and of practice (that is, on both the conscious and the habitual and un-self-reflexive levels),” which in this case meant pursuing the destruction of the enemy through a single battle of annihilation followed by ruthless pursuit. Enacted against the Herero in desert Southwest Africa and adding other basic assumptions of the German military’s organizational culture, the result could only be called genocide, a result Hull says was neither sought nor desired by the German colonial or imperial government. Accordingly, the Germans’ strategic culture and their specific operational choices emerged from their larger organizational culture. That organizational culture, however, also had other effects. The Germans’ disregard for logistics and their assumptions about appropriate rations for non-German detainees combined to create horrifying conditions and wholesale death for the interned Herero people. Mark Grimsley also looks specifically at organizational culture, here with an eye to how organizations resist or accept change. Using a model partly derived from the modern business world’s concern with such issues, he refines it to examine not only the culture of leadership at the high command level but also the more “clannish” organizational culture of a US Civil War regiment. His analysis distinguishes among an organization’s levels and identifies the idiosyncrasies within that war’s different field armies. Although societal culture mattered, especially in the clannish regiments, the individual personalities and styles of high commanders in a hierarchical organization like an army imprinted distinctive values and assumptions on it that proved hard to change later. Even more important to this book’s goal, Grimsley ties specific operational consequences to all these descriptions of command and regimental culture. These organizational and strategic culture paradigms may be most useful in analyzing those long-established military institutions about whose internal workings we have detailed sources. The strategic culture of premodern, prestaff, pre-“doctrinal” armies may be reconstructed to a certain degree through their patterns of behavior, but historians more often turn to the somewhat broader category of “military culture.” One scholar defined this term as “the ethos and professional attributes, both in terms of experience and intellectual study, that contribute to a

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common core understanding of war within military organizations.”23 One might fairly ask how this differs from organizational or strategic culture. In essence, I have defined those terms as dealing with specific aspects of military activity (institutional processes and operational predilection, respectively), whereas military culture refers to a broader, somewhat more nebulous set of assumptions and values associated with being a part of a separate military subculture. A group of individuals long associated with military activity may, and usually do, develop a host of values that they believe are distinct from those of their parent society. Examples might be a particular construction of honor, masculinity, uniformity, and/or obedience. In hierarchical societies, this military culture is determined primarily by those men who lead it, most often a social elite. In Moyd’s chapter, we find separate military cultures “entangled,” providing an excellent example of how cultures (in this case two cultures) evolve and adapt. Using different examples of “war games” as a lens on German and East African militarized practices, she finds that there was significant interplay between these different practices. The German colonial forces (Schutztruppe) depended on their German-led and German-trained African recruits (askaris) and also on their African “auxiliaries,” but they did not simply imprint German military culture onto the askaris. German officers’ racialized assumptions about African military abilities (societal culture!) led them to alter their normal training techniques to suit their East African audiences. African martial masculinity, embodied in the dance (the ngoma), repurposed and reimagined these German training regimens in new ways. Ultimately, the war games and drill of German military culture coexisted with, and often quietly drew from, the martial cultures of East Africa, producing a way of war that both acknowledged and shunned its East African influences. Vestiges of this complex blend of military cultures survived into the colonial transition to British rule and, in doing so, worried the new colonizers. In some ways, the askaris’ and auxiliaries’ response to German military culture represents what I have elsewhere called a “soldiers’ culture.”24 Soldiers are not simply passive recipients of orders and training from their superiors; they inevitably form a somewhat contrarian subset of the more general military culture. Soldiers’ culture arose from the

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shared experience of a nonelite soldiery, often in defiance of their elite masters, but in ways that they saw as essential to their survival and that they passed on to new recruits. John A. Lynn II’s and Lee L. Brice’s chapters provide examples of both military and soldiers’ culture. Lynn’s chapter is a fine example of the interactive and overlapping qualities of several levels of cultural analysis. He agrees that technology surely set some parameters around the eighteenth-century European infantry battle but that the real key to the “battle culture of forbearance” was aristocratic self-perception, as well as the aristocratic attitude toward the common soldier. Indeed, the elite needed a battle system that emphasized their role as controllers of an unruly lower class. The soldiers’ social reality, however, differed from their masters’ perceptions of them, and when those perceptions were altered by the political changes of the French Revolution, the soldiers’ capacity to flourish under a different tactical regime was unleashed. Brice’s chapter describes even more explicitly the difference between a Roman military culture designed to impose control over its soldiers and the contrarian soldiers’ culture that developed during the late Republic’s civil wars. Brice undermines the popular stereotype of the intensely corporally disciplined Roman legionary by instead emphasizing a deeply embedded “matrix of discipline” that relied on remuneration and religion as well as physical coercion. Rome’s was an evolved military culture that had been created by a hierarchical society through a long, fractious negotiation between the upper and lower social strata. During the civil wars, however, factional leaders, including Octavian, found themselves leaning heavily on the promises of material rewards. As the civil wars dragged on, a soldiers’ culture emerged that demanded more and more such bonuses, without which they threatened to change sides. Brice contends that Octavian gradually realized the flaw in this perversion of the traditional disciplinary system. In essence, he and the other factional leaders had encouraged the emergence of a soldiers’ culture opposed to hierarchical control, one that now threatened the stability of the state. That flaw could arguably be said to have returned in later centuries to help bring down the empire. But when Octavian became Augustus, he restored the disciplina militaris and its full matrix of discipline “from oath to whip.”

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Change and Agency? The distinction among these five levels of cultural analysis (societal, strategic, organizational, military, and soldiers’), and indeed even the definition of culture itself, clearly remains vague, and these levels may overlap in any number of ways. In fact, readers will find that the contributors have not necessarily adhered to the definitions described in this introductory chapter. But this is all right; we do not need to straitjacket the historical imagination with overly rigid categories and definitions.25 In part, I define these levels as suggestions for research and analysis. For example, historians can look for those occasions when a military culture has emerged that diverges from societal culture or when a soldiers’ culture has arisen in opposition to the supposedly dominant military culture. The final analytical issue to consider here is the theoretical problem to which students of culture repeatedly return: the problem of change. That is, if cultural values and assumptions are so deeply embedded and so influential in shaping individual behavior, then how do those values and assumptions change—something they demonstrably do—especially in the context of military behavior? Furthermore, some military historians worry that an emphasis on culture undermines the role of contingency and agency in history, that is, the choices and actions of specific individuals at key moments that seem to create decisive military consequences for both the short and the long term. These are not trivial concerns. Defeat, for example, is often cited as a critical motivator of military innovation (although it does not have to be!). Furthermore, individuals do seem to make decisions at odds with cultural norms, and sometimes those decisions can have outsized effects in a fast-moving wartime context. To acknowledge change and agency, however, is not to undermine the value of cultural analysis. Indeed, the definitions of culture just explored already suggest some of the means by which change occurs. Intergenerational “transmission,” for example, can become garbled, and cultural habit provides a tool kit, not a single solution. In addition, some theorists of culture have suggested mechanisms for change that account for the contingency of individual decisions. Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd, for example, argue that “culture consists of an interrelation between norms and actual behavior (practices) tested through time, both affecting each other. It is not simply an idea

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template that stamps out approved behavior.”26 In the 1970s, Pierre Bourdieu emphasized that “practices” derived from cultural predilection are always subject to individual “improvisation.” Each individual act serves as a precedent that both reinforces and ever so slightly modifies the cultural “norm.” Furthermore, Bourdieu pointed out, when material conditions change substantially, more and more individuals may modify their actions in a similar direction in order to account for the changes, and by doing so, they rewrite the norm; that is, they establish new precedent.27 Although military institutions can be notoriously conservative, they also are environments in which the “material conditions” can change rapidly, and thus “culture” can do so as well. Soldiers recruited into an army away from their civilian life find dramatically different conditions and thus quickly create new cultural norms that shape their actions, as both individuals and groups. Armies as institutions, especially in the modern era, are constantly confronting material (usually technological) changes, and they do so in peculiarly conscious ways as they evaluate the probable future efficacy (or not) of a given weapons system, operational concept, or new civilian technology. In doing so, they may try to rewrite their strategic culture, although they often find themselves struggling against established norms in their societal culture or even the norms in their own military culture. We hope that this book will expand military historians’ understanding of culture, military institutions, and behaviors. It presents the work of both distinguished and more recent scholars in the field, and it represents the sophistication and complexity that characterizes the best work in military history. Military history written in the 1970s or 1980s (and certainly in the 1990s) often predicted that war had a limited future on this planet. But Warfare and Culture in World History offers no such hopes. In this era of warfare in which ideas about violence and its use have very often proved far more threatening than any new weapons do, it behooves us to consider ever more carefully where ideas come from, how they change, and how our own culture of warfare might need adjusting. Notes

1. Consider, for example, debates in the British army about the machine gun’s usefulness even after World War I had begun. See John Ellis, The Social History of the Machine Gun (New York: Pantheon Books, 1975), 111–45. 2. Jeremy Black, War and the Cultural Turn (Malden, MA: Polity, 2012), 1, 19–22.

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3. For examples of this sort of comparative work, see Stephen Morillo, “Guns and Government: A Comparative Study of Europe and Japan,” Journal of World History 6 (1995): 75–106; Kenneth Warren Chase, Firearms: A Global History to 1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Tonio Andrade, The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016). 4. Useful reviews of the meaning and role of culture in various disciplines can be found in Lynn Hunt, “Introduction: History, Culture, and Text,” in The New Cultural History, ed. Lynn Hunt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 1–22; Victoria E. Bonnell and Lynn Hunt, introduction to Beyond the Cultural Turn, ed. Victoria E. Bonnell and Lynn Hunt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 1–34; and William H. Sewell Jr., “The Concept(s) of Culture,” in Bonnell and Hunt, Beyond the Cultural Turn, 35–61. 5. Isabel V. Hull, Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), 2; Ann Swidler, “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies,” American Sociological Review 51 (1986): 273–86 (quote on 273). 6. Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd, Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 5. Also critical here is Clifford Geertz, “Religion as a Cultural System,” in The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), esp. 89. 7. Dennis E. Showalter, “A Modest Plea for Drums and Trumpets.” Military Affairs 39, no. 2 (1975): 71–74. 8. The literature on this is large. See Brian Hold Reid, “The British Way in Warfare: Liddell Hart’s Idea and Its Legacy,” RUSI Journal 156, no. 6 (2011): 70–76. 9. Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973). See the key critique in Brian M. Linn, “The American Way of War Revisited,” Journal of Military History 66 (2002): 501–33. 10. Examples, not even remotely comprehensive, include Patrick M. Malone, The Skulking Way of War: Technology and Tactics among the New England Indians (Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1991); John Grenier, The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier, 1607–1814 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Mark Ethan Grotelueschen, The AEF Way of War: The American Army and Combat in World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Robert M. Citino, The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years’ War to the Third Reich (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005); Lawrence Sondhaus, Strategic Culture and Ways of War (New York: Routledge, 2006); Thomas G. Mahnken, Technology and the American Way of War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008); Robert R. Tomes, US Defense Strategy from Vietnam to Operation Iraqi Freedom: Military Innovation and the New American Way of War, 1973–2003 (New York: Routledge, 2007); Antulio J. Echevarria II, Reconsidering the American Way of War: US Military Practice From the Revolution to Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2014).

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11. The key texts are Victor Davis Hanson, The Western Way of War (New York: Knopf, 1989); John Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: Knopf, 1993); Hanson, Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power (New York: Doubleday, 2001). 12. Most importantly, see John A. Lynn, Battle: A History of Combat and Culture (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2003). But see also Black, War and the Cultural Turn, 16–17; Stephen Morillo and Michael F. Pavkovic, What Is Military History?, 3rd ed. (Medford, MA: Polity, 2018), 95–101; Robert M. Citino, “Military Histories Old and New: A Reintroduction,” American Historical Review 112 (2007): 1084–86. 13. Jacob Heilbrunn, “Winds of War,” New York Times, October 15, 2006, www .nytimes.com. 14. Representing its seductiveness but also its pitfalls is James Michael Hill’s work on the supposed “Gaelic” or “Celtic” way of war. Hill, “The Distinctiveness of Gaelic Warfare, 1400–1750,” European History Quarterly 22 (1992): 323–45; Hill, Celtic Warfare, 1595–1763 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1986). Once Hill’s notion of a “Celtic way” was out there, a number of synthetic works repeated his claim for a distinctive preference for tactical charges among Scots, Irish, and immigrant Scots-Irish in North America. See, for example, Jeremy Black, European Warfare, 1660–1815 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 126–27; Peter Wilson, “British and American Perspectives on Early Modern Warfare,” in Militär und Gesellschaft in der Frühen Neuzeit 5, no. 2 (2001): 108–18 (esp. 114–15); Hew Strachan, “Scotland’s Military Identity,” Scottish Historical Review 85 (2006): 315–32 (esp. 321). Hill’s “lumping” of all these groups together, over a substantial period of time, falls apart under closer analysis. Wayne E. Lee, “Putting the ‘Celtic Way of War’ to the Sword,” paper presented at the Southern Historical Association, Charlotte, NC, November 2010; James O’Neill, “Military Transformation and the End of Gaelic Ireland: Firearms and Fortifications,” in The Military Revolution and Revolutions in Military Affairs, ed. Mark Charles Fissel (New York: De Gruyter, forthcoming). 15. Further explorations of the role of cultural analysis in military history beyond those already cited here can be found in John Shy, “The Cultural Approach to the History of War,” Journal of Military History 57 (1993): 13–26; John A. Lynn, “The Embattled Future of Academic Military History,” Journal of Military History 61 (1997): 777–89; Jeremy Black, “Determinisms and Other Issues,” Journal of Military History 68 (2004): 1217–32; Wayne E. Lee, “Mind and Matter—Cultural Analysis in American Military History: A Look at the State of the Field,” Journal of American History 93, no. 4 (2007): 1116–42; Lee, “Culture of War,” in Oxford Bibliographies Online: Military History, ed. Dennis Showalter (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199791279–0157. 16. In Battle: A History of Combat and Culture (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2003), John A. Lynn defines three categories of culture in the study of military history: societal, military, and strategic (xx). Here I expand on and modify his definitions. 17. Lee, “Mind and Matter.”

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18. John Dower, War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon, 1987). 19. Patrick Porter, Military Orientalism: Eastern War through Western Eyes (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009). 20. Wayne E. Lee, Tony Carlson, David Preston, and David Silbey, The Other Face of Battle: The American Experience of Intercultural Combat (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). 21. Alastair Ian Johnson, “Thinking about Strategic Culture,” International Security 19 (Summer 1995): 34. 22. As an indicator of how fluid these labels are, Hull uses the term “military culture” rather than “strategic culture.” As I observed, the definitions substantially overlap, but her chapter’s focus on operational planning places it more closely in my definition of strategic culture. Similarly, Peter H. Wilson conflates military culture with organizational culture, primarily because of his focus on modern institutional militaries. His analytical subcategories for analyzing the institutional/ organizational culture of a military, however, are very useful. They include the military’s mission, its relationship to the state and other institutions, its social basis and relationship to society, its internal structure embodying its norms and assumptions, and its resource requirements. See Wilson, “Defining Military Culture,” Journal of Military History 72 (2008): 11–42, esp. 17. 23. Williamson Murray, “Does Military Culture Matter?,” Orbis 43 (Winter 1999): 27– 42 (quote on 27). 24. Wayne E. Lee, Barbarians and Brothers: Anglo-American Warfare, 1500–1865 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), chap. 4. See also Wilson, “Defining Military Culture,” 18. 25. Interestingly, Jeremy Black reached a similar conclusion about not demanding overly precise definitions in his study of war and culture that came out at roughly the same time as the first edition of this volume. Black also goes on to note the weaknesses inherent in treating culture as an unchanging or unproblematic construct. Black, War and the Cultural Turn, 2–3. 26. Richerson and Boyd, Not by Genes Alone, 5. 27. Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 72, 79, 81, 8. Compare the discussion in Sewell, “Concept(s) of Culture,” 44–45. Guy Halsall makes fine use of this theory of change in his Warfare and Society on the Barbarian West, 450–900 (New York: Routledge, 2003), 8.

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The Last Campaign The Assyrian Way of War and the Collapse of the Empire Sarah C. Melville

At the height of the Assyrian Empire in the mid-seventh century BCE, it held sway over the entire Near East.1 With sophisticated central and provincial administrations and a standing army second to none, the Assyrians appeared to be invincible. Yet the empire, within fifty years of reaching its zenith, faced annihilation at the hands of a BabylonianMedian coalition. Modern studies have struggled to explain how the power that had dominated the Near East for more than four hundred years could succumb so quickly to invasion. Explanations for Assyria’s precipitous decline have focused on resource depletion, political dissention, economic failure, drought, and dwindling populations.2 Although all of these factors weakened Assyria, the proximate cause of the empire’s collapse was an aggressive way of war that left the Assyrian heartland vulnerable to attack.3 One consequence of Assyria’s violent downfall is that comparatively little written or material evidence has survived from the period in question (ca. 630–610). When the Babylonians and Medes destroyed all the palaces and administrative centers in the Assyrian heartland, they also obliterated much of the written and pictorial record, thus leaving large gaps in our knowledge of Assyria’s internal situation and foreign relations during the period immediately preceding the war. For example, despite ample evidence for Median-Assyrian contact up to about 656 BCE, sources after that date do not mention the Medes until their sudden invasion of Assyria in 614. As a result, much of the attack’s political context has been lost. The archaeological record alone bears witness to the empire’s fate.4 The only near-contemporary account of Assyria’s collapse presents the victor’s point of view. The Nabopolassar Chronicle (NC) and the 19

The Assyrian heartland, ca. 640 BCE. (Map drawn by Bill Nelson)

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Fall of Nineveh Chronicle (FNC) are part of the group of cuneiform tablets, known collectively as the Babylonian Chronicle, that documents important events in Babylonian history.5 Written in a terse, seemingly objective style, these reports list events but offer little elaboration. In addition to the chronicles, scattered economic texts, royal inscriptions, and other miscellaneous tablets help establish the chronology and provide additional details.6 External sources such as the Bible, Berossus, and the classical authors Herodotus, Xenophon, and Ctesias generally corroborate the earlier evidence but otherwise contribute little that is new or reliable.7 Though fragmentary and difficult to interpret, the surviving evidence nevertheless reveals valuable information about how the Assyrian Empire met its end.

The Armies None of the extant sources includes information on such basic military matters as the size or composition of armies, troop deployments, tactics, or strategies. However, by extrapolating from slightly earlier material, it is possible to get a general idea of the armies involved.8 In the midseventh century BCE, the Assyrian armed forces consisted of a standing core, deportee units, and men performing ilku-service (corvée duty / national service). In addition, allies and clients were required to send men to serve alongside the Assyrians, and beginning in the eighth century, chariotry and cavalry from defeated armies were incorporated into the standing Assyrian army. The Assyrians employed a regular chain of command from the king, his generals, and division commanders down to officers in charge of ten-men squads. Infantrymen—light-armed auxiliaries, Assyrian levies (archers and spearmen), and heavy-armed soldiers in the standing army—were variously outfitted with bows, spears, swords, daggers, slings, and, less commonly, maces or battle-axes. Armor varied by unit type. Regular archers wore only head protection, whereas fully armed soldiers carried a heavy shield and wore a conical helmet made of bronze or iron and a metal breastplate or scale armor. The army adopted a number of shield types, including heavy round shields (akin to the later Greek aspis), small bucklers, and tower shields made out of wicker or woven leather.9

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Chariots were manned by teams of three or four, a driver, fighter (archer/spearman), and one or two shield bearers. In the late seventh century, chariots were large and heavy—their wheels almost as tall as a man—and may have been used on parade and at sieges rather than in battle.10 Cavalry troops carried bows or lances, as well as daggers or short swords. Although at this time, horsemen had neither proper saddles with girth straps nor stirrups, well-designed bridles and bits helped riders control their mounts. Because horses were expensive and difficult to train, they wore thick leather armor, which proved a disadvantage in action against the Medes’ lighter, faster horses. The Assyrians were the first sedentary power of the Near East to develop cavalry (in the ninth century BCE), but since the heartland was not ideal for raising horses, the acquisition of suitable mounts became a perennial problem. The Assyrians went to great lengths to procure heavy breeds from Nubia for chariot teams and smaller breeds from the western Zagros polities and Media for cavalry use.11 The hypothesis that the Medes overwhelmed the Assyrians due to the latter’s shortage of horses, though plausible, remains unproven. The arid environment of the Near East restricted armies and caravans to routes with good access to water and food, making control of roads and navigable waterways strategically essential. On the march through friendly territory, the army lived off food collected by the local authorities (client rulers or provincial governors) at forward supply depots. In enemy territory, the Assyrians foraged for food, although soldiers also received rations of barley and oil.12 Campaign season typically began after the spring rains and lasted until the onset of winter, which soldiers passed in camp or at home. Battle tactics included standard maneuvers such as flanking and envelopment, but because of the many untrained levies, only units of the regular army could perform complex movements.13 As the empire grew and the Assyrian army gained in size, resources, and experience, opponents often refused battle, gambling instead that they could withstand a siege. Excellent engineers, the Assyrians were adept at siege warfare. They built siege ramps over ditches and ramparts; used siege towers, battering rams, ladders, and grappling hooks; and mined under walls. Artillery such as catapults had not yet been invented. Though similar in organization to the Assyrian forces, the Babylonian army was less ethnically diverse, for it consisted of urban Babylonians

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and tribal Arameans and Chaldeans. Lacking the Assyrians’ sophisticated imperial administrative system to facilitate levying troops, the Babylonians mustered soldiers from the rich estates of major temples, from specially designated bow fiefs, and from among the citizenry.14 Having fought or been subject to the Assyrians for centuries, the Babylonians were well acquainted with all aspects of Assyrian military operations. The Medes, too, were familiar with the Assyrians, whose kings they had both fought and served in the past.15 In the late seventh century, the Median army consisted of a large elite cavalry and massed infantry, at least some of whom would have been armed similarly to the Assyrian heavy infantry.16 Each of the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Median armies that fought this war probably numbered in the tens of thousands.

The War The war that brought down the Assyrian Empire and destroyed its heartland began unremarkably as the latest phase in the protracted struggle for control of Babylonia. During the eighth and seventh centuries BCE, the heyday of the empire, the Assyrians employed a number of strategies to pacify their southern neighbors: direct rule by the Assyrian king or his designated representative (e.g., the king’s son or brother), indirect rule via a Babylonian puppet king, or, as a last resort, subjugation by brute force. Babylonia’s political fragmentation made the Assyrians’ task even more difficult. Although Babylonia’s urban populations tended to support Assyria, tribal factions—particularly the Chaldeans and Arameans in the south and east—rebelled at the slightest opportunity. In spite of the prolonged military effort and the tremendous cost of subduing Babylonia, the Assyrians considered the area too strategically important and too lucrative to relinquish. Rare peaceful interludes only masked underlying problems and gave the would-be rebels time to regroup. No matter what steps the Assyrians took to pacify Babylonia, the political situation invariably devolved into violence. Between 745 and 648, the Assyrians fought several major wars there, but each hard-won victory achieved only temporary peace. Eventually, Assyria’s failure to solve its “Babylonian problem” proved catastrophic. The endgame began around 627 BCE after both the long-lived Assyrian king Ashurbanipal and Kandalanu, the last Assyrian-appointed ruler of

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Babylonia, had died, thereby ending an unusually long interlude (around twenty years) of relative peace and prosperity.17 There ensued a period of civil war in both countries as rival claimants fought for their respective thrones. By 626, Sin-shar-ishkun, one of Ashurbanipal’s sons, had established himself as king of Assyria, and Nabopolassar, a Babylonian official of nonroyal descent, had declared himself king in that country.18 For the next ten years or so, these two men vied for control of Babylonia. During the initial phase of the war, which took place entirely on Babylonian soil, the advantage oscillated dramatically between the two opponents. The Nabopolassar Chronicle describes a typical episode of the maneuvers involved: “The first year of Nabopolassar (626 BC): . . . On the twenty-first day of the month Iyyar (April/May) the army of Assyria entered Raq[mat] and carried off its property. . . . On the ninth day of the month Ab (July/August) Nabopolassar and his army [marched] to Raqm[at]. He did battle against Raqmat but did not seize the city. The Assyrian army arrived so he retreated before them and withdrew.”19 After suffering early reverses, Nabopolassar gradually gained the upper hand by attrition, and by 617 he had pushed the Assyrian army out of Babylonia. Pro-Assyrian factions remained in cities such as Nippur and Ur that continued to support Assyria, thus hindering Nabopolassar’s consolidation of power.20 The end of the Assyrian occupation of Babylonia marked the beginning of a new phase in the war, though the withdrawal would not have been recognized as particularly significant at the time. Up until that point, the conflict matched previous Assyro-Babylonian wars: all the fighting took place in Babylonia, with no decisive outcome. The Assyrians expected occasional setbacks, and if Sin-shar-ishkun let history be his guide, the situation would have seemed but a temporary inconvenience. In 616 BCE, Nabopolassar took the war outside Babylonia for the first time when he campaigned up the Euphrates into Assyrian-held territory in Syria. He took possession of the city of Hindanu and then defeated an Assyrian army near Gablini on the Balikh River, after which he pushed even farther north to the Habur River, cutting a wide swath of destruction as he went. In response, the Assyrian army and its Egyptian allies regrouped and pursued the Babylonians back to Gablini without engaging them in battle. Both sides then withdrew, although Nabopolassar

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retained control of Hindanu.21 The Babylonians now held the middle Euphrates and thus the western portion of the main east-west travel corridor.22 Taking control of the central Euphrates was probably the main objective in this campaign and the first step in a strategic plan to keep the Assyrians out of Babylonia. However, Nabopolassar’s withdrawal before the oncoming Assyrian army indicates that he was not yet prepared to mount an all-out invasion of enemy territory. At this juncture, he did not aspire to conquer Assyria but simply to secure Babylonian independence and his own rule. Having achieved success on Assyria’s western flank, Nabopolassar approached Assyria via its eastern side later in the same year. The two armies fought near Arraphka (modern Kirkuk), and “the Assyrian army retreated before the army of Akkad (Babylonia). They (the Babylonians) inflicted a major defeat on it and pushed it back as far as the Zab River. They seized their chariots and horses and robbed them greatly.”23 In so doing, the Babylonians effectively eliminated Assyria’s grip on the sparsely populated middle-Tigris buffer zone between the two countries. For the first time in centuries, the Babylonians controlled the area right up to the southern edge of the Assyrian heartland. Moreover, control of the entire Mesopotamian section of the east-west road afforded Nabopolassar new commercial and military advantages while impeding his enemy’s mobility and access to important resources.24 The Babylonian king had achieved his initial objectives with relative ease, and with his throne now fairly secure, there was nothing to prevent him from continuing to attack Assyria. What had begun as another chapter in the struggle for hegemony over Babylonia soon became a fight for Assyria’s very survival. For the next two years, Nabopolassar kept up the pressure on Assyria. In 615, Babylonian forces entered the heartland and briefly assaulted Assur, the empire’s principal cult center and its southernmost city. Moving swiftly to counterattack, Sin-shar-ishkun managed to lift the siege and push the Babylonians back to Takrita’in (modern Tikrit), where he besieged them in turn until he was forced to retreat.25 Although the territorial scope of the conflict had changed now that Nabopolassar was the aggressor, the war was still being fought in the style of maneuver, attack, counterattack, and retreat that characterized its first phase. Neither side yet had the means or the confidence to seek a decisive confrontation.

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Even after repeated setbacks, the Assyrian army remained capable of rapid response and swift counteroffensive. So far, the war was entirely “normal,” both sides having fought according to standard military practice. The war’s turning point came in 614 when a new enemy, the Medes, launched a surprise attack against the Assyrian heartland from the east.26 A seminomadic, semiurbanized tribal people, the Medes had long controlled territory in the eastern Zagros Mountains, but from the eighth century on, they had become increasingly involved in the small polities bordering Assyria and Babylonia in the east. It is possible that internal political strife caused by the war’s disruption of their economy, which was tied to those of Assyria and Babylonia, inspired Median intervention.27 Whatever motivated it, the Medes’ entrance into the war delivered a shock from which the Assyrians could not recover, for their new enemies gave no quarter and destroyed all they could not carry off. The Medes swept through the heartland, sacking Tarbisu and Assur and attacking Nineveh and Nimrud, both of which managed to hold out. At Nimrud, the Medes ravaged the lower town and substantially damaged the fortification wall of its arsenal, Fort Shalmaneser.28 The destruction of Assur, Assyria’s holiest city, had a profound impact on people throughout the Near East. The Babylonian Chronicle’s report of these events emphasizes the violence of the Medes, who “inflicted a terrible defeat on a great people, pillaged and looted them, and [robbed them].”29 Nabopolassar, eager to gain valuable military support (and just as eager to avoid making the Medes his enemies), immediately made an alliance with the Median leader, Cyaxares. Winter brought the Assyrians a brief respite as uncertain weather and lack of supplies forced their enemies to return to their respective homelands. Despite being badly outnumbered and facing invasion on two fronts, the Assyrians did not fall back into defensive positions. On the contrary, rather than hastening to repair the damage to the fortifications that the Medes had inflicted, they dismantled parts of the wall in preparation for renovating it at some later date.30 The renovations were never completed. In the meantime, Sin-shar-ishkun continued to press the attack. In a bold attempt to forestall joint enemy operations and move the war’s center of gravity away from Assyria, he set forth in 613. His

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eastern flank protected by tribal (possibly Scythian) allies,31 the Assyrian king was able to force Nabopolassar out of Anat (on the middle Euphrates), where he had been trying to suppress the Assyrian-backed rebellion of a local tribe, the Suhu.32 Babylonia’s subsequent withdrawal from the area did not significantly alter Assyria’s fortunes, and it may have been at this point that Sin-shar-ishkun finally grasped the severity of the crisis. Two cuneiform documents, a fragmentary letter from Sin-sharishkun and Nabopolassar’s response, suggest that a diplomatic exchange between the two kings took place around this time. If the texts are genuine, then they belong to the period just before the fall of Assyria.33 The Assyrian king attempted in his letter to appease Nabopolassar in order to “quiet his fiery heart” and prevent further bloodshed.34 But it seems that Sin-shar-ishkun had waited too long to open negotiations, for he had nothing to offer that Nabopolassar could not take now that the Medes were his allies. Nabopolassar rejected Sin-shar-ishkun in the harshest of terms, declaring, “The wall of Nineveh, which is made of strong stone [by the command of] the god Marduk, great lord, I shall pile up like a mound of sand. The city . . . its roots I shall pluck out and the foundations of the land I shall obliterate.”35 If the Babylonian king had started the war looking for a negotiated peace with Assyria, nothing less than total victory would now suffice. Nevertheless, Nabopolassar did not anticipate the extremes to which his Median allies would go. Within a few months of the failed negotiations, the combined Babylonian and Median armies had penetrated deep into Assyria, forcing Sin-shar-ishkun and the remnants of his army to make a last stand at Nineveh.36 An enormous city with fifteen gates, Nineveh stood little chance against a determined enemy. After a siege of only three months, the city fell in August 612 when two or more of its gates were breached. Excavations have uncovered grisly evidence of Nineveh’s final hours, notably the skeletal remains of numerous men and boys (aged ten to forty-five) who died defending the Halzi gate.37 The subsequent sack of Nineveh was calculated and thorough: the Babylonians and Medes looted the city, symbolically mutilated images of the Assyrian kings, and eventually burned the entire place to the ground. Nor did the violence stop with the destruction of the capital city and the death of Sin-shar-ishkun. The survivors retreated to Harran (in

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southern Turkey), where under the leadership of a new king, Assuruballit II, they held out until their final defeat in 609. In the meantime, the Assyrian heartland was systematically devastated. At sites such as Assur, Nineveh, Nimrud, Dur-Sharrukin, Tarbisu, Imgur-Enlil, and Khirbet Khatuniyeh, excavations have uncovered evidence of intense fires and widespread destruction. Only two cities, Assur and Arbela, appear to have been used later by the Babylonians or Medes, whereas the other sites show (at best) only sparse occupation by poor squatters.38 As one archaeologist observed, “It is difficult to exaggerate the intensity of this destruction and few if any sites and buildings seem to have escaped unscathed.”39 What happened to Assyria— particularly the destruction of its temples—shocked the Babylonians. Nabopolassar, in his inscriptions, carefully ascribed his victory to divine intervention.40 By contrast, Nabonidus (555–539), the last king of the dynasty founded by Nabopolassar, blamed Cyaxares for the destruction of Assyria, declaring that the Median leader “demolished the sanctuaries of all the gods of Subartu (Assyria). . . . None of the cult(-centers) he omitted, laying waste their (sacred) towns worse than a flood storm.” Nabonidus then claimed a more respectful attitude by his conquering ancestor, Nabopolassar, “for whom the sacrilegious action of (the god) Marduk was horrible”; he “did not raise his hand against the cult(-places) of any of the great gods, but left his hair unkempt, (and) slept on the floor (to express his pious desperation).”41 The Babylonians had defeated Assyria, but in the process they and their Median allies had violated normal codes of conduct. They had inflicted so much damage that the heartland began to recover only a hundred years later under Persian occupation.

The Assyrian Way of War From the account given here, it would be easy to conclude that the Medes and Babylonians had simply outfought a weakened Assyrian military led by an incompetent king. After all, if the Babylonian Chronicles are to be believed, the Assyrians did not win a single battle after 620 BCE. Nor did they do much to defend their territory. Even so, the Assyrians proved remarkably resilient: they managed to field an army

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after each devastating defeat, continued to carry out offensive operations, and maintained the loyalty of their allies to the bitter end. The oft-invoked image of the imperial core as shrunken, dysfunctional, and isolated also does not stand up to scrutiny, for even though the empire had lost control of some strategically and economically important areas such as Babylonia and parts of Palestine, some of its provinces in Syria and in the northern Tigris region continued to function for some time after the destruction of the heartland. If fundamental military weakness does not account for Assyria’s defeat, then what does? The sources, albeit limited, allow us to make three crucial observations: first, that the Assyrians never implemented an effective defensive strategy; second, that they repeatedly took the offensive against Nabopolassar; and third, that the Medes’ intervention entirely changed the nature of the war. However, the significance of these points becomes clear only when they are examined in their wider cultural and historical context. The polities of the ancient Near East—Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt, Hatti, Urartu, and the city-states of Syria-Palestine and southern Turkey—were urban-based monarchies subject to similar environmental constraints, and as such, they developed many of the same core social and political institutions, even as they differed in cultural specifics. Assyria and Babylonia had a particular cultural affinity: a common language (different dialects of Akkadian) as well as shared religious and intellectual traditions. As Near Eastern states fought one another repeatedly over the centuries, they developed common war-fighting styles, conventional behaviors, and an unwritten code of conduct.42 This convergence created shared expectations of warfare and its consequences. The effect was to limit somewhat the material and human cost of war. Kings usually went to war for security reasons, to quell rebellion or to gain control of resources and territory. Achieving these objectives involved diplomacy, negotiation, selective violence, and calculated destruction rather than the type of wholesale ruin meted out to Assyria. Conventional warfare was unquestionably brutal, but defeat was not intended to be so absolute as to preclude recovery under a new regime. In the normal course of war, targeted cities would get sacked and villages destroyed, but the general infrastructure, temples, and the conquered peoples’ way of life usually survived for the victor to rule. Over decades

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of war fought in Babylonia, for example, the Assyrians never inflicted the kind of indiscriminate and comprehensive devastation that they suffered at the hands of the Medes.43 Despite Assyria’s modern reputation as a brutal oppressor that cowed the hapless peoples of the ancient Near East through torture and terrorism, Assyrian military methods were generally in line with those of other ancient states. The Assyriologist Rita Dolce, for example, considers that the practice of taking heads arrived in Assyria through “cultural migration” from Syria.44 The ruthless treatment of defeated enemies and the punishment of rebels were prevalent throughout the ancient world.45 In at least one important respect, however, the Assyrians seem to have exceeded contemporary practices, namely, by the pervasive and graphic representation of violence in royal inscriptions and on sculptured palace reliefs. Whether the celebration of bloodshed expressed some dark cultural trait or had a more overtly political purpose remains hotly contested. The huge corpus of royal correspondence dealing with the realities of imperial rule is singularly devoid of sadism, a fact that belies the popular perception of the Assyrians as barbaric despots. Whatever else may have been at play, the element of calculation in Assyrian cruelty has long been recognized.46 The most successful kings carefully weighed the ratio of cost to benefit of all official undertakings, military or otherwise. Warfare and punitive actions were subject to the same type of calculation that diplomatic, political, or economic endeavors received. Although the Assyrians recognized the effectiveness of clemency, experience taught that the response to rebellion had to be swift and merciless. Left untreated, rebellion spread like a cancer—all the more reason to make examples of the ringleaders in horrific public executions. More important, the king who failed to avenge a broken treaty would incur the wrath of his own gods, whose honor the rebels had affronted. Under these circumstances, punishments such as flaying or impaling—far from being imposed at the ruler’s whim for his personal enjoyment—fulfilled the precepts of divine justice. The subjects of any Near Eastern state would have understood this concept implicitly even as they feared its application. The Medes, unlike the centralized, literate, urbanized societies of Assyria or Babylonia, were a loose confederation of tribes and small, fortress-based chiefdoms that had come together temporarily under

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the leadership of Cyaxares in order to plunder and destroy Assyria. Although Nabopolassar’s vision of the Babylonians as the natural “heirs of Assyria” conformed to age-old Mesopotamian tradition, the Medes did not share that tradition, had no imperial ambitions, and lacked the level of state organization required to administer an empire even if they had wanted to do so.47 Had events followed historical precedent, Assyria would not have been laid waste and abandoned but would have been reorganized into the provinces of a new Babylonian empire. That the Babylonians later minimized their own role while blaming the Medes for the extreme devastation reveals the disjunction between the Near Eastern and Median expectations of war.48 Because the Medes did not “play by the rules,” their entrance into the war constituted a “strategic shock,” meaning an event that “suddenly discredits many or all preexisting assumptions about the environment and those conventions that govern effective navigation through it.”49 What happened to Assyria truly stunned contemporary Near Eastern societies, not just because it was sudden but because destruction on that level did not follow accepted norms. The Assyrians, for their part, could not adapt to the new situation but doggedly pursued their customary way of war. Although the Assyrian army was part of the larger Mesopotamian cultural and military tradition, it developed its fundamental character as a result of the state’s unique historical circumstance. During the Middle Assyrian period (ca. 1600–1100), surrounded by enemies and with no geographical barriers to aid defense, Assyria struggled to survive among the era’s great powers: Egypt, Kassite Babylonia, Mitanni, and Hatti. The humiliation of Mitannian hegemony in the fifteenth century BCE, followed by Aramean incursions that drastically reduced Assyrian territory at the end of the period, transformed the Assyrians into an aggressive military power whose fundamental understanding of warfare was that it should be preemptive and offensive rather than defensive. In short, the Assyrians decided that the best defense was a good offense. By the ninth century BCE, the impulse to secure the heartland of Assyria had combined with the religious mandate for imperial expansion to reinforce Assyrian assumptions about warfare. As the empire acquired more territory, war naturally gravitated to the periphery, but this situation simply validated what had become the Assyrians’ automatic military response to threat: take war to the enemy with overwhelming force.

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This offensive principle is nowhere more apparent than in the royal annals in which Assyrian kings celebrated their military deeds. After the introduction of the genre in the eleventh century BCE, Assyrian campaign narratives invariably depicted the king and his army leaving their homeland and entering enemy territory to wage war. Each new military operation was introduced with statements such as, “In the fourteenth year of my reign: I mustered the country; I crossed the Euphrates; twelve kings came against me; I fought with them; I accomplished their defeat”; or “In my next campaign, I moved swiftly against Babylon whose destruction I sought, and like the onset of a storm, I attacked”; or “In my eighth campaign, at the command of the gods Assur and Ishtar, I levied my troops and went straight against Ummanaldash, king of Elam.”50 The annals are essentially military travelogues. Not only do all campaigns take place outside the Assyrian heartland, but (with one or two notable exceptions) they all are prosecuted the same way and follow a predictable pattern. The always-victorious king marches his army out of Assyria into enemy territory, which he proceeds to devastate until his opponents submit. Rarely, if ever, do the Assyrians admit to giving ground. Assyrian armies mustered in the heartland, but they did not fight there.51 The purpose of royal inscriptions was to celebrate the king’s fulfillment of divine imperatives, not to elucidate royal political goals and military strategy or to report mere facts. These texts represent a fundamental unification of ideology and practice: Assyrian kings did not passively await attack but met any threat aggressively, as their sacred duty required. Because tradition mandated that every king expand the borders of the empire,52 the army from its inception became an offensive force. Nevertheless, no king could field a large enough army to conquer, police, and pacify a huge empire. Maintaining a hold on territory thus depended on a shrewd balance of diplomacy and ruthlessly applied violence. As long as the threat of retaliation or the promise of reward prevented rebellion among client states and provinces, the army could operate anywhere outside the core without threat to national security. Although some soldiers garrisoned strategically placed forts and provincial cities throughout the empire, the Assyrian army was more often used to attack than to occupy or defend. To that end, the Assyrians developed appropriate organizational and operational capabilities: su-

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perior training, weapons, and logistical support; an aptitude for maneuver and rapid deployment; and a facility for combined arms operations involving chariots, cavalry, and variously armed infantry units. Imperial expansion and continuing military success constantly reinforced expectations, until the notion that wars must only be fought in enemy territory, far from the imperial core, became ingrained. Assyria’s military achievements brought unprecedented security to its heartland. After Tiglath-pileser I (1114–1076) evicted the Babylonians from Ekallate (slightly northeast of Assur) at the end of the twelfth century, no heartland city was besieged and no organized foreign invasion force penetrated its borders until 615, when the Babylonians first attempted to take Assur. The Assyrian core was free of foreign invasion for more than five hundred years—an astounding record that no other Near Eastern state could even approximate. The Assyrians had perfected an effective system of conquest and control that brought peace to their heartland (excluding occasional civil wars) and much of the empire as well. This situation profoundly shaped the Assyrians’ concept of how war should and would be waged but inevitably seduced them into taking the heartland’s invulnerability for granted. The main goal of imperial expansion was to supply and enrich the core. Assyria’s primary mode of production was agriculture, and the country lacked many essential resources, including wood, metal, and stone. As the empire grew, its kings struggled to secure and manage the vital commodities that urban growth demanded and that the local rural population could not furnish.53 Indeed, such goals might even be termed the very function of empire. By the seventh century, the large size of Assyria’s cities—Nimrud, Nineveh, Assur, and Dur-Sharrukin— had a significant impact on local settlement patterns and the rural population. Even Assur, the smallest of these, was reasonably large, at about 70 hectares.54 More than ten times larger, Nineveh covered about 780 hectares and had an estimated population of as many as 230,000.55 During the empire’s heyday, a rising population and limited agricultural catchments put stress on Assyria’s urban centers, which produced less than they required.56 In response, kings undertook substantial public projects to provide housing and fresh water, facilitate the transportation of goods, and enhance communication between the heartland and distant parts of the empire.

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As centers of commerce and intellectual and religious activity and as symbols of royal power, cities not only had to be easily accessible to a variety of groups (e.g., tribute-bearing foreign delegations and merchants’ caravans) but also had to be appropriately impressive. The most successful kings spared no expense in making capitals fabulous, but in their desire to stimulate production and glorify Assyria, they occasionally sacrificed defensive measures.57 Sargon II (720–705), who built a new capital, Dur-Sharrukin, on virgin soil, claimed in his inscriptions that his purpose was to “provide the wide land of Assyria with food to repletion.”58 Notwithstanding the city’s martial designation, dûr meaning “fort” or “wall” in Akkadian, its location on an open plain devoid of protective topographical features indicates that Sargon privileged prestige over military functionality. The fortification wall, though augmented by towers and possibly topped by stone crenellations, was only about twelve meters high, and each of the city’s seven double gates had a straight-axis approach. In addition, the platform of the citadel projected beyond the city wall, an innovation that traded security for the visual effect of “riding on the walls.”59 Sargon’s son Sennacherib (704–681) was even more ambitious than his father. After more than doubling the size of Nineveh, Sennacherib undertook elaborate fortifications: a huge wall, a moat, and an outer rampart. Additional civic improvements included some 150 kilometers of canals, tunnels, aqueducts, and dams to supply water to the city, its surrounding fields, and Sennacherib’s splendid gardens.60 Giving priority to the water works, he never completed the fortification program. Nineveh’s twelve-kilometer perimeter wall exceeded fifteen meters in height and included numerous towers, but any defensive advantage it afforded was compromised by the city’s fifteen gates, which opened directly onto wide roadways that linked Nineveh to Assyria’s other main cities.61 At Nineveh, as at Nimrud, Dur-Sharrukin, and Assur, convenient access in peacetime became a lethal vulnerability during a siege. This is not to say that the Assyrians skimped on fortifications. Masters of siege warfare, they employed all the standard defensive measures: double walls, ramparts, moats, ditches, glacis, and deep gates with towers to provide enfilading fire. After Assyrian prosperity began to wane toward the end of Ashurbanipal’s reign, economic and political constraints affected royal construction projects.62 As the empire lost ter-

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ritory and access to resources, kings curtailed work on defenses that had not been needed since time immemorial. Although the last kings of Assyria made necessary repairs to city defenses, they undertook no improvements. The fact that Assur, Nimrud, and Nineveh held out the first time they were attacked belies the notion that city defenses had seriously deteriorated. On the contrary, what proved Assyria’s undoing was the belief that fortifications, however elaborate, would be enough to stop a determined enemy. Centuries of peace in the heartland had made the idea of invasion seem far-fetched.

Conclusion The Assyrians had no defensive strategy for the heartland, but they were not exceptional in that regard. No ancient state could mount an effective perimeter defense. Nor had the concept of defense in depth been developed. Frontier forts served as bases from which to make raids and to control the flow of traffic. They could not repulse a determined invader, but they projected power. In effect, peripheral territories created a wide distance barrier around the core. Experience confirmed that the Assyrian heartland did not need extra defensive measures and that the Assyrians could be entirely confident in the way they waged war. Consequently, when the unthinkable actually happened and foreign armies penetrated the Assyrian heartland for the first time in five hundred years, Assyria was not prepared to defend itself. Throughout the war, Sin-shar-ishkun’s actions were characteristic; he kept pressing the attack. It probably never occurred to him to do anything else. Sin-shar-ishkun applied proven military principles: protect the flank, foment rebellion in enemy territory, take the war to the enemy, and concentrate the attack on one point of the enemy’s position. Under the circumstances, he seems to have been a capable general who mustered all the resources at his disposal and deployed them rationally (particularly with regard to mobility and the use of allies), though he had neither the means nor the time to adapt to the new conditions. The king did not anticipate having to face a second enemy whose goal was destruction rather than conquest. The Assyrians developed expectations of warfare in accordance with their social and economic organization in order to meet their political

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objectives. Great success over a long period of time created the deepseated conviction that the heartland was inviolate and that warfare was best executed offensively. Weakened by economic circumstances and the strategic complacency that often accompanies long success, Assyria could not withstand the “game-changing” strategic shock that the Medes delivered. In the case of Assyria, we see clearly the dangers inherent in a social and military conservatism that adhered too stubbornly to preconceived notions about how war should be waged and that could not adapt to new challenges. This chapter has stressed the need to evaluate warfare in its cultural context. Viewed in isolation, the Assyrians’ last war is an unenlightening concatenation of events: the significance of the Medes’ participation is lost; Sin-shar-ishkun’s offensive strategy remains merely “puzzling”;63 and the vulnerability of the heartland becomes just another example of the standard paradigm for imperial collapse. When these events are studied in their proper context, however, they reveal a great deal about the relationship between warfare and culture in the ancient Near East. The Assyrian way of war did more than meet practical exigencies; it expressed identity—cultural values, standards, and codes of behavior. Such beliefs, in keeping with those of the wider Near Eastern community, both guided and gave meaning to the Assyrians’ actions on the battlefield. As much as any other factor, the Assyrians’ assumptions about warfare condemned them to defeat. Notes

1. An earlier version of this chapter, “A New Look at the End of the Assyrian Empire,” appeared in Homeland and Exile: Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of Bustenay Oded, ed. G. Galil, M. Geller, and A. Millard, Vetus Testamentum Supplements 130 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 179–202. 2. See, for example, Stefan Zawadzki, The Fall of Assyria and Median-Babylonian Relations in Light of the Nabopolassar Chronicle (Poznan, Poland: Eburon, 1988); Joan Oates, “The Fall of Assyria,” in The Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd ed., vol. 3, pt. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 162–93; Amelie Kuhrt, The Ancient Near East, c. 3000–330 BC, vol. 2 (London: Routledge, 1994), 540–46; Peter Machinist, “The Fall of Assyria in Comparative Ancient Perspective,” in Assyria 1995, ed. Simo Parpola and Robert M. Whiting (Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1997), 179–96; Mario Liverani, “The Fall of the Assyrian Empire: Ancient and Modern Interpretations,” in Empires: Perspectives from Archaeology and History, ed. S. Alcock, T. D’Altroy, K. Morrison, C. Sinopoli (Cambridge:

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4.

5.

6.

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Cambridge University Press, 2001), 374–91; and Adam W. Schneider and Selim F. Adalι, “Further Evidence for a Late Assyrian ‘Dry Phase’ during the Mid-to-Late Seventh Century B.C.?,” Iraq 78 (2016): 159–74 and references contained therein. Mark Altaweel, “The Land of Ashur: A Study of Landscape and Settlement in the Assyrian Heartland” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2004), 4. Altaweel demarcates the heartland as the 150-by-79-kilometer area having a north-south axis from the Lower Zab to Eski Mosul and an east-west axis from Wadi Tharthar and Jebel Sheikh Ibrahim to Wadi Fadha, Qara Chauq, and the Khazir River. This area formed the nucleus of the Assyrian Empire and included the capital cities. It was at the core of the Assyrian concept of “the land of Assur,” although in practice (and over time) this notion proved quite elastic. See also Friedhelm Pedde, “The Assyrian Heartland,” in A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, ed. D. T. Potts (London: Blackwell, 2012), 851–66. See especially David Stronach, “When Assyria Fell: New Light on the Last Days of Nineveh,” Mâr Šipri 2 (1989): 2–3; David Stronach, “Notes on the Fall of Nineveh,” in Parpola and Whiting, Assyria 1995, 307–24; Peter Miglus, “Die letzten Tage von Assur und die Zeit danach,” ISIMU 3 (2003): 85–99; John E. Curtis, “The Assyrian Heartland in the Period 612–539 BC,” in Continuity of Empire(?): Assyria, Media, Persia, ed. G. Lanfranchi, M. Roaf, and R. Rollinger, History of the Ancient Near East Monographs 5 (Padua: S.A.R.G.O.N. Editrice, 2003), 157–67; and David Stronach, “The Last Days of Assyrian Nineveh: A View from the Halzi Gate,” in Nineveh the Great City: Symbol of Beauty and Power, ed. L. P. Petit and D. Morandi Bonacossi, PALMA 13 (Leiden: Sidestone, 2017), 228–42. For editions of these chronicles, see Albert Kirk Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2000), 87–96; and Jean-Jacques Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004), 218–24. References to these chronicles are given here by abbreviation and line numbers, for example, FNC 10 refers to the Fall of Nineveh Chronicle, line 10. For the highly problematical chronology of the period, see Zawadzki, Fall of Assyria; Nadav Na’aman, “Chronology and History of the Late Assyrian Period (631– 619 BC),” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 81 (1991): 243–67; Stefan Zawadzki, “A Contribution to the Chronology of the Last Days of the Assyrian Empire,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 85 (1995): 67–73; Paul-Alain Beaulieu, “The 4th Year of Hostilities in the Land,” Baghdader Mitteilungen 28 (1997): 367–94; John A. Brinkman, “Nabopolasser,” Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archaeologie 9 (1998): 12–16; and Michael Liebig, “Aššur-etel-ilani, Sin-šum-lišir, and Sin-šar-iškun und die Babylonische Chronik,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 90 (2000): 281–84. Machinist, “Fall of Assyria”; Aaron Pinker, “Nahum and Greek Tradition on Nineveh’s Fall,” Journal of Hebrew Scripture 6 (2006): 2–16; Stanley M. Burstein, The Babyloniaca of Berossus, Sources from the Ancient Near East 1/5 (Malibu, CA: Undena, 1978); Robert Drews, “The Babylonian Chronicles of Berossus,” Iraq 37 (1975): 39–55; R. J. Van Der Spek, “Berossus as a Babylonian Chronicler and Greek Historian,” in Studies in Near Eastern World View and Society Presented to Marten

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8.

9.

10. 11. 12.

13.

14. 15.

16. 17.

Stol on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, ed. R. J. Van Der Spek (Bethesda, MD: CDL, 2008), 277–318; Rocío Da Riva, “The Figure of Nabopolassar in Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Historiographic Tradition: BM 34793 and CUA 90,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 76 (2017): 75–92. Thomas Deszö, “The Reconstruction of the Neo-Assyrian Army as Depicted on the Assyrian Palace Reliefs, 745–612 BC,” Acta Archeologica Academiae Scientarium Hungaricae 57 (2006): 87–130; Deszö, The Assyrian Army I: The Structure of the Neo-Assyrian Army, 1: Infantry (Budapest: Eötvös University Press, 2012); Deszö, The Assyrian Army I: The Structure of the Neo-Assyrian Army, 2: Cavalry and Chariotry, Antiqua et Orientalia 3, Assyriologia 8/2 (Budapest: Eötvös University Press, 2012); Deszö, The Assyrian Army II: Recruitment and Logistics, Antiqua et Orientalia 6, Assyrilogia 9 (Budapest: Eötvös University Press, 2016). Amy Barron, “Late Assyrian Arms and Armor: Art vs. Artifact” (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2010); Fabrice de Backer, The Neo-Assyrian Shield: Evolution, Heraldry, and Associated Tactics (Atlanta: Lockwood, 2016). Deszö, Assyrian Army I, 2: Cavalry and Chariotry, 65. F. M. Fales and J. N. Postgate, Imperial Administrative Records, Part II, State Archives of Assyria 11 (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1995), xxiv–xxvi. John Marriott and Karen Radner, “Sustaining the Assyrian Army among Friends and Enemies in 714 B.C.E.,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 67 (2015): 127–43; Deszö, Assyrian Army II, 60–92. Deszö, “Reconstruction of the Neo-Assyrian Army,” 108. See also JoAnn Scurlock, “Neo-Assyrian Battle Tactics,” in Crossing Boundaries and Linking Horizons: Studies in Honor of Michael C. Astour on His 80th Birthday, ed. G. Young, M. Chavalas, and R. Averbeck (Bethesda, MD: CDL, 1997), 491–517; Davide Nadali, “Assyrian Open Field Battles: An Attempt at Reconstruction and Analysis,” in Studies on War in the Ancient Near East, ed. J. Vidial, Alter Orient und Altes Testament 372 (Münster: Ugarit Verlag, 2010), 117–52; Garret G. Fagan, “‘I Fell upon Him like a Furious Arrow’: Toward a Reconstruction of the Assyrian Tactical System,” in New Perspectives on Ancient Warfare, ed. G. G. Fagan and M. Trundle (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 81–100. John MacGinnis, “Mobilization and Militarization in the Neo-Babylonian Empire,” in Vidial, Studies on War in the Ancient Near East, 153–63. In the early seventh century, Median contingents served as palace guards and bodyguards of the Assyrian crown prince. See Julian E. Reade, “Why Did the Medes Invade Assyria?,” in Lanfranchi, Roaf, and Rollinger, Continuity of Empire(?), 149–56; Karen Radner, “Assyria and the Medes,” in The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran, ed. D. T. Potts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 442–56. Herodotus (1.103) attributes this development to Cyaxares. The exact date of Ashurbanipal’s death is unknown, but it certainly took place between 631 and 627 BCE. Kandalanu, whom Ashurbanipal appointed to rule Babylonia in 648, died in 627. For a discussion of the evidence, see Jamie Novotny,

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18.

19.

20.

21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26.

27.

28.

29. 30.

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“Ashurbanipal’s Campaigns,” in I Am Ashurbanipal, King of the World, King of Assyria, ed. Gareth Brereton (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2018), 207–11. Beaulieu, “4th Year of Hostilities,” 391–93; Michael Jursa, “Die Söhne Kudurrus und die Herkunft der neubabylonischen Dynastie,” Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale 101 (2007): 125–36. Beaulieu argues that Nabopolassar was a native of Uruk (in southern Babylonia), and more recently, Jursa suggested that Nabopolassar was the eldest son of a governor of Uruk who was killed by the Assyrians. For a discussion of Nabopolassar’s strategy, see Francis Joannès, “La stratégie des rois Néo-Babyloniens contre l’Assyrie, de 616 à 606 av. J.-C.,” in Les armées du Proche-Orient ancient (IIIe–Ier mill. Av. J.-C.), ed. Philippe Abrahami and Laura Battini, BAR International Series 1855 (London: John and Erica Hedges, 2008), 207–18. NC 18–24. The ancient site of Raqmat, or Sallat, as it is sometimes transliterated, has not yet been located. According to convention, in translations of cuneiform sources the information enclosed in parentheses is explanatory and not part of the original text. Material included in square brackets represents the translator’s reconstruction of words or phrases that are missing from the original because of a break in the text. Steven W. Cole, Nippur in Neo-Assyrian Times: C. 755–612 B.C., State Archives of Assyria Studies 4 (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1996), 80; Brinkman, “Nabopolassar,” 14. FNC 1–12. The site of Gablini has not yet been identified. For the key roads in Assyria, see Sabrina Favaro, Voyages et voyageurs à l’époque néo-Assyrienne, State Archives of Assyria Studies 18 (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 2007), plates 4 and 6. FNC 11–13. Kuhrt, Ancient Near East, 545; Joannès, “Stratégie des rois Néo-Babyloniens contre l’Assyrie.” FNC 16–22. The Medes had been active in the area around Arrapha some months earlier; but the chronicle is broken at that point, and it is not possible to determine what happened (FNC 23). For more information about the Medes and their relationship to the Assyrians and Babylonians, see especially Lanfranchi, Roaf and Rollinger, Continuity of Empire(?); Radner, “Assyria and the Medes.” Kuhrt, Ancient Near East, 545. For more on the Medes’ role in the east-west trade, see Karen Radner, “An Assyrian View on the Medes,” in Lanfranchi, Roaf, and Rollinger, Continuity of Empire(?), 51–52. M. E. L. Mallowan, Nimrud and Its Remains, vol. 2 (London: British Museum, 1966), 82; Joan Oates and David Oates, Nimrud: An Assyrian City Revealed (London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 2001), 148. FNC 27. Mallowan, Nimrud and Its Remains, 82; Oates and Oates, Nimrud, 148.

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31. Herodotus 1.103 mentions the Scythians attacking the Medes. There is earlier evidence of an alliance between the Assyrian king Esarhaddon (680–669), the grandfather of Sin-shar-ishkun, and the Scythian leader Bartatua. Esarhaddon might have cemented the alliance with a diplomatic marriage. See Ivan Starr, Queries to the Sungod: Divination and Politics in Sargonid Assyria, State Archives of Assyria 4 (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1990), 20. 32. FNC 31–37. 33. For the Sin-shar-ishkun letter and discussion of both texts, see Wilfred G. Lambert, “Letter of Sîn-šarra-iškun to Nabopolassar,” in Cuneiform Texts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 2, Literary and Scholastic Texts, ed. I. Spar and W. G. Lambert (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995), 206. For the Nabopolassar text, see Pamela Gerardi, “Declaring War in Mesopotamia,” Archiv für Orientforschung 33 (1986): 30–38. For a recent discussion of the texts’ dating and authenticity, see Da Riva, “Figure of Nabopolassar,” 80–81. The colophon of the Sin-shar-ishkun letter identifies it as a Hellenistic copy of a purported Babylonian original, so the possibility remains that it is the product of scribal imagination. In the other text, Nabopolassar’s name is not preserved, but the contents make the attribution virtually certain. 34. Lambert, “Letter of Sîn-šarra-iškun to Nabopolassar,” 205. 35. Gerardi, “Declaring War in Mesopotamia,” 36. 36. FNC 41–46. 37. Stronach, “Last Days of Assyrian Nineveh.” 38. Stephanie Dalley, “Nineveh after 612 BC,” Altorientalische Forschungen 20 (1993): 134–47; Curtis, “Assyrian Heartland.” 39. Curtis, “Assyrian Heartland,” 164. Recent excavations in the Assyrian provinces paint a slightly different picture. See Timothy Matney, John MacGinnis, Dirk Wicke, and Kemalettin Köroğlu, Ziyaret Tepe: Exploring the Anatolian Frontier of the Assyrian Empire (Oxford, UK: Archeopress, 2018), 158; Janoscha Keppner, “The Aftermath of the Assyrian Empire as Seen from the ‘Red House’ Operation in Tell Sheikh Hamad (Ancient Dur-Katlimmu),” in The Provincial Archaeology of the Assyrian Empire, ed. J. MacGinnis, D. Wicke, and T. Greenfield, McDonald Institute Monographs (Cambridge, UK: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2016), 177–87. 40. Rocío Da Riva, The Neo-Babylonian Royal Inscriptions: An Introduction (Münster: Ugarit Verlag, 2008), 6. 41. A. Leo Oppenheim, “Nabonidus,” in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to the Old Testament, ed. J. B. Pritchard (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1955), 309. 42. Mario Liverani, Prestige and Interest: International Relations in the Near East, ca. 1600–1100 B.C. (Padua: S.A.R.G.O.N. Editrice, 1990). 43. Marc Van Der Mieroop, “Revenge, Assyrian Style,” Past & Present 179 (2003): 19–22. Van Der Mieroop argues that the thorough destruction of Nineveh was a deliberate act of vengeance for Assyria’s earlier sacking of Babylon (689

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45.

46.

47. 48. 49.

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BCE). However, revenge does not account for the harsh treatment of the rest of Assyria. Sennacherib besieged and sacked Babylon to avenge the death of his own son, whom the Babylonians had betrayed, captured, and delivered to the Elamites. Even though Sennacherib’s vengeance was both thorough and brutal, it was localized, and he did not systematically devastate all of Babylonia. See John A. Brinkman, Prelude to Empire: Babylonian Society and Politics, 747–626 B.C., Occasional Publications of the Babylonian Fund 7 (Philadelphia: University Museum, 1984), 67–68; Grant Frame, Babylonia 689–627 B.C.: A Political History (Leiden: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 1992), 52–63. Rita Dolce, “The ‘Head of the Enemy’ in the Sculptures from the Palaces of Nineveh: An Example of ‘Cultural Migration’?,” in Nineveh: Papers of the XLIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, London, 7–11 July 2003, ed. Dominique Collon and Andrew George (London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 2005), 121–32. See also G. Minunno, “La mutilation du corps de l’ennemi,” in Abrahami and Battini, Les armées du Proche-Orient ancient, 247–56; Rita Dolce, Losing One’s Head in the Ancient Near East: Interpretation and Meaning of Decapitation, Studies in the History of the Ancient Near East (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2018). It is not difficult to find examples throughout ancient history of what we now call atrocities, but Hirtius, a legate of Julius Caesar writing in the first century BCE, articulated in an uncommonly forthright manner the callous logic behind acts of extreme violence: “Nor could he (Caesar) foresee any successful outcome of his strategies if more of the enemy in other areas acted similarly. . . . For this reason he decided upon making an example of the townspeople in punishing them, so as to deter the rest. He allowed them to live, therefore, but cut off the hands of all those who had carried arms against him. This made the punishment for wrongdoers plain to see” (Caesar, 8.44). See Carolyn Hammond, trans., Caesar’s Gallic Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 217. See, for example, A. T. Olmstead, “The Calculated Frightfulness of Ashur Nasir Apal,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 38 (1918): 209–63; and, more recently, A. Fuchs, “Waren die Assyrer grausam?,” in Extreme Formen von Gewalt in Bild und Text des Altertums, ed. M. Zimmermann, Münchner Studien zur Alten Welt 5 (Munich: Herbert Utz, 2009), 65–119; Karen Radner, “High Visibility Punishment and Deterrent: Impalement in Assyrian Warfare and Legal Practice,” Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtgeschichte 21 (2015): 103–28; and Marcelo Rede, “The Image of Violence and the Violence of the Image: War and Ritual in Assyria (Ninth–Seventh Centuries BCE),” Varia Historia, Belo Horizonte 34 (2018): 81–121. Liverani, “Fall of the Assyrian Empire,” 389–90; Reade, “Why Did the Medes Invade Assyria?,” 155. Liverani, “Fall of the Assyrian Empire,” 390. Nathan P. Freier, Known Unknowns: Unconventional “Strategic Shocks” in Defense Strategy Development (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2008), 5.

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50. Brent Strawn, “Shalmaneser III: The Black Obelisk”; Sarah C. Melville, “Sennacherib: The Bavian Inscription”; and Melville, “Ashurbanipal: Civil War and Elamite Campaigns”; all in The Ancient Near East: Historical Sources in Translation, ed. Mark W. Chavalas (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2006), 292, 349, 367. 51. This is not to say that no fighting ever took place in the Assyrian heartland, for Assyria suffered sporadic raids from nomadic peoples and a number of civil wars and rebellions, although these seem to have had little effect on the country’s population centers. See Karen Radner, “Revolts in the Assyrian Empire: Succession Wars, Rebellions against a False King and Independence Movements,” in Resistance in the Ancient Classical World and the Near East: In the Crucible of Empire, ed. J. J. Collins and J. G. Manning, Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 85 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 41–54. 52. Both the Middle Assyrian and Late Assyrian coronation prayers include the mandate to enlarge the country. See Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature (Bethesda, MD: CDL, 2005), 334, 815. 53. Altaweel, “Land of Assur,” 157; Tony J. Wilkinson, Jason Ur, Eleanor Barbanes Wilkinson, and Mark Altaweel, “Landscape and Settlement in the Neo-Assyrian Empire,” Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research 340 (2006): 26–27. 54. One hectare equals ten thousand square meters, or about two and a half acres. 55. The figure for Nineveh’s population given here represents the very limits of possibility, but it does indicate the city’s unique position in Assyria and the wider Near East. By comparison, Nimrud was about 380 hectares and Dur-Sharrukin 315. See Altaweel, “Land of Assur,” 41, 154. 56. Schneider and Adalι, “Further Evidence for a ‘Late Assyrian Dry Phase.’” 57. For the ideology of Neo-Assyrian cities, see, for example, Louis D. Levine, “Cities as Ideology: The Neo-Assyrian Centres of Ashur, Nimrud, and Nineveh,” Canadian Society of Mesopotamian Studies Bulletin 12 (1986): 1–7; Laura Battini, “Un exemple de propagande néo-assyrienne: Les défenses de Dur-Sharrukin,” Contributi e materiali di archeologia orientale 6 (1996): 217–31; Mirko Novák, “From Assur to Nineveh: The Assyrian Town Planning Programme,” in Collon and George, Nineveh, 177–86; Stephen Lumsden, “The Production of Space at Nineveh,” in Collon and George, Nineveh, 187–98; and Marta Rivaroli, “Nineveh: From Ideology to Topography,” in Collon and George, Nineveh, 199–206; Petit and Morandi Bonacossi, Nineveh the Great City. 58. Andreas Fuchs, Die Inschriften Sargon II aus Khorsabad (Göttingen: Cuvillier Verlag, 1994), Zyl. 34–37 (pp. 37, 292). 59. Stronach, “Notes on the Fall of Nineveh,” 310; Novák, “From Assur to Nineveh,” 181; and Battini, “Un example de propaganda neo-assyrienne.” 60. Ariel M. Bagg, “Irrigation in Northern Mesopotamia: Water in the Assyrian Capitals (12th–7th Centuries BC),” Irrigation and Drainage Systems 14 (2000): 316. See also Daniele Morandi Bonacossi, “Water for Assyria: Irrigation and Water Management in the Assyrian Empire,” in Petit and Morandi Bonacossi, Nineveh the Great City, 132–36.

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61. Stronach, “Notes on the Fall of Nineveh,” 311–13; M. Louise Scott and John MacGinnis, “Notes on Nineveh,” Iraq 52 (1990): 63–73. 62. Note, however, that even Sin-shar-ishkun undertook new construction at Assur, Calah, and Nineveh. See Jamie Novotny and Greta Van Buylaere, “Sîn-šarru-iškun and Ezida in Calah,” in Galil, Geller, and Millard, Homeland and Exile, 215–44. 63. Oates, “Fall of Assyria,” 179.

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Disciplining Octavian A Case Study of Roman Military Culture, 44–30 BCE Lee L. Brice

Roman armies dominated the Mediterranean world for more than six centuries, contributing to the creation and maintenance of an empire that spanned three continents and encompassed millions of inhabitants. Although Roman arms did not always triumph, such a record remains a remarkable achievement. This success also made the Roman military popular as a topic for later military historians and professionals seeking the recipe that they could draw on to improve contemporary efforts.1 There was, of course, no recipe. Success for any military was always more complicated than any reductive formula, especially one focused simply on tactics or weaponry. Rather, the Roman army would be better considered for its military culture. That there was a distinct culture within the legions of the late Republic is not doubted, but it is important to remember that that military culture was part and product of the broader Roman culture.2 Culture has always affected how an army wages war. While examples of the connections between culture and war can be easy to identify in modern armies, it is much more difficult to locate specific instances in the ancient world. The primary reason for this problem is the nature of the available evidence. Ancient sources have not survived evenly. Those sources that remain usually lack the kinds of information required to develop definitive examples of a commander making operational and combat decisions that are directly linked to the society’s culture. Perhaps the clearest aspect of Roman military culture for which we do have examples is discipline. It was an important component of that military culture, and we have good examples of a commander making operational decisions based on discipline. 44

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It is not possible in one chapter to cover all facets of military discipline (disciplina militaris), and other works have explored it fully.3 Instead, in this chapter I examine some of the ways in which military discipline broadly expressed Roman culture, using a case study of a commander heavily influenced in his planning and his combat decisions by features of military discipline. Because of the uneven quality and the limited quantity of our sources, my discussion focuses primarily on the Roman military of the late Republic and early Empire (first century BCE), the period of this case study.4

Discipline and Culture Although in the modern world we tend to think of discipline as ubiquitous in successful armies, the routine discipline in the Roman military was new in the ancient Greco-Roman world.5 In the past, historians assumed that Roman discipline was always rigid, brutal, and absolute, similar to that in some modern militaries. More recent work, however, has questioned this view, as historians found a great deal of indiscipline during the Republic and continuing into the Empire. There certainly is evidence that discipline in the Roman military was not as rigid as has been believed. J. E. Lendon, particularly, argues that we should see disciplina as a tool that commanders used to curb their soldiers’ zeal (virtus) rather than as “a system of imposed or felt rules.”6 Moreover, we should see it as one of two military “ethics,” along with virtus, that were in conflict but critical to military success.7 Although plausible, Lendon’s interpretation ignores certain historical features, including the typically negative outcomes of indiscipline and excessive virtus, the positive side of discipline, and, especially, the rhetorical nature of this type of Roman literature. A more likely interpretation of disciplina would be somewhere between Lendon’s and the traditional view. Military discipline of the middle to late Republic was not so consistently enforced as to be called a system but was regularized to an extent by law and custom and was key to maintaining order on and off the battlefield. Regardless of the approach, scholars do not deny that discipline was critical to Rome’s military success and was grounded in the broader culture. The reality of disciplina militaris was much more complicated than the two-dimensional image in novels and films of a well-honed war

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machine famous for victory and brutal punishments.8 Rather, it was a network of control whose purpose was to maintain military order at all times, thus enabling the commander to manage his soldiers in combat situations as well as controlling them outside combat, in camp and in the rest of society. Indeed, Roman soldiers’ training, cohesion, and weapons could have made them a threat to the rest of society if they were not kept in order. Managing the soldiers in a fight was not limited to keeping them in line but also was a means to encourage and reward great acts of bravery and endurance.9 Cultural grounding was what made the network of “control” so successful. Two key ways in which disciplina militaris reflected the broader culture were in its ties to religion and its connection with status and hierarchy.

Sacramentum The institution of Roman military discipline was made up of mental components (obedience and cult) as well as physical elements (training, drill, and daily tasks).10 A significant mental component of the disciplina militaris was the military oath (sacramentum). During the Republic, when men were enlisted for service, they took the sacramentum. Initially, they swore to serve the commander (and thus the state) obediently for the duration of the current campaign. When, however, wars became so numerous that men served continuously for years, the new recruits swore to serve the commander for as long as necessary, usually not more than ten years, renewing the oath whenever a new commander arrived. When or under what circumstances the oath was instituted is not known, but as with the rest of disciplina militaris, it was in place by the time of the Second Punic War (218). After Marius’s reforms (107–103), when the connection between legions and commanders became more personal, the oath to serve the commander took on a new, more individual flavor but seems to have retained much of its original purpose. During the early empire (properly called the Principate), Augustus adapted the sacramentum to suit evolving political and military demands, and he included explicit language to protect the emperor and his family. The military oath continued to evolve, and its use persisted in some form into late antiquity.11 Its evolving in tandem with the culture was what made the oath so effective over such a long period of time.

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The purpose of the oath was to maintain military order. Although the full text of the sacramentum is unknown, references in literary sources suggest that it carried religious and legal sanctions for maintaining order: obedience to commands, discipline, and military law. Violation of the oath originally was a religious crime resulting in the offender’s being called “accursed.” Over time, though, even as violation became less religiously significant, it still held the offender liable to punishment under military law. Typical charges were for specific violations of military law, such as desertion, indiscipline, and disloyalty.12 The oath thus closely bound soldiers to the army for the duration of their service. Swearing the oath to the commander, and renewing it when a new commander took over, shows that during the Republic the sacramentum was not a vague oath of loyalty to the state but a specific bond of obedience to the commander. While the personal nature of the oath was necessary in order to enforce military requirements, it eventually had the unintended consequence of contributing to instability. That is, individual commanders were able to take political and economic advantage of their military strength in part because of the personal connection between soldier and commander embodied in the sacramentum. The success of such commanders illustrates in part the strength of the bond inherent in the oath.13 Clearly, the sacramentum had more than personal connections, as it was an important component in the matrix of discipline. The sacramentum was sufficiently effective and ingrained that a reminder of its sanctions was enough to help restore stability in restive units. During the early stage of the civil war between Pompey and Caesar, C. Scribonius Curio’s references to the sacramentum were sufficient to quell a near mutiny and defection in 49.14 Similarly, Caesar’s reported reference to the oath in an assembly during the mutiny of 47 was what contemporaries thought restored order to his legions.15 One especially famous instance took place in 14 CE when mutinying soldiers in Pannonia reacted superstitiously to a lunar eclipse. Religious concern about breaking their oath, however, persuaded them to return to ranks.16 Nonetheless, although such instances demonstrate the oath’s potential disciplinary authority, they were uncommon. The sacramentum was, therefore, effective but was not a panacea. Soldiers were occasionally held in order by religious sanctions despite their restive mood, but an examination of more events shows that the

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notoriety of such outcomes was a result of their rarity. In these cases, the oath was sufficient to restore order because of the lack of incentive for soldiers to act further. In many instances, though, the oath alone failed to retain the soldiers’ loyalty. Nevertheless, despite occasional breakdowns in military stability, the longevity of the sacramentum reflects more than institutional conservatism; it also indicates the oath’s value in maintaining internal order.17 The sacramentum was effective in part because it was grounded in the religious and hierarchical nature of Roman society and because it functioned as one element among several with the combined purpose of maintaining order. The physical component of Roman discipline included the daily acts designed to instill and maintain a high standard of discipline and associated punishments. Training, drill, and the regimentation of daily routine all were facets of military discipline working to make soldiers obedient to orders, efficiently aggressive and steadfast in battle, and orderly in camp— the norms of behavior in the Roman military.18 Training, drill, and the military camp itself helped ensure not only that the legion remained effective but also that discipline did not slacken; consequently, they were supposed to be maintained throughout the year. The role of training and drill should be obvious, but the standardization of the military camp layout, regardless of the region in which the legions marched and the necessity of regularly building new forts, also helped maintain order.19 In addition to these features of military life, daily tasks kept the men occupied. These regimented tasks included everything from foraging to building infrastructure like roads, bridges, and canals. For example, while Gaius Marius was preparing his legions for campaign against the Teutones and Cimbri (103/102), he had his legions build a canal in Gaul; indeed, it was expected that soldiers would bridge rivers and cut roads. Each of these duties and tasks kept the soldiers active and exercised, not only to encourage unit cohesion but also to enforce military norms.20 Training, drills, and tasks alone would not, however, have been sufficient to maintain good order without penalties and rewards.

Punishments and Rewards These mental and physical components of discipline were reinforced by an array of penalties and incentives. As already noted, violation of

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the sacramentum carried legal and religious sanctions (indeed, drawing the modern distinction between legal and religious is artificial, as they were completely intertwined). As both Polybius, writing in the second century, and the late imperial Digest of Roman law make clear, “All are military crimes, which are committed against the common discipline,” and any violations were subject to punishment, ranging from death to varieties of shame.21 Officers had complete authority in citing soldiers for both crimes and acts of valor, but these citations had to be confirmed and the resulting reward or punishment assigned by the legionary commander (usually the consul or legate) by virtue of his imperium and the sacramentum that the soldiers had taken to obey their commander. Just as the society and the military were hierarchically organized, so too were these punishments and rewards. All the penalties carried decline of status and prestige, a blow that would have affected citizens as well as their families. In a status-conscious culture like Rome’s, this loss would have been equally or even more serious than physical pain for the punished. Capital punishment was the most serious penalty for military crimes, and it applied to a wide variety of offenses, including murder, mutiny, cowardice, treason, and a host of other crimes.22 The most famous form of capital punishment was the decimation (fustuarium), usually applied to a unit that had shown cowardice, in which members of the guilty unit beat to death a percentage of their comrades, chosen by lot.23 Capital punishment was merely one among many options. Other penalties were dishonorable discharge, disbandment, demotion, temporary expulsion, flogging, various types of humiliation, and fines. Numerous examples of the employment of these penalties during the late Republic and early Principate reveal the extent to which they reflected traditional military law.24 The disciplinary matrix included rewards as well as punishments. Just as it is necessary in the maintenance of military norms to punish those men who commit crimes, a disciplinary regime seeking to appear fair to its subjects also requires the means to encourage and reward valor. The Romans recognized that combat operations sometimes required acts of unusual bravery to stimulate others to action or save comrades from difficulties. In Rome, rewards for these acts were called dona militaria.25 As a measure of how seriously these rewards were regarded, Polybius related in his discussion of officers’ duties that commanders sat on horses

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or on high points in a battle in part so that they could see their men clearly and know who deserved recognition after the engagement. A second measure of the rewards’ importance appears on military tombstones, especially those of common soldiers. Although carving a relief on a tombstone could be expensive, it became more common in the late Republic. Military men’s tombstones almost invariably included either a reference to or a depiction of their dona militaris and promotions and sometimes also the place or reason for the award.26 A full hierarchy of awards were available to commanding officers and the state. Although during the Empire, military rewards eventually were granted according to the recipient’s status, during the late Republic, the rewards still depended on the deed and could be won by any soldier or officer. As with punishments, numerous rules regulated the specific awards. The highest honor for commanders was a triumph or ovation awarded by the senate, which was a grand military parade in Rome during which soldiers would also be able to show off their dona. Men of any rank could win crowns of oak or laurel or fashioned from precious metal for great individual deeds such as saving a comrade or being the first over an enemy wall. In addition, individual soldiers could win all sorts of items made of precious metals, most commonly including spears, neck rings (torques), arm bands (armillae), decorated discs (phalerae), and cash.27 Such rewards were not limited to individuals, however. Extraordinary collective rewards helped balance brutal collective punishments like fustuarium. Units could win such special decorations as castles, ship prows, and crowns that were placed on their standard in recognition of valor. A legion could also earn special titles or honorifics like victrix (victorious) or martia (of Mars, god of war), in recognition of special achievement in combat. Units could also win temporary awards like cash payments or a larger share of the plunder from a conquered settlement. Collectively they even could win promotion to a new status, with privileges such as double pay, double rations, or even release from certain duties. During the late Republic, although most awards were limited to citizens, noncitizen (auxilia) units, too, could win awards and even citizenship.28 If the rewards were only temporary or monetary benefits, they would not have been so effective as incentives, but because many of these awards improved the recipient’s status and prestige in a culture that valued these

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above all else, awards and promotions provided strong incentives for competition among men and units while also helping maintain order. Over time, although various laws and regulations emerged to augment the customs governing the conditions under which a commander could give out particular awards or impose particular punishments, their implementation remained inconsistent. The extent to which any one legion trained and drilled, and the degree of consistency with which punishments and rewards were meted out, depended entirely on the local commander (and his subordinate officers).29 This “inconsistency” in enforcement and reward, apparent in both the Digest and historical accounts, was not limited to the military but was standard at all levels of Roman administration. Despite the inconsistencies, fear of punishment provided a regular means—along with training, drills, and regimented tasks—of maintaining discipline. The following case study looks at the effectiveness of these methods, in combination with the sacramentum.

A Case Study: Octavian’s Early Career Even though military discipline was one of Rome’s keys to success in combat and was grounded in Roman culture, surviving examples of its role in a commander’s operational decisions are rare. This dearth of examples is, however, more a function of limited sources and the commonality of military discipline than of any disregard for its importance. In other words, maintaining discipline was such a normal military activity that writers usually saw no need to draw attention to it. Instead, they usually focused on cases of indiscipline. The early career of Octavian Caesar was an exception. He was a commander who made various operational decisions based on discipline and then had to deal with the consequences.30 When senators assassinated Gaius Julius Caesar on March 15, 44, they created a power vacuum that could have led to the dissolution of the empire controlled from Rome. Although the empire did not break up, there was an ensuing period of internal wars among various parties who sought to dominate the state between 44 and 30. Octavian’s first military experience was during these internal wars, and his success proved key to keeping the Roman world from collapsing permanently. Although at the start of this case study, he had no military experience and even

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seemed to disdain traditional military culture, his appreciation of the importance of discipline subsequently evolved. His choices and the results reveal the nature of discipline, its importance to the Roman army, and its grounding in Roman culture and society. Octavian’s part in the events after Caesar’s assassination would not have been apparent to anyone in March 44. Aged only eighteen, Octavian had had no opportunity for combat experience, although this was not unusual.31 He was in Macedonia at this time, training with the troops assembled for Caesar’s intended campaign against Dacia and Parthia. After learning of the assassination, Octavian returned to Italy, arriving in April. Only then did he find that Caesar had adopted him posthumously as a son and had made him his principal heir.32 Once in Rome, while Octavian tried to secure his inheritance and his adoption, his relationship with Mark Antony (Marcus Antonius) emerged as the most threatening problem.

First Command Over the next six months as Octavian and Antony struggled for support and supremacy in Rome, their relationship fell apart, and it became clear to everyone that military conflict was becoming increasingly likely.33 In this context, Octavian made his first decisions on how to prepare for the upcoming conflict. He decided to undermine the discipline of Antony’s soldiers stationed near Brundisium by means of propaganda and bribery, with the goal of, at least, causing his opponent difficulty and, at best, persuading the soldiers to change sides. His agents created a sense among the veterans that Antony had been easy on the assassins and now was blocking the efforts by Caesar’s heir to avenge the murder.34 Undermining discipline in this situation was not difficult, but it took time to achieve meaningful results. Subversion was not the only way in which Octavian showed disdain for traditional military order; his approach to recruitment was just as unorthodox. When he broke with Antony in October, Octavian began raising a legion made up of demobilized veterans in central Italy, promising each man a cash-signing bounty worth two years’ pay.35 This maneuver was highly irregular and contrary to military culture, as soldiers normally were called up after authorization from the senate and then

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took the sacramentum, as discussed earlier. Moreover, in 44 Octavian was still a private citizen and had no authorization from the state to raise troops, so he was gathering soldiers who were not bound by traditional institutions to either the state or him. In fact, sources refer to them as mercenaries instead of soldiers and point out that they were beholden to money rather than the law. Octavian was aware of this unorthodox position and referred to his men as “private guards.”36 Octavian’s decision to undermine discipline among the legions near Brundisium worked, but it later affected his own troops. Soon after Antony joined his soldiers in the south, some of them mutinied and refused to march north under his leadership. Only after several speeches and more conciliatory measures was he able to restore order and start marching north after executing some of the ringleaders.37 When Octavian learned of this incident, he led his own recruits to Rome to get senate authorization. Any pleasure he may have taken from Antony’s difficulties was short-lived, however, as his own men then became unruly, and many deserted. Some were uncomfortable taking the field against Antony instead of the assassins. Others had learned of the bribes offered to Antony’s men by Octavian’s agents and sought an opportunity to enrich themselves further by holding out for more cash. Because Octavian was still a private citizen and had used cash to subvert traditional institutions, he could not resort to the same measures of restoring discipline as Antony had used. Despite several speeches about Caesar’s death, Octavian was able to resolve the problem only by paying out additional bonuses.38 He thus brought the incident to a peaceful if expensive close and demonstrated his willingness to use money to maintain military order. No sooner had Octavian purchased the discipline and loyalty of his own men than two of Antony’s legions (Martian and IV) defected to him near Rome. Octavian’s subversive strategy had worked again: he acquired two experienced legions and put his enemy off balance. Octavian welcomed the two legions by distributing bounties equal to those he had paid his own men and promised all the men serving him that at the end of the war against the assassins, he would pay them each a bonus of five thousand denarii (an extraordinary sum, equivalent to more than twenty-two years’ pay). The senate then granted Octavian the position of propraetor, thereby legalizing the soldiers’ status and

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paying the promised benefits out of state funds.39 In this way, he finally achieved a state-sanctioned magistracy with command authority (imperium), thus ensuring him a legal base from which to pursue his ends. Nonetheless, although Octavian’s contempt for the traditional military culture of discipline had paid dividends for the present, it also had laid the foundation for difficulties over the next eight years. In the aftermath of the battle of Mutina (April 43), Octavian continued to manipulate military discipline as a means to his goals. Earlier the senate had ordered him to take his force north with the consuls Hirtius and Pansa to defeat Antony and relieve the siege of Mutina. Antony lost the battle and fled north, but both consuls died.40 Octavian then wanted the senate to name him consul to fill one of the vacant posts. When the senate responded by denying the promised bounties for his men, requiring him to give some of his eight legions to other commanders, and ignoring his appeal for a consulship, he stalled for time, communicated intermittently with other legions, and gradually incited his own soldiers to resist the senate’s directives.41 Octavian thus decided to follow a familiar, seditious path consisting of appeals to Caesar’s memory and reminding his men of the senate’s refusal to pay the promised bonuses. He continued this strategy for several months, marching around the region but ignoring requests from the senate or other commanders for assistance. Events reached a climax in July when his eight legions marched on Rome. Although he claimed that the soldiers were violent and out of control and had forced him to accompany them, it is clear that he had incited and was now directing them.42 The senate was powerless, and Octavian secured a consulship. This post gave him constitutional authority to enact a number of measures, including formally ratifying his adoption, securing the benefits for the troops, and moving against the assassins, as well as a strong position from which to negotiate with Antony and Lepidus, who had joined their forces in May.43 Once Octavian and his men had obtained what they wanted, the indiscipline ceased. He had again successfully manipulated discipline to further his own ends.

Sicily Campaign, 36 Five years later, in late 37, Octavian again was making operational and combat decisions based on his understanding of the disciplina militaris.

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The years since he became consul had been eventful. He had created the triumvirate in 43 by allying with Antony and Marcus Lepidus at Bononia. Then together with Antony in 42, he had defeated the remaining army led by Caesar’s assassins at Philippi. The aftermath of that battle took Antony east and left Octavian with his hands full trying to demobilize the veterans and restore peace in Italy. This process took two years to resolve, and even after it was completed, peace was not a constant. Beginning in 38, Octavian had to contend with Sextus Pompey, the youngest son of Caesar’s rival, who had grown strong enough to establish control over Sicily and the seas around Italy. Indeed, Pompey was powerful enough that when he wanted a share of power, he was able to blockade the sea trade route into Italy and thus cut off much of the food supply for Rome. Antony and Octavian thus were forced to recognize his power and make an alliance with him, though it remained uneasy.44 In Octavian’s final campaign against Pompey, sources report that Octavian again considered using discipline in his operational planning, whose results reveal some evolution in his appreciation of traditional institutions. Italy remained relatively peaceful until 38, when hostilities broke out yet again between Pompey and Octavian. After Octavian lost one of his fleets that year, he began to rebuild and make plans for a new campaign against Sicily. With the assistance of his longtime friend Marcus Agrippa, Octavian built ships and gathered crews. Realizing that his crews had been no match for Pompey the previous year, he started a training program and constructed a new harbor for that purpose. The crews took the oath upon their enlistment and thus were subject to traditional discipline. These measures took time; not until 36 did Octavian launch his final campaign against Sextus Pompey in Sicily. He used his own ships plus some on loan from Antony, all under Agrippa’s direct command. Octavian also had his legions work together with those of his triumviral colleague Marcus Lepidus, who invaded the island from his bases in North Africa. After an initial setback, Octavian’s forces captured several ports and then defeated Pompey’s navy at Naulochus.45 Although this victory eliminated Pompey’s threat, hurdles remained in Sicily before the campaign could end. Lepidus suddenly seized an opportunity to assert himself in the aftermath of Pompey’s flight, but he made an enormous miscalculation in

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the dynamics of power and underestimated Octavian. He besieged the Sicilian port city of Messana after the battle at Naulochus and planned to give it to his men for plunder. When Pompey’s commander in the city surrendered, Lepidus added the units to his command, thereby raising his force to twenty-two legions. Originally a fully equal triumvir, Lepidus’s status had declined in the aftermath of the battle at Philippi so that he now controlled only the territory in North Africa and was equal only in name. Now he seemed prepared to insist on a fully equal triumvir status. Thus when Octavian arrived, Lepidus took sole credit for the victory and made demands of his colleague.46 Added to this was a strong current of dissention within the two commanders’ military camps. Octavian took advantage of the unsettled mood of Lepidus’s troops to complete his victory in Sicily by resorting to an old tactic. He decided to try resolving the crisis peacefully by once again undermining the discipline of an opponent’s army. Once he learned of the troops’ disaffection, he sent agents to infiltrate Lepidus’ camp, initially concentrating on Pompey’s former soldiers, sowing doubt and suspicion. Octavian also entered Lepidus’s camp unchallenged and, after speaking with Lepidus, shouted appeals to some of the disaffected troops. The appeals led to a brief outbreak of violence during which Octavian was assaulted, but he was able to get back to the remainder of his escort with nothing more than injured pride. Over the next few days, he moved his troops closer to Lepidus’s camp. With the camps now so close, his soldiers did not need to infiltrate their opponent’s camp; they could just call over to and exchange messages with Lepidus’s men, making offers and creating even more dissent. Soon afterward, Lepidus’s soldiers began to defect to Octavian’s side. Then, during the next few days and nights, Lepidus’s entire army gradually changed its allegiance so that, according to sources, he woke up one day to find all his men gone. Now that Octavian had control of all the legions, he dismissed Lepidus, a broken man with no further public role, and distributed a victory grant (dona), promising more cash later.47 Octavian again had undermined an opponent’s discipline to gain an advantage over his adversary. In so doing, he demonstrated that despite the lessons of the naval battle at Naulochus, his appreciation of traditional military culture was slow to mature. Octavian’s manipulation of disaffection may have been too successful, however, since unrest broke out in his own army within days of

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Lepidus’s dismissal. The mutiny broke out suddenly and seems to have included all of Octavian’s legions in Sicily, although it was limited to the island. Sources do not report any associated violence, but the episode’s vigor and size made it serious. This outbreak included both soldiers and low-ranking officers—centurions and some tribunes—which was a good indication of its seriousness. Centurions were subaltern officers promoted from the ranks in accordance with their experience and ability, so their identification with the soldiers and participation was not surprising. More surprising were the military tribunes, a low-level officer’s post held by men of elite social status with varying levels of experience who were learning to be upper-level officers.48 The mutineers’ demands included the payment of a bonus equal to what was given after the battle of Philippi plus immediate discharge. Their demands were not what triggered the mutiny, however; they were simply the focus of the unrest. Instead, the catalyst was the size of the army in Sicily and the prevailing climate of service and, most important, Octavian’s having undermined the discipline of his opponent’s legions.49 Because Roman commanders had a long history of problems with large assemblages of men, experience dictated avoiding such gatherings when possible as a means of heading off sedition. Velleius Paterculus, an experienced officer who served under Augustus, corroborated this view in his report of this mutiny: “There followed a sudden outbreak of mutiny in the army; for often when they consider their own numbers, soldiers resist discipline and do not restrain themselves from demanding what they think they can compel.”50 As a result of the successful campaign and the removal of Lepidus, Octavian officially had an army of forty or so legions with cavalry and support units in the area of Messana. Such a great number of men would have put great stress on the available food, water, and sanitation—a strong catalyst for military unrest.51 The climate of service that Octavian and the other triumvirs had created with bonuses and unending conflict added impetus to the mutiny. The extraordinary cash distributions previously awarded were one aspect of the problematic atmosphere. In 44, opportunistic leaders of all varieties had used cash bonuses to raise armies only loosely subjected to the traditional matrix of discipline. After the triumvirate began and the soldiers took the service oath, their loyalty continued to be more to their individual leaders and their promised bonuses than to

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the state. After Philippi, the triumvirs had to fulfill their earlier promises by granting substantial lands and rewards for service, including bonuses of five thousand denarii. This practice was well established by 36. Having already seen how comrades benefited through land and cash from internal war, it is hardly surprising that these soldiers decided to try cashing in on the instability.52 Octavian’s manipulation of military order through the grants of land and awards now had caught up with him in Sicily. An additional stimulus for the soldiers’ demands was the length of service. The typical length of continuous service in the military before the internal wars was six to ten years, although in an emergency, men could be called to serve for sixteen years. As noted previously, soldiers took the oath to serve for as long as the conflict lasted.53 For men enrolled in 44, this could have meant discharge after Philippi and certainly not after late in 36. The internal wars already had lasted for more than eight years, much longer than anyone might have expected in 44, when Caesar’s heir recruited his first army. For those men who joined Octavian in 41/40 and took the oath for the duration of the conflict, the end of the Naulochus campaign could be justified as the end of their obligation. Although they could sign up for more time, they did not have to do so. In this case, it is not surprising that the legions revolted on account of their length of service. While these demands indicate the soldiers’ dissatisfaction, they are less important as triggers for the unrest than was Octavian’s manipulation of discipline. The underlying causes of their demands had been present before the campaign and still were present after Sextus Pompey had been defeated. Yet the legions did not mutiny until after Lepidus’s men changed sides. Octavian, in undermining his enemy’s loyalty and discipline, thereby weakened the discipline of his own men. It was not a secret that he offered a bonus to Lepidus’s men and encouraged them to break their oath, but no source indicates that Octavian had planned to give his own men a bonus. In addition, because he appeared to disregard or devalue the oath of service taken by Lepidus’s men, his own men could reasonably conclude that their oath was of equally little value to their commander. The actual trigger of the mutiny that Octavian now faced was the atmosphere of indiscipline and unrest that he created by undermining Lepidus’s troops. Octavian had demonstrated

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once again that the sacramentum could be disregarded, and his soldiers remembered the lesson. Once he had created that mood, his legions, encouraged further by their numbers and their not unreasonable grievances, had an opportunity to make demands, and Octavian’s options for response were limited by his earlier actions. Octavian’s resolution of this crisis did indicate that he had begun to see the need for a stronger relationship with his legions, one that was grounded in the traditional military culture. In the years before this military unrest, he had used propaganda and cash freely and frequently to settle dissent within his legions. Ever since he first raised troops, he had resolved the worst problems of indiscipline by bowing to the soldiers’ demands and providing them with the cash or land they demanded. Although he certainly was reliant on his soldiers to have come so far, such cash-based strategies created the breakdown in discipline that Octavian confronted in 36. In Sicily, Octavian’s initial response was to resort to military law and take a firm line with the soldiers, reminding them of their oaths.54 The appeal to traditional discipline is noteworthy because it was a completely new tactic for Caesar’s heir. The attempt to enforce traditional discipline in the face of dissention demonstrated his effort to change his relationship with the military. The change of tone evidently was not successful, however, and he had to back down from rigorously enforcing discipline. As already observed, the fact that Octavian had stirred up the unrest evident in Lepidus’s legions only weakened his position as a strict disciplinarian. His army was not ready for a return to traditional military culture and a new relationship, and it was obvious that Octavian had little choice but to acquiesce to some of their demands. As Octavian sought to divide the opposition by breaking up into segments both the army and their rewards, he then revealed the extent to which his planning had evolved. In an assembly of troops, he made sundry promises concerning rewards and future service. He then tried to separate the centurions and tribunes from the common soldiers by offering them superior honors and status, including “purple-bordered garments” and membership in their local assemblies.55 These were novel rewards, dona militaris, based directly on Romans’ attachment to status and prestige. According to one source, however, one tribune complained loudly in the assembly about the insufficient scale of the

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honors, at which point Octavian became angry and walked out when other discontented soldiers applauded the tribune’s remark. During that night, the dissenting tribune disappeared, a strong message that Octavian was determined to force a quick settlement.56 Additional conciliatory offers included a promise not to employ the soldiers in any other civil wars. He discharged all of his soldiers who had served since 44 and any men who had served for ten years or more. Furthermore, Octavian promised the veterans of Mutina that he would fulfill all the promised rewards. He released the men, nearly twenty thousand, and sent them off the island in order to reduce further disruptions among the remaining troops, and he settled the veterans on land held or purchased for that purpose. He then promised a dona of five hundred denarii to each remaining soldier.57 With this grant, the unrest dissipated, and the army resumed its obedient role. Note, however, that Octavian’s initial offers of future rewards were insufficient by themselves. Only after he had discharged those who wanted to leave was he able to resolve the situation. Although at Messana, Octavian had manipulated an opponent’s discipline for his own benefit for the last time, it was not the last time that sources report that discipline figured into his military planning.

Wars in Illyricum, 35–33 After the events in Sicily, Octavian began preparing for the next conflict. While in hindsight it might seem that conflict between Antony and Octavian was inevitable, it is important to remember that in late 36 such a war was only a possibility, not a certainty. In any event, the defeat of Sextus Pompey and the dismissal of Lepidus did demonstrate that Octavian was the preeminent power in the western Mediterranean. Nonetheless, Antony, despite his continued residence and relationship with Cleopatra, was still the more experienced and popular general, and he still had many friends in the Roman senate. The triumvirs also were still tied through Octavia, sister of Octavian, to whom Antony was still legally married, even though he already had several children with Cleopatra. Although the campaign in Sicily made Octavian popular in Rome, it did not bring about war between the triumvirs, yet. There is little doubt, however, that Octavian expected to eventually fight Antony for dominance. He began to plan accordingly.

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Octavian realized that he was disadvantaged by both his military reputation and the quality of his legions, so he undertook a series of campaigns in the province of Illyricum to improve his legions’ skill, self-confidence, and discipline. The campaigns, which began in 35 and lasted for three seasons, held only slight strategic significance, since there was no current threat in the region, but they were publicized as chastising local tribes.58 The combat was not easy, however, and the army received extensive exposure to difficult fighting as well as a strong dose of discipline. During this campaign, Octavian encountered problems with insubordination and desertion but dealt with them more in line with traditional military culture than he had in the past. Unlike previous incidents of indiscipline that seemed to grow out of the soldiers’ ambitions, these were the direct result of combat rather than opportunism. What little we know of these episodes is that Octavian reacted to them with traditional brutal discipline, including barley rations in one case and decimation in an instance when men abandoned their positions.59 This punishment was a continuation of the practice that Octavian had initially tried to pursue after the battle at Naulochus when he moved to quell unrest according to military law and custom. In this manner, he continued the process of changing his army from the loose band of mercenaries he had led in 43 to an army bound by the full range of traditional institutions for maintaining order, from oath to whip. Along with the renewal of discipline and the increase in his troops’ battle experience, the campaigns gave Octavian an important opportunity to rehabilitate his own reputation as a battlefield commander. During the war, he led attacks, was wounded, defeated a barbarian people close enough to Italy to represent a vague threat to the populace, and even recovered a set of legionary standards lost in 48. His successful campaign there gained him a triumph, although he deferred it to a more opportune time. Octavian found the campaigns valuable as opportunities to improve his overall military standing, particularly compared with Antony’s.60

Actium Campaign, 31–30 The final conflict between the triumvirs began as an exchange of bitter accusations that blossomed into a declaration of war. Octavian was able

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to whip up sufficient opposition to Antony’s actions with Cleopatra to have her declared an enemy of the Roman people in 32, even though Antony clearly was the target. Since 39, Antony had remained in the east, where he followed his own course of action separately from Octavian. His behavior had been such that each year after 35, a war between the two became increasingly likely. By 32, military reverses, coupled with the discharge and settlement of Antony’s Philippi veterans, had diminished his military reputation as well as his hold on other soldiers’ loyalty, but he still presented a real and considerable threat.61 The war was an enormous potential test of the discipline and loyalty of Octavian’s legions, the very aspects that he had been working on as he prepared for this conflict. Every indication is that he was successful in this regard. Octavian used a mixture of traditional and expedient measures to reduce the chances that he would encounter unrest within his military. Chief among these were the discipline he had ingrained in his legions and his personal relationship with them. By the time he moved into this war, he had made sure his legions were disciplined and loyal, by forging a strong relationship with the legions, now rooted in the traditional matrix of discipline. As the hostilities intensified, Antony tried to disrupt his opponent by dispatching gold and agents to Italy to undermine the legions. Octavian fended off this attempted subversion, in part by falling back on the expedient of promising his men extra rewards (dona) in advance.62 Although hardly traditional as such, given the established internal war practice of giving soldiers extra cash bounties and gifts in the event of victory, it is unlikely that Octavian would have been able to avoid doing so in this important campaign. Since victory would mean that his men would push on to invade Egypt, he could be certain of acquiring the necessary cash. It is little wonder, then, that the men were so enthusiastic for the combat to begin.63 Octavian’s various preparations went a long way toward ensuring that military dissent played no role in the naval battle that he won at Actium in 31.64 Once the engagement ended, Octavian had to contend with Antony’s surviving soldiers and consolidate his own force in preparations for moving against Cleopatra in Egypt. The naval fight at Actium had not affected Antony’s still numerous nearby land forces, and they remained a serious threat. Although Antony’s legionary commanders tried to with-

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draw into Macedonia, eventually the bulk of the land army surrendered after their officers fled. Octavian then combined the former opposition army with his own.65 Having repeatedly experienced the way that mass gatherings of soldiers led to eruptions of unrest, he moved quickly to defuse the potential for unrest by discharging honorably and dispersing to Italy as rapidly as possible all of his superannuated veterans as well as all of Antony’s veterans. In this instance, Octavian acted so swiftly that men were discharged without any rewards. He took a calculated risk that the resulting unrest arising from a lack of discharge bounties would be smaller than if all the soldiers remained assembled together. Sources make clear that this discharge was successful in defusing any unrest among the troops still assembled in Greece. This accomplishment illustrates the significant change in the relationship that Octavian had forged with his army since 36. The active legions remained disciplined and were confident enough in his leadership to wait for the promised rewards.66 With these various measures born of experience, Octavian was secure enough to move east. During the final push into Egypt, Octavian’s preparations to secure discipline among his men again proved superior. Antony tried to detach men from his opponent, and he and Cleopatra sent bribes to Octavian’s legions. He also distributed broadsides in Octavian’s camp with offers of larger bounties for any who defected. In these instances, the strong discipline that Octavian had built up in his soldiers paid off as they remained patient for the spoils of war. After the death of Antony and Cleopatra, Octavian made a point over the years of both 30 and 29 of keeping his promises to the soldiers and veterans by paying all outstanding bonuses and continuing to settle them on land purchased for the purpose in Italy and overseas.67 This final settlement of the soldiers after the campaign proceeded peacefully, and the period of internal wars was at an end. Regardless of how important war may have been to Roman culture, the people were tired and wanted peace. Maintaining the peace would require dealing with the military. Octavian had learned well the lessons of the triumvirate and sought culturally consistent solutions, particularly to the enlarged military. In 27, he claimed to have restored the republic to the people, and thus he received a new name, Augustus, and title, princeps. In fact, however, this “restoration” marked the emergence of the Roman Empire, a period

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during which control of the army remained critical to the maintenance of authority.68 As uncontested leader of the Roman world, Augustus continued to direct military campaigns large and small for more than a decade after the “restoration,” and he personally selected or approved all the legionary commanders throughout his reign. He also enacted a series of military reforms that reduced the size of the military to twentyeight legions (down from more than one hundred in 31); institutionalized or created new types of units, including the Praetorian Guard and the Urban Cohorts; made it an all-volunteer force (except in emergencies); regularized the terms of service so that legionnaires had to serve for twenty years and an additional five as veterans eligible for recall; and even created a special treasury to pay for it all.69 Although these reforms were wide-ranging, they worked primarily because they were consistent with Roman military culture. In the context of this chapter, Octavian’s most important reform was restoring discipline as part of a reestablished military culture. Although referred to later as the “discipline of Augustus,” its precise tenets remain unknown. It seems, however, to have been a document or set of rulings that standardized military discipline in line with traditional military culture.70 Augustus’s reign was replete with both generous military awards and brutal discipline, by either his order or the order of his commanders. He thus set the norm for his successors. Although it may seem that he simply reestablished norms after the triumvirate’s lack of discipline, he regularized it to a much greater degree than had been the case previously. His attitude toward these reforms was a far cry from what he showed in 44 and was a result of his evolving relationship and experience with his soldiers during the triumvirate. Indeed, Augustus’s reforms established the Roman army as a fully professionalized military that contributed much to the empire’s success.71 Octavian’s early career provides a good case study for not only how a Roman commander used discipline in planning and in combat but also how disciplina militaris functioned as part of the broader culture. At no point during his tenure as commander and then triumvir was Octavian able to ignore military discipline in his planning and preparations. During this period, his appreciation of the Roman traditional system of discipline developed as his experience matured. He began by inciting and manipulating unrest and ended by imposing a more tradi-

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tional balance of reward and punishment and then institutionalizing it. He learned to deal with the results of his own expedient attitude toward discipline, and it was in these encounters that he formulated much of his later attitude. His military reforms succeeded mainly because they were grounded in the broader Roman culture. Octavian’s career is a case study for seeing how an inexperienced commander learned the importance of traditional institutions through sometimes-bitter experience. Notes

1. Adrian Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War, 100 BC–AD 200 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 3–10. Abbreviations of ancient works are from the Oxford Classical Dictionary. All translations are my own. 2. Ramsay MacMullen, “The Legion as Society,” Historia 33 (1984): 440–56, reprinted in Ramsay MacMullen, Changes in the Roman Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 225–35; Richard Alston, “The Military and Politics,” in The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare, ed. Philip Sabin, Hans van Wees, and Michael Whitby, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 177– 80. For background on the Roman military, see Pat Southern, The Roman Army: A Social and Institutional History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); and Jonathan Roth, Roman Warfare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 59–72. Readers seeking an extensive discussion of research on the Roman military should see Sara Phang, “New Approaches to the Roman Army,” in Recent Directions in the Military History of the Ancient World, ed. Lee L. Brice and Jennifer T. Roberts (Claremont, CA: Regina Books, 2011), 105–45. 3. Gerhard Horsmann, Untersuchungen zur militärischen Ausbildung im republikanischen und kaiserzeitlichen Rom (Boppard am Rhein, Germany: Harald Boldt, 1991); John E. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Antiquity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), 177–231, 312–13; Sara Phang, Roman Military Service (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 4. All dates in this chapter are BCE unless otherwise noted. 5. The origin of disciplina militaris was not a topic that exercised Roman authors; see Horsmann, Untersuchungen zur militärischen Ausbildung, 1–4n4; and Goldsworthy, Roman Army, 1–2. 6. Lee L. Brice, “Holding a Wolf by the Ears: Mutiny and Unrest in the Roman Military, 44 BC–AD 68” (PhD diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2003); Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts, 177–78, 194, 197; Phang, Roman Military Service, 26–36. 7. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts, 177–78, see also 312–13. The Latin word virtus does not easily translate into English and could be understood as meaning a combination of qualities, including courage, zeal, and virtue. 8. Lee L. Brice, “Fog of War: The Roman Army in Rome,” in Rome, Season 1, ed. Monica Cyrino (Malden, MA.: Blackwell, 2008), 61–64.

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9. Valerie Maxfield, The Military Decorations of the Roman Army (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 1–21; Goldsworthy, Roman Army, 279–82; Brice, “Holding a Wolf,” 22–24, 60–65; Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts, 177–78, 194, 200, 207–8. 10. Horsmann, Untersuchungen zur militärischen Ausbildung, 2–3, 102–9, 189–97. 11. Polyb. 6.21.2; Dio. Hal. Ant. Rom. 10.18; Livy 22.38; Plut. Sulla 27.4; App. BCiv. 1.66. See also Brian Campbell, The Emperor and the Army, 31 BC–AD 235 (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1984), 19–32; Arthur Keaveney, The Army in the Roman Revolution (New York: Routledge, 2007), 71–77; and Phang, Roman Military Service, 115–20. 12. Polyb. 6.21.2; Dio. Hal. Ant. Rom. 10.18, 11.43; Aul. Gell. 16.4; Livy 22.38.2–5; Epict. 1.14.15; Veg. 2.5; Servius ad Aen. 7.614, 8.1; Digest 49.16.6. See also Campbell, Emperor and the Army, 19–21, 23–25; John Lendon, Empire of Honor: The Art of Government in the Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 152–53; Phang, Roman Military Service, 26–27, 117–23; and Roth, Roman Warfare, 61–66. 13. App. BCiv. 5.17; Brian Campbell, War and Society in Imperial Rome, 31 BC–AD 284 (London: Routledge 2002), 24. See also Lukas de Blois, “Army and General in the Late Roman Republic,” in A Companion to the Roman Army, ed. Paul Erdkamp (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), 164–79. 14. Caes. BC 2.32–33. 15. Stephan Chrissanthos, “Caesar and the Mutiny of 47 B.C.,” Journal of Roman Studies 91 (2001): 63–70. 16. Tac. Ann. 1.28; Cass. Dio 57.4; Brice, “Holding a Wolf,” 150–63, 230–34. 17. Campbell, Emperor and the Army, 19–32. 18. Horsmann, Untersuchungen zur militärischen Ausbildung, 109–86, esp. 164–86; Goldsworthy, Roman Army, 251–52, 279–82; Phang, Roman Military Service, 13–72. 19. Polyb. 6.39.11; Suet. Calig. 44.2, Galba 6.2–3; Jos. BJ 3.73–75 and 102–3; Tac. Ann. 12.12.1, 13.35; Dio-Xiph. 61.30.6; Veg. 1.1 and 8–27, 2.23–24; Digest 49.16.12. See also E. Roy Davies, “The Daily Life of the Roman Soldier under the Principate,” in Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung (ANRW), vol. 2, no. 1, ed. H. Temporini and W. Haase (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974), 299–338, reprinted in Service in the Roman Army, ed. Roy W. Davies, David Breeze, and Valerie Maxfield (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 33–70; and Phang, Roman Military Service, 37–72. 20. Vell. Pat. 2.78.3; Jos. BJ 3.85–86; Suet. Aug. 18; Tac. Ann. 1.20, 11.20, 13.35 and 53; App. BCiv. 3.43; Cass. Dio 51.18.1; Dio-Xiph. 61.30.6; Veg. 3.3. See also Davies, “Daily Life of the Roman Soldier,” 328–32 and nn64–67; and Jonathan Roth, The Logistics of the Roman Army (264 B.C.–A.D. 235) (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 140–41, 216–19; and Phang, Roman Military Service, 73–110, 221–26. 21. Digest 49.16.6. See also Polyb. 6.38.2. 22. A long list of citations could follow, but see esp. Polyb. 6.38.2; Livy 8.7.16; Front. Strat. 4.1; and Digest 48.4, 48.19.8.2–3, 19.14, 19.38.1 and 11–12, 49.16. For a modern discussion, see Clarence Brand, Roman Military Law (Austin: University of Texas

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24.

25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30.

31.

32.

33.

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Press, 1968); Andrew Lintott, Violence in Republican Rome, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 41–43; and Phang, Roman Military Service, 125–29. Polyb. 6.37–38.4; Dion. Hal. 9.5; Livy 2.59. The punishment was not always imposed on one-tenth of a military unit, but some ancient sources still call it decimation. There are too many sources to cite all the examples, but see Lendon, Empire of Honor, 243–46, 248–52; Brice, “Holding a Wolf,” 58–62; and Phang, Roman Military Service, 120–51. Polyb. 6.22 and 39; Caes. BG 5.44; Maxfield, Military Decorations, 19–21, 55–57; Goldsworthy, Roman Army, 276–82. Polyb. 6.22 and 39; Maxfield, Military Decorations, 67–100 and plates 2–14; Lawrence Keppie, “‘Having Been a Soldier’: The Commemoration of Military Service on Funerary Monuments of the Early Roman Empire,” in Documenting the Roman Army: Essays in Honor of Margaret Roxan, ed. John J. Wilkes (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 2003), 31–49. Maxfield, Military Decorations, 67–109; Goldsworthy, Roman Army, 276–79; Mary Beard, The Roman Triumph (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). Maxfield, Military Decorations, 218–35. Campbell, Emperor and the Army, 301, 305–7. Gaius Julius Caesar’s grand-nephew Gaius Octavian took Caesar’s full name once he learned he was adopted, but historians still call him Octavian instead of his proper Roman name so as to distinguish him more easily from his adoptive father. There was no military academy; instead, elites learned military leadership through experience. See Brian Campbell, “Teach Yourself How to Be a General,” Journal of Roman Studies 77 (1987): 13–29; and Goldsworthy, Roman Army, 121–23. Cic. Att. 14.5.3; Nic. Dam. 8–16, 22–25, 41–55, 108–9; RGDA 15.1; Vell. Pat. 2.59.3–6; Suet. Aug. 8.1–2; App. BCiv. 3.9–12, 21–23, 43; and Cass. Dio 43.41, 45.3–7, 51.7–8. See also Pat Southern, Augustus (New York: Routledge 1998), 16–21. Nic. Dam. 107–31; RGDA 1.1, 15.1; Livy 117; Vell. Pat. 2.60–61.1; Plut. Ant. 16.1–2; Suet. Aug. 10.2–3; Tac. Ann. 1.10.1; App. BCiv. 3.13–39; Cass. Dio 45.5–11. See also Helga Botermann, Die Soldaten und die römische Politik in der Zeit von Caesars Tod bis zur Begründung des Zweiten Triumvirats (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1968), 26– 35; Southern, Augustus, 22–38; and Pat Southern, Mark Antony (Charleston, SC: Tempus, 1998), 56–58. Cic. Att. 15.5.3; Fam. 11.2, 12.3.2; App. BCiv. 3.39–40; see also Southern, Augustus, 30–31, 37–38. Nic. Dam. 115, 131–34, 136–38; Cic. Att. 16.8.2, 16.9; Phil. 3.3, 5.23; Vell. Pat. 2.61.2; Livy Per. 117; Suet. Aug. 10.3; App. BCiv. 3.40–42; Cass. Dio 45.12.2–4; Tac. Ann. 1.10. The promised signing bonus (praemia) of 500 denarii was generous, as the annual pay for a legionnaire was 225 denarii. See also Dominic Rathbone, “Military Finance and Supply,” in Sabin, van Wees, and Whitby, Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare, 158–61.

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36. App. BCiv. 3.40. See also Botermann, Die Soldaten, 36–45; and Campbell, Emperor and the Army, 21–23. 37. The mutiny was not limited to the soldiers but also included the centurions. Nic. Dam. 139; Cic. Att.16.8, 16.10.1, 12, and 13a.1; Cic. Philippics; App. BCiv. 3.31 and 39–44; Cass. Dio 45.12.2–13. See also Botermann, Die Soldaten, 45–46; John Patterson, “Military Organization and Social Change in the Later Roman Republic,” in War and Society in the Roman World, ed. John Rich and Graham Shipley (New York: Routledge Press, 1993), 102–6; Goldsworthy, Roman Army, 251–58; Southern, Augustus, 38–40; Keaveney, Army in the Revolution, 85–86. 38. Nic. Dam. 138–39; Cic. Att., 16.15.3; App. BCiv. 3.40–42; Cass. Dio 45.12.4–5; Botermann Die Soldaten, 43–45; Samuel Finer, The Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics, 2nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1988), 5; Keaveney, Army in the Revolution, 86. 39. Cic. Fam. 10.28.3, 11.7.2, 12.23.2, 12.25a.4; Brut. 1.3.1, 2.5; Philippics; Vell. Pat. 2.61.2–3; Suet. Aug. 10.3; Tac. Ann. 1.10.1; App. BCiv. 3.45–48, 50; Cass. Dio 45.13.4, 46.29.2–3, 35.4. See also Botermann, Die Soldaten, 55–63; Southern, Augustus, 40–42; and Keaveney, Army in the Revolution, 86. 40. Southern, Mark Antony, 60–63. 41. Cic. Fam. 10.23 and 24, 11.10, 14, 19, and 20, 12.25.2; Brut. 1.4.3, 10, and 14, 15.6–9, 18.3–4; Vell. Pat. 2.62.1 and 3–4, 65.1; Suet. Aug. 12.1; App. BCiv. 3.74–81 and 86; Cass. Dio 46.40–41. See also Botermann, Die Soldaten, 114–54; and Southern, Augustus, 45–49. Although Octavian was too young and had not yet held the required preliminary magistracies, he could justify his request on account of precedents set by Scipio Aemilianus Africanus and Gnaeus Pompey Magnus, as well as his control of more than eight legions just outside the city. 42. Cic. Fam. 12.25a.2; Livy Per. 119; Suet. Aug. 26.1; App. BCiv. 3.86–88; Cass. Dio 46.42–44.1; Keaveney, Army in the Revolution, 86. 43. Vell. Pat. 2.62.2 and 5; Livy Per. 119–20; Plut. Ant. 19–20; Tac. Ann. 1.10.1; App. BCiv. 3.89–98; Cass. Dio 46.44–52; Richard Weigel, Lepidus (New York: Routledge, 1992), 63–70; Southern, Augustus, 47–53; Southern, Mark Antony, 66–70. 44. Weigel, Lepidus, 71–80; Southern, Augustus, 53–80; Southern, Mark Antony, 71–99; Brice, “Holding a Wolf,” 96–103; Carsten Lange, Res Publica Constituta: Actium, Apollo and the Accomplishment of the Triumviral Assignment (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 18–38. 45. Vell Pat. 2.79; Livy Per. 128–29; Suet. Aug. 16.1–3; App. BCiv. 5.77–121; Cass. Dio 48.45–49.11; Southern, Augustus, 81–84. 46. Vell. Pat. 2.80.2; Suet. Aug. 16.4; App. BCiv. 5.122; Cass. Dio 49.11.2–4; Weigel, Lepidus, 88–89. 47. RGDA 25.1; Vell. Pat. 2.80.3–4; Livy Per. 129; ILS 108; Suet. Aug. 16.4; App. BCiv. 5.124–27; Cass. Dio 49.12.3–4; Weigel, Lepidus, 88–93; Southern, Augustus, 84–85; Keaveney, Army in the Revolution, 88–90. 48. B. Dobson, “The Centurionate and Social Mobility during the Principate,” in Recherches sur les structures socialè dans l’antiquité classique, ed. Claude Nicolet

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54. 55. 56. 57.

58.

59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

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(Paris: NRS, 1970), 99–115, reprinted in Roman Officers and Frontiers, ed. M. Speidel, Mavors 10 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1993), 201–17; D. Saddington, “Military Tribunes in the Roman Military and Administrative System in the PreFlavian Period,” in XI congresso internazionale di epigrafia Greca e Latina, Roma 18–24 settembre 1997, vol. 2 (Rome: Quasar, 1999), 297–314. Vell. Pat. 2.81.1; App. BCiv. 5.128; Cass. Dio 49.13.1. See also Finer, Man on Horseback, 5–6; and Brice, “Holding a Wolf,” 103–12. Vell. Pat. 2.81.1. See also Veg. 3.4.1. Southern, Augustus, 84–85. The majority of these legions were under strength, but this was still a large force. App. BCiv. 5.17; Keaveney, Army in the Revolution, 53. Lawrence Keppie, Making of the Roman Army (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998), 147–48; Keaveney, Army in the Revolution, 71–77; Phang, Roman Military Service, 115–20. Vell. Pat. 2.81.2; App. BCiv. 5.128; Cass. Dio 49.13.2–14.1. App. BCiv. 5.128; Cass. Dio 49.14.3. See also Patterson, “Military Organization,” 101–3; Southern, Augustus, 84–85; and Blois, “Army and General,” 165–66, 173–75. App. BCiv. 5.128. Vell. Pat. 2.81.2; App. BCiv. 5.128–29; Cass. Dio 49.14. Ancient authors drew a clear distinction in referring to these grants as dona (rewards) and not praemia (bounties). Vell. Pat. 2.78.2; App. Ill. 12–13, 15, 18; App. BCiv. 5.145; Cass. Dio 49.36.1. See also Southern, Augustus, 87–90; Danijel Dzino, Illyricum in Roman Politics, 229 BC–AD 68 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 102–16; and Velleius Paterculus, The Caesarian and Augustan Narrative (II.41–93), ed. Andrew Woodman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 192–96. Vell. Pat. 2.78.3; Cass. Dio 49.34.2–3 and 35–38. RGDA 29.1; Pliny HN 7.148; Suet. Aug. 20; App. Ill. 16 and 27; Cass. Dio 49.35.2 and 38.3–4. See also Dzino, Illyricum, 116–20; and Southern, Augustus, 87–90. Vell. Pat. 2.82–83; Plut. Ant. 54–60; Suet. Aug. 17.1–2; Cass. Dio 49.41–50.6.1. See also Southern, Augustus, 92–97; and Southern, Mark Antony, 128–35. Cass. Dio 50.7.3 and 9.1; Southern, Mark Antony, 140–41; Keaveney, Army in the Revolution, 53. Vell. Pat. 2.84.1; Cass. Dio 50.11.4. Vell. Pat. 2.84–85; Plut. Ant. 63–68; Cass. Dio 50.12–51.1; Lange, Res Publica Constituta, 73–93. Vell. Pat. 2.85.4–6; Plut. Ant. 68; Cass. Dio 51.1.4–3.1; Keppie, Making of the Roman Army, 128. Suet. Aug. 17.3; Cass. Dio 51.3.1–5.1; Brice, “Holding a Wolf,” 117–21. RGDA 3.3, 15.2, 16.1; Suet. Aug. 44.1; Cass. Dio 51.6.5–10.3, 17.6–8, and 21.3. RGDA 34; Southern, Augustus, 100–115; Lange, Res Publica Constituta, 159–90. RGDA 16.2 and 34; Suet. Aug. 49.2; Cass. Dio 54.25.5–6; Kurt Raaflaub, “Die Militärreformen des Augustus und die politische Problematik des Frühen

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Prinzipats,” Saeculum Augustum, vol. 1, Herrschaft und Gesellschaft, ed. Gerhard Binder (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1987), 246–50; Phang, Roman Military Service, 92–93, 163–66; Kate Gilliver, “The Augustan Reform and the Structure of the Imperial Army,” in Erdkamp, Companion to the Roman Army, 183–200. 70. This reform seems to have been formalized, since the “Discipline of Augustus” shows up in an inscription from the reign of Tiberius Caesar (Senatus Consultum de Pisone Patre) and in the Digest of Roman law (49.16.12). See Werner Eck, Antonio Caballos, and Fernando Fernández, Das senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre, Vestigia 48 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1996); and the translation and discussions in American Journal of Philology 120 no. 1 (entire volume). 71. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts, 231–32; Phang, Roman Military Service, 13–36.

4

Herding the Enemy Culture in Nomadic Warfare Timothy May

Eyewitnesses and historians have long appreciated how certain aspects of steppe culture made the nomadic warriors so effective. A key component was learning how to ride horses and archery skills from an early age and their generally difficult life on the steppe. Some historians have indicated the key role that hunting played in creating specific group tactical systems and even as a form of military training. Yet we also need to examine the tactical, operational, and even strategic consequences of the steppe nomads’ life as herders. Possessing a comparable culture across the steppes that stretched from the Carpathian Mountains to Manchuria, most steppe nomads practiced a similar form of warfare across many centuries, but the Mongols of the thirteenth century under Chinggis Khan (1162–1227) elevated it to new heights, building on existing forms yet transforming it with the emergence of cultural elements distinctly associated with his unification of the tribes on the Mongolian plateau in 1206. Chinggis Khan managed to weld the independent tribes into an imperial state while preserving the societal culture skills derived from hunting, herding, and even shamanic belief.

Hunting Contemporary observers frequently noted how hunting shaped Mongol warfare. The Chinese envoy from the Song Empire (960–1279) Zhao Gong wrote, “The Tatars are born and raised in the saddle. Most of them learn how to fight. From Spring to Winter, every day they are on the chase and hunt. This is their means to exist. Therefore there are no unmounted soldiers, but all are mounted warriors.”1 72

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The Franciscan friar John of Plano Carpini confirmed Zhao Gong’s views, noting, “The men do not make anything at all, with the exception of arrows, and they also sometimes tend the flocks, but they hunt and practise archery, for they are all, big and little, excellent archers, and their children begin as soon as they are two or three years old to ride and manage horses and to gallop on them, and they are given bows to suit their stature and are taught to shoot; they are extremely agile and also intrepid.”2 The Mongols’ use of hunting extended from training to the way they waged war. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, in commenting on the Khwarazmian sacking of Jerusalem in 1244, rightly interpreted it as a repercussion of the Mongol destruction of the Khwarazmian Empire. He further noted that the Mongols did not simply defeat their opponents but hunted them like game in order to complete their destruction: From the realms of the East the cruel beast has come to invest the province of Jerusalem. Although the province has often been troubled in the past by neighbouring Saracens, in recent times the latter have been quiet so that the peaceful conditions have afforded it a breathing space. However, the sins of the Christian population have caused an unknown people from far away to wield the sword of destruction against it. Indeed, the furious onslaught of the Tartars has struck the entire Eastern region several calamitous blows. They have pursued everybody, making no distinction between Christians and infidels, and from the remotest regions have taken captive the would-be capturers of the Christians. These same Tartars destroyed the whole of Persia before adopting an even crueler form of warfare in hunting the cruellest of men, the Khwarazmians, driving them out of their own regions as though they were dragons being dragged from their lairs.3

Patriarch Robert’s assessment is not mere hyperbole. The Mongols consistently sought to eliminate enemy leadership, appointing special units to hunt down the enemy leader and run them to ground. During the Mongol invasion of Qara Khitai (1218), the general Jebe Noyan pursued the Naiman prince Güchülüg, who usurped the throne in 1211. Seeing that Güchülüg could not resist the Mongols, locals, who had formerly been terrified of the Naiman’s heavy-handed rule, overcame their

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fear, killed Güchülüg themselves, and presented the corpse to Jebe.4 Jebe once again took up the chase, this time assisted by Sübe’edei, during the Khwarazmian War (1219–23), this time pursuing Sultan Muhammad II Khwarazmshah (r. 1200–1220) as he retreated across the Amu Darya River after the fall of Samarqand. The two Mongol generals pursued the sultan through Khurasan and into Iran, preventing him from rallying and raising a new army. The sultan eluded the Mongols by escaping to an island in the Caspian Sea, where he died, most likely of dysentery.5 King Bela IV of Hungary (r. 1235–70) suffered a similar fate after the Mongols defeated the Hungarians at the Battle of Mohi (11 April 1241), as the Mongol prince Qadan hunted him through the Balkans to the Adriatic coast. Unlike Muhammad, Bela escaped to an island fortress and lived to return to his shattered kingdom.6 The specific incident that Patriarch Robert mentions, the hunting of the Khwarazmians, does not even refer to the hunt of Muhammad Khwarazmshah, which happened more than two decades prior to his letter. Rather, he is referring to when the Mongols invaded the Middle East in 1230 to eliminate Jalal al-Din, Muhammad’s son and successor. While the latter had not been able to restore the Khwarazmian Empire, he did remain a nuisance, not only to the Mongols but also to other regional leaders. Upon hearing of the Mongols’ invasion, Jalal al-Din attempted to form an alliance with other regional powers, such as ʿAla al-Din Kayqubad (1220–37), the sultan of the Seljuqs of Rum, and Sultan al-Ashraf (1229–37), the Ayyubid ruler of Syria. Both rejected his overtures. Having recently defeated him in battle in 1230, they viewed the Khwarazmians as a pest on par with, if not worse than, the Mongols.7 The Mongols’ effort to eliminate Jalal al-Din is also an excellent case study of the Mongols’ use of the hunt. After Jalal al-Din received word that a Mongol army, commanded by Chormaqan, had crossed the Amu Darya, he moved from Tabriz to the Mughan steppe in Azerbaijan to organize his army. He expected the Mongols to winter around Rayy, near modern Teheran, but the Mongols reached the Mughan only five days after Jalal al-Din. Unprepared, he fled.8 The Mongols apparently lost his trail, then crossed the Araxes River and continued toward Ganjak before they headed south and then back to Azerbaijan.9 Meanwhile, the sultan wintered in the environs of Urimiya and Ushnu.10

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In 1231, Taimas, one of Chormaqan’s lieutenants, penetrated the Mughan plain and into Arran, causing panic in Ganjak and its environs. At this time, Jalal al-Din had moved north near the border of Shirvan. With the approach of Taimas, Jalal al-Din eventually fled to Ganjak and then to Akhlat. The Mongols continued their pursuit, traversing much of Transcaucasia in their search.11 Jalal al-Din fled south to Hani. There he attempted to reach an alliance with the city of Amid but was unsuccessful. While there, Jalal alDin spent much of his time in leisure. He wintered here, spreading out his army to be a lighter burden on regional pastures, thinking that the Mongols would not invade until the spring. He also dispatched Buqu Khan to locate the Mongols. When Buqu Khan reached Azerbaijan, he found no sign of them and concluded they had returned toward Iraq and Iran. So Jalal al-Din continued his festivities.12 The Mongol army, however, made a surprise attack. Some of the Khwarazmians fled to Irbil and then onto Isfahan. The sultan headed to the Sufaye mountains after being denied refuge at Amid and Mayyafariqin. Taimas divided his forces to pursue the sultan. Although Jalal al-Din escaped the Mongols, he was killed in the mountains by Kurds.13 Other Mongol forces went south toward Mardin, Nasibin, Khabur, and Sinjar and even to Irbil before returning.14 At Irbil, the Mongols withdrew to Azerbaijan upon the approach of an army led by Muzaffar alDin of Mosul.15 Meanwhile, Chormaqan seized and sacked the city of Maraghah on the eastern side of Lake Urmiyah in 1231 while Taimas pursued Jalal al-Din and dispersed the Khwarazmian forces, many of which became mercenaries for the sultan of Rum and among the various principalities of Syria.16 This extended pursuit of Jalal al-Din demonstrates how the hunt served two purposes. The first and most obvious was to eliminate enemy leadership. The second was to serve as a diversion from the conquests. While Taimas pursued Jalal al-Din, Chormaqan conquered Iran with very little violence. After crossing the Amu Darya, Taimas rapidly rode across northern Iran to find Jalal al-Din. In doing so, his troops did not stop to attack cities. Although we lack details on his ride, there are no reports of pillaging by his army. At the very most, he may have allowed his troops an opportunity to raid in order to procure supplies. His hunt of the Khwarazmian leader permitted him to scout the region while

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also preventing Jalal al-Din from effectively mobilizing resistance to the Mongol incursion. The speed of Taimas’s expeditionary force surprised even Jalal al-Din, a veteran of many battles against the Mongols. Additionally, it gave local leaders an opportunity to witness the Mongols in action. The fact that the Mongols might simply bypass a town must have also been alarming, particularly considering their ruthless reputation. For the denizens of any locale, the approach of the Mongols must have caused an unprecedented level of anxiety in the anticipation of a Mongol attack. Meanwhile, Chormaqan’s main army marched across northern Iran at a more leisurely pace. Imagine seeing one army gallop pass and then a week or more later learning that an even larger force approached. This level of intimidation led many cities to submit without a fight, although some futilely resisted. Chormaqan did not even have to march to the south, as the kingdoms of southern Iran sent their representatives to submit to the Mongol general.17 By 1231, only Isfahan, which had served as Jalal al-Din’s capital, remained independent, which also allowed the Mongols to set ambushes for any Khwarazmian forces that attempted to escape to it.18 Though the exact details of Taimas’s hunt for Jalal al-Din remain vague, it is clear that Jalal al-Din was relentlessly pursued and hunted as game. The use of hunting skills was not unique to the Mongols, and often the use of hunting techniques in warfare was far more complex than simply pursuing game. The Khitans of the Liao Dynasty (906–1125) that ruled north China and Mongolia credited their own skills in warfare to hunting, particularly the great annual tribal hunts.19 Some modern scholars credit the decline of the Jurchen military, and thus the Jin Dynasty (1125–1234) that it founded, to its abandonment of hunting as a form of training.20 The association of hunting and warfare was certainly not limited to the nomads, although their hunts did influence sedentary powers. The Byzantine Emperor Maurikos (r. 582–602) encouraged his armies to organize large-scale hunts as exercises for the army but also as opportunities to devise tactics and strategies. He described the hunts as Scythian battle formations.21 By Scythian, he meant nomads in general, in this case Turks and Avars, the two steppe groups with which he had contact. Other societies also used circle group hunts of varying scale as well.22 The group hunt, or nerge, was of particular importance. The most familiar description of such a hunt comes from Marco Polo’s The Trav-

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els, in which he describes the Khubilai Khan’s hunting expedition in his hunting park at Cachar Modun near Shangdu.23 This section of Polo’s account misled both Polo’s contemporaries and scholars concerning the nerge, or hunting circle. Polo describes the nerge as gradually contracting and driving animals into the center, where they could then be killed in a display to impress the khan.24 Therein lies the problem. In many early studies and translations of nerge, the term battue was substituted.25 Battue, a French word meaning “beat,” as in beat the bushes, is a hunt in which servants are used to drive the animals out of the brush for the nobility to hunt. The substitution of battue for nerge has unintentionally stripped nerge of its context in Mongolian. The battue, however, is the proper gloss for another hunting term— jerge. Like the nerge, the jerge was also hunting circle, but when hunting with the jerge process, hunters made a fenced area within the woods. The Mongols made a fence from horsehair and felt ropes with bright cloth strips intersecting, high enough to prevent animals from jumping it and sufficiently low to prevent escape beneath it. The bright cloths that intersected the rope were probably meant to make it more visible to prevent hunters from becoming entangled in the trap. This fence was quite extensive and funneled the animals into an area. As the hunters drove the animals into the corral, they closed off the open side of the fence, while others guarded the sides to ensure the frightened animals did not escape by breaking through it. This fenced area or trap was known as a tomogh jangh-a.26 While this is a practice known in the modern era, Chinese envoys from the Song Empire also noted the practice of hunting with rope fences. Archers then shot the animals as needed. Unlike the nerge, in which animals of all sorts were forced into a circle, the tomoghtu jangh-a was arranged in an area where particular game could be found and was usually intended for ungulates such as deer and antelope. While the modern version is primarily used in forested areas, the medieval Mongols set up poles with the fencing in the steppes.27 The jerge also acquired a tactical meaning of an “encircling movement” or flanking maneuver in relation to warfare.28 Observers even referred to the tactic by name. From the Persian chronicler Juvaini, who eventually served as the Mongols’ governor in Baghdad, we know that the Mongols also approached the city of Urgench in a hunting circle (bi-jirg) during the destruction of the Khwarazm Empire.29 Here the in-

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tent is clear: the armies led by Chinggis Khan’s sons, Jochi, Ögödei, and Chaghadai, surrounded the city. When fighting the Jin, Tolui executed a “jarga” tactic at Tungqal Qahalqa to flank the Jin’s barricades.30 While Juvaini used a Persianized jirga to describe the jerge, elsewhere he specifically uses the term nirkah, the Persian form of nerge, as will be discussed shortly. As with the Mongolian forms, jirga and nirkah have sufficiently different orthography that we can be assured that Juvaini (or a copyist) did not make an error in penmanship. He chose the term deliberately and for good reason. While the jerge was a battlefield tactic as well as method of hunting, its connotations were tactical and often included a static component. In the nerge, however, the Mongols learned to coordinate their efforts in maintaining formation while operating on a large front and at great distances, transforming it into an operational and strategic element rather than a tactical one. The necessity of this skill was demonstrated on numerous occasions. In 1237, operations against the Kipchak Turks took the form of a nerge, as did those against the Ismailis in 1256.31 Yet it was used not only against foreign opponents but also to hunt down dissidents. During the Toluid Revolution, in which Möngke became the fourth Qa’an (Great Khan) of the empire (from Tolui, the fourth son of Chinggis Khan, rather than Ögödei, the second Qa’an and chosen successor of Chinggis Khan), it was also used to hunt down Möngke’s opposition. Thomas Allsen has rightfully likened it to a dragnet.32 Möngke also used it in his efforts to capture the Kipchak khan, Bachman, just north of the Caspian Sea, during the Western Campaign. Due to the nerge, the only escape was directly into the sea, which Bachman did. Unlike the Mongols’ experience with Muhammad Khwarazmshah and King Bela IV of Hungary, Bachman’s maritime escape did not mean he eluded them. When the tide changed, the Mongols were able to reach his island refuge.33 Much of the campaign in Russia also consisted of units operating in nerge formation that spanned dozens and even hundreds of miles.34 Beyond training exercises, hunting also factored into other decisions by the Mongols. Hunting considerations also came into play when Mongol military commanders selected their campsites. While pasture needs always factored in the decision, the availability of game was also essential; not only did hunting augment food supplies, but it also provided sport and training exercises for their men. When Chormaqan invaded

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the Middle East and Transcaucasia, the Mughan steppe in modern Azerbaijan was a natural choice for adequate pastures. According to Kiracos, an Armenian chronicler, Chormaqan also selected it due to its supply of game.35 Famously, the Persian chronicler Rashid al-Din records a conversation among Chinggis Khan and his companions about what was best in life. His companions, many of whom were his earliest followers, usually mentioned riding through the steppe with a good falcon on their wrist while they hunted fowl. Chinggis Khan disagreed and stated that crushing their enemies, driving their enemies before them, and taking their women were best.36 Although picturesque and notoriously the inspiration for a scene in the movie Conan the Barbarian, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in the eponymous role, it also demonstrates that Chinggis Khan had some concern that the Mongols’ love of the hunt could also become a distraction. Indeed, it was not the only time he cautioned against hunting. When giving orders to the general Sübedei, Chinggis Khan noted that while hunting was good, on campaign it needed to be limited and conducted in moderation so that the army remained focused.37 The Mongols heeded this maxim for generations. By the third generation, Mongol armies had such discipline that while on the march, they did not engage in hunting except to procure food and not for sport.38 In addition to tactics and strategies, the Mongols also applied hunting techniques to intelligence gathering. In 1248, Mongol scouts in Korea posed as hunters so as not to cause alarm. Their cover story was that they were hunting marmots, a well-known favorite of the Mongols.39 Even larger forces used hunting as a cover for other operations, such as when Jochi withdrew to the steppes of modern Kazakhstan after the Khwarazmian Campaign (1219–23). Here, hunting served as an opportunity not only to scout but also to make the Mongol presence known to other groups, providing an opportunity for them to submit, while surreptitiously deploying Mongol troops where they could launch attacks or support other Mongol forces.40 Hunting provided the context for the Mongols to hone their combat skills as equestrians and as archers. But the large mounted group hunts also served as opportunities to develop tactical maneuvers and to practice operational maneuvers at varying levels. Although hunting was

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important to Mongol warfare, it should not be overemphasized. It was not the only aspect of Mongol culture that directly affected the Mongols’ forms of warfare.

Herding As noted earlier, Plano Carpini and Zhao Gong focused on hunting and shooting as if these were the only crucial skills that nomads learned. To be fair, Plano Carpini and most observers were simply products of their milieu—a sedentary world in which nomads were seen as uneducated, pagan savages at worst and lazy, ignorant barbarians at best. Note, however, that he wrote that they sometimes tended the flocks but otherwise attended to hunting and shooting—the arts of war in Carpini’s mind and what Christendom had to fear, not their herding abilities. Yet what is missed in the sources, and doubly so in translation, concerning the use of the nerge or jerge is that it was not so much the nomads’ hunting skills that made it successful but rather their herding skills. The pivotal aspect of the nerge was that no animal was to escape the circle—whether it was an antelope, tiger, or little bunny rabbit. As the riders were not to slay any animals until the leader gave the signal, keeping these animals in check and headed in the right direction, in an increasingly shrinking circle that included prey and predator, required tremendous herding skills. Even domesticated animals can be difficult to herd when they realize they are being brought into an undesirable location, but wild animals are even more so. Whether used in hunting or as a tactic in warfare, herding remained the primary element in executing the jerge hunting technique. In the jerge, the tomoghtu jangh-a, or fence trap, was set in a predetermined location, and animals were herded toward it. One must keep in mind that in the jerge, the Mongols were herding not docile sheep but rather wild animals such as saiga antelopes (Saiga tatarica mongolica), black-tailed gazelles (Gazelle subguttorosa), and perhaps qulan, the wild ass or onager (Equus hemionus onager), and even the takhi, or Przewalski’s horse (Equus ferus prezewalski). These animals instinctively resisted being controlled, thus requiring skill to direct a herd toward the trap. Even with sheep and goats, nomads had to anticipate the sudden bolting of animals from the flock. With wild animals, the challenge was greater due

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to the animals’ undomesticated nature, fear, and, not least, speed and strength. At a top speed of forty-eight miles per hour (eighty kilometers per hour), a saiga is twice as fast as a sheep (twenty-five miles per hour or forty kilometers per hour). In addition to anticipating the animals’ movement, the riders were also fanning out and flanking the animals, controlling their movement. Again, the sight of humans making the flanking movement could easily spook the prey, causing the entire herd to change course. The nomads needed not only to maintain formation and position but also to properly judge the distance. A fine line existed between being too close and too far. From this experience, the Mongols learned how to direct their enemies toward desired locations, whether it was an ambush, a desired battlefield, or even a city under siege. One of the most notable examples of herding techniques derived from the jerge being used in war was at the Battle of the Kalka River in 1223. During Sübedei’s famous reconnaissance in force deep into the Pontic steppes, he lured a combined army of Rus’ and Kipchaks into an ambush. The Mongols achieved this with the classic feigned retreat, which both the Kipchaks (Turkic nomads of the Pontic and Caspian steppes) and the Rus’ should have identified. The Mongols, however, carried the retreat for nine days, which surely lulled their pursuers into a false sense of security. In doing so, the Mongols properly gauged the distance to keep the Kipchaks and Rus’ enticed with an easy victory but distant enough to prevent them from rapidly overtaking the Mongols— skills learned from herding. Eventually, the Kipchaks and Rus’ found themselves close enough to make a strike. Unfortunately for them, this was part of the ruse, as it had been timed to occur at the site of the planned ambush. As the Kipchaks and Rus’ surged after the Mongols, their formations broke, just as other Mongol units then broke cover and showered them with arrows. The crucial moment of the Battle of the Kalka River, however, came after the ambush. The Kipchaks recovered from the ambush quickly and fled. The Mongols then pursued and fanned out, controlling the Kipchaks’ flight. The Mongols had not set up a tomoghtu jangh-a but rather had designated one: the Rus’ camp. If the Kipchaks had merely been able to retreat, they and their Rus’ allies could have rallied at the camp and perhaps even defended it. However, the Mongols directed the Kipchaks’ retreat and transformed it into a stampede so that the terrified Kipchaks, fleeing for their lives, overran

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the camp and their Rus’ allies in order to escape the Mongols. The Mongols then destroyed the Rus’, who had no opportunity to recover from the Kipchaks’ stampede.41 In this battle, the Mongols used their herding skills to direct the Kipchaks to a place that would benefit the Mongols, transforming the Kipchaks into livestock. The Mongols used their herding skills at every level of war. As with livestock, the Mongols culled the population of captured cities. Those with useful skills were kept and often sent to Mongolia or other locations to produce goods (military, luxury, and mundane). After capturing a city, the Mongols often drove the population before them to be used as human shields and labor when attacking other cities, filling ditches as well as operating siege machines.42 I often refer to these people as the “Arrow Fodder Brigade.” Perhaps it would be better not to view them in a military sense but rather as the “Human Herd” or the “Fellahin Flock.” Again, the Mongols herded the population, controlling an unwilling and frightened group to a targeted destination. Rather than a fenced enclosure, it was a city or fortress. The transformation of the Kipchaks and random villagers and townspeople into livestock as well as the herding of populations through the use of the nerge also reveals a particular aspect of Mongol warfare: the Mongols in fact viewed their opponents as livestock.43 They viewed their actions as leading lambs to the slaughter. This was demonstrated not only in their actions but often also in their terminology in discussing the empire. Chinggis Khan referred to his imperial power and authority as his Golden Rein, or altan arqamji. It is notable that he used this term in connection with sedentary people (the Sarts or Khwarazmian Empire) and then in reference to the Tangut when they rebelled.44 The terminology was not used in conjunction with nomads. Another example comes in connection with the destruction of Xi Xia in 1227, when the Mongols ended the Tangut rebellion. Even though Chinggis Khan insisted on his deathbed that the Mongols not end their assault and ordered his sons and generals, “While I take my meals you must talk about the killing and destruction of the Tang’ut and say, ‘Maimed and tamed, they are no more,’” or muquli musquli ügei bolqan.45 The importance of this phrase is that the Mongols wanted to indicate that the Tangut were destroyed as a power and brought to heel. By stating musquli, or “tamed,” we begin to under-

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stand the Mongols’ view that the sedentary or non-Mongol people (irgen) must be tamed or broken like one would do with a horse. Only then could they be useful.

Shamanic Warfare Hunting and herding skills were not the only aspects of culture used by the Mongols in warfare. The Mongols also applied what might be considered supernatural tactics to warfare through the application of certain aspects of shamanism. One tactical use of shamanism was the employment of jadachin, or specialists who could use jada stones (rain stones) to raise storms of rain and presumably lightning, hail, or snow. These storms were then directed against the enemy, with variable results. Perhaps the most notable occasion was when Tolui, Chinggis Khan’s fourth son (d. 1232), used rain stones against the Jin during July in 1231.46 The sources do not indicate that Tolui himself used them but rather that they were employed by his army in battle. A jadachi, or “weather magician,” accompanied Tolui on campaign. The jadachi on this occasion was a Qangli Turk, a point that will have significance later.47 In this particular instance, Tolui retreated in the face of a superior Jin army. He planned it to be a feigned retreat, but the Jin dogged his army too closely, harassing the rearguard and threatening to encircle the Mongols.48 Tolui used his jadachi’s weather magic to cover his retreat by causing it to rain for three days behind him. On the fourth day, it even snowed while an icy wind blew. Although the resulting weather occurred primarily behind his retreating troops, it also affected his army. Equipped with raincoats and felt coats to combat the cold, Tolui and his men retreated to shelter and took refuge before the blizzard hit in the middle of summer.49 After the blizzard ceased, Tolui then destroyed the bewildered and weakened Jin army and destroyed it. This event is significant, yet jadachin (plural of jadachi) were present in other battles, such as when Temüjin and Toghril Ong-Qan fought the Gur-khanid confederation of Jamuqa at the Battle of Köyiten in 1201. The Gur-khanid jadachin, Buyiruq Qan of the Naiman and Quduqa Beki of the Oirat, attempted to raise a storm, but it backfired and actually knocked the Naiman into the ravines. Apparently, the storm did sufficient damage to the Gur-khanid forces and their position that the

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Naiman and the Oirat then scattered and did not take any further part in the battle.50 What is interesting about this story is that the apparent jadachin at Köyiten were Buyiruq Qan, the khan of the Naiman, and Quduqa Beki, a leader among the Oirat. In light of this, Jalal al-Din could take some comfort that even professionals had bad days. It should be noted that Buyiruq Qan was of Turkic origin.51 Quduqa Beki is more problematic, as the ethnicity of the pre–Mongol Empire Oirat is not certain.52 The use of jadachin was not new in the thirteenth century. Adam Molnar has noted in his study of weather magic that the earliest recorded instance of weather magic occurred when the Yueban, a Xiongnu group dwelling northwest of the Tarbagatai Mountains, fended off the Ruruan by using weather magic to create a storm in the fifth century.53 The Uighurs also used rain stones against the Tibetans with great success in 765.54 J. A. Boyle has noted several uses of the jada stones (yat or yad stones in Turkic sources).55 Kāshgāri notes that the yat was “a kind of shamanism (kahāna) that is practiced with special stones where by rain, wind, etc. are attracted.”56 Although the early weather stones appear to have been mineral based, in the thirteenth century, the stone was usually a bezoar, or a hardened concentration found in the stomach of ruminants.57 Rashid al-Din reports on weather stones in a similar way to Kāshgāri and elaborates on their use.58 He notes that the stone’s power was activated by placing it in water and washing it in order to produce storms. Boyle also notes that this practice had similarities in other folklore traditions.59 Additionally, a sacrifice may have been involved, with the resulting blood mixed into the water in order to produce a storm. The use of the stone appears to have originated with the Turks. No references of its use by Mongolic people occur until after Chinggis Khan’s defeat of the Naiman in 1204. The Khitans, a Mongolic people, also did not use it, although they had their own form of weather magic, which was performed by other means and without specialists like the jadachi.60 Although use of the stones was a shamanic practice, some Muslims also employed it in the thirteenth century. Jalal al-Din Khwarazmshah used them but not in warfare. His use was to end a drought near Akhlat in modern eastern Turkey. His skill apparently was quite limited, as one of his concubines commented, “O Lord of the World, you would seem to have little skill in the practice of this art. That is why you have plagued

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the people with all this endless rain. Anyone else would have produced just as much rain as was needed.”61 This lack of skill might explain why he failed to use it in war. The use of the jadachin continued long after the Mongols ceased to be primarily shamanistic in faith. Boyle notes that in the late Yuan or Northern Yuan period, the Mongols (who were Buddhist at this time) used them against the Ming. In the Islamic world, jadachin appeared at the Battle of the Mire (1365), in which the Amir Timur (1335–1405) was defeated by the Chaghatayids of Moghulistan. Abu Sa’id, a Timurid, employed jadachin in 1451, not in battle put to produce rain in a desolate area.62 Other evidence suggests that the use of the jada stones became prevalent throughout Central Eurasia after the Mongol Empire, demonstrating once again the cross-cultural importance of the Mongol Empire. Molnar notes that while weather magic appears to be a global phenomenon, the use of weather stones as a “meteorological weapon” appears to be a particularly Inner Asian phenomenon. Furthermore, while there are no pre-thirteenth-century examples of the Mongols using weather stones, the Mongols’ use of bezoars as weather stones spread throughout the empire thereafter.63 Molnar views the incorporation of the jada stones as an improvement in nomadic warfare. While their use is evident in steppe warfare prior to the Mongol Empire, I believe he is correct in seeing it as a Mongol improvement or innovation. Whereas it was infrequently reported prior to the Mongols, the use of jada stones increased during the Mongol era. Furthermore, the weather magician was an integral part of the army, considering the appearance of one through the centuries among the Uighurs, Qarluqs, Khwarazmians, Mongols, and Uzbeks.64 Despite Molnar’s view that jadachin were integral, he takes a dimmer view on how they functioned. He is convinced that their actions had no actual influence on the weather and that the high rate of success (even if it backfired) demonstrated that the users simply preferred to attack during bad weather, using it to mask maneuvers and distract their opponents. And since the users themselves made this decision, they tended to be better equipped to survive the storm.65 While Molnar has greatly expanded our understanding of the jadachin and meteorological warfare, I do take issue with some of his conclusions.

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Approaching this issue from the perspective of the tactical use of the jada stones, there are several things that should be noted. What is notable is that Tolui was already on campaign in Jin territory. Thus, in order to use jada magic, he needed someone who knew how to use the jada stones. This required a jadachi. We know that a Qangli Turk performed the action and that he was a part of Tolui’s army. So if Tolui had jadachi with him, does this mean that other Mongol armies were accompanied by jadachin? One must keep in mind that Tolui’s troops were prepared for extreme weather. The Jin were not, which makes sense because weather magic in warfare does not appear to have been in their toolkit, so to speak. For Tolui’s army, possessing the proper equipment in addition to the weather stones suggests that the use of jada stones was not merely done on a whim. While Molnar contends that this was because they were prepared to fight in bad weather, the events associated with the Tolui story clearly indicate that the weather was quite nice when the engagement began. Indeed, Tolui’s initial retreat was after the Jin army initiated combat and his forces were losing. Furthermore, while there were instances in which the Mongols attacked during bad weather, there were an equal number of occasions, if not more, that they did so when the weather was fine. Furthermore, rain was detrimental to composite bows. Thus, while the bad weather may have added some advantage, the weather also adversely affected the Mongols’ weaponry and could produce slippery conditions for their horses.66 Furthermore, the argument fails when one looks at the experience of the Gur-khanid forces at Köyiten, where the backfired storm left the Naiman and Oirat forces (and possibly others) in complete disarray. Additionally, other examples of storms backfiring exist, and it is clear that the army that summoned the storm suffered heavily because of it; thus, it did not necessarily create ideal battle conditions. Molnar also indicates that the weather magicians were integral to the army. While Molnar concludes that the weather was coincidental, he states, “In Turkic nomadic empires, the possession of rain-stones implied the ability to use them in warfare, and, by extension, the ability to use the ‘meteorological weapon’ implied the possession of power.”67 Even nonnomads such as the Khwarazmshahs certainly viewed the jadachin as useful and important, as they had a special caretaker for the weather

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stones, which were kept in the treasury with other valuables.68 Thus, one must conclude and accept that the nomads and others certainly believed the weather magic worked and was effective. Clearly, however, the jadachin were not all-powerful. It should be noted that the jadachin are mentioned only when the rite was successful in producing a storm, although not necessarily successful in controlling it. One must wonder if the jadachin were employed at every battle and if only their successes were recorded by otherwise-scornful witnesses. Because the use of the jada stones was a shamanistic practice, there is little doubt that Muslims and Chinese sources looked at the jadachin as charlatans, and only when the jadachin were successful could the Muslims and Chinese express some amazement. Another issue is that we find the jada stones being employed by those who were Muslims. Although one can always quibble about the depth of their faith, Jalal al-Din and the Timurid Abu Sa’īd were clearly Muslims. Nonetheless, they lived in an Islamic society that had little tolerance for pagan practices that could not be accommodated in Islam. Additionally, by the time of the Battle of the Mire, the Mughals of the eastern Chaghatayid Khanate had converted to Islam. What these instances suggest is that jadachi did find a place in the Mongol military and that use of the stones was perhaps a normal practice, or at the least not an uncommon one. This supposition is bolstered by the fact that when the Mongols saw storms during a battle, they often assumed they had been raised through mystical powers.69 Furthermore, the fact that the stones remained in the arsenal of Mongol armies in the fourteenth century demonstrates that they were useful and perhaps ubiquitous enough that their use went from being a “pagan” practice to an accepted form of warfare in the more syncretic notions of Islam and Buddhism found in the steppes. Additionally, the fact that Jalal al-Din employed the stones indicates that he (and others) understood their application, even if he had not perfected their use. Indeed, the last notable deployment of jadachin in warfare was in the early sixteenth century, when the Uzbeks fought the Safavids. Finding that the jada stones were not as reliable as artillery, the Uzbeks abandoned their use, again demonstrating that the nomads found the rain stones useful, albeit not reliable.

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The Zenith of Steppe Warfare The zenith of steppe warfare was unquestionably during the period of the Mongol Empire, or Yeke Monggol Ulus (1206–1370). During the height of this period in the 1250s, the Mongol armies could mobilize approximately a million men, on a conservative estimate.70 This estimate only includes the nomadic troops. If one also considers the sedentary troops from vassals and those directly under the control of the central government, then the Mongol military easily surpassed two million soldiers.71 Even though the Mongols used sedentary forces on numerous occasions and in conjunction with their horse archers, their opponents found the nomadic warrior to be the most challenging aspect of Mongol warfare. It was not just those cultures that had little familiarity with combating the swift-moving horse archers that experienced this difficulty; even those with expertise in nomadic warfare found the Mongols to be daunting. An example of this sedentary familiarity with nomadic warfare before the Mongol explosion appears in the Rus’ principalities. Numerous other examples can be found, particularly among empires based in China, but some of the states that emerged in China were actually nomadic or seminomadic in origin and therefore naturally had an intimate knowledge of steppe warfare.72 Furthermore, the Rus’ principalities were forced into a more complex relationship with the nomads, as the Rus’ were rarely sufficiently united to exhibit overwhelming military superiority, unlike certain Chinese states whose military strength far exceeded theirs. Military interaction between the Rus’ and nomads had been commonplace since at least the tenth century. This included not only warfare but also alliances against mutual enemies. Yet the Rus’ sources typically treated the nomads as an enemy, and a pagan one, with which accommodation could never be made.73 Furthermore, the sources from the Orthodox Church viewed the nomads as a pestilence and unrelenting evil that needed to be destroyed.74 Nonetheless, a close reading of Rus’ and nonRus’ sources clearly indicates that the Rus’ had sustained contact with nomads, and not always hostile contact. In warfare, while the Rus’ had their share of battlefield losses, they also demonstrated sufficient martial vigor to keep the nomads at bay.

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Yet, while the Slavonic Church sources condemn the nomads, they also hint at familiarity with them. Although Prince Igor attacked the Pechenegs, a Turkic group that entered the Pontic steppes in the ninth century, Pechenegs also accompanied the Rus’ attack on Constantinople and became a haven for Rus’ nobility in times of turmoil, particularly in the tenth century.75 The Black Hats, or Chernye Klobuki, a nomadic confederation of groups displaced by the Polovtsy or Kipchaks, served alongside the Rus’ and were perhaps frontier guards.76 Large numbers of Kipchaks became involved in internecine warfare among the Rus’, and they often chose sides on the basis of marriage alliances.77 It is clear that the warrior elite of the Rus’ did not view the nomads as an apocalyptic threat to their principalities, even though the Rus’ suffered a number of defeats by the Kipchaks. Although the Rus’ suffered six defeats in the eleventh century alone, compared with one Rus’ victory, by the twelfth century, the Rus’ sufficiently understood the Kipchaks’ form of warfare that the Rus’ routinely defeated the Kipchaks.78 Furthermore, much of the twelfth century saw Rus’ and Kipchak allies fighting against other Rus’.79 By the time of the first encounter with the Mongols at the Kalka River in 1223, the Rus’ were familiar with nomadic warfare and could counter it fairly well. The Mongols, however, offered something new. While standard methods of steppe warfare, derived from hunting and herding, remained the basis of Mongol warfare, the Mongols added new wrinkles to the fabric and in doing so dramatically altered their art of war. Much of the Mongols’ success had to do with the particular culture of the Yeke Monggol Ulus, the state forged through Chinggis Khan’s rise to power. As discussed, contemporary and modern observers have long noted the role of nomadic culture in developing martial skills, as well as the difficulty of steppe life in rendering the nomads hardy and severe warriors.80 Nevertheless, these observations have been superficial, failing to capture the innovations in Mongol social and military organization spurred or expanded by Chinggis Khan. Eurasian steppe nomads clearly shared a common culture, martial and otherwise. The advent of the Yeke Monggol Ulus, however, transformed Mongolian culture through the integration of numerous nomadic groups and societal changes that altered the Yeke Monggol Ulus from being a traditional nomadic confederation to a new imperial soci-

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ety with a new organizational culture—still based in a common steppe culture. While Yeke Monggol Ulus referred to the Mongol Empire, it also specifically referred to the new supratribal identity that Chinggis Khan created, fusing not only the nomads of the Mongolian plateau but also other nomads into a single entity. The key factor in this effort was an attempt to eliminate tribal identity and transform the various nomadic groups into a single entity. To break down tribal identity, Chinggis Khan eliminated aristocratic lineages hostile to him, leaving the altan urugh (Golden Kin), or the family of Chinggis Khan, as the sole high-ranking family, thus being the only lineage with legitimacy to rule and creating an imperial dynasty. Additionally, Chinggis Khan then organized society into decimal units, with the minggan, or a unit of one thousand, as the primary mode of organization.81 He applied it to the military as well as to households. While tribes that voluntarily submitted to him retained their identity underneath the Mongol identity, the defeated individuals were then distributed among the other units to prevent defeated tribes from coalescing around their former leaders or even their former identities. Once an individual joined a unit, he could not leave, which also eliminated the traditional fluidity of tribal identity in which membership often changed both voluntarily, as members left to seek new opportunities, and by forceful recruitment or dissolution.82 Chinggis Khan did not innovate the use of decimal units; other steppe or steppe-influenced empires had used it as well. Both the Khitans and Jurched used it and continued to do so in their imperial incarnations as the Liao (906–1124) and Jin Dynasties (1125–1234), respectively, at least for their nomadic elements.83 The Khitans continued to use it even after the end of the Liao Dynasty, as we see the same terms and formations used in Qara Khitai (1124–1218).84 Yet its use was even older, as the Xiongnu (ca. 210 BCE–200 CE) used it as well.85 It is not certain, however, if decimal organization was widely used in the steppes at the time of Chinggis Khan’s life, although it appears that the Kereit used it.86 According to The Secret History of the Mongols, Chinggis Khan adopted decimal organization after his victory over the Kereit in 1203, as the first mention of Chinggis Khan using it is in 1204 but prior to marching against the Naiman at Chakirma’ut.87 Part of the transformation from a confederation of tribes into the Yeke Monggol Ulus included the forced adoption of aspects of Mongolian

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culture. While the culture of steppe nomads across the Eurasian steppe was fairly uniform, there were some differences besides language (Turkic or Mongolic). One of the most well-known aspects was the adoption of a singular hairstyle. This had two purposes. Hairstyles served as a method of identity, varying with each tribe. Additionally, adopting a particular hairstyle, in the case of the Yeke Monggol Ulus, served as an induction not only into the tribe but also into the Mongol military. Not only could members not leave their unit to join another, but the new haircut made it difficult for anyone to desert, as it was sufficiently unique that one could not alter it easily without raising suspicion. According to the Franciscan friar John of Plano Carpini, On the top of the head they have a tonsure like clerics, and as a general rule all shave from one ear to the other to the breadth of three fingers, and this shaving joins on to the aforesaid tonsure. Above the forehead also they all likewise shave to two fingers breadth, but the hair between this shaving and tonsure they allow grow until it reaches their eyebrows, and, cutting more from each side of the forehead than in the middle, they make the hair in the middle long; the rest of their hair they allow to grow like women, and they make it into two braids which they bind, one behind each ear.88

Yet the transformation of cultural identity did not end there. The adoption of a particular clothing style also occurred. This was fairly minor, as most nomads wore a robe-like garment known in Mongolian as a deel (degel in Middle Mongolian). The Mongol deel’s edges overlap and are tied on the right side of the garment, whereas the Turks fastened their garment on the left—a simple distinction but an important and immediately visible one.89 With the steppe nomads thus identified by hairstyle and clothing, Chinggis Khan also sought to transform them into a single entity through more ubiquitous forms of culture. As indicated previously, steppe society was fairly uniform in many ways, but each region had its own unique aspects as well. Animal slaughter is one such method, although it is not well studied. For the Mongols, when animals were prepared for meals, the animal (typically a sheep) was rolled on its back, and then the nomad made a small incision in the animal’s chest, large enough for the nomad

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to slip his hand into. With hand inserted, the nomad could then either still the heart or rip the aorta, thus killing the animal. Unlike slaughter methods known in the Abrahamic world, in which the throat was cut and blood drained, the Mongols sought not to spill the blood.90 The primary reason for this was shamanic beliefs in which the blood retained part of the soul. Should the animal’s blood seep into the ground, then that portion of soul (sünesün) became trapped, preventing its rebirth.91 It is likely that most nomads slaughtered animals in this fashion, although larger animals may have had their skulls clubbed, prior to the rise of Chinggis Khan. Nonetheless, the idea that Chinggis Khan introduced this practice (along with many other customs that probably predated him) demonstrates his role as a culture hero. It also indicates the steps to create a uniform cultural identity, which the Mongols initially may have attempted to impose over sedentary populations as well. These efforts, however, subsided over time, and cultural conflicts occasionally flared, particularly during times of stress within the Mongol Empire.92

Conclusion The culture of nomadic society made steppe warfare different from warfare in other societies. While outsiders may have viewed nomadic society as unchanging and perhaps backward, as many modern people do, the nomadic system of warfare was an evolving thing. Many tactics remained the same but with new wrinkles. Furthermore, although nomadic culture across the steppes was similar, it was not identical. New cultural aspects appeared, as did new aspects of systems of warfare, especially when one group became dominant and could extend its influence across the Eurasian steppes. Chinggis Khan’s incorporation of societal cultural elements into the Mongols’ art of war helped forge a common identity among the nomads of the Mongol Empire, regardless of prior tribal affiliation. Regular hunting techniques assisted not only in executing maneuvers but also in building unit élan and camaraderie by forcing the decimal-based units to work together. Furthermore, the emphasis on herding skills gave the nomads an edge that sedentary troops simply did not have. While sedentary observers readily recognized the importance of hunting as training and its ready application to war, they could not fathom the importance

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of herding skills—not only as the Mongols applied them but also in the way it affected the Mongols’ perspective. As such, the Mongols’ opponents rarely possessed the cultural awareness sufficient to fully understand how the Mongols viewed warfare. The fact that the Mongols also adopted shamanic elements that had been initially foreign to their own culture demonstrates their own intrinsic adaptability and practicality. The Mongols did not simply reject something due to unfamiliarity or cultural taboos if they saw value in its use. Furthermore, they recognized that incorporating power where and as they found it, regardless of origin, helped forge a common identity among the nomadic elements within the empire that transcended previous tribal affiliations. Notes

1. Zhao Hung, Mengda Beilu, trans. N. Ts. Munkyeva (Moscow: NAUK, 1975), 66– 67. Translation from Russian is mine. Although the Tatars were a distinct tribe in eastern Mongolia that the Mongols defeated in 1201, the term has became a synonym for the Mongols across much of Eurasia for reasons that remain unclear. 2. John of Plano Carpini, “The History of the Mongols,” trans. a nun from Stanbrook Abbey, in Mission to Asia, by Christopher Dawson, Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching 8 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), 18 (hereafter cited as Carpini/Dawson); Iohannes de Plano Carpini, “Ystoria Mongalorum,” in Sinica Franciscana: Itinera et Relationes Fratrum Minorum Saeculi XIII et XIV, ed. P. Anastasius Van Den Wyngaert (Firenze: Apud Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1929), 50 (hereafter cited as JPC). 3. Patriarch Robert of Jerusalem, “Robert, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and papal legate, and other prelates in the Holy Land, to the prelates of France and England (24 November, 1244), Acre,” in Letters from the East: Crusaders, Pilgrims and Settlers in the 12th–13th Centuries, ed. Malcolm Barber and Keith Bates, Crusader Texts in Translation 18 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010), 142–43. 4. ‘Ala al-Din Ata Malik ibn Muhammad, Ta’rikh-i-Jahan Gusha, 3 vols., ed. Mirza Muhammad Qazvini, E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series (Leiden: Brill 1912, 1916, 1937), 1:50–51 (hereafter cited as Juvaini/Qazvini); Ala ad-Din ‘Ata Malik Juvaini, The History of the World Conqueror, trans. J. A. Boyle (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997), 66–68 (hereafter cited as Juvaini/Boyle); Sheng Wu Qin Zheng Lu (Bogda Bagatur Bey-e-Ber Tayilagsan Temdeglel), in Bogda Bagatur Beye-e-Ber Tayilagsan Temdeglel, ed. Asaraltu (Qayilar, Mongolia: Obor Monggol-un Soyul-un Keblel-un Qoriy-a, 1985), 50 (hereafter cited as SWQZL); Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami’u’t-tawarikh: Compendium of Chronicles, trans. W. M. Thackston, Classical Writings of the Medieval Islamic World 3 (London: I. B. Tauris), 163–64 (hereafter cited as. RD/Thackston). 5. Juvaini/Qazvini, 1:113–16, 2:111–17; Juvaini/Boyle, 143–49, 380–86.

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6. Master Roger, Episotola in miserabile carmen super destruction Regni Hungarie per tartaros facta, trans. Janos M. Bak and Martyn Rady, Central European Medieval Texts 5 (New York: Central European University Press, 2010), 214–15; Thomas of Spalato, Historia Salonitanorum Atque Spalatinorum Pontificum, ed. and trans. Damir Karbic, Mirjana Mativjevic Sokol, and James Ross Sweeny, Central European Medieval Texts 4 (New York: Central European University Press, 2006), 288–95; RD/Thackston, 236; Rashid al-Din, Jami’ al-tawarikh, ed. B. Karimi (Tehran: Iqbal, 1983), 483 (hereafter cited as RD/Karimi); Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, vol. 4, ed. Henry Richards Luard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 114. 7. RD/Karimi, 465; RD/Thackston, 226. 8. Juvaini/Qazvini, 2:182–83; Juvaini/Boyle, 452–53; Muhammad ibn Ahmad alNasawi, Sirah al-Sultan Jalal al-Din Makubirti (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1953), 350–51; Mohammad En-Nasawi, Histoire du Sultan Djelal ed-din Mankobirti, trans. O. Houdas (Paris: L’ecole des langues orientale vivantes, 1895), 366–67 (hereafter cited as Nasawi/Houdas); Ahmad Ibn ‘Abd-Wahhab al-Nuwayri, Nihayat al-Arab fi Funun al-Adab, ed. Sa’id ‘Ashur (Cairo: Al-Hayat al-Misriyyat al-‘Ammat lil-Kitab, 1975), 290. 9. Nasawi, Sirah al-Sultan Jalal al-Din Makubirti, 356; Nasawi/Houdas, 373–74; Juvaini/Qazvini, 2:184; Juvaini/Boyle, 453. 10. Juvaini/Qazvini, 2:182; Juvaini/Boyle, 451. 11. Nasawi, Sirah al-Sultan Jalal al-Din Makubirti, 357, 371–72, 374; Nasawi/Houdas, 375, 396–98, 400. 12. Nasawi, Sirah al-Sultan Jalal al-Din Makubirti, 375–76; Nasawi/Houdas, 403; Juvaini/Qazvini, 2:185–87; Juvaini/Boyle, 454–55; Nuwayri, Nihayat al-Arab fi Funun al-Adab, 296. 13. Juvaini/Qazvini, 2:190–91; Juvaini/Boyle, 459; Nuwayri, Nihayat al-Arab fi Funun al-Adab, 297. See Timothy May, “A Mongol-Ismaili Alliance? Thoughts on the Mongols and Assassins,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 14, no. 3 (2006): 1–9, for an alternative explanation regarding Jalal al-Din’s death. 14. Ibn Al-Athir, Al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, vol. 12 (Beirut: Dar al-Sadr, 1979), 499–501; Nuwayri, Nihayat al-Arab fi Funun al-Adab, 296. 15. Al-Athir, Al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, 501. 16. Al-Athir, 497. 17. Al-Athir, 496–97; Nasawi, Sirah al-Sultan Jalal al-Din Makubirti, 213; Nasawi/ Houdas, 204; Minhaj Siraj Juzjani, Tabakat-i-Nasiri: A General History of the Muhammadan Dynasties of Asia, trans. Major H. G. Raverty (New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corp., 1970), 1118–19; Juvaini/Qazvini, 2:214; Juvaini/Boyle, 479. 18. Ibn Abi Al-Hadid, Sharh Nahi al-Balaghah, vol. 3 (Beirut: Dar Maktabah al-Hayat, 1963), 81; J. E. Woods, “A Note on the Mongol Capture of Isfahan,” Journal of Near East Studies 36 (1977): 49–51; J. A. Boyle, “The Capture of Isfahan by the Mongols,” in Atti del Convegno Internazionale sul Tema: La Persia nel Medioevo (Rome: Accademia Nazionale del Lincei, 1971), 336.

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19. Ch’i-ch’ing Hsiao, The Military Establishment of the Yuan Dynasty (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies at Harvard University, 1978), 7. 20. Jing-Shen Tao, The Jurchen in Twelfth-Century China: A Study in Sinicization (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976), 86–87. 21. Maurikos, Maurice’s Strategikon: Handbook of Byzantine Military Strategy, trans. George T. Dennis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1984), 167. 22. Thomas T. Allsen, The Royal Hunt in Eurasian History (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2006), 26–29. 23. Marco Polo, The Travels, trans. Henry Yule and Henri Cordier, ed. Morris Rossabi (New York: Sterling Signature, 2012), 150–55; Marco Polo, The Travels, trans. Ronald Latham (New York: Penguin, 1958), 141–47; Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, trans. William Marsden and Manuel Komroff (New York: Modern Library), 121–28. Cachar Modun: Modun means “forest”; Cachar may be gazar or “land.” Thus, Marco Polo has just described a forested hunting park. 24. Juvaini/Boyle, 27–28. 25. Lawrence Krader, “Feudalism and the Tatar Policy of the Middle Ages,” Comparative Studies in Social History 1 (1958): 82. 26. N. Ts. Münkuyev, “A Mongolian Hunting Practice of the 13th Century and the Buryat Terms Zeegete Aba and Aba Khaidag,” in Tracata Altaica Denis Sinor Sexagenario Optime de Rebus Altaicus Merito Dedicata, ed. W. Heissig, J. R. Kruege, F. J. Oinas, and E. Schultz, 417–33 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1976), 420–21. In some localities, it was also known as tomoghtu jangh-a (trap with a fence) or tomoghtu aba (hunting with a fence). Among the Buryats, it was zeeget ab, derived from jegegt ab among the Khalkha Mongolian. Jegegt and zeeget both mean “cords of hair.” 27. Münkuyev, 421–22. 28. Allsen, Royal Hunt, 27. Thomas T. Allsen views jerge and nerge as synonyms, but that does not appear to be the case. They both involve hunting circles, but there are subtle differences. As I argue here, the jerge resembles more of a royal hunt or the battue. 29. Juvaini/Boyle, 126; Juvaini/Qazvini, 1:126. 30. RD/Thackston, 273. 31. Juvayni/Qazvini, 3:10, 51, 53–54, 100, 111–12; Juvaini/Boyle, 553–54, 583, 585, 613–14, 621. 32. Allsen, Royal Hunt, 216. 33. Juvaini/Boyle, 553. 34. The Nikonian Chronicle, ed. Serge A. Zenkovsky, trans. Serge A. Zenkovsky and Betty Jean Zenkovsky, 5 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Kingston, 1984), 2:313–14; Juvaini/ Qazvini, 3:10; Juvaini/Boyle, 5534. 35. Kiracos de Gantzac, “Histoire d’Armenie,” trans. M. Brousset, in Deux Historiens Armeniens: Kiracos de Gantzax, XIII S. “Histoire d’Armenie”; Oukhatanes D’Ourha, X S., “Histoire en trois parties” (St. Petersburg, Russia: Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1870), 116.

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36. RD/Thackston, 206. 37. The Secret History of the Mongols, ed. and trans. Igor de Rachewiltz (Leiden: Brill, 2004), § 199 (hereafter cited as SHM). Although most scholars prefer Rachewiltz’s translations, a number of others exist. For that reason, I cite by passage number, as these are uniform. 38. Juvaini/Boyle, 139–40, 149; Juvaini/Qazvini, 1:110–11, 116. 39. William E. Henthorn, Korea: The Mongol Invasions (Leiden: Brill, 1963), 105. 40. See Thomas T. Allsen, “Prelude to the Western Campaigns: Mongol Military Operations in the Volga-Ural Region, 1217–1237,” Archivum Eurasiae Medii Archivum 3 (1983): 5–23. 41. Nikonian Chronicle, 2:288. 42. Nesawi/Houdas, 87, 89; Zhao Hung, Mengda Beilu, 67; Nasawi, Sirah al-Sultan Jalal al-Din Makubirti, 113–14. 43. Simon de Saint-Quentin, Histoire des Tartares (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthener, 1965), 30, cf. 100–101. 44. SHM, §§ 254, 256. 45. SHM, § 268. 46. Khwandamir, Habibu’s Siyar: The History of the Mongols and Genghis Khan, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, Classical Writings of the Medieval Islamic World: Persian Histories of the Mongol Dynasties 2 (London: I. B. Tauris, 2012), 27; RD/Thackston, 224; Juvaini/Boyle, 192–94; Bar Hebraeus, The Chronography of Gregory Abu’l Faraj, trans. Ernest A. Wallis Budge, Gorgias Historical Texts (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2003), 397. Bar Hebraeus states that Ögödei used jada stones. Most likely this is not a separate instance from the one involving Tolui but rather the same one, as other details in the story are the same. 47. Juvaini/Boyle 193. 48. RD/Thackston, 224; Juvaini/Boyle, 192–94. 49. RD/Thackston, 224. 50. SHM § 143. 51. Although Naiman is a Mongolian word meaning “eight,” as in the eight tribes or groups that composed the Naiman confederation, there is some dispute whether the Naiman were Mongolian or Turkic. Igor de Rachewiltz contends the Naiman were Mongols with Turkic elites (SHM, 518, 553, 582, 676, 685, 1004). Rashīd alDīn categorizes them as “nations that resembled the Mongols” (RD/Thackston, 18). 52. Joo-Yup Lee, “Were the Historical Oirats ‘Western Mongols’? An Examination of Their Uniqueness in Relation to the Mongols,” Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines 47 (2016): 2–3. After the Oirat people’s incorporation in the Mongol Empire, they quickly Mongolized, but it is unclear if they were Turkic or perhaps Tungusic prior to this process. 53. Adam Molnar, Weather Magic in Inner Asia (Bloomington, IN: Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 1994), 1. 54. Molnar, 8–9.

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55. J. A. Boyle, “Turkish and Mongol Shamanism in the Middle Ages,” Folklore 83, no. 3 (1972): 184–85, 187. 56. Boyle, “Turkish and Mongol Shamanism,” 184. 57. Secret History of the Mongols, 525. 58. RD/Thackston, 130. 59. Boyle, “Turkish and Mongol Shamanism,” 185–86. Boyle cites Welsh traditions and those from Brittany, all of which seem to indicate a Celtic influence. 60. Boyle, “Turkish and Mongol Shamanism,” 190; Molnar, Weather Magic in Inner Asia, 43. 61. Nasawi/Houdas, 327–38, 396–97; Boyle, “Turkish and Mongol Shamanism,” 189. 62. Boyle, “Turkish and Mongol Shamanism,” 191; Molnar, Weather Magic in Inner Asia, 51–52. 63. Molnar, Weather Magic in Inner Asia, 140–41. 64. Molnar, 146. 65. Molnar, 141. 66. Timothy May, The Mongol Art of War (Barnsley, UK: Pen and Sword, 2007), 52. 67. Molnar, Weather Magic in Inner Asia, 145. 68. Molnar, 145. 69. Khwandamir, Habibu’s Siyar, 44. During Turabi’s rebellion (1232–33), the Mongols fought a battle against him. Although they shot him with arrows, they were unaware that they killed him because a dust storm arose. The Mongols assumed that the storm had been raised by Tarabi, who allegedly had miraculous powers. The Mongols broke ranks and fled, allowing the rebels to inflict a heavy defeat on them. 70. Thomas T. Allsen, Mongol Imperialism: The Policies of the Grand Qan Möngke in China, Russia, and the Islamic Lands, 1251–1259 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 198–204. 71. Exact numbers of sedentary troops are difficult to ascertain, but we know that the Mongols conducted censuses, registering males between fifteen and sixty years of age for military service. Thomas T. Allsen, “Mongol Census Taking in Rus, 1245–1275,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 5, no. 1 (1981): 50–51; Grigor of Akanc, “The History of the Nation of Archers by Grigor of Akanc,” trans. and ed. R. P. Blake and R. N. Frye, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 12 (1949): 325; Hsiao, Military Establishment of the Yuan Dynasty, 17–18, 73–75; Юанъ улсын судар, vol. 9, ed. G. Akim and M. Bayarsaikhan (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia: Soyombo Printing, 2016), 560–600. 72. Frederick W. Mote, Imperial China, 900–1800 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003); Paul S. Ropp, China in World History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 45–49; Jonathan Karam Skaff, Sui-Tang China and Its Turko-Mongol Neighbors: Culture, Power, and Connections, 580–800 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 236–37; P. Delgerjargal, Khünnü: Mongoliin Ertnii Tüükh, Tergüün Bot (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia: Soyombo, 2017); P. Delgerjargal and B. Batsüren, Syanbi: Mongoliin Ertnii Tüükh: Ded Bot (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia:

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74.

75.

76. 77. 78.

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Soyombo Printing, 2017), 117–46. During the Sixteen Kingdoms period (304–439), nine kingdoms had nomadic origins: the ruling elite of the Han Zhao (304–329), the Xia (407–431), and the Northern Liang (397–439) were Xiongnu; the Later Zhaos (386–403) originated from the Yenisei River Valley; the Xianbei Empire in Mongolia was the progenitor of five states in China: Former Yan (337–370), Later Yan (384–409), Western Qin (485–431), Southern Liang (397–414), and Southern Yan (398–410). From the late fourth century, a number of states derived from the Xianbei dominated northern China, beginning with the Northern Wei (386–534), from which the Eastern Wei (534–550), Western Wei (535–557), and Northern Zhou (557–581) emerged, all with Xianbei elites. In the Five Dynasties Period (907–960), several states had Shatuo or Turkic origins, including the Later Tang (923–937), Later Jin (936–947), and Later Han (947–951). The Liao dynasty (907– 1125) was established by the Khitans, who ruled both northern China and much of Mongolia; the Manchurian Jurchen formed the Jin Empire (1125–1234). The final dynasty, the Qing (1636–1911), also originated from Manchuria. This view toward the Mongols has been amply made in Charles J. Halperin, The Tatar Yoke: The Image of the Mongols in Medieval Russia, corrected edition (Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2009). The Polovtsi and Pechenegs are viewed as pagan, but the Orthodox Church chronicles are more restrained in their condemnation. The Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016–1471, ed. and trans. Robert Michell and Nevill Forbes (London: Offices of the Society, 1914), 64. Oddly enough, The Chronicle of Novgorod views the Mongols as God’s method of destroying the “cursed” Polovtsi. Chronicle of Novgorod, 2; Janet Martin, Medieval Russia, 980–1584 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 17. Also see Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples: Ethnogenesis and State-Formation in Medieval and Early Modern Eurasia and the Middle East (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1992), 264–70. Martin, Medieval Russia, 129–31. For the Kipchaks, also known as Quman, Cuman, and Qipchaqs, see Golden, History of the Turkic Peoples, 270–82. Chronicle of Novgorod, 6, 14, 15, 23, 25, 38, 39, 43, 58–61, 63–67. Chronicle of Novgorod, 4–5, 14, 15, 23, 26. In 1068, the Polovtsi defeated the Rus’, and The Chronicle of Novgorod indicates that “the wrath of God” came on the Rus’—the loss was a punishment for their sins. In the same year, however, the Rus’ then defeated the Polovtsi. Chronicle of Novgorod. This appears to be a regular occurrence after the year 1137, roughly when the Kipchak confederation fragmented. Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian, rev. ed., vol. 2, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 129; Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Robin Waterfield (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 4.46; Colin MacKerras, The Uighur Empire According to the T’ang Dynastic Histories: A Study in Sino-Uighur Relations, 744–840 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1972), 13.

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81. JPC, 64–65; Carpini/Dawson, 26; Zhao Hung, Mengda Beilu, 67; Hsiao, Military Establishment of the Yuan Dynasty, 10; Isenbike Togan, Flexibility and Limitation in Steppe Formations: The Kerait Khanate and Chinggis Khan (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 132–36. 82. Juvaini/Qazvini, 1:24; Juvaini/Boyle, 32; Rudi Linder, “What Was a Nomadic Tribe?,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 24, no. 4 (1982): 701. 83. Hsiao, Military Establishment of the Yuan Dynasty, 8. 84. Michal Biran, “‘Like a Mighty Wall’: The Armies of Kara Khitai (1124–1218),” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 25 (2001): 54–55. 85. Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian, 134, 136. 86. SHM, §§ 105, 170. 87. SHM, § 191. 88. Carpini/Dawson, 6–7; JPC, 32–33. Others also noted the hairstyle. Simon de Saint-Quentin, Histore des Tartares, ed. Jean Richard (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1965), 41–42; William of Rubruck, The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck, trans. Peter Jackson (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1990), 88 (hereafter cited as Rubruck/Jackson); William of Rubruck, “The Journey of William of Rubruck,” trans. a nun of Stanbrook Abbey, in Dawson, Mission to Asia, 101–2 (hereafter cited as Rubruck/Dawson); Guillelmus de Rubruc, Itinerarium Willelmi de Rubruc, in Sinica Franciscana: Itinera et Relationes Fratrum Minorum Saeculi XIII et XIV, ed. P. Anastasius Van Den Wyngaert (Firenze: Apud Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1929), 182 (hereafter cited as Rubruc). 89. Carpini/Dawson, 7; JPC, 33–34; Rubruc, 182; Rubruck/Dawson, 102; Rubruck/ Jackson, 88. 90. Timothy May, “Spilling Blood: Conflict and Culture over Animal Slaughter in Mongol Eurasia,” in Animals and Human Society in Asia: Historical and Ethical Perspectives, ed. Rotem Kowner, Guy Bar-Oz, Michal Biran, Meir Shahar, and Gideon Shelach-Lavi (New York: Palgrave, 2019), 151–77. 91. Rinchen Yöngsiyebü, “Everlasting Bodies of the Ancestral Spirits in Mongolian Shamanism,” Studia Oreintalia 47 (1977): 175–76; Alice Sarközi, “Abode of the Soul of Humans, Animals and Objects in Mongolian Folk Belief,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 61, no. 4 (2008): 467; M. D. Even, “The Shamanism of the Mongols,” in Mongolia Today, ed. Shirin Akiner (London: Kegan Paul, 1991), 185; Peter B. Golden, “Religion among the Qipcaqs of Medieval Eurasia,” Central Asiatic Journal 42, no. 2 (1998): 196. 92. May, “Spilling Blood.”

5

How Spanish Was the Spanish Conquest? Reexamining Spanish Success in the New World James B. Wood

Was there a Spanish Conquest? Our textbooks have often retold the story of the Spanish conquistadors’ arrival in the Western Hemisphere and the subsequent destruction of the Aztec and Incan empires. By 1570, there were already 118,000 Spanish colonists in the New World. By the late sixteenth century, Spanish arms had created an empire stretching from Chile to California, and between 1503 and 1660, some sixteen million kilograms of silver and 185,000 kilograms of gold had been shipped from the New World to Spain, funding Spanish hegemony in Europe and the beginning of the capitalist world system.1 The accidental landing of Columbus in 1492 had put in motion one of the most important events in global human history. In the past few decades, however, reexaminations of how the “Conquest” was achieved have moved away from any specific Spanish agency and pointed much more to the important role of disease and the support of native allies in determining the Conquest. Some work has gone so far as to make post-1492 a story that is not only not “Spanish” but not even a “Conquest.”2 Has the pendulum of interpretation been pushed too far? Reexamination of the motives and actions of assorted Mesoamericans, albeit fruitful and necessary, may be ignoring what historians have learned about the effectiveness of Spanish military culture in the New World. This chapter seeks a deeper understanding of those Spaniards who arrived to disrupt the political systems of the Americas and in doing so argues that Spanish military culture was the central, defining, and unique feature of the Conquest. *** 101

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Understanding the Spanish Conquest rests on three basic issues. First, any explanation of the Conquest must grapple with the issue of Western exceptionalism. That is, what enabled Spanish subjects to subjugate the most populated areas of the Western Hemisphere so rapidly? More bluntly, what gave the conquistadors and early settlers their decisive advantage over the indigenous polities and peoples of the New World?3 The standard historical interpretation of the Conquest until quite recently is summarized by John H. Elliott: “The conquistador, hungry for fame and riches, and supremely confident of his capacity to obtain them, stood on the threshold of a fatalistic world resigned to self-surrender; and in the sign of the cross he conquered it.”4 Current understanding of the historical meaning and significance of the Conquest has taken a more secular turn, but for the Spanish participants, the cause of this extraordinary triumph was clear. The Conquest represented the unfolding of the Catholic God’s plan to impose Christianity and Spanish sovereignty over the peoples of the recently discovered New World using Spanish arms, hardiness, and courage as his vessel. A second issue parallels that of Spanish potency: the nature of New World indigenous peoples and the role they played in resisting or abetting the invasion of Spanish arms. How did the Meso- and South American human terrain that preceded the arrival of the Spanish provide ground for potential interactions between the different worlds? The conquerors regarded even the most highly advanced native cultures as savage, cruel, and idolatrous, fit only to serve as subjects of themselves, the crown, and the church. Even so, Spanish options and actions were heavily influenced by the existing and evolving reality of native structures, beliefs, and actions. How and why these were critical in determining the outcome of the Conquest is still contested historical territory.5 A third great question concerns the ecological consequences of the Conquest and the relative weight of human-made and natural processes in the loss or displacement of human populations. Many scholars claim that the Mesoamerican population at the end of the sixteenth century was only one-tenth of that at the beginning. How much of this was due to the Spaniards’ cruel exploitation and devastation of native communities? How much was inadvertent and due to natural causes like epidemic diseases?6 The answers matter because they speak to the intrinsic nature

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of early European imperialism and colonization. Deliberate genocide or unintended consequences of the Columbian Exchange? Black Legend or unfortunate tragedy? Perpetrators and victims?7 Or, more multivariably, the perhaps inevitable birthing pangs of a new, complex, multiethnic society that blended elements of both invader and invaded culture, changing both in the process? As we approach the five hundredth anniversary of the conquest of Mexico, these questions will be revisited. Much of the current revisionism simply aims to cut the legendary Spaniards down to size by challenging the myth of their heroic exceptionalism contained in traditional accounts and repeated uncritically by nationalistic Anglo-Saxon historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who assumed the superiority of the white over the darker races of the world.8 The conquistadors’ own vivid accounts—by such as Hernando Cortés and Bernal Díaz del Castillo—are no longer taken as literally “true” historical accounts of the Conquest.9 More critical exegesis of these narratives reveals them as purposefully self-serving attempts to exaggerate individual and collective Spanish deeds and perspicacity. They skillfully present themselves as hard-pressed, long suffering, yet courageous masters of strange and dangerous situations whose every action is intended to advance the interests of the Catholic monarchs, as well as to establish their claims for royal rewards, positions of authority, and honor. Of course, such accounts, which remain classics of Renaissance literature, still carry great historical value, but new readings go beyond what is positively portrayed to highlight also what is missing or suppressed. Pursuing a fuller and more accurate account of the indigenous groups that allied with the Spaniards has found a much greater role for native agency. While Spanish accounts pay some lip service to the Spaniards’ Indian “helpers,” recent scholarship has proven beyond a doubt that the expeditions of the Conquest would have been impossible without the assistance, voluntary or coerced, of native peoples.10 Native warriors accompanied every Spanish expedition, lessening their numerical disadvantages and allowing the conquistadors to function as technologically and tactically efficient combined arms infantry and cavalry shock troops. Furthermore, every morsel of food and the vast majority of material sustaining the Spaniards was produced or fabricated, transported, and prepared by vast numbers of native laborers—volunteer, conscripted, or

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enslaved servants and bearers. The Spanish were also heavily dependent in their initial forays on the natives’ local knowledge and guide services. Recent research into local legal archives and pictographic codices have also revealed how much allied Indian communities—or at least their elites—regarded themselves as equal partners of the Spanish in pursuit of factional advantage and revenge on enemies, the acquisition of slaves and prisoners for sacrifices, loot, and new territory, leading many historians to refer to them as “Indian conquistadors.” Though their perception of equal status was to prove almost universally mistaken in the long run, it suggests that rather than simply being completely overawed by Spanish weapons, cultural advantages, and ferocity, many quickly grasped in a quite rational manner that submission or alliance presented an opportunity to improve their own lot vis-à-vis other native groups. Many Indians, in other words, following their own agendas in rapidly destabilizing Mesoamerican or Andean societies, believed that they were independent actors, rather than victims or thralls, a fact only dimly understood by the Spanish.11 Some historians also argue against the cognitive mastery of the Spanish. Were they actually the perceptive interpreters of Mesoamerican (and Andean) political realities, hierarchies, and structures, as Cortés claimed in his letters to the king? Or was their analogical understanding of the New World filtered through Renaissance and Classical tropes that in many respects turned out to be illusory? Inga Clendinnen goes so far as to argue that Cortés, despite his claims to knowledge of the situation, understood very little, and that the destruction of Tenochtitlan that followed was caused by the utter incommensurability of Spanish and Mexican understandings of warfare.12 Indeed the hardening attitude that the Indians were fundamentally inhuman and cruel, even demonic savages who did not fit within European frames of reference led to chronic paranoid suspicion and the relegating of the natives to the permanent status of alien other, toward whom the conquistadors bore no moral obligations and hence no restrictions on the use of violence to obtain their submission. This approach, in other words, denies that Spanish success rested on fundamental cognitive advantages—the rational and realistically utile cultural traits that have often been claimed for the West. Another issue, linked to the reconstruction of native agency and the deconstruction of innate Spanish cultural advantage, is a rethinking of

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certain military aspects of the conquistadors. A number of excellent studies of the origins and identities of the conquistadors have revealed that they were not experienced soldiers but in the main rather-ordinary men without formal military training and that their armed expeditions were first and foremost capitalist joint-risk business ventures with profits calibrated to the degree of an individual’s investment in the enterprise. These civilian grupos, led by a small number of captains, simultaneously explored, plundered, raided, enslaved, conquered, and settled new areas. Their military advantage came not from formal military training but rather from advanced military technology—steel weapons, armor, ranged firearms, cannon, horses, and even rudimentary engineering knowledge—that allowed neophyte ordinary men to fight and to kill effectively while undergoing on-the-job training.13 Spanish martial effectiveness, however, was never total. The Spaniards suffered many setbacks and defeats, and their overall mortality rate was high. Many expeditions returned empty-handed or simply disappeared into the often extreme topographies of the New World. Without the accompanying warriors and the support of Indian infrastructures, as previously noted, the Conquest in its final form would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. Rather than a straightforward conquest by Spanish heros over incredible numbers of natives and improbable odds, we are presented with a revised picture, a fuller, more complex, and more convincing model based on multicultural military synergy. Eventual Spanish domination, in other words, was constructed with the human and material resources of the new continents at a time when the number of adult Spanish men in the New World could be counted in the low thousands.14 A final revision of traditional “myth” centers on the degree to which the Conquest led to the desolation of Indian society. Bartolomé de las Casas’s The Destruction of the Indies, along with other clerical protests, complaints by civilian administrators, and successive royal law codes, not to mention the Protestant Black Legend, advanced a view of Indians as simple, peaceful peoples victimized by Spanish greed, cruelty, and mistreatment, leaving native society defeated, decultured, and desolate. The magnitude of the massive die-off of New World peoples, whether from diseases, the ecological malignancies of the Columbian Exchange, violent massacres and destruction of Indian communities perpetrated

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by ruthless conquistadors, and the excesses of coerced religious conversion, has been generally confirmed by modern scholarship. What is emphasized now, however, is not the long-term genocidal results of the Conquest but the adaptability and tenacity of the survivors.15 Revisionists deny that the end result of the Conquest was social and cultural annihilation akin to the eventual destruction of North American native peoples. Various groups of Indians, it is pointed out, knew how to play the game of politics and alliance to their own relative advantage. The natives were just as opportunistic and capable of recognizing their relative self-interest as were the Spanish. During and after the Conquest, certain rulers and elites were able to preserve much of their influence with the blessings of the Spanish, who, once the looting of treasure stopped but before the mountains of silver were exploited, basically wanted reliable tribute payments and labor services. And for the vast majority of the natives at the village level, life and culture changed very little, retaining local customs and leadership hierarchies and remaining largely self-governing. Even if Spanish-language terms and titles were widely adopted to mimic compliance, institutionally little changed. The Conquest, in other words, did not destroy Indian culture, which lived on robustly and only superficially hispanicized. It is also true that that many Indian groups and peoples remained unpacified and huge regions remained unexplored or unsuitable for settlement for centuries. Conquest, in this context, appears much less than total and complete. It appears more like a social amalgam with both pre-Conquest and Spanish elements developing and adapting side by side, not just the dramatic, rapid, and overwhelming Conquest of Spanish legend. *** Many details of such revisionist research have enriched our understanding of limits to the Conquest’s effects, but the unfortunate net result may be a kind of pasteurized history. Conquests are not such neat, coordinated, and seamless events. Have we forgotten the conquistadors as central to the story? The paradox is that much of the evidence unearthed by the newer history can equally logically be used to confirm the Spanish as the prime agent and driving force behind the violent and wholesale changes that accompanied the establishment of their power and rule over so much of the New World. We can alter or

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downplay the traditional image of the exceptionally heroic Spaniard, but exactly what personality or cultural traits made them effective conquerors even though they were ordinary civilians with little military training and limited insight into their new surroundings? Did they simply stumble accidentally into a conquest of such unparalleled speed and geographical extent?16 Were the massive edifices of the Aztec and Incan empires simply waiting to be toppled? Great preindustrial conquests have historically required specific qualities like vision, planning, organization, ruthlessness, courage, persistence, mental and physical toughness, and effective use of violence to succeed over the human and natural obstacles of the world. Ironically, the more ordinary and clueless the conquerors are portrayed to be, the wider the gap opens between their selves and the magnitude of what they accomplished. Must there have been something of their “system” or “method,” as ordinary and humdrum as it may have been, that remains essential to the story no matter how we attempt to revise it? In the end, we cannot escape the fact that vast flows of tribute moved from the New World into distinctly Spanish hands. On the issue of the important role played by Indian allies, could it not be argued that the consciously manipulative tactics used to obtain their support—flattery, false friendship, deceit, coercion, and punishment— are powerful evidence of effective Spanish intentionality? Someone had to be able to grasp, and act, on the opportunities offered by the competitive and Machiavellian nature of Amerindian politics. Native peoples did not have to teach a Cortés or a Pizarro how to set one native faction against another or to intimidate Indian leaders and communities into providing warriors, labor, and material on demand, cruelly punishing any lack of cooperation. Someone also had to have the strategic sense to plan for future entradas, assemble the necessary human and material resources, and lead the unruly and individualistic Spaniards effectively. What may have begun as Columbus’s accidental landfall fairly soon developed into an insatiable imperial project spanning the Atlantic under the direction of the crown and its administrators, New World governors and officials, the adelantados, and opportunistic treasure-seeking immigrants.17 There is no doubt that in this process Indian allies and assistance were important. But it was the Spanish who conceived, organized, directed, and led the expeditions that overcame inspired and desperate

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native resistance time after time. The Conquest was not simply handed to the Spanish on the spot. It was achieved through the agency of conquistador captains single-mindedly exploiting well-developed, tried and true, Spanish methods of conquest. What is most interesting about this process is actually how little the Spaniards were forced to adapt or improvise in order to be effective. Serious questions can also be raised about the tendency to forefront native agency during the Conquest. After all, opportunistic native alliances with the Spanish focused on short-term goals, like revenge on ancient enemies or plunder, rather than a unified indigenous program aiming at radical transformations of society or culture. It was the Spanish imperial vision that drove the fundamentals of what became a conquest. And what exactly does agency mean? Is it any action or lack of action we can imagine? Does it include complete freedom of action, limited choice within a restricted set of options, or accommodation to conditions over which the actor has little control? Must authentic agency be effective action? Or is the perception of agency enough? For example, by the mid-sixteenth century, any real possibility of restoring executive and religious authority to former Indian kingdoms and empires or of overthrowing the new Spanish masters, despite the continued existence of shadow governments like that of the Inca, had disappeared. The belief by Indian allies that they were in a somewhat equal partnership with the Spanish proved deceptive. Indeed, much of the historical evidence for Indian agency rests on pictograph codices that portray important services given in a cooperative venture with the conquerors. But such assertions of agency were usually produced by Indian communities filing suit for status, rights, awards, and privileges that may have been promised by the conquerors but were never delivered or were soon afterward forgotten. May we speak of such false memories of agency as self-deluded? Perhaps it would be more accurate to argue that the native perception of agency rested on a profound ignorance or misunderstanding of Spanish intent. Spanish success relied on a very selective exploitation of native agency, accepting that which represented useful political possibilities or provided material and human resources that were to prove crucial to the Conquest. But such indigenous agency as the Spanish encouraged or tolerated was only in their own interest as the principal protagonists and beneficiaries of the Conquest.

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It could also be argued that many examples of Indian action as agency were fearful or intimidated reactions to Spanish military successes and atrocities. Though events recounted by a cleric like Las Casas or recorded in the Black Legend are exaggerated, they were not entirely invented. Spanish methods against resistance or noncooperation were ubiquitously brutal and violent, whether directed at native elites or the common people. Deliberately theatrical atrocities and punishments, as long as the Spanish triumphs continued, as they usually did, were effective mechanisms of persuasion. It must have been increasingly clear that opposition to the Spaniards could have deadly consequences. Once initial resistance ended in defeat, settled peoples had little choice but to submit to the new rulers and hope for the best. Of course resistance could and sometimes did take forms other than open warfare or rebellion. At the local tribute-giving level, the change of masters and the establishment of the encomienda system allowed some room for maneuver. But acceptance of the end of native kingdoms and empires, or yielding to the reality of intolerable pressure, cannot seriously be labeled as meaningful independent agency. What, after all, were the alternatives? Where else was there to go? In the vast settled agrarian world, basic subsistence depended on staying in place, working the fields, and harvesting the crops. Wholesale resettlement ran the danger of a hostile reception in other areas unless sponsored by the conquerors themselves. Native people could flee from the Spaniards into rugged and inaccessible country and there continue community life. But abandoning their homes meant losing their fields, harvests, shelter, local gods and spirits, and even identity, without any guarantee that they could ever be replaced or rebuilt—a form of social and economic suicide. And in any case, the conquerors proved adept at penetrating even seemingly impassable terrain in search of renegade subjects, slaves, and plunder. During and immediately after the Conquest, but before depopulation, Spanish urbanization, and an enormous mining industry had completely reorganized the New World economy, submission, acceptance, resignation, and accommodation must have appeared the most viable forms of action. As for the totality—the extent and depth—of the Conquest, the key question is how much of the previous world remained and how much that had not been part of the previous world had come into existence or been set in motion even if not fully realized. The fact is that from the

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time of the first Spanish settlement at Isabella on Hispaniola in 1493, there rapidly developed an intermingled material culture.18 The New World was full of previously unknown peoples and flora and fauna whose usefulness Spaniards, sometimes through necessity, adopted or adapted without abandoning their Hispanic culture. The New World itself, on the other hand, was more fundamentally and radically changed by contact. Students of the Columbian Exchange point out that the large domesticated animals of the Old World—horses, cattle, pigs—not only survived the passage but flourished to such an extent as to threaten traditional native agriculture. Despite scholarly disagreement about the absolute size of pre-Conquest American populations, we know for a certainty from eyewitnesses and assessments of tribute that epidemics of Old World pathogens decimated Indian numbers. Depopulation did not happen all at once and everywhere but through a complex process, including many kinds of vectors, that at varying intervals struck some areas while temporarily sparing others. Though Indian populations survived and even retained some local autonomy in the Spanish system, this demographic revolution created a new population regime that reduced the ratio of Spanish (and associated people of mixed race) to Indians from thousands to one to, speculatively, around ten to one, concentrated in towns, cities, and mining centers. By 1600, the Spanish settlers and their descendants were no longer at risk of being overrun by overwhelming indigenous numbers. By that same date, moreover, as James Lockhart has emphasized, the basic contours of a new Spanish American society were firmly in place. All the major populated areas had been conquered; major Spanish cities and settlements were established; great trunk lines of commerce and communication tied to the mines, port cities, and capitals developed; administration by viceroys and court systems was firmly in place; and the great project of converting native subjects to Christianity was well advanced.19 Not a single one of these phenomena could have eventuated without constant, massive, and intentional Spanish agency. It must also be remembered that the Conquest was an event of global significance, multiplying the precious-metal supply of an emerging capitalist order, financing Hapsburg hegemony in Europe, and enabling the creation of the first truly global empire in world history. Indigenous peoples, we can conclude, had an important, but nevertheless subordinate, place in

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this new world. To say these things is not to praise the moral virtue or civilizing mission of the Spanish but merely to acknowledge their intentionality, the reality of their success, and the weight of the consequences. *** By this point, two major conclusions have emerged. The first is that the Spanish Conquest is still a viable and indeed irreplaceable historical construct in both its major aspects and on fairly traditional lines. Without Spain and Spaniards, this “event” could not have happened when, on the scale, and as rapidly as it did. The recent scholarship that has emerged has not changed its fundamental character. The Conquest’s historical magnitude and import will continue to command our curiosity and even our wonder at the unfolding of one of the world’s major historical events. However, history is not a zero-sum game in which one interpretation holds while all others are invalidated. The second major point is that though the venerable outlines of the Conquest may be intact, recent research has significantly, and in some detail, enriched and deepened our understanding of its surrounding historical context as well as illuminating the nature of native responses to the shock and opportunity of intercultural contact. Native guides led the conquistadors along New World byways; native porters and servants, often coerced, carried their belongings and prepared their camps; native warriors joined the invaders in their battles and subjugation of other natives. Once defeated or intimidated, natives then had to provide ongoing tribute and labor to build and maintain a distinctive Spanish American civilization. In the larger, global context, natives literally dug the wealth of the New World out of the ground, refined the ore into precious metals, and then carried it to the shore to load on Spanish ships—and died while doing all those things. Without the participation of Indians, forced or otherwise, Spanish progress would have been infinitely slower and more difficult. *** There remains, nevertheless, the critical issue of exactly how the invaders succeeded. We know the outcome, but what combination of structure and agency gave them an edge? A closer look at some of the prosaic military aspects of what can be called the “Conquistador System” can help to bind the traditional and newer historical narratives together.

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Spanish military prowess in the New World is sometimes assumed to mirror or be associated with the so-called Military Revolution—the process by which European armies and navies from the late fifteenth century on rapidly underwent revolutionary changes in size, technology, and state funding, which eventually gave the West the decisive military advantages that led to its extensive imperial control over the peoples and resources of the world.20 Since early Spanish (and Portuguese) overseas expansion coincided with the commencement of this process, the temptation is to associate New World triumph with Old World military revolutions. And certainly the expansion of Europe overseas could not have taken place without the hybrid seaworthy sailing ships, armed with cannon, which opened the world’s oceans and sea coasts to European exploration, trade, and settlement. But closer examination of the specifics of war making on land in the New World provides a very different explanation for Spanish success. Land warfare in Europe was conducted by increasingly larger armies, which fought bloody stand-up battles or engaged in long, debilitating sieges of cities and fortresses. Widespread destruction of the countryside and disruption of economies accompanied both.21 The only New World action that clearly approached this model was Cortés’s formal blockade and siege of Tenochtitlan. The total number of Spaniards on any single sixteenth-century New World military expedition rarely exceeded one thousand fighters. Such numbers were the equivalent of less than 1 percent of total Hapsburg land forces in Europe and were, moreover, purely temporary formations. A typical contemporary European army would have been too large, unwieldy, and logistically needy to have operated or survived for long under New World conditions. What Spanish expeditions lacked in size, however, was made up by the number of expeditions they were able to mount. Between 1492 and 1592, 129 original and distinct major entradas set out.22 This adds up to an average of 13 major expeditions per decade. If we include continuations during subsequent years, we can count the calendar-year presence of 311 expeditions, or an average of 31 per decade. Only twelve years during this period experienced no major entrada activity at all. The rhythm of conquest varied across time and region, with the incidence of expeditions increasing over shorter periods in the general area of the latest El Dorado, areas presumed to have large native populations or

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precious metals. And this does not count myriad smaller local operations mounted during the post-Conquest consolidation period. If these expeditions averaged a core of 250 conquistadors each, then an overall total of approximately 30,000 Spanish men (assuming that replacements offset losses and departures) may have been involved over the course of the century. By the end of the period, only desolate and impassable regions remained unexplored from the tip of South America to California and the southwestern United States. Few of these expeditions were mounted directly from Spain, and those that were often suffered high levels of attrition from disease, malnutrition, and exhaustion. New arrivals were often the target of ridicule by the toughened survivors of previous crossings. As settlements grew, livestock increased, and imports of manufactured goods including munitions became established, the Spanish Caribbean and then the tierra firma itself became the major source of men and material for expeditions. According to one estimate, more than two thousand Spanish men, or around half of the entire Spanish male population in the New World in 1519, served at one point or another with Cortés during the conquest of Mexico.23 An overall total of about fifteen hundred conquistadors served at various times during the course of the seven-year conquest of Peru. Only a handful of Spaniards sufficed to construct a self-perpetuating cycle of small but nevertheless numerous and effective entradas using leveraged American resources and Indian allies. After only a single generation of settlement, the New World itself had become the major underwriter of entradas. The most ubiquitous type of action in the New World was an invasion of native territory that consisted of continual marches by small columns, often including allied warriors, from one native community to another, forcibly extracting promises of submission, extorting items of value, and establishing tribute obligations. A force of fifty to two hundred conquistadors including horsemen and firearms and several hundred allies was not decisively outnumbered, and rarely outfought, by the fighting-age male population of most Indian communities. Indeed geographic barriers and logistical problems, not so much the actual combat, were the major difficulties, and many more entradas failed due to hunger, fevers, bad weather, and sheer physical exhaustion than to a lack of combat success. Return visits, often with the same leaders and personnel, were

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sometimes required to suppress noncompliance or continuing armed resistance, building on the knowledge previously gained to consolidate power and to institute a more permanent division of the spoils. At each step during the conquistadors’ progress, their columns practiced markedly terroristic tactics according to perceived need and utility. They generally ignored the cultural signals and restraints of traditional native warfare. Seizure and extortion of Indian headmen was always standard procedure. Torture, enslavement, mutilation, and massacres were common. Given the splintered nature of native polities, it was difficult for indigenous peoples to mount large-scale coordinated resistance against the Spanish entradas. Time after time, especially in initial confrontations, the aggressiveness and ferocity of the Spaniards also inflicted a kind of psychological shock that undermined the morale of native defenders, leaving local communities isolated and easily picked off one by one. The nature of this process also throws into bold relief the critical strategic importance of the major initial events of the Conquest, like the kidnapping of Montezuma; the destruction of Tenochtitlan; the seizure, ransom, and execution of the Inca; and the occupation of Cuzco—all of which had equivalents at the provincial and local level. These were key destabilizing events not simply because they replaced one overlord with another but because such political decapitations at the center of the more highly organized Indian states caused indigenous political paralysis, leaving Indian communities bereft of central direction and directly exposed to the violent smaller-scale mechanics of conquest. Though the Spaniards could not have predicted the extreme fragility of the large, settled native polities, they were quick to recognize and take advantage of it. Indeed, Spaniards found that the nonhierarchical nature of indigenous polities in secondary and wilderness areas made them much harder to subdue.24 Nevertheless, without consistent military success at critical jointures, it is hard to imagine how or even if the Conquest would have been possible. Here the military prowess of the grupos was the key to sustaining native alliances and assistance. Lack of success, as incidents in both Mexico and Peru demonstrate, could at times compromise or indeed eliminate native support. Spanish success in applied violence, in the end, was the base on which the whole process of conquest rested. The endur-

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ing trope, common to Spanish, native, and later accounts, is the advantage provided by the conquistadors’ military technology and fighting tactics. Most accounts mention the impression made by steel swords and armor, firearms and crossbows, horsemen, mastiffs, ships, and closeorder tactics and their deadly and successful combination in attacking and defending. All of these lethal instruments, even crude firearms and cannon, were medieval weapons, substantially in place in Europe by the mid-fifteenth century and also thoroughly familiar, with the exception of broadside sailing vessels, to most of the rest of Eurasia—the Middle East, India, and China. None of these technologies existed in the New World at the time of the Columbus voyages. They came as a complete surprise to the peoples of the Indies, not only because of their utter unfamiliarity, which soon wore off, but because they were designed to kill and not wound or capture opponents. They made Spaniards almost impossible to defeat unless caught in situations where they could not deploy properly, like Tenochtitlan’s causeways during La Noche Triste or in narrow and steep Andean defiles. Elsewhere, effective armor protection, close-order combat formations, deadly ranged weapons, and the mobility of their mounts made conquistadors extremely hard to kill with native weapons that inflicted mostly minor or superficial rather than incapacitating wounds. Spanish mortality rates could be high but were generally due to attrition from sickness, starvation, injuries, and accidents over the course of a multiyear entrada, not battlefield slaughter. In fact, Spanish grupos proved extremely ingenious and utterly ruthless at surviving under the most extreme conditions, using shackled strings of slaves and impressed Indians to perform the hard physical labor of the march and camp while living off the crops and food reserves of native communities in their path. The conquistadors lived dangerous lives, and few died of old age. But of their most prominent leaders, many were lost to the prisons, executions, and murders by their fellow Spaniards rather than fighting Indians. It is also true that very few conquistadors possessed formal Old World military training and experience; that is, they were not in any modern sense professional soldiers, nor were their forces regular armies. But there is little evidence that this hampered the conquistadors in any significant manner. On the contrary, during the long Reconquista, the centuries-long struggle to reconquer Muslim Spain, medieval Spanish

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society had developed some widely shared and markedly effective martial traditions.25 As John Guilmartin reminds us, the conquistadors were “products of a society which had internalized military skills and values to a remarkable degree. Individualists to a fault, they understood the value of proper subordination and coordination in battle; factious in victory, they hung together in combat with instinctive cohesion. Though they were not organized in any formal military structure, in combat they were soldiers rather than warriors.”26 Martial skills were widespread on the late medieval and early modern Iberian Peninsula. We might say that the societal culture of Spain overlapped strongly with its military culture. Many male Spaniards were familiar with the exercise of arms; they served in local militias and were acquainted with quasi-military formations and tactics. The distinction between professional soldiers and armed civilians was fluid, and fighting effectiveness depended more on attitude and experience than on formal military training or status. The most common types of military operations during rebellions and civil wars and even during the fullscale campaigns in Italy or the Low Countries were minor actions or “little wars” undertaken by small bands: raids, foraging, hostage taking, reconnaissance, infiltration, and night and surprise attacks—a cultural inheritance familiar to many who flocked to the Indies. Such types of actions transferred easily to the New World, where they constituted the very essence of Spanish tactics. So newcomers to the Indies possessed good military potential, and if they survived, it took veteran captains little time to shape them into effective fighters. The fact that they frequently found themselves in situations where the choice was to either conquer or die left them little choice but to fight desperately to the very limits of their endurance. Surrender or captivity promised only an alien and terrifying death that was much more feared than death in battle. Group cohesion in the face of danger or hardship also had economic dimensions. All members of an expedition, whether low or high, were shareholders in an enterprise similar to a medieval merchant adventurers’ company. If the expedition was successful, they had the right to a portion of the final bullion payout proportional to their investment, which for many was their actual personal participation. Taking part in an entrada could also be the basis for claims and awards of municipal citizenship and building lots, local administrative offices, and, of course,

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encomiendas of Indians. Thus, all members shared a common interest in the overall outcome of their entrada, for when a conquistador fought for his companions, he fought for his own interest as well. This prospect, of course, offset the risks involved, for even though the possibility of death was high, the survivors could get rich in an age when there were only limited opportunities for individuals to advance. Indeed the surest source of discontent within an expedition was not fear of danger or death but the prospect that there would be no profit even for the survivors. The cohesion and morale of expeditions also owed much to a shared ideology: the Requierimiento, a formal assertion of sovereignty read publicly and in Spanish to noncomprehending Indians that declared quite simply that the inhabitants of the New World were, by a gift of the pope, subjects of the Spanish monarchy, whether they knew it or not, and that any refusal or resistance to the obligations of their new status constituted rebellion against lawful and divine authority.27 Against rebels outside the laws of war, there was really no limit to the use of force. Extreme violence against the people the Spanish wished to conquer was therefore a predetermined, natural, and thoroughly lawful response. Lack of restraint was also justified in the name of Christ and the church. In this sense, an extremely violent strategic culture—how the Spanish imagined achieving victory—was easily justified as an extension of God’s divine plan. It took the crown decades to institute and enforce law codes to restrain the worst excesses of the entradas, largely at the request of churchmen, against the united opposition of conquistadors and settlers. Yet by then, the major conquests were complete. It would be a mistake to think that the clergy was in any significant way opposed to the principle, that is, the righteousness of the imperial project. To them, the central problem was how to bring masses of Indians to the faith. Once conversion was achieved or at least declared by the same formulaic methods as the Requierimento, most members of the clergy proved equally bloodthirsty as the conquistadors in their drive to eliminate devil worship and to punish apostasy. In an age of harsh penal justice, savage warfare, widespread slavery, and domestic violence, those who came to the New World were already fully prepared psychologically and socially to inflict pain or to be indifferent to the pain inflicted on others.

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This commonplace attitude provided yet another binding element that worked to increase the potency of Spanish expeditions. *** The Spanish Conquest fostered many myths. But it was not itself one. It was instead a massive world-historical event that requires nonmythological explanation. We will soon mark the five hundredth anniversary of Cortés’s conquest of the Aztec empire, followed shortly thereafter by similar anniversaries for Pizzaro’s conquest of the Incan empire and dozens of other major entradas that are the meat and potatoes of the Spanish Conquest. To explain the Conquest, we no longer need marvelous causes like the direct hand of the Catholic God, superhuman heroes, invincible Western cognitive acuity, or the inherent superiority of the white over the darker races. We should be careful, however, not to erect in their place new myths. The Spanish Conquest was fundamentally and irreducibly a conquest, and it was quintessentially Spanish in conception, ideology, institutions, and the use of violence. To comprehend it, we must not forget to acknowledge and understand the nuts and bolts of the Conquistador System itself in all its destructive squalor. Notes

1. J. H. Elliott, Imperial Spain, 1469–1716 (London: Penguin, 1970), 183–86. Timothy R. Walton, The Spanish Treasure Fleets (Sarasota, FL: Pineapple, 1994), 108–11. 2. Matthew Restall, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), argues this position forcefully. 3. Tzvetan Todorov, The Conquest of America (New York: Harper and Row, 1982), argues a case for the innate cognitive advantages enjoyed by the Spanish; Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel (New York: Norton, 1997), 67–81, argues that geography and biology were the key factors establishing Spanish advantage. 4. Elliot, Imperial Spain, 66. Two general narrative accounts of the Conquest, though rather old, remain very readable: Hugh Thomas, Conquest: Montezuma, Cortés, and the Fall of Old Mexico (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993); and John Hemming, The Conquest of the Incas (1973; repr., London: Book Club Associates, 2012). Thomas has also chronicled the first decades of Spanish presence in the New World: Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire from Columbus to Magellan (New York: Random House, 2005). 5. But the “New Conquest History” bouleversment of traditional conquistadoron-top narratives may have met its limits. Matthew Restall, When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting That Changed History (New York:

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HarperCollins, 2018), for all its brilliance, reduces Cortés to a bystander, no more important or efficacious than any other conquistador operating in the New World. Does destruction of his myth leave a viable historical Cortés? Alfred W. Crosby was one of the first historians to systematically investigate the plant, animal, and disease exchanges on a global scale set in train by the discovery of the Western Hemisphere: The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1972), 35–63, explores the impact of Eurasian pathogens on genetically vulnerable New World populations, in particular smallpox, during the conquest of the Aztecs. Also see Diamond, Guns, 354–75. For more on the identity, extent, timing, and human costs of epidemics during the Conquest period, see Noble David Cook and W. George Lovell, “Unraveling the Web of Disease,” in “Secret Judgements of God”: Old World Disease in Colonial Spanish America, ed. Noble David Cook and W. George Lovell (Norman: University Press of Oklahoma, 1992), 216, for the 90 percent mortality rate; and Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 201–16. Charles Gibson, ed., The Black Legend: Anti-Spanish Attitudes in the World and the New (New York: Knopf, 1971), is a short introduction. The most famous denunciation of Spanish atrocities and cruelty is, of course, Bartolomé de Las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, ed. Nigel Griffin (London: Penguin Books, 2004), with a useful introduction by Anthony Pagden, xiii–xlii. See also Lawrence A. Clayton, Bartolomé de Las Casas and the Conquest of the Americas (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011). A broad critique of the underlying motives of Spanish ecclesiastics is Daniel Castro, Another Face of Empire: Bartolomé de Las Casas, Indigenous Rights, and Ecclesiastical Imperialism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007). There were also robust contemporary defenses of Spanish actions, for example, Michael de Carvajal, The Conquest on Trial: Carvajal’s “Complaint of the Indians in the Court of Death,” ed. and trans. Carlos A. Jáuregui (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008); and Bernardo de Vargas Machuca, Defending the Conquest: Bernardo de Vargas Machuca’s “Defense and Discourse of the Western Conquests,” ed. Kris Lane, trans. Timothy F. Johnson (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010). William Hickling Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) and History of the Conquest of Peru (1847) were the first “scientific” treatments based on what was, for the time, solid primary archival work. There are many editions. For Cortés’s letters see Hernando Cortés, Hernan Cortés: Letters from Mexico (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986), ed. and trans. Anthony Pagden, which includes a useful introductory essay by J. H. Elliott, “Cortés, Velazquez, and Charles V,” xi–xxxvi. An original first letter, from Vera Cruz, once thought lost, is in John F. Schwaller with Helen Nader, The First Letter from New Spain: The Lost Petition of Cortés and His Company, June 20, 1519 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014). For Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The Conquest of New Spain (London: Penguin, 1963), trans. J. M. Cohen, has long been the standard translation. There

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are more recent editions. See also Beatriz Pastor Bodmer, The Armature of Conquest: Spanish Accounts of the Discovery of the New World, 1492–1589 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), trans. Lydia Longstreth Hunt, 1–102, which analyses the structure and rhetorical moves of Columbus’s and Cortés’s letters. The importance of Indian allies in the conquest of Mexico is well analyzed by Ross Hassig, Mexico and the Spanish Conquest (New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1994), 144–58. Hassig’s Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988) can serve as a general introduction to pre-Conquest Mesoamerican warfare. See also Restall, Seven Myths, 44–51. Studies of the expansion of conquest beyond central Mexico often stress the importance of native warriors in continuing Spanish success. There is an excellent selection of articles in Laura E. Matthew and Michel R. Oudiijk, eds., Indian Conquistadors: Indigenous Allies in the Conquest of Mesoamerica (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012). See also Inga Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, 1517–1570 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Matthew Restall, Maya Conquistador (Boston: Beacon, 1998); Richard Flint, No Settlement, No Conquest: A History of the Coronado Entrada (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2008), esp. 58–62; Matthew Restall and Florine Asselbergs, Invading Guatemala (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007); and J. Michael Francis, Invading Colombia (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007). Alva Ixtlilxochitl, The Native Conquistador: Alva Ixtlilxochitl’s Account of the Conquest of New Spain, ed. and trans. Amber Brian, Bradley Benton, and Pablo Garia Loaeza (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015), an elite native account; for studies of the Conquest beyond central Mexico that demonstrate the continuing importance of pre-Conquest forms of politics and warfare, indigenous participation in the struggle, and the nature of natives’ memory of their role in the Conquest, see Florine Asselbergs, Conquered Conquistadors: The “Lienzo de Quauhquechollan”: A Nahua Vision of the Conquest of Guatemala (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2004); Laura Matthew, Memories of Conquest: Becoming Mexicana in Colonial Guatemala (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 1–131; James Krippner-Martínez, Rereading the Conquest: Power, Politics, and the History of Colonial Michoacán, Mexico, 1521–1565 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001); Ida Altman, The War for Mexico’s West: Indians and Spaniards in New Galicia, 1524–1550 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2010); and Altman, Contesting Conquest: Indigenous Perspectives on the Spanish Occupation of Nuevo Galicia, 1524–1545 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017). Inga Clendinnen, “‘Fierce and Unnatural Cruelty’: Cortés and the Conquest of Mexico,” in New World Encounters, ed. Steven Greenblatt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 12–47, esp. 36–41. John Francis Guilmartin Jr., “The Cutting Edge: An Analysis of the Spanish Invasion and Overthrow of the Incan Empire, 1532–1539,” in Transatlantic Encounters:

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Europeans and Indians in the Sixteenth Century, ed. Kenneth J. Andrien and Rolena Adams (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1991), 40–69, contains a good analysis of the dynamics of battlefield combat during the Conquest. John E. Kicza, Resilient Cultures: America’s Native Peoples Confront European Colonization (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, 2003), 41–66, contributes a very lucid description of Spanish expeditions and tactics. A later manual on bushwacking and punitive expeditions, Bernardo de Vargas Machuca, The Indian Militia and Description of the Indies, ed. Kris Lane, trans. Timothy F. Johnson (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), 81–132, lays out the combinations of weapons used in fighting, skirmishes, and ambushes; force discipline, security, logistics, and terrain are also stressed. Hugh Thomas, Who’s Who of the Conquistadors (London: Cassell, 2000), xiv–xvi. Restall, Seven Myths, 100–130; Matthew, Memories of Conquest; Asselbergs, Conquered Conquistadors. Older works are Charles Gibson, The Aztecs under Spanish Rule (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1964); Steven J. Stern, Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982); James Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992); and Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests. Diamond, Guns, 67–81; James Lockhart, The Men of Cajamarca: A Social and Biographical Study of the First Conquerors of Peru (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972); José Ignacio Avellaneda, The Conquerors of the New Kingdom of Granada (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 1995). Catherine Deagan and José María Cruxent, Columbus’s Outpost among the Taínos: Spain and America at La Isabela, 1493–1498 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), is an excellent study of the beginnings of this process. Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, Writing from the Edge of the World: The Memoirs of Darien, 1514–1527 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006), trans. G. F. Dille, gives a lively account of early Spanish incursion and settlement in Panama. On Columbus’s accidental landfall, see Deagan and Cruxent, Columbus’s Outpost, 213–27. Geoffrey Parker, The Grand Strategy of Philip II (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998); and Henry Kamen, Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492–1763 (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), discuss the origins, ideology, and operations of the first truly global empire. Crosby, Columbian Exchange, 64–121; John F. Richards, The Unending Frontier: An Environmental History of the Early Modern World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 309–76. James Lockhart, “Trunk Lines and Feeder Lines: The Spanish Reaction to American Resources” (1991), in Of Things of the Indies (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 120–57. Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), esp. 115–45; and Clifford J. Rogers, ed., The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military

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Transformation of Early Modern Europe (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995), provide good introductions to the issue. Geoffrey Parker, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1567–1659 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972); and James B. Wood, The King’s Army: Warfare, Soldiers, and Society during the Wars of Religion in France, 1562–1576 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), discuss in some detail the operations and impedimenta of major mid-sixteenth-century armies. Flint, No Settlement, 205–18, 261–65. Thomas, Who’s Who, xiv–xvii. Altman, War, gives a good account of the difficulties involved. Miguel Angel Ladero Quesada, “Spain, circa 1492: Social Structures and Values,” in Implicit Understandings. Observing, Reporting, and Reflecting on the Encounters between Europeans and Other Peoples in the Early Modern Era, ed. Stuart B. Schwartz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 96–133, gives a good summary of the medieval inheritance. John Francis Guilmartin Jr., “The Military Revolution: Origins and First Tests Abroad,” in Rogers, Military Revolution Debate, 299–333, quote on 312. Patricia Seed, “The Requirement: A Protocol for Conquest,” in Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 69–99; Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions. The Wonder of the New World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 52–85. When Las Casas was asked what he thought about the Requierimiento, he famously replied that he did not know whether to laugh or cry: Destruction, xxv.

6

Of Bureaucrats and Bandits Confucianism and Antirebel Strategy at the End of the Ming Dynasty Kenneth M. Swope

Civil-Military Dichotomies in Traditional China Chinese military history is, I am pleased to note, in the midst of something of a golden age. For a long time, scholars in the West have too easily accepted overgeneralizations about the complete domination of the military by the civilian sector in traditional China. As a result, they have neglected China’s military past in favor of studies emphasizing other aspects of Chinese culture and society. Fortunately, though, over the past decade, scholars have presented increasingly sophisticated works covering all eras of China’s military past.1 While acknowledging that traditional Chinese literati culture certainly valued the brush over the sword and sought to marginalize military and martial achievements in written documents, this new generation of scholars is using China’s voluminous historical record to reevaluate its military past both in a comparative sense and on its own terms.2 This has produced not only studies of particular battles and campaigns but also more systematic examinations of the relationship between war and society in China. These efforts serve to delineate China’s “military culture,” which, according to Nicola Di Cosmo, entails an effort “to understand the relationship between war, society, and thought beyond the empirical level and to recognize the ways in which intellectual, civilian, and literary developments intervened to shape the nature of military institutions, military theory, and the culture of war.”3 Moreover, while comparative studies of China’s military past certainly are useful, Di Cosmo also cautions against simply trying to shoehorn 123

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Liaoyang LIAODONG (SHANDONG)

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Great Wall of China

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Seventeenth-century Ming China. (Map drawn by Bill Nelson)

Chinese military history into a Western framework of development, observing that “any advancement in theoretical sophistication can only be attained by paying greater attention to the specific evolution of the culture and practice of war in China and therefore cannot be sought purely from the application of Western-derived theory, which is naturally based on the study of societies very different from China’s.”4 An example is the stimulating recent effort along these lines by the political scientist Iain Johnston. Drawing on the concept of strategic culture, Johnston identifies two dominant strands in traditional Chinese strategic thought.5 The first, which he calls the “Confucian-Mencian paradigm,” is based on the underlying premise that warfare should be used

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only as a last resort and that officials should first try to transform the people and appease their potential enemies through benevolence and nonviolent means such as trade agreements and even bribes. The second strand, which Johnston calls the “parabellum paradigm,” assumes a much more negative worldview of war as inevitable and argues for constant preparation and aggressive military action whenever circumstances are favorable. Perhaps surprisingly for students of Chinese (and, for that matter, Western) history, Johnston found, through study of a corpus of strategic works known as The Seven Military Classics (Wu jing qi shu), that the Chinese tended to favor the latter approach to grand strategy, particularly during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the period on which he focuses.6 This is doubly surprising, since the Ming dynasty has long been seen as a nadir of Chinese military power and a time when military might was “stultified” and “generals and soldiers were regarded with fear, suspicion, and distaste.”7 Nevertheless, Johnston’s reading of Ming memorials on defense policy concerning the Mongols indicates that the Ming were generally aggressive, noting the degree to which military affairs occupied the attention of civil officials. Certainly when reading the Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty (Ming shilu) or almost any other annalistic histories from this period, one is struck by the prevalence of military concerns, even in times of relative peace. What is particularly interesting, given Johnston’s arguments, is that one can identify different approaches to military problems according to the preferences of particular emperors and specific constellations of officials. In short, while I would agree that the Ming often took an aggressive approach to military threats, the Ming system, like all imperial Chinese dynasties, was extremely personal, and decisions were more contingent on personal preferences and personalities on than any other factor.8 Furthermore, although Johnston’s assertion that the Seven Military Classics was the major corpus of Chinese strategic thought is somewhat problematic, it is true that all Chinese civil officials (and many military officials) would have been familiar with these texts, along with a significantly large additional body of philosophical literature generally identified as “Confucian,” for lack of a better term.9 These texts emphasized virtues like benevolence, righteousness, filiality, and loyalty, contending that the government should treat the common people in the same way

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that parents treat their children.10 In times of famine, relief needed to be distributed. When popular revolts broke out, only the ringleaders were to be punished, as their followers simply did not know any better. Because humans were innately good, at least according to Mencius, they would naturally respond to such gestures and seek to do good when given the opportunity.11 Forced to memorize these texts during long years of study for the civil service examinations, many officials did indeed come to believe in their implicit values and tried to govern and manage military problems in accordance with such ideals. Still others may have chosen the nonviolent path owing to their own ignorance of military affairs and therefore sought to limit the damage they caused to the people. This choice, however, could come at the expense of their own careers. The reason that such proclivities could sometimes become problematic for imperial governments was the practice of providing civil oversight and command of military operations, which became standard in China after the Tang dynasty (618–907) in response to the phenomenon of widespread warlordism attending the decline and fall of that empire.12 While such reforms represented an admirable attempt to balance the civil (wen) and the military (wu) in accordance with the prescriptions outlined in the ancient classics, such measures in fact often led to disaster. Many civil officials understandably lacked a military aptitude and practical experience. Therefore, the emperors and their advisers had to appoint officials who worked well with their military counterparts and who deferred to their judgment in critical military matters. Needless to say, perhaps, this ideal was exceedingly difficult to achieve in the imperial Chinese governmental system, which, like imperial systems everywhere, was prone to factionalism and favoritism. Under vigorous and intelligent emperors with a grasp of military strategy, such arrangements could work reasonably well.13 Unfortunately, however, this was seldom the case, and competing interests at court and in the bureaucracy often worked at cross-purposes. Perhaps even more important to this study, many of these civil officials were accomplished writers with a deep knowledge of Chinese history. They thus were quite capable of drawing up proposals that seemed workable on paper, were couched in the proper tones, and made due reference to the prevailing philosophical ideals. Presented to cloistered emperors, who often were their former

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students, these officials’ plans could receive the imperial seal of approval, only to lead to disaster. Nonetheless, it was part of the emperor’s responsibility as the Son of Heaven to listen to his officials’ advice and to approve plans based on a rational and sober assessment of the strategic situation and an awareness of cultural values and ideals that we might equate with the modern sense of public opinion. This in turn fostered a competitive culture of conspicuous displays of merit in which officials constantly submitted memorials to the throne, arguing not only for their own positions but also against the positions of others. Arguments were the basis for policy decisions and also were instrumental in career advancement within the official hierarchy. This maneuvering was just as important—indeed, often more important—than the actual policy debates and their outcomes. Contested standards of “proper” Confucian behavior and promotions of the public good thus became a sort of screen for more opaque and selfserving behavior. In short, arguments about military policy and strategy couched in Confucian terms were a currency to be spent in the factional competition. Although underlying cultural values certainly were important, we should consider, too, the multiple levels on which such values operated and keep this in mind when analyzing specific campaigns and the debates surrounding them.14

Bringing Brushes to the Battlefield This chapter looks at just such a campaign, in which a father and son were hamstrung by their adherence to Confucian ideals in the face of harsh military realities. In particular, I will examine the most detailed plan for the extermination of the peasant rebellions that raged at the end of the Ming dynasty. What were the plan’s strengths and weaknesses from strategic, tactical, and ideological perspectives? How did this campaign fit into the broader context of court-civil-military relations at the end of the dynasty? This case is illuminating because it demonstrates how factional politics, philosophical and cultural ideals, and strategic culture intersected to create the military climate and to shape actual campaigns in late imperial China. In the end, we will see that contemporary officials subscribed to a range of strategic preferences and that it is too easy to characterize imperial Chinese officials as “Confucian”

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or pacifistic, even when the dominant philosophical and cultural ideals appear to embody such ideas. Finally, this study shows how imperial patronage affected the decision-making process for better or worse and how, when dealing with national crises, emperors, too, were bound by what we might call public opinion. The final decades of the Ming dynasty were fraught with military threats that often were exacerbated by factional politics, cronyism, and incompetent leadership. Upon the accession to the throne in 1628 of the last Ming emperor, Chongzhen (r. 1628–44), he tried to end the political squabbling by selecting his own men for important posts and giving them considerable military and civil authority.15 Unfortunately for the Ming, though, Chongzhen proved even more susceptible to public opinion than the very men he sought to oust, and he often made snap judgments without allowing credible plans to reach fruition. One of his most controversial appointments was naming Yang Sichang (1588–1641) as the minister of war and making him responsible for simultaneously guarding the northeastern frontier against the Manchus and suppressing the great peasant rebellions that raged in central and western China in the late 1630s. Deeming the latter more important to the dynasty’s ultimate survival, Yang devised what he called a “ten-sided net” (shi mian zhi wang) strategy to encircle and annihilate the peasant rebels. Funding was to come from a temporary increase in land taxes, and Yang promised that the rebels would be pacified in a mere three months. The plan initially was successful, as several prominent rebel leaders voluntarily submitted after they had been surrounded by Yang’s subordinates. But within a year, the surrendered bandits rebelled again, and the weaknesses of Yang’s strategy were exposed. Yang took the field against the rebels only to die ignominiously, most likely by his own hand. This is a brief account, but there is a great deal more. In fact, Yang Sichang’s story, properly told, has its origins in the career of his father, Yang He. In the second year of Chongzhen’s reign, facing what were then still nascent peasant rebellions, the emperor appointed Yang He to be the supreme commander of Shaanxi and the three border regions.16 Earlier Yang He had earned some fame quelling aboriginal uprisings in southwestern China, and he had been a very vocal critic of the Ming commanders who had been defeated by the Latter Jin (later known as the Manchus) in the northeast. Yang He’s aggressive hard-line stance

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and recommendations for instilling discipline and loyalty won him the favor of the emperor and the support of many officials at court. The peasant uprisings that Yang He was called on to suppress had many causes: widespread famine; flooding; desperation over an inability to pay taxes; cutbacks in the Ming’s postal service, which employed large numbers of young men in the northwest; and anger over the state’s laxity in delivering military salaries and rations. The last problem was aggravated by corrupt local officials who embezzled funds sent for salaries and neglected military training.17 The first notable peasant rebel leader was Wang Jiayin, who assembled a band of starving peasants to raid the environs of the Great Wall in 1628.18 At first, local officials did not report the uprising for fear of being reprimanded. Army deserters then joined the ranks of another disaffected peasant leader who linked up with Wang, and before long, all of Shaanxi was in an uproar.19 The local pacification commissioner, Hu Yan’an, was so ineffectual that the rebels called him their “host at the capital,” and they stepped up their activities, aided by the province’s rugged mountain terrain with its many hideouts. Shortly thereafter, the mounted bandit Gao Yingxiang, who became the rebellions’ most important early leader, joined forces with Wang Jiayin, styling himself “the dashing prince” (chuang wang). By late 1630, Wang was powerful enough to take several isolated fortresses and kill a local mobile corps commander.20 Over the next few years, several more noted leaders emerged, eventually prompting the government’s appointment of Yang He.21 When Yang He assumed his post in 1630, he identified a number of key problems in the region, including supply issues, the constant threat of border raids by the Mongols, and the dereliction of duty by local officials. He saw restoring the vitality of the local populace by improving administration as crucial to stabilizing the military situation, and he believed that a conscientious official could effect these changes from within. Yang assumed that government relief and transfer of peasants to areas that had presumably been less affected by natural disasters would be sufficient. Impressed with Yang’s sincerity and commitment, Chongzhen made him supreme commander of the three border regions of Shaanxi, giving him the kind of power that had seldom been delegated to frontier officials since the heyday of the Wanli (1573–1620) era.22 But Yang was faced with many challenges, some of them institutional in na-

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ture. In many cases, salaries for the troops were seriously in arrears. In fact, in 1629 the vice minister of revenue noted that the salaries of Yansui, Guyuan, and Ningxia were thirty-six months in arrears.23 Thus, despite Yang’s lofty rhetoric, because he recognized some of the challenges he faced, he expressed misgivings about the power with which he had been invested. Moreover, because he was a staunch advocate of traditional Confucian statecraft who disdained the use of troops and had little practical military experience, Yang embarked on a plan of soothing and pacifying the rebels, encouraging them to surrender to the state in exchange for food and an opportunity to return to agricultural pursuits.24 Yang strictly forbade executing surrendered rebels and seems to have been very gullible in assuming that all who accepted pardons would return to peaceful pursuits. He even argued for leniency for some rebels who had killed officials.25 Thus, the very qualities that had made Yang a good censorial official made him a terrible military commander. Matters were made worse by the fact that just after Yang took office, the Latter Jin raided inside the Great Wall in the northeast. Because Yang had to dispatch troops under his jurisdiction to defend Beijing, he lacked the numbers needed to quell the peasant rebels, and his only recourse was the policy of peaceful suasion (zhaofu) that, in any event, he favored.26 But because natural disasters and famine persisted in the region, the number of bandits swelled. There also were allegations that even the meager relief funds sent from Beijing were being skimmed by covetous local officials. Nonetheless, Chongzhen decided to make pacification a priority over extirpation of the rebels. In the first month of 1631, the emperor convened a palace audience to discuss the wandering-bandit problem. When a local surveillance commissioner complained that the lack of military supplies was hampering efforts to contain them, the emperor replied, “Previously you reported that the bandits were pacified. How is it that they now have multiplied?”27 The official responded that “the riverine area between Shanxi and Shaanxi cannot be pacified; therefore Hequ alone has been encircled.” He added that although the bandits were not skilled in battle, they had the help of starving peasants, and since the earlier plan to suppress them had not been implemented, the Ming were now facing a disaster. Worse, those Ming units that had been successful in the initial suppression effort had already been demobilized.28

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Identifying with Yang He’s position, Chongzhen stated, “The bandits are my children. They should be soothed and pacified. I cannot punish them. If [the former bandit] Wang Zuogua has already surrendered, how could we have killed him?” His official replied, “Because he surrendered and then started looting again. We had to kill him to set an example.”29 A few days later, the emperor ordered famine relief for Shaanxi, expressing his sympathy at the plight of the people and noting that he knew that they all were really good at heart, driven to their actions by desperation. Thus it appeared that at least the emperor was still in Yang He’s camp. His resolve was strengthened by reports that suggested sending relief funds to the countryside could “turn bandits into peasants” again. A few days later, Chongzhen released one hundred thousand taels from the treasury to pacify the “wandering bandits,” as they already were being called.30 The emperor’s support did not silence Yang’s critics, however. Many distrusted the sincerity of rebel leaders who surrendered under duress, not believing that their chants of wansui (long life) addressed to Yang outside his yamen (official compound) walls were sufficient evidence to assume that they were once again loyal subjects. In fact, adopting a strategy that the rebel leaders used throughout the last days of the Ming, many disguised themselves as Ming troops in order to gain access to towns and their resources.31 Even after some military campaigns succeeded in stamping out local uprisings, Yang stopped his subordinates from pursuing rebel remnants, giving those who surrendered certificates of pardon and letting the ringleaders return to the countryside, where many then joined other bands.32 Consequently, Yang’s critics became increasingly vocal, perhaps best exemplified by Censor Wu Sheng, who contended that even if pacification was a policy found in the historical record, it was exceedingly difficult to be soft first and then adopt a harsher policy later. The rebellion of a bandit leader named Shen Yikui who had previously submitted to Yang proved to be the last straw. In the wake of Shen’s initial submission, the Ming had scored a series of victories, killing hundreds of rebels, including Wang Jiayin, and obtaining the surrender of many others. But then Shen Yikui rebelled again, and when he was joined by more surrendered rebels unfurling the flag of insurrection, Yang He was impeached.33 As more impeachments attacking

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the pacification policy rolled into Beijing, Chongzhen eventually agreed and ordered Yang’s arrest and interrogation by the Ministry of Justice.34 Ironically enough, the emperor also approved Wu Sheng’s request to retain local funds to stimulate agriculture and the local economy in lieu of sending them to Beijing.35

Enter the Son As soon as Yang He was summoned to Beijing, his son, Yang Sichang, petitioned the court to replace his father so as to atone for his mistakes, but Chongzhen refused for the time being.36 Following in the footsteps of his father, Yang Sichang was a jinshi (a presented scholar, the highest civil service degree) in 1610.37 After earning his degree and aside from a brief “retirement” between 1621 and 1628, he served many years as a bureaucrat in various posts. Subsequently, after serving in midlevel positions for several years, he was transferred to Shanhaiguan in 1631 to oversee military supplies.38 For the rest of 1632, newly appointed, more aggressive officials enjoyed a fair measure of success in battling the rebels. In fact, by the middle of 1633, Ming commanders reported that they had killed 36,600 rebels.39 Such achievements appeared to indicate that a more forceful policy was warranted. Still, we must treat such figures with caution. Ming armies remained plagued by supply, pay, and equipment shortfalls. In addition, military officials tended to focus on body counts, which formed the basis for reward and promotion. These counts therefore also served to demonstrate tangible proof of successes, although as any student of modern warfare knows, mere body counts, especially when difficult to verify, tell little of the full story. Although Yang’s plea to replace his father was rejected (as was his offer to serve his father’s sentence of exile), Yang was promoted to censor in chief of the right and touring pacification commissioner of Shanhaiguan, Yongping, and the surrounding areas in 1633.40 Later he was elevated still further to vice minister of war of the right and, concurrently, vice censor in chief of the right and supreme commander of military affairs of Xuanfu, Datong, and Shanxi. Because banditry was still spreading across the central plains, Yang recommended opening up mines to raise additional revenues.41 He then sent to the throne a series of memo-

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rials discussing border affairs, impressing Chongzhen with his talents, though later critics have charged that Yang was a better wordsmith and calligrapher than a policy maker or tactician.42 Nonetheless, because of these very skills, which traditionally marked an able and upright official and human being, the emperor implicitly trusted Yang, and Yang became perhaps the most influential official in the empire over the next several years.43 It is said that Chongzhen thought no one else had Yang Sichang’s grasp of the big picture with respect to military affairs.44 And it had long been part of the Chinese imperial tradition for monarchs to entrust favored officials with sweeping powers to deal with military crises, even if such arrangements often did not work out as anticipated. So in supporting Yang, Chongzhen was executing one of his major responsibilities, namely, giving military authority to a subordinate, which was in the emperor’s purview as supreme military commander of the armed forces. But just as Yang was to assume his posts, his father died in exile, and Yang retired to observe the customary mourning period. Before the mourning period was up, Minister of War Zhang Fengyi committed suicide, and the emperor himself recalled Yang to service.

Casting a Ten-Sided Net Upon resuming office in 1637, Yang stressed that suppressing internal dissent should take precedence over dealing with the Manchus in the northeast. By this time, the scope of the peasant rebellions had greatly expanded, and the center of rebel activity was shifting south and east, closer to the capital and the agricultural heartland of the empire. In a recommendation that later caused Yang no small amount of trouble, he proposed negotiating with the Manchus in order to buy time to quell the peasant rebels. He believed that if adequate supplies were provided, then the soldiers could be fed and would fight, which in turn would strengthen protection of the local populace. Moreover, once the people felt safe, they would redirect their allegiance to the Ming government and be less inclined to join the rebels.45 Yang also targeted his fellow officials, calling for the punishment and even the execution of officials who were derelict in their duties.46 It was at this point that Yang unveiled his master plan for quelling the rebellion, known as the “ten-sided net” strategy.

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Yang stated that Shaanxi, Henan, Huguang, and Jiangbei (the area north of the Yellow River) would be the four main lines of defense (zheng). Four touring pacification commissioners would be assigned to defend each line. Then Yansui, Shanxi, Shandong, Jiangnan, Jiangxi, and Sichuan would be established as the six auxiliary lines of defense. The six pacification commissioners in command of these posts would oversee both defensive and offensive operations, the idea being that the net would gradually close around the peasant rebels’ positions until all were trapped and either killed or submitted.47 But defense was to be their primary function. As the net closed, the Ming would use the classic strategy of “clearing the fields and strengthening the walls.”48 With stoutly defended cities and no supplies available, the rebels eventually would have no other recourse but to surrender.49 Two supreme commanders (zongli/zongdu) were to smash the enemy wherever they encountered them, and the other officials were to act locally, presumably in a more defensive capacity.50 The forces under the supreme commanders were to be made up of elite troops and would be assisted by others dispatched from Beijing and from neighboring regions. Meanwhile, Xiong Wencan, who had gained a reputation for dealing with rebels through having persuaded the Ming pirate lord Zheng Zhilong to surrender, boasted that he could wipe out the rebels in no time, so he was appointed as one of the supreme commanders, along with Hong Chengchou.51 Xiong immediately alienated the people, and he even tried to replace General Zuo Liangyu (1598–1645), one of the few Ming commanders who had enjoyed some success against the rebels, in favor of men whom Xiong had brought from Guangdong.52 Xiong also complained that he lacked cavalry, so the emperor ordered another three thousand war horses be sent to him immediately.53 Yang proposed increasing his troop strength by 120,000, approximately two-thirds of whom would be infantry. To outfit and supply these extra troops, Yang estimated needing an extra 2.8 million taels of revenue.54 While many other court officials balked at further aggravating an already angry tax base, Yang argued that the land tax was vastly underreported anyhow.55 He also contended that the extra special taxes levied in Liaodong had already raised 5 million to 6 million taels to defend that region, so there was no reason that the presumably more productive areas of central China could not assume this lesser burden.56 Simply

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increasing the land tax by twelve ounces of grain per mu would bring in 1,929,000 taels. Another 406,000 could come from special taxes on surplus land. They could expect 200,000 from postal revenues, and the rest could perhaps be raised by selling jiansheng (the lowest civil-servicelevel government student) degrees.57 Despite the heated opposition of many of Chongzhen’s officials to this plan, the emperor reasoned that one more year of hardship for the peasants outweighed the long-term risks, so he approved Yang’s proposal. He then told local officials to look for ways to raise the funds and to proceed with further famine-relief measures.58 Later scholars heavily criticized Yang for this policy, some even going so far as to charge that he “killed the country with a single word” through this plan.59 Conversely, it is said that Chongzhen appreciated that at least Yang appeared to have a concrete plan for dealing with the empire’s military problems. Whereas most of his other officials vacillated, Yang was confident, forceful, and visionary.60 To a ruler desperate for solutions (and always eager to absolve himself of blame), Yang was the perfect loyal minister. Among Yang’s more notable contemporary critics was Sun Chuanting (d. 1643), the grand coordinator of Shaanxi. A veteran official with much experience combating the rebels in his own jurisdiction, Sun submitted a memorial on border affairs in which he highlighted ten problems with Yang’s ten-sided net. First, Sun believed that Yang’s requests for funds and manpower were highly unrealistic. “How can the state raise an extra 2.8 million taels when they’ve already spent more than 1 million taels in extra revenues?” asked Sun.61 Deeming Yang totally impractical and unversed in military affairs, Sun further questioned where the troops would come from. He also questioned Yang’s timetable, supposedly a mere six months, and the issue of when the troops would be mobilized in regard to the upsurge of bandit activity. Sun noted that the planned campaign seasons for the troops did not correspond to those when the bandits were active. On top of this was the problem of geography. The terrain greatly favored the highly mobile peasant rebels who lived off the land and escaped into the mountains, gorges, and forests. But the large Ming armies had to rely on fixed positions and needed to maintain long supply lines. Jurisdictional problems exacerbated matters still further, as the rebels could easily move from province to province while the Ming defenders belatedly exchanged information or wrangled

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over whose responsibility it was to apprehend given rebels. In essence, Sun asserted that in addition to the high costs of Yang’s plan, it was too static.62 It was, in his words, no more than an “empty net” strategy.63 Still another shortcoming, Sun insisted, was the nature of the rebel groups. There was no real way to determine exactly how many peasant rebels were operating at any given time because they easily blended in with the local populace and often had local support. And despite frequent reports of government victories, invariably accompanied by body counts, it seemed as if their numbers were endless.64 Sun added that the Ming needed far more troops if a coherent policy of extermination were even to be considered. With respect to what Sun meant by “extermination” (jiao), in the case of peasant uprisings and outbreaks of banditry it was standard government practice to kill the ringleaders and disperse the followers. But in some cases, when matters reached a critical point, it was deemed useful to exterminate the entire group so as to set an example.65 Sun Chuanting seemed to favor such an extermination policy, but as a military commander with far more field experience than Yang Sichang, he recognized the inherent difficulties of properly implementing a harsher suppression policy. Moreover, Sun was highly critical of the government’s general lack of consistency in pursuing either pacification or extermination, noting that such vacillation served only to create more confusion and distrust among the people.66 Finally, Sun stressed the importance of appointing experienced and competent commanders at all levels. The men in charge needed to be familiar with local people and conditions and to take a more graduated, cautious, and localized approach to quelling the uprisings. In the end, Sun’s recommendations were ignored, and later he even was jailed for his opposition to Yang’s policies.67 Sun’s critiques appear reasonable to a modern eye; but they did not constitute a fully fleshed-out alternative plan, and no other plan seemed forthcoming at the time. As the modern scholar Fan Shuzhi has noted, if properly administered, Yang’s plan had a reasonable chance of success, and in several previous meetings no official had offered anything better.68 But there was also the problem of taxing the peasantry even more. As the emperor himself noted, “Leadership and money needed to come from the gentry, not the masses. Suppressing the bandits requires a big campaign, which requires lots of troops. The money cannot come

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from the people, but should come from the treasury, but the treasury is empty.” So the emperor ordered the ministries to investigate all possible sources of revenue and report to him within two months.69 In effect, Chongzhen called his gentry to the mat. When they refused to help out, he replied in disgust that he had no recourse but to raise taxes, so in the fourth month of 1637, taxes were raised across the empire.70 Meanwhile, back in the field, Xiong Wencan continued to clash with local commanders as his handpicked outsiders continued to clash with the local troops. He also incurred the emperor’s wrath after additional troops dispatched from the capital still made little headway. Hong Chengchou and Zuo Liangyu virtually ignored Xiong’s orders, and no significant victories were gained through the remainder of 1637. In addition, Xiong also tended to favor surrenders and less coercive policies, despite his bold pronouncements the previous year. This drew no small measure of criticism from his fellow officials, who argued that the wandering bandits were nothing like the pirates that Xiong had dealt with in the past.71 But few were as straightforward as Sun Chuanting in suggesting alternatives. So again we see the interplay of court politics and Confucian sensibilities as various parties lobbied against incumbent officials often seemingly for the sake of argument, in essence to keep themselves in the discussion and in the emperor’s mind, regardless of whether they offered concrete alternatives for consideration. The most serious problem with Xiong’s appeasement policy came when Zuo Liangyu was ordered to accept the surrender of the notorious Zhang Xianzhong (1606–47) after surrounding him in the spring of 1638.72 Zuo was furious and wanted to kill Zhang on the spot but deferred to Xiong’s orders.73 Insult was added to injury when Xiong provided Zhang with supplies for twenty thousand men to maintain local order! This prompted Yang Sichang to become more personally involved in the campaign, and he vowed to the emperor that he would close the net in the winter of 1637–38 and crush the rebels within three months.74 Among other things, Yang noted the need for commanders in the field to obey the authority conferred on officials such as himself, concluding that “if everyone exerts their strength to the utmost, how can the rebels not be pacified?”75 Yang also defended Xiong Wencan, pointing out that despite Hong Chengchou’s many ardent supporters, he had been battling the rebels

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for seven years with no real results, whereas Xiong had been at it for only three months and already had accomplished more.76 But memorials poured in criticizing Xiong’s apparent willingness to appease and coopt the rebels rather than execute them. Incidentally, Hong Chengchou also came under attack; but he insisted that the reason he had not engaged the rebels more forcefully was that because his troops had such a fearsome reputation, the rebels always fled before he could engage them, so he could not be blamed.77 At this point, Chongzhen chastised Yang for divisive talk, and Yang stopped attacking Hong. But after another three months passed with no results, Yang asked to be replaced. The emperor refused, in effect telling Yang to find a way to succeed. Yang then sent up another memorial, criticizing Hong Chengchou’s handling of matters while praising Xiong Wencan’s adroit mixture of aggressive and conciliatory measures in Jiangbei and Jiangnan. Yang then provided a list of officials who deserved merit or punishment for their actions, most notably calling for the arrest of Hong Chengchou, whom he may have resented because Hong had replaced his late father.78 The emperor followed Yang’s recommendations.

The Failure of Appeasement Despite Yang’s support of Xiong Wencan, or perhaps because of it, Yang no longer seriously discussed the implementation of the ten-sided net. As originally presented, the strategy combined elements of extirpation and pacification, with an emphasis on the former that seemed designed to silence the more vociferous critics. But Xiong Wencan never seriously considered the more offensive options at his disposal, and he made no real attempt to implement Yang’s plan as originally outlined. Moreover, in the initial glow after the presumed surrender of Zhang Xianzhong, Xiong’s policy of pacification was verified in Yang’s eyes. In a meeting with Chongzhen, Yang talked about the primacy of military action and how these successes demonstrated the virtue of imperial justice. But even the emperor balked at such hyperbole, chiding Yang that the Ming was not the Warring States era of ancient China, during which virtue allegedly caused the people to bend before the ruler like grass before the wind.79 This happened even though Zhang had obtained quite a deal for himself, including control of a town, supplies for his men, and

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other privileges.80 There even was rapturous talk of how the surrendered bandit chieftains (some had followed Zhang in submitting) were now willing to turn swords into plowshares. Yet even while this was taking place, Sun Chuanting and Hong Chengchou were pursuing, with some success, a policy of annihilation against the peasant rebels in their midst.81 Zuo Liangyu also scored some victories in Sichuan, and Xiong Wencan reported to the throne that ultimate victory appeared imminent.82 So while Xiong was trying to cash in on his own policies of pacification, he had no qualms about also taking the credit for the achievements of others, even when they directly countered his orders and policies. In effect, some of the commanders were carrying out the more aggressive aspects of the ten-sided net on their own, ignoring the coordinative aspects that might actually have enabled it to succeed if properly executed. But as was too often the case in the late Ming period, these officials spent more time pursuing their own ends and framing their decisions in moralistic terms than in unified actions that actually helped the people and the state. In addition, as had happened to Yang’s father a few years earlier, his ambitions were undone by another Manchu incursion. In fact, Yang already had incurred the enmity of several high officials when he interpreted certain astronomical phenomena as justifying his negotiations with the Manchus. Accordingly, he sent out some feelers, but the Manchus’ recent military successes left them disinterested in talking.83 Yang was already being criticized for conducting negotiations, negotiations that led nowhere anyway, and in mid-1638 his responsibility and potential culpability for the situation were signaled by his being made grand secretary, minister of rites, and minister of war, in addition to his other titles. He then proceeded to demote several of his key foes just as the invaders broke through the Great Wall’s defenses, prompting another round of infighting. Yang consequently was impeached for errors of state, was demoted three grades for his failures, but managed to survive, owing to the emperor’s continued support.84 Other officials were cashiered, and prominent officials, including Sun Chuanting and Hong Chengchou, were transferred to the northeast, thereby allowing the rebellions in the northwest to fester once more. But now, even Yang was forced to direct his interests to securing the northeast before turning back to deal with the peasant rebels.85 Although his plans for bolstering

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the northwest’s defenses are beyond the scope of this chapter, suffice it to say that they bore Yang’s hallmark of being expensive and impressive on paper but difficult to implement and somewhat out of touch with reality. For example, he expressed hopes that he could raise an additional 7.3 million taels through new taxes.86

Yang Sichang Takes to the Field As of late 1638, the court mistakenly believed that the peasant rebellions had largely been quelled, but within a few months, Zhang Xianzhong rebelled again. Zhang had been preparing for such a move for quite some time, extorting money from local officials as part of a transit tax, reinforcing the walls of the town where he was settled, and drilling his troops. He also systematically bribed Ming officials to ignore his activities. Enraged, Yang Sichang took to the field himself to deal with the problem. So in the eighth month of 1639, Yang Sichang was reappointed minister of war, grand secretary, and supreme commander of bandit pacification and received the double-edged sword of authority.87 The emperor approved Yang’s request to raise an additional five million taels to wipe out the rebels and gave him the authority to select his own army inspectors, following Yang’s earlier suggestion that he needed more unified field authority.88 The emperor gave Yang generous funds for the troops and offered personal encouragement. He even personally served Yang wine at a banquet and gave him a poem in his own handwriting. As Yang set out on his assignment, Chongzhen gushed, “With officials like this, what can we have to worry about? With you in charge, it is as if I am going myself.”89 Yang reached Xiangyang on the Han River on the twenty-ninth day of the ninth month of 1639. He entered Xiong Wencan’s headquarters and immediately took control of the army, sending Xiong forward to Beijing and refusing to defend him any longer.90 He then met with his commanders and devised another strategy of containment. Yang again advocated bringing in troops from neighboring regions and encircling the rebels, thereby returning to the more aggressive strategy that was at the core of the original ten-sided net plan. Funds would again come from new taxes and from revenues retained in the provinces.91 Zuo Liangyu was invested with the title of Bandit-Pacifying General, and his early Ming successes brought liberal rewards from Yang.92

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But within a short while, it seemed to Zuo that Yang wanted to keep him inactive and in defensive positions, thereby denying him the chance to earn merit or to exact revenge on his old rival, Zhang Xianzhong. They also clashed over military policy. Yang wanted to divide the troops into smaller strike forces, whereas Zuo favored larger commands whose numerical superiority would give the Ming the advantage.93 Yang’s public whippings of military officials who failed to hold towns or capture rebels did little to improve morale or firmly establish his command authority over his military subordinates. Still, a few victories in 1639–40 delighted the emperor and brought Yang more rewards as well as a promotion to junior guardian of the heir apparent.94 Subsequent victories piled up, and it looked as if the Ming were finally turning the tide. In the early months of 1640, Zhang Xianzhong fled to Sichuan, hotly pursued by Zuo Liangyu. Ignoring Yang’s orders to cease the pursuit, Zuo eventually surrounded Zhang near Mount Manao and scored a major defeat, killing thirty-five hundred and capturing several commanders.95 Chongzhen was delighted and rewarded the commanders responsible for the victory with cash and bolts of cloth. Although subsequent operations were moderately successful, the Ming eventually found themselves overextended and hampered by terrain, weather, and inferior numbers. They pulled back, and Zhang himself escaped to western Sichuan.96 Nonetheless, Yang saw the victory at Mount Manao as problematic because Zuo Liangyu had subverted his authority to gain it. Seeking to counter Zuo’s growing reputation and authority, Yang made the serious mistake of recommending that another general, He Renlong, be given Zuo’s title of Bandit-Suppressing General. When his recommendation was not approved, Yang succeeded only in alienating both men.97 This in turn caused Zuo to vacillate in pursuing Zhang Xianzhong and allowed the rebel leader to recover his strength through the summer months. Zuo also may have deliberately allowed Zhang to survive because totally eradicating him would have removed the justification for Zuo’s own lofty position and deprived him of the pretext for squeezing local officials for supplies and funds.98 In such actions, we see in action the ongoing problem of civil-military relations and command authority. Although Yang Sichang was technically the supreme commander of these operations, he lacked the power to enforce his orders on his military subordinates,

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and when he clumsily tried to circumvent the influence of the powerful general Zuo Liangyu, he ended up both enraging Zuo and alienating the man he had hoped to use in Zuo’s stead. Fearing that the rebels in the west were growing stronger, Yang moved his headquarters south to Yiling on the Yangzi River and suggested a new policy of holding strong points. Then a few timely Ming victories and key defections seemed to turn the tide again, and Yang prepared to close his net around Sichuan, where most of the remnants had gathered. Continuing his heavy-handed mode of command, he invoked the authority of the double-edged sword to execute one official at Wushan and then moved to Chongqing in the eleventh month of 1640 as Zhang Xianzhong rampaged throughout Sichuan. Yang also requested more officials and aid from the court, which were granted.99 He now maintained that because he lacked the numbers for encirclement, defense and ambush became his preferred tactics. Soon all of Sichuan was in tumult as cities were taken or abandoned to the rebels’ depredations, although He Renlong did manage to defeat Luo Rucai, killing more than a thousand insurgents and driving Luo back east toward Yang Sichang.100 Nonetheless, the badly disciplined and undersupplied Ming troops were prone to desertion when they camped too long. And with famine forcing the peasants into cannibalism, the bandits had no shortage of recruits. Increasingly frustrated, Yang requested to be relieved of his post, but the emperor responded by sending him fifty thousand taels for medicine and another two hundred thousand for famine relief.101 Chongzhen refused Yang’s continuing requests to retire, despite reports that the rebels were taking sites in Shaanxi, Sichuan, and Huguang. The Ming did, however, gain the surrender of several notable rebel commanders in the late summer of 1640, prompting Yang Sichang to send troops west into Sichuan on the advice of one of his subordinates, although some officials felt that Yang did this in part to protect his native province of Huguang from further depredations.102 Yang’s subordinates continued to defy his orders. In the tenth month of 1640, Zhang Xianzhong’s forces took one town because the local commander had split up his forces to defend multiple sites. Zhang’s spies found the weak point and attacked there. Fighting in Sichuan continued

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through the fall of 1640. Even though the Ming units won several skirmishes, they subsequently were routed, and the rebels moved east again. This prompted Yang to relocate his headquarters to Chongqing, Sichuan, where he would be closer to the thick of the fighting. At this point, Yang also put a ten-thousand-tael price on the head of Zhang Xianzhong, along with a hereditary marquis post. The next day a note appeared on the wall of Yang’s office headquarters in Chongqing, reputedly from Zhang Xianzhong, stating that the rebel leader had put a bounty of a mere three taels on Yang’s head!103 Yang now feared that Zhang had spies in his own entourage, and he sent several complaints to the emperor. But other reports trickled into Beijing charging that Yang was spending most of his time drinking wine and composing poems in his tent and that he knew nothing about Sichuan or its customs. Yang even was accused of reciting Buddhist incantations to ward off locusts, a serious charge to level against a proper official, since it implied superstition.104 It is interesting to see references to such behavior in light of the prevailing official culture of the late Ming period. If Yang had been more successful, then his eccentricities certainly would have been ignored, perhaps even lauded. But because he had acquired many enemies over the years and because everyone knew that the emperor was sensitive to criticism and rightly concerned about the spread of the peasant rebellions, such charges served to advance the positions of Yang’s foes and constituted a sort of negative capital for his plans. Not only did Yang fail as a military commander, but he also was a superstitious bully. Surely, reasoned such critics, the emperor could see this and would take appropriate actions to rectify the situation. That most of these officials presented little in the way of concrete alternatives is noteworthy but not surprising. After all, the immediate goal for many such officials was as much to discredit Yang and advance their own agendas—couched in Confucian rhetoric—as it was to actually stop the rebellions. The court became increasingly frustrated with Yang’s inability to achieve results and with his disputes with his subordinates, against whom Yang railed incessantly for their supposed incompetence. But many of the new troops were green and unfamiliar with Sichuan’s terrain. They therefore were prone to falling into the traps and ambushes

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of the wily and experienced Zhang Xianzhong.105 Yang’s inactivity even elicited a mocking poem from Zhang Xianzhong: Before we had coordinator Shao Who often came forth and danced with me Then came the armies who would not fight But followed me around But now we have good commander Yang Who graciously leaves me a three-day road!106

The rebels took the key town of Luzhou in the twelfth month of 1640 but fled before the Ming troops could trap them there.107 Meanwhile, Yang feared that the rebels would be able to strike east again, perhaps threatening the Ming prince at Luoyang. Although Yang ordered Zuo Liangyu to head east, Zuo refused, not wanting to open an escape route for the rebels into Shaanxi. To one of Yang’s commands, Zuo replied, “Was it not by disobeying you that I gained the victory at Mount Manao?”108 More memorials detailing Yang’s failures as a commander flooded the capital, and he realized that his time as commander might soon be over. So Yang ordered all his commanders to assemble at Yunyang to mount one more campaign to crush the rebels. But by this time, He Renlong had already moved west, and others simply ignored Yang’s orders. The only officer who came to Yang’s aid was the doughty Meng Ruhu (literally, “fierce as a tiger”), who had fought the rebels at Kaixian and Huanglingcheng in eastern Sichuan but was badly beaten. Even though Meng escaped his first encirclement, he later was captured and executed. Yang still desperately pressed for an offensive campaign against the recommendations of his military advisers, who suggested taking defensive positions.109 Yang argued that because there was too much terrain to cover, offense was better. But as the rebels turned back east and flanked the Ming forces, Yang regretted his directive. He then returned to Yiling and sent an urgent dispatch to Zuo Liangyu. But the rebels severed their lines of communication, even capturing a lone messenger dispatched to spread the word of the rebels’ movements.110 Yang’s fears were realized when Zhang Xianzhong captured the Ming prince of Xiang at Xiangyang. On the eleventh day of the second month of 1641, using the seals of office that the rebels had recovered from the

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Ming messengers, Zhang’s men entered the town with the help of fifth columnists. Upon taking the town, Zhang occupied the prince’s seat in his palace and had the prince brought before him. He offered the prince a cup of wine and then addressed him, saying, “I wish to have the head of Yang Sichang, but he is far away in Laikou, so now I’ll have to borrow the prince’s head in his stead. This will cause Sichang to suffer the full penalty of the law for having lost this princely fief. Now the prince should use all his strength to finish his wine.”111 The prince was tied to the top of the palace walls, and the whole structure was set alight. The prince’s corpse was lost in the flames, and all his concubines were killed. Zuo Liangyu rushed to the town but arrived too late. The rebels then moved east, taking several more towns, including Guangzhou. By the time Yang got word of all these developments, he was in despair and believed that he had no chance of success. He sent a letter to the emperor asking to be executed for his failures. Upon hearing that Luoyang had fallen to Li Zicheng and that the prince of Fu had been killed, Yang stopped eating and died sometime early in the third month of 1641, although some versions of the story maintain that he committed suicide by taking poison.112 Ding Qirui was appointed to replace him. Even though many officials recommended a posthumous punishment for Yang, the emperor pointed to his achievements and instead raised him to the ceremonial rank of grand guardian of the heir apparent. Yang was buried at his ancestral home of Wuling, although afterward, when Zhang Xianzhong took the town, he dug up the family graves, burned the coffin of Yang’s wife, and desecrated Yang’s corpse.113

Wen, Wu, and Rulership in Late Ming China Yang’s tragic saga is, unfortunately, representative of late Ming politics and illustrates the many problems confronting the late Ming military and its commanders. The empire had no dearth of men of martial ability and real experience. But too often, significant and sweeping authority was invested in purely civil officials who lacked real military experience. Moreover, the Chongzhen emperor had a mercurial temperament and frequently changed his mind about everything from policy to strategy to appointments.114 Having grown up in the poisoned atmosphere of the Tianqi (r. 1621–27) court, he was highly sensitive to the dangers of

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factionalism, so he often overreacted to any hints of factional favoritism or allegiances. This resulted in so many changes of personnel that no plan could ever properly be implemented, no matter how sound. Very competent officials were executed for real or imagined offenses, and the empire effectively, and in many cases literally, cut off its own administrative head. In this sense, Chongzhen’s reign offers an interesting contrast with that of Wanli (r. 1573–1620), who, for most of his reign, actively patronized and protected key military officials and supreme commanders from baseless or petty accusations so that they could do their jobs. As one seventeenth-century source notes, after Yang’s death, the court no longer appointed civil officials as supreme commanders of the army.115 Although the Ming dynasty lasted just three more years, even this late realization is a telling indictment of the practice. It is very difficult to believe that Yang’s ten-sided net strategy could have succeeded except under the best of conditions. The main problem was that of resource allocation. Had the state been able to effectively contain the Manchu threat in Liaodong, perhaps it could have mustered the necessary manpower. Indeed, we see time and again that manpower or other resources had to be shifted just as government forces seemed on the verge of triumph. This also speaks to the issue of prioritization. High officials always were divided over whether the peasant rebels or the Manchus constituted the more serious threat to the dynasty’s survival. The majority of officials seemed to view the peasant rebels as a more serious threat to the state’s short-term survival, a “disease of the heart,” to borrow Chiang Kaishek’s famous phrase. While the Manchus were undoubtedly more formidable in the conventional military sense, they seemed more likely to be contained or accommodated in some fashion, even though they had raided widely in northern China since the 1620s. Whichever threat was deemed greater, the main difficulty confronted by all late Ming military officials was obtaining sufficient provisions and military supplies. Yang Sichang’s rosy projections notwithstanding, the devastation wreaked by drought and floods and the peasant rebellions themselves made it unlikely that sufficient provisions could have been extracted from the affected areas. Yang’s forces were consistently undersupplied, by their own accounts generally obtaining only about half the supplies they needed. These logistical problems were made worse by

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Yang’s lack of military experience and poor evaluation of military talent. Nonetheless, the Ming achieved many local victories against the peasant rebels right up to the end of 1643. When properly led and outfitted, Ming troops almost always bested peasant rebel units. They also proved adept at holding cities and towns. Here, however, lay the strength of the rebel movements themselves: their mobility, as noted by Sun Chuanting, among others. Victory would have required a multilayered suppression strategy that combined offense, defense, and the reclamation of lost agricultural lands to resettle former bandits. Then maybe someone less dogmatic and heavy-handed than Yang might have been able to close the net. Finally there is the matter of warfare and culture. Even though ancient Chinese culture emphasized the complementary nature of civil and military authority, in practice the pendulum generally swung toward one side or the other. Traditional histories, written by civil officials and their ilk, would have us believe that the civilian side rightly dominated the military, particularly in dynasties such as the Song (960–1279) and the Ming. But the reality was far more complicated. In times of peace and prosperity under vigorous emperors, civil and military officials worked well together. Policies of pacification and suasion, especially with respect to quelling internal unrest, thus had a much better chance of succeeding. For if the state had been able to offer adequate famine relief without raising taxes to pay for other things, it also could have resolved other issues before they became problems. But times of strife, invasion, and rebellion required a stronger imperial hand, which too often was missing. In these cases, the classic Confucian approach based on suasion and benevolence had much less chance of working. As I have pointed out here, contemporary officials were well aware of this fact. But because men like the classically educated Yang had the ear of the emperor, they were allowed to pursue their policies of pacification and suasion. Their hearts might have been in the right place, but their minds were not. Had they heeded some of the ancient classics’ other lessons and had a firmer grasp of military strategy, then perhaps their tragedies, and that of the Ming state, might have been avoided. The emperor’s self-perception bound him to listen to such suggestions. His own deeply embedded sense of propriety and the extent to which his legitimacy rested not only on managing the crisis but also on doing so

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in an acceptable way pressured him to implement Yang’s plans. Because the Mandate of Heaven could be revoked and the emperor replaced, his position, particularly in this time of crisis, was as precarious, if not more so, as that of men like Yang in the Ming hierarchy. When we understand these realities, we are more likely to sympathize with the position of a supposedly absolute ruler within this imperial bureaucratic structure and see how the culture of the system could sharply influence, if not always dictate, decisions involving the pursuit and prosecution of war. Notes

1. Indeed, even some Chinese scholars had decried traditional China as having an “a-military” (wu bing wenhua) culture. See, for example, Lei Haizong and Lin Tongqi, Zhongguo wenhua yu Zhongguo di bing (Changsha: Yuelu shushu, 1989). For an example of the uncritical acceptance of such characterizations by Western military historians, see Geoffrey Parker, ed., The Cambridge Illustrated History of Warfare: The Triumph of the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Although there are too many recent monographs to enumerate here, four edited collections are worthy of mention: Hans van de Ven, ed., Warfare in Chinese History (Leiden: Brill, 2000); Peter Lorge, ed., Warfare in China to 1600 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005); Kenneth Swope, ed., Warfare in China since 1600 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate 2005); and Nicola Di Cosmo, ed., Military Culture in Imperial China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). The seminal earlier volume is Frank A. Kierman Jr. and John King Fairbank, eds., Chinese Ways in Warfare (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974). 2. For a discussion of the antimilitary bias of Confucian officials, see Nicola Di Cosmo, introduction to Military Culture, 2–3. For a critique of essentialized notions of Chinese martial culture, see Peter Lorge, War, Politics, and Society in Early Modern China, 900–1795 (London: Routledge, 2005), 1–5. 3. Di Cosmo, introduction to Military Culture, 4, esp. 3–4 for his definition of military culture. 4. Ibid., 5. 5. For Johnston’s overview of strategic culture, see Alastair Iain Johnston, Cultural Realism: Grand Strategy and Strategic Culture in Chinese History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 1–29; and for his discussion of strategic culture in China in particular, see 61–108. 6. See Johnston, Cultural Realism, 248–55, for his discussion of the suitability of this approach for the communist era. The Seven Military Classics, which include Sunzi’s Art of War, have been translated into English. See Ralph D. Sawyer, trans., The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993). 7. Lynn A. Struve, The Southern Ming, 1644–1662 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984), 6. 8. Lorge makes this point as well. See Lorge, War, Politics, and Society, 177–83.

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9. For a detailed study of the imperial civil service examination system in late imperial China, see Benjamin A. Elman, A Cultural History of Civil Examination in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). 10. Of course, the texts are not uniformly pacifist. In a chapter entitled “Benevolence the Foundation,” the military text The Methods of the Sima notes that “if one must kill men to give peace to the people, then killing is permissible.” See Sawyer, Seven Military Classics, 126. 11. On Mencius, see Herrlee G. Creel, Chinese Thought from Confucius to Mao Tsetung (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 68–93. For excerpts from the traditional Confucian classics in translation, see William Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 1, From Earliest Times to 1600, 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). 12. On the Tang, see David A. Graff, Medieval Chinese Warfare, 300–900 (London: Routledge, 2002). On the evolution of civilian oversight of the military, see Lorge, War, Politics, and Society. 13. An example of this would be the first half of the reign of the Ming emperor Wanli (r. 1573–1620), who patronized military officials and used them to counteract the power of civil officials and certain factions within his government. See Kenneth M. Swope, “Bestowing the Double-Edged Sword: Wanli as Supreme Commander,” in Culture, Courtiers, and Competition: The Ming Court (1368–1644), ed. David M. Robinson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 61–115. 14. I am indebted to the comments of Stephen Morillo on an earlier version of this chapter for helping me sharpen these points. 15. For a recent Chinese biography that emphasizes the tragedy of Chongzhen’s reign and difficulty of his position, see Zhang Dexin and Tan Tianxing, Diguo zhongxing de beige: Chongzhen huangdi qi jiang (Beijing: Zhongguo guangbo dianshe daxue chubanshe, 2009). 16. Zhang Tingyu et al., comps., Mingshi, 12 vols. (Taibei: Dingwen shuju, 1994), 9:6727 (hereafter cited as MS). Incidentally, Yang He’s biography is not in the same chapter of the Mingshi as that of his son. 17. On the origins of the late Ming rebellions in the northwest, see Gu Yingtai, Mingshi jishi benmo, in Lidai jishi benmo, 2 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1997), 2:2448 (hereafter MSJSBM); Peng Sunyi, Liukou zhi (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1983), 1–4 (hereafter LKZ); Wu Weiye, Suikou jilue, 4 vols. (Taibei: Guangwen shuju, 1968), 1:1.2a–2b (hereafter SKJL); and Dai Li and Wu Qiao, Liukou changbian, 2 vols. (Beijing: Xinhua shudian, 1991), 1:29–42 (hereafter LKCB). For modern discussions of the outbreak of the uprisings, see James Bunyan Parsons, Peasant Rebellions of the Late Ming Dynasty (Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies, 1993), 1–21; and Li Guangtao, Mingji liukou shimo (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yanjiusuo, 1965), 1–32 (hereafter LKSM). Li also notes that religious sectarians and unemployed miners swelled the ranks of the peasant rebels. For a theoretical study of collective violence in the Ming, see

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James W. Tong, Disorder under Heaven: Collective Violence in the Ming Dynasty (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991). Ji Liuqi, Mingji beilue, 2 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1984), 1:96 (hereafter MJBL). See Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2 vols. (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 2003), 2:896–97; and MSJSBM, 2: 2448. SKJL, 1.7a. On the early rebel leaders, see Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:897–903; and SKJL, 1.5a–5b. Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 903. On Wanli’s delegation of command authority, see Swope, “Bestowing the Double-Edged Sword.” LKSM, 19–20. See Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:903–4. On Yang He’s general policies, see Chenmain Wang, The Life and Career of Hung Ch’eng-ch’ou (1593–1665): Public Service in a Time of Dynastic Change (Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies, 1999), 39–48; and Parsons, Peasant Rebellions, 8–16. SKJL, 1.5b; MJBL, 1:125–26. Interestingly enough, Yang He’s son, Yang Sichang, later blamed troop transfers to the northeast for his own problems in quelling the peasant uprisings. There is certainly some merit in these claims, although the Ming should have been able to handle the rebellions in these earlier stages with more disciplined policies. See LKSM, 13–14. LKZ, 5. Ibid. Ibid. See Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:905–7. Late Ming and early Qing writers recognized that the peasant rebellions were caused by a complex web of social and economic woes that could not be easily managed or corrected. See the discussion in Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:907–8. LKZ, 6; MJBL, 1:131. LKZ, 6. SKJL, 1.8b–9a. LKZ, 8; MS, 9:6728. Yang had actually asked to resign earlier, but his request was rejected by the emperor. See Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:910–11. SKJL, 1.10b. MS, 9:6728. Yang Sichang’s official biography can be found in MS, 9:6509–21. Also see L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds., Dictionary of Ming Biography, 2 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 2:1538–42 (hereafter DMB). MS, 9:6509. SKJL, 1.11b. Most upper-level ministerial positions included designations of left and right, directions corresponding to where officials sat during ceremonies and audiences

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42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

49. 50. 51.

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53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61.

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in ancient times. There was little functional distinction in the directions, although the left was generally considered more prestigious. MS, 6509. Harry Miller suggests that “opening mines” in the late Ming often was a euphemism for imposing a luxury tax on the wealthy, typically collected by imperial eunuchs. See Harry Miller, State versus Gentry in Late Ming Dynasty China, 1572–1644 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). See Parsons, Peasant Rebellions, 54; and Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:970. For a contemporary assessment of why the emperor trusted Yang, see SKJL, 5.10b–11a. For more on Chongzhen’s trust of Yang Sichang, see Meng Sen, Mingshi jiangyi (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2009), 286–87. Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:971. SKJL, 5.11a. SKJL, 6.3a–3b. For a discussion of this practice in the context of late Ming China, see Kenneth M. Swope, “Clearing the Fields and Strengthening the Walls: Defending Small Cities in Late Ming China,” in Secondary Cities and Urban Networking in the Indian Ocean Realm, c. 1400–1800, ed. Kenneth R. Hall (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008), 123–54. SKJL, 6.3b. MS, 9:6510. MS, 9:6510; MSJSBM, 2:2459; LKZ, 47. For biographies of Xiong Wencan, see DMB, 2:562–66; and MS, 9:6733–38. Also see SKJL, 6.1a–1b. On Zheng Zhilong, see Arthur O. Hummel, ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period, 2 vols. (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1943), 1:110–11 (hereafter ECCP). On Zuo, see ECCP, 2:761–62. Yang had actually favored keeping Zuo in power, at least initially, on account of his reputation and prior achievements. On Xiong’s appointment, see Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:978. SKJL, 5.17a. SKJL, 5.15a–15b. LKZ, 47. On the problems caused by increasing taxes in the late Ming, see LKSM, 48–49. Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:974. See MS, 9:6510. For slightly different figures, see Parsons, Peasant Rebellions, 56. MS, 9:6510. See Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:974; and LKZ, 47–48. SKJL, 5.20a–21a. Sun Chuanting, Sun Chuanting shudu (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1983), 1. Ironically, Sun had been recalled to the west in part because Yang had not gotten along with Hong Chengchou. See SKJL, 6.4b. Sun, Sun Chuanting shudu, 1–2. Ibid., 2. Ibid., 2–3.

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65. Incidentally, the Chinese government of the People’s Republic still sometimes employs such methods, known as “striking hard,” in cases of corruption and malfeasance. 66. Sun, Sun Chuanting shudu, 3. 67. Ibid., 3–4; Chen-main Wang, Life and Career of Hung Ch’eng-ch’ou, 68–69. 68. Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:974–75. 69. Ibid., 975. 70. Ibid., 976. 71. SKJL, 6.2b. 72. Parsons, Peasant Rebellions, 60–62; Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:979–80; LKZ, 53. For Zhang’s full biography, see MS, 11:7969–77. 73. SKJL, 6.6b. 74. See Parsons, Peasant Rebellions, 57–58; Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:978–79; LKZ, 53; and MS, 9:6511. 75. MS, 9:6511. 76. SKJL, 6.5a. 77. SKJL, 6.7b–8a. 78. MS, 6512. 79. Ibid. 80. See Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:980–83. 81. For details about these campaigns, see ibid., 983–88. 82. SKJL, 6.20a–20b. 83. Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:991–93. 84. MS, 9:6513. Also see Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:992–95. 85. See Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:989–91. 86. See MS, 9:6514–15. 87. Granting the double-edged sword (bao jian) was a tradition dating back to antiquity in China. The emperor would present his commanding general with a ceremonial blade symbolizing the complete delegation of command authority in the field to the officer. Ming documents note that this invested such men with the power to “kill first, then memorialize later.” 88. SKJL, 7.9b. 89. MS, 9:6515; SKJL, 7.10b. 90. MSJSBM, 2:2459. Xiong was executed in the marketplace as soon as he reached the capital. See MS, 11:6738. 91. Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:1012. 92. MS, 9:6516; LKZ, 57. 93. See Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:1014–15; and LKCB, 728–34. 94. MS, 9:6517. 95. Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:1015; SKJL, 7.14b–16b. 96. SKJL, 7.17a–17b. 97. LKZ, 58, 63–64. 98. See LKSM, 54–55.

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99. LKZ, 66; MS, 6517. 100. SKJL, 7.20a. 101. SKJL, 7.20b. 102. See MJBL, 1:300; and SKJL, 7.21a. 103. MS, 9:6718; SKJL, 7.26a. 104. Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:1020–21; SKJL, 7.20a. 105. SKJL, 7.21b. 106. Quoted in Fan Shuzhi, Wan Ming shi, 2:1021. 107. MS, 9:6718. 108. LKZ, 72. 109. SKJL, 7.28b. 110. MS, 69:520. The rebels also obtained Ming military seals of authority by intercepting this messenger. 111. LKZ, 74; MJBL, 1:301; SKJL, 7.29a At around the same time, Li Zicheng butchered and ate the Ming prince of Fu in Luoyang. 112. See SKJL, 729a. 113. MS, 9:6521. 114. On Chongzhen’s employment and dismissal of officials, see Meng Sen, Mingshi jiangyi, 277–79. 115. SKJL, 7.30a.

7

The Battle Culture of Forbearance, 1660–1789 John A. Lynn II

The battle of Mollwitz (April 10, 1741) was far from the greatest day in the military life of Frederick the Great (r. 1740–86). This, his first battle, was a confused affair, at first nearly lost by Prussian cavalry but finally saved by Prussian infantry, masters of that time’s drill-oriented tactics. Four months into the War of the Austrian Succession, Frederick brought to Mollwitz 21,000 troops, 17,000 of whom were infantry. Because the king was a neophyte in combat, he relied heavily on his second in command, Marshal Kurt Christoph Graf von Schwerin (1684–1757). The Austrian army that opposed the Prussians was smaller, 17,000 troops, only 11,000 of them infantry. With their advantage in mounted troops, the Austrians began the action with a cavalry charge that drove Frederick’s cavalry off the battlefield and battered his infantry. At this point, Schwerin advised his king to remove himself from danger and leave Schwerin with the infantry to carry on the battle. To Frederick’s later chagrin, he followed the marshal’s advice and rode off in the tracks of his routed cavalry. Schwerin then ordered a general advance of the superb Prussian infantry, which marched forward with its battalions arrayed in line. As an Austrian officer reported, “I can well say, I never in my life saw anything more beautiful. They marched with the greatest steadiness, arrow-straight, and their front like a line, as if they had been upon parade. The glitter of their clear arms shone strangely.”1 Long years of drill under the strict and, at times, brutal supervision of officers and sergeants had imbued Prussian infantry with as much perfection in maneuver and fire as was possible. The Prussians did not depend on the private soldier’s initiative but on his obedience and precise execution of orders. Supported by their artillery, the Prussians endured enemy cannon and musket fire until close enough to fire, at which point they exchanged volleys with the Austrians, who could not match their 154

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rate of fire. Indeed, the Austrian officer testified, with some amazement, “The fire from them went on no otherwise than a continued peal of thunder.” The Austrians broke, and “the spirits of our army sank altogether, the foot plainly giving way,” suffering 1,500 dead, 3,000 wounded, and 1,000 prisoners and missing.2 It was a bloody day for the Prussians as well, but they held the field and, thus, the province of Silesia. On this day, tactical performance not only had won the battle but had essentially won the campaign, although hostilities continued until a truce was agreed to in October. This chapter attempts to explain why armies, particularly their infantry battalions, fought on the battlefield in the way that they did from the late seventeenth century through the onset of the French Revolution. Although the subject is tactics, my discussion is largely cultural and social. Descriptions of tactical practice often assume that it was simply determined by the weaponry of the day, but that is not my approach here. Physical technology obviously sets parameters; there are good reasons not to shave with an ax. But eighteenth-century weaponry could be used in different ways, and the factors shaping combat went far beyond the physical characteristics of the muskets and cannon that troops brought to the battlefield. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century kings and commanders like Frederick the Great crafted a form of combat that fit not only the tools of war but also the social prejudices and cultural predilections of the times. I have labeled the resulting practice, taught by drill and applied on campaign, the battle culture of forbearance. While this terminology was not used at the time, it expresses the most basic assumptions about life and war held by the military elites who commanded troops in combat, as at Mollwitz.

The Technological Challenge: Musket and Cannon in Battle The gunpowder weapons carried by infantry evolved between 1660 and 1789, although their basic range and accuracy remained essentially the same. At the start of the period, the most common shoulder-fired gunpowder weapon was the muzzle-loading, smoothbore matchlock musket. This weapon used a match to ignite the gunpowder through a mechanism, or lock, that ignited the powder charge when the trigger

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was pulled. The match was a cord of flax or hemp soaked in a nitrate solution so that it would continue to glow at its ends, much like a modern cigarette. This match had to be removed for loading lest it set off the gunpowder prematurely, but it was reattached on the lock to a lever, or cock, for firing. When the soldier pulled the trigger, the cock snapped down, thrusting the glowing match into a small pan of priming powder mounted on the weapon’s barrel. When this priming charge exploded, it flashed though the touch hole, a small hole bored into the chamber of the barrel, and set off the main charge that then propelled the lead ball toward its mark. The matchlock’s complicated loading procedure limited the rate of fire to, at best, one shot per minute, and even then, the rate of misfire could be as high as 50 percent.3 To supplement this slowfiring weapon—in particular to protect the infantrymen from charging cavalry—some of the soldiers carried pikes, spears as much as sixteen feet long, instead of muskets. Pikemen formed a foreboding, bristling barrier of spear points by bracing their pikes with the butts thrust into the ground and slanted them forward at a deadly angle to skewer man or horse. By 1700, however, European armies had exchanged their matchlocks for flintlocks. These smoothbore weapons had the same ballistic characteristics as matchlock muskets but were fired by means of a flintlock, a mechanism that struck a piece of flint against an iron “frizzen” to create sparks that ignited the gunpowder in the priming pan. Flintlock muskets were much safer and more dependable than matchlocks and required less time to load, which doubled the rate of fire.4 The pikes also disappeared when the French introduced an effective bayonet, which was attached to the barrel of the musket by means of a socket so that it did not interfere with loading and firing the musket. Now the infantryman carried a single weapon that served as both firearm and edged weapon. By the late seventeenth century, the adoption of the bayonet also enabled entire battalions to charge with cold steel. But even effective smoothbore musket fire had only a limited range; that is, the ball was accurate and powerful enough only to do damage at short distances. The Prussians carried out the best contemporary scientific study of musket fire, establishing that an infantry battalion firing late eighteenth-century Prussian flintlock muskets at a huge target (100 feet long and 6 feet high, simulating part of a deployed enemy infantry

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line), hit the target with only about 30 percent of its fire at 160 yards. Their muskets performed better at 80 yards but still put only 50 percent of their shots on target. Firing at a man-sized target, the same musket scored hits with only 20 percent of its shots. The French model 1777 Charleville musket scored better, hitting the large target about 50 percent of the time at 160 yards and 75 percent at 80 yards.5 The inaccuracy of these smoothbore weapons was implicit in the technology. From 1660 to 1789, artillery improved and also increased in number, but its ballistic characteristics remained relatively constant. Like the shoulder arms, cannon were muzzle loaders. Although cannon were cast in different sizes, one of those commonly used on the battlefield was the eight pounder, which meant that the spherical iron ball it shot weighed eight pounds. The barrel of such an artillery piece weighed 2,250 pounds in the French Vallière system, adopted in 1732. Because the weight of an artillery piece limited its mobility, artillery reformers of the late eighteenth century worked to lighten cannon by casting them with shorter barrels. Thus, an eight pounder in the improved Gribeauval system of 1776 mounted a barrel that weighed only 1,275 pounds.6 Such cannon had an effective range of as much as 800 yards on the battlefield and could mow down infantry with canister shot at 400 to 500 yards.7 Along with lighter barrels, artillery reforms in Austria, Prussia, and France improved artillery carriages and harnessing to make them more agile, although it still required many horses to haul the guns and their ammunition caissons. A Gribeauval eight pounder was pulled by four horses in the field artillery and was supported with two ammunition caissons, each of which required two additional horses.8 The eighteenth century witnessed a marked increase in the number of cannon brought to the battlefield. During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the number of artillery pieces with a field army equaled about one gun for every 1,000 men. Pierre Surirey de SaintRémy (1645–1716), an authority on artillery, advised fifty cannon for an army of 50,000 men (one per 1,000).9 Marshal Claude Louis Hector de Villars (1653–1734) had sixty guns for a force of 80,000 at Malplaquet in 1709 (0.75 per 1,000). But the wars of midcentury saw larger numbers of cannon employed; Frederick the Great brought 170 guns for 39,000 troops at Leuthen in 1757 (4.35 per 1,000), and his opponents boasted 210 artillery pieces for 80,000 troops (2.65 per 1,000). Artillery improve-

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ments and multiplication amounted to the most important change in military technology between the advent of the flintlock musket and the French Revolution.

The Tactical Answer: A Battle Culture of Forbearance The tactics used in this technological environment had to take account of the range, firing rate, and lethal effect of the weapons on the battlefield. The characteristic battle formation for infantry was the line, which became more uniform in composition and organization with the adoption of the flintlock musket and bayonet. Such a line of infantrymen stood in four, three, or, eventually, two ranks to maximize the firepower of a battalion armed with these relatively inaccurate and slowfiring muskets. By marshaling so many muskets firing forward, infantry could inflict serious damage, even with the musket’s shortcomings. The line also allowed officers and sergeants to observe and closely control the men under their command, which was an essential advantage of such a stand-up formation. In order for the line to fight effectively, the musketeers had to be correctly aligned with one another, although not necessarily as “arrow straight” as the Prussians at Mollwitz. This alignment was not simply for appearance but protected the men from being injured by their comrades. The touch hole through which the flash of the priming powder ignited the main charge became a channel through which part of that major explosion exited. Therefore, when firing, a man standing to the right of another and a bit too far forward in his stance risked danger to his eye or ear from the blowback though the touch hole of his comrade’s musket. Terrain and situation determined how close armies would deploy into battle against each other. There was no general rule, but it was best to avoid deploying so near the enemy that its artillery fire could immediately ravage the line. But because artillery did not bring an infinite amount of ammunition to the battlefield, commanders withheld their cannon fire until their guns could have greatest effect on the adversary. If ordered to attack, the troops would experience an intense version of hell as they advanced. Assuming that this line of infantry began its attack a quarter mile from its adversary, it would require at least fifteen

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minutes to traverse this distance at a march pace, rather than at a run, to conserve the men’s energy and maintain their order.10 During the infantry’s advance, it would be subject to an increasingly deadly barrage of artillery fire and, ultimately, infantry volleys. If the attacking line chose to stop and fire, it would generally do so at a range of less than 100 yards. During the remainder of the march forward, the men simply had to absorb the punishment and keep advancing without responding. Unless troops were particularly adept at delivering crushing volleys of fire, as were the Prussians, most military thinkers deemed it best to attack without stopping to fire. In fact, even Frederick came to believe that troops should maintain their momentum and not halt to discharge their muskets. Ideally, “the infantry will advance rapidly but in order. I do not want it to fire. Its menace will defeat the enemy.”11 Charging without stopping to fire was a well-recognized method of attack. The accomplished French marshal Nicolas Catinat (1637–1712) reported that at the battle of Marsaglia, on October 3, 1693, his infantry charged the enemy “with bayonets on the ends of their fusils and without firing a shot.”12 This commander explained his logic by arguing that by continuing the advance without firing, even after the enemy had fired, the attacker gained a psychological advantage. “One prepares the soldier to not fire and to realize that it is necessary to suffer the enemy’s fire, expecting that the enemy who fires is assuredly beaten when one receives his entire fire.”13 Even if a soldier did fire in the attack, the nearly universal advice was never to fire first. In a memoir dedicated to the young Louis XIV in 1663, the experienced soldier d’Aurignac advised generals that he who fired first was lost and that above all, generals must “command both cavalry and infantry when approaching the enemy to fire only after the enemy had fired first.”14 Similar advice to delay one’s fire until the last moment applied to defending infantry as well. Given the inaccuracy of the musket, he who fired last, meaning closest, scored the most devastating hits. The great French military engineer Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban (1633–1707) put it succinctly: “Usually, in man to man combat the advantage lies with those who fire last.”15 Thus followed the common defensive maxim that troops should hold fire until the enemy was at extremely close range: “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.”

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Americans are most likely to associate this particular command with the Battle of Bunker Hill, but it had a long lineage before that, stretching back at least to the battle of Dettingen in 1743.16 Because infantry had to endure crossing the deadly, artillery-swept no-man’s-land without seeking cover or firing back, artillery was the primary technological determinant of the need for forbearance. When Frederick the Great insisted that the common soldier should fear his officer more than the enemy, he explained this by pointing out, “Otherwise no one would be able to lead him in the attack as three hundred cannon thunder against him. In such danger, the goodwill of the soldier does not prevail; one must rely on fear.”17 Cannon fire not only killed and maimed but also terrified soldiers because it inflicted such catastrophic wounds, smashing and tearing bodies. The battle culture of forbearance emphasized not so much inflicting casualties as demonstrating that one could absorb enemy fire and continue to fight and advance without breaking or flinching. As the great French monarch Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715), explained, “Good order makes us look assured, and it seems enough to look brave because most often our enemies do not wait for us to approach near enough for us to have to show whether we are in fact brave.”18 An orderly advance under the gaze of the enemy was equated with victory; the attacker must appear to be unshakable. This emphasis on taking losses with a stoic, hitme-with-your-best-shot mentality may seem counterinstinctual, but it was regarded as the best way to come to grips with the enemy and overthrow him psychologically. The surprising truth is that seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe developed a battle culture based less on fury than on forbearance.

Battle Avoidance Forbearance demanded a willingness to pay a heavy cost in casualties as an essential preliminary to victory. Moreover, even though forbearance guaranteed that battles would be bloody, it could not guarantee that they would be decisive. During the Nine Years’ War, Louis XIV explicitly ordered his finest commander, Marshal François-Henri de Montmorency, duc de Luxembourg (1628–95), to engage in maneuvers and skirmishes and avoid pitched battle: “Make use of my cavalry rather

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than engaging yourself in an infantry battle, which causes the loss of a lot of men but which never decides anything.”19 In fact, the ancien régime provides few examples of battles that ended major wars. The presence of numerous fortified towns and the dependence on cumbersome logistics made it difficult to turn a victory into decisive military or political success. Wars tended to drag on until exhaustion settled the matter. Given the sure cost and and risky nature of battle, Enlightenment pundits advised against it and sought alternatives. The tendency of rulers and generals to eschew battle expressed a characteristic of the age: a reluctance to accept chance and a preference for the predictable, attitudes that perfectly reflected Enlightenment concepts of reason and control. War by rules and principles disdained chaos. This was linear in the mathematical sense, since military action should produce an expected and knowable result. The impressive Marshal Maurice de Saxe (1696–1750) claimed that “war can be made without leaving anything to chance. And this is the highest point of perfection and skill in a general.” He also counseled, “I do not favor pitched battles, especially at the beginning of a war, and I am convinced that a skillful general could make war all his life without being forced into one.”20 Dietrich Heinrich Freiherr von Bülow (1757–1807), repeated this sentiment: “It is always possible to avoid a battle.”21 Frederick the Great may have written early in his career that “war is decided only by battles, and it is not finished except by them.”22 But he also had more conventional opinions about combat: “Most generals in love with battle resort to this expedient for want of other resources.”23 Seen in this light, it is not surprising that siege warfare was so important during this time. It promised a better return on the investment in money and blood. It was scientific and sure; Vauban’s system of conducting sieges promised success by a calculated timetable. This scientific predictability, in addition to the regular geometry of fortress construction and siege lines, also harmonized with contemporary Enlightenment tastes.

The Vile Common Soldier Up to this point, our analysis has combined a traditional emphasis on technology with a sense of Enlightenment culture, but there is more

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to consider. The battle culture of forbearance also grew out of a disparaging view of the common soldiers in the ranks as untrustworthy individuals devoid of honor and best controlled with fear. In 1747, just a few years after Frederick the Great was saved by the solid performance of his infantrymen at Mollwitz, he explained that his army was “composed for the most part of idle and inactive men.”24 This perception that soldiers were of low character was not simply a Prussian conclusion but was typical of the reigning international military culture. The Enlightenment philosopher, or philosophe, Louis de Jaucourt (1704–79), writing in 1751, argued that “soldiers in the countries of Europe are truly . . . the most vile portion of the subjects of the nation.”25 The French general and renowned military reformer Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, comte de Guibert (1743–90), wrote in 1772 that in Europe, the soldier’s profession was “abandoned to the most vile and miserable class of citizens.”26 Claude Louis, comte de Saint-Germain (1707–78), who served as the French minister of war from 1775 to 1777, dismissed his own rank and file as “the slime [la bourbe] of the nation and all that is useless to society.”27 Such opinions, while certainly dominant, were not universal. Some officers recognized either that their soldiers were better men than the stereotype allowed or that the rank and file had the potential to be transformed into admirable citizens. These more positive sentiments were more likely to be expressed during the last decades of the eighteenth century than earlier, as Julia Osman has observed.28 Nevertheless, seemingly more generous opinions might voice a paternalism that simply replaced condemnation with condescension. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, reported a conversation with a British officer in America: “One of their officers, a subaltern, observed to me that his soldiers were infants that required constant attention.”29 Given the general belief that soldiers came from the lowest elements of society, military leaders crafted a discipline based primarily on fear, designed to achieve obedience in the midst of the duress and danger of battle. Frederick the Great famously advised in his Military Testament (1768), “And because officers must lead their soldiers into the greatest dangers, and the rank and file cannot be inspired by ambition, the common soldier must fear his officer more than the dangers to which he is exposed.”30 Convinced that French soldiers were “the slime of the nation,” Saint-German argued, “We must turn to military discipline as the

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means of purifying this corrupt mass, of shaping it and making it useful.”31 During the Enlightenment, harsh views were shared not only by military officers but also by men of letters. The philosophe Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715–71) commented in his De l’esprit (1758) that “discipline is, in a manner, nothing else but the art of inspiring soldiers with a greater fear of their officers than of the enemy.”32 The very English Edward Gibbon praised the Romans by reporting that “it was an inflexible maxim of Roman discipline, that a good soldier should dread his officers far more than the enemy.”33 With men who could not be expected to do their duty unless ordered to do so, discipline, always important, was paramount. As Maurice de Saxe testified, discipline “is the soul of all armies.”34 Even Joseph Marie Servan de Gerbey (1741–1808), a French military officer and reformer who advocated a citizen army, lamented that “our discipline is only to inspire in the soldiers more fear of their officers than of their enemy.”35 In order for troops to be controlled by fear, they had to be constantly supervised by their officers. Frederick the Great explained his reluctance to trust his soldiers in night attacks because “the major part of the soldiery require the eye of their officers, and the fear of punishments, to induce them to do their duty.”36 This need for watchfulness began at the top. “Unless the general has a constant eye upon them and obliges them to do their duty, this artificial machine, which with greatest care cannot be made perfect, will very soon fall to pieces.”37 The infantry battle line made a good deal of sense in technological terms when the goal was to mass fire forward. But it made even more sense as a formation that allowed officers and sergeants to closely observe and strictly control the men under their command. Sergeants usually stood in the rear, not the front, as a threat to those men who might panic in battle. The line was not simply a technological convenience but a perceived command necessity. Not surprisingly, desertion was a major concern for commanders who led such troops. Not only were soldiers less than trustworthy, but the rigid discipline believed necessary to control them gave them an added incentive to desert. During the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14), the French secretary of war, Michel Chamillart (1652–1721), exhorted one of his agents in the field to increase his diligence because, he said, “I know that desertion is great everywhere and it is a major evil and that after so

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many efforts and infinite care, one can count on nothing for certain!”38 Desertion rates varied from army to army, regiment to regiment, and peacetime to wartime. The historian André Corvisier’s calculations put the desertion rate for the entire French army between 1716 and 1749 at nearly 23 percent. In the Vivarais regiment, for example, the average desertion rate was twice as high during wartime as during peacetime.39 The Russians, who were particularly hard on their men, are supposed to have lost 20,000 soldiers to desertion in 1732 alone.40 Military textbooks often charge the Prussians with very high desertion rates as well, but more recent scholarship argues that desertion rates were fairly low for the Prussians, at least in peacetime. Between 1713 and 1739, the rate averaged only 1.9 percent.41 And yet Frederick was constantly concerned with stopping desertion. His instructions to his generals state that “one of the most essential duties of a general officer . . . is to prevent desertion.” This is followed by a list of fourteen principles to follow, such as not camping close to woods, lest the soldiers disappear into the trees, and not marching at night, because deserters can use the dark for cover.42 At one point, Frederick hit on something profound when he contrasted three sources of military motivation: fear, reward, and honor. “For the officer, honor is reserved. . . . Nothing therefore must incite the officer but honor, which carries its own recompense; but the soldier is driven and restrained and educated to discipline by reward and fear.”43 Modern social science talks of behavior in terms of compliance: ways in which individuals are induced to “comply” with the demands of military authority.44 In an immediate sense, enduring the discomfort, suffering, and danger of a military campaign is hardly an obvious choice—better to avoid the risks. Something, therefore, had to be put on the other side of the balance to tip the scale in the right direction. Historically, this was physical coercion, material reward, or symbolic reward, termed coercive compliance, remunerative compliance, and normative compliance. Coercion compels compliance by force and fear. The soldier obeys because he has no choice or because disobedience guarantees a sure and severe punishment. Remuneration is held out as a benefit that compensates the soldier for his effort and risk. This could be the hope of plunder gained from the defeated, a cash reward, or, as in medieval Europe, the bargain of land and labor in exchange for military service. Normative compliance

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is the most complex. Here the rewards are not material but psychological: praise, respect, or a sense that one has done the right thing. This last turns out to be the most effective, but it requires the soldier to identify with the state, the military, and/or his unit; he must see his efforts as measured by something greater than his own immediate interest. Because the so-called vile slime and scum who made up the rank and file were presumed to be incapable of such lofty sentiments, officers believed that they had to convince them to perform their duties by means of the stick of physical coercion and the carrot of material reward. Honor as a standard of normative compliance was reserved for a higher-minded sort of human being—the aristocratic officer—who was compelled by the standards set by his social class.

Social Prejudice: Honor as an Aristocratic Monopoly To grant aristocrats a nearly exclusive monopoly on honor was more than simply a compliment; it was a defense of noble prestige, privilege, and power. As the social class uniquely qualified to provide the army’s officer corps and to command the common soldiers who could not function properly without its direction, the aristocracy deserved its special status. Its own social prejudices simultaneously justified and reinforced its social privilege. Consequently, aristocrats’ class attitudes shaped military culture and, ultimately, tactical practice. The privileges enjoyed by continental European aristocratic elites included land, wealth, and political and social preeminence. Among their specific advantages, aristocrats enjoyed tax breaks, including outright exemptions, and dominance over political and military offices. Although such privileges varied considerably from place to place and evolved over time, they were important both materially and symbolically. In general, birth determined aristocratic status, although it was possible, as in France, to purchase government positions that accorded noble status to the individual and his descendants. In England, the highest nobles were known as peers, and there were relatively few of them. However, the wealthy and influential landed gentry served as a meeting ground for families of old lineage and the rising new rich. Even though the French nobility was larger and more inclusive than the British peerage, it still amounted to only about 1 percent of the French population.

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The roots of the military aristocracy extended back to the Middle Ages. Although medieval armies contained large numbers of commoners, particular as foot soldiers, the more elite, heavily armed cavalry included landholders and their retinues, men we usually call knights, who were culturally elevated as the paragon warriors of their day. They served monarchs and great lords as fighters in expectation of rewards— usually confirmation of or increases in their lands and their authority over the peasants who worked the soil—and so the military aristocracy increasingly became ideologically, economically, and socially ensconced as a privileged class. With the waning of the Middle Ages, aristocrats evolved from individualistic fighting knights to officers who served their rulers by leading troops composed of lower-class combatants. Military service nevertheless remained the fundamental justification for the privileges and powers that aristocrats enjoyed. Defending their tax privileges, French nobles pointed to the fact that they paid an impôt de sang, a tax in blood. Thus, both interest and self-image led the nobility to clamor for military service. In the sixteenth century, the aristocratic philosopher Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) wrote, “The proper, sole and essential life for one of the nobility of France is the life of a soldier.”45 Young French nobles rushed for commissions at the start of each war. One military commissioner wrote to the minister of war during the Dutch War (1672–78) that it was “a marvel to see the quantity of people of high birth and others . . . who are eager to have employment [as officers].”46 Aristocrats saw themselves fundamentally as the repositories of military talents and sacrifice. The Prussian king Frederick William I (r. 1713–40) required the sons of his aristocracy to man his officer corps, and they came to see it as their natural place. The Prussian monarchy rewarded those who served with status and gave them preference for posts. The nobilities of other states also desired military service as their proper role and one that instilled glory. In 1784, an aristocratic observer said of the Piedmontese aristocracy, “A predilection for the military life was the dominant passion among the young nobles.”47 Aristocratic culture, and therefore the military culture that was shaped as a reflection of aristocrats’ prejudices, defined men in the ranks as “vile” inferior souls who could see no further than their own short-term benefit, who lacked higher standards, and thus who could

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be moved only by physical punishment and material reward. They may have composed the vast majority of the army, but they had little military value without their aristocratic officers to supervise, control, and lead them. So even if men of noble and privileged birth did not constitute the entire army, its entire worth depended on them. To concede that the troops themselves might be worthy men—and thus potent on the battlefield without constant direction—would be to question the right of the aristocracy to its high social status and the rewards that flowed from it. The historian Yuval Harari has advanced another idea that stresses the officers’ demand for control over the men in the ranks. He believes that consciously or unconsciously, the educated aristocratic officer regarded his relationship with the common soldier in the context of the mind/body split implicit in contemporary philosophy, as exemplified by René Descartes (1596–1650). Mind and body were two dimensions of human existence, related but distinct and often pulling in different directions. Admirable individuals imposed the superiority of the mind over the body, which Harari sees as a metaphor for the relationship between officer and common soldier: “Whereas the common soldiers were increasingly seen as automatons, and were taught to identify with the body, officers . . . were taught to identify with their minds, and to conceive their entire being in the army as that of ‘minds.’”48 Interestingly, when British officers were removed from their men while held as prisoners of war in 1781, one officer described it as “the separation of soul and body.”49 Harari here brings the high culture of philosophy to bear on the military culture of the age. This should not come as a surprise because military thought regularly displays the imprint of the intellectual climate in which it arises. The military reforms of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries can be seen as a kind of military Renaissance in that they consciously revived elements of classical Roman practice, and unquestionably the Enlightenment affected military thought. So Harari’s conclusion is not at all far-fetched: “War in the early modern period was the supreme model for the victory of mind over body.”50

Drill: Making the Body Obey the Mind Unreliable troops were trained to submit to the will of honorable officers through drill, which could be said to be the way in which the mind of

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the officer exerted dominance over the body of the soldier. Drill became absolutely integral to battle culture during the seventeenth century— what the scholar Michael Roberts terms “the revolution in drill.”51 No French monarch surpassed Louis XIV’s intense interest in drill. He was convinced that “many more battles are won by good march order and by good bearing than by sword blows and musketry. . . . This habit of marching well and of keeping order can only be acquired by drill.”52 Here again, he repeated the theme that the maintenance of disciplined order alone, rather than bloody combat, wins battles. Not surprisingly, this was the age in which drill regulations came into their own. In the past, men acquired weapons skills through individual instruction and personal application and learned to be competent in group tactics through practice with their comrades. What modern drill did was to synchronize movements among soldiers by defining those movements in the precise form and sequence to be performed on command and then by compelling troops to follow them exactly by constant, supervised repetition—what Wayne Lee has identified as collective synchronized discipline.53 Punishment threatened those who did not make their bodies conform to command. This required a master plan of movements, from individual loading and firing to company, battalion, and regimental maneuvers. A critical step along this path was the publication in 1607 of Wapenhandlinghe van Roers, Musquetten ende Spiesson by Jacob de Gheyn (1565–1629). This manual broke down the handling of matchlock firearms and pikes into a series of exact positions, which were illustrated by engravings. For example, de Gheyn illustrated forty-three positions for loading and firing the matchlock musket. Drill manuals available to officers expanded to include the deployment of military units in battle. Initially, individual commanders followed their own preferences in drill. But even though not all regiments drilled exactly alike, they all drilled, and the tendency was toward increasing regularity. The first decades of the eighteenth century seem to have been central to the process of establishing obligatory, governmentprescribed regulations that standardized the manual of arms and company and battalion drill; Prussian drill took form during the reign of Frederick William I. New regulations in 1753 and 1754 established armywide standards for the French. The 1754 regulation, for instance, was the

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first French ordinance to stipulate explicitly that troops were to march together in step.54 Military commanders were required to drill their men frequently. Beginning in the 1660s, Louis XIV ordered individuals to maintain their personal skills, companies to drill at least twice a week, and entire garrisons to drill weekly. During summer, training camps were required for entire field armies. At a camp near Bouquenon on the Sarre, established in the summer of 1683, Louis visited his troops. The infantry drilled within their companies from 5 to 10 a.m. and then maneuvered by battalion or brigade 4 to 7 p.m. Once a week, the entire assemblage of 24 battalions of infantry maneuvered as a whole.55 The camp held near Compiègne in 1698 included 53 infantry battalions and 152 cavalry squadrons with 40 cannon.56 The camp lasted two weeks and involved not only drills but also a mock battle, an attack on entrenchments, and practice at escorting convoys. Prussian military exercises became famous during the eighteenth century, somewhat to the amusement of Frederick the Great, who seemed entertained by the way in which visiting foreign officers observing the exercises hoped to unravel the key to his victories. His field exercises also were very large, involving 44,000 troops in 1753.57 Drill was, of course, a way of regulating the handling of weapons in combat, but it was ultimately about conquering the men in the ranks by substituting routine for initiative. It was intended to make the private soldiers’ obedience an instrument for their officers’ honor.

Social Reality: Worthy Men in the Ranks The battle culture of forbearance may have been built on assumptions concerning the nature of the men in the ranks, but were those assumptions justified? Were common soldiers, by and large, men devoid of honor and initiative, incapable of fulfilling their duty if not closely supervised and directed? If not, then the battle culture of forbearance stands as a cultural construction that reduced military effectiveness in order to protect the privileges of the elites. Social studies by scholars such as André Corvisier, Sylvia Frey, Matthew Spring, Edward Coss, and Sabina Loriga tell a tale that differs significantly from the stereotypes embraced during the eighteenth cen-

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tury.58 The myth has it that the common soldier was likely to be a man with little substance and, perhaps, a criminal past. The best research indicates, however, that eighteenth-century recruits were most likely to be castoffs of the economic system rather than outcasts from society. In France, recruits entered service by three different routes. Peasant lads, particularly younger sons with little chance for land or employment, might sign on to serve under a local noble in what André Corvisier calls “seigneurial recruitment.”59 This willing recruitment of solid peasant youth supplied much of a regiment’s needs in peacetime. Recruiting parties scoured the towns for additional manpower, which was particularly important in wartime. When demand was high, these parties used liquor, trickery, and women to entice enlistment and, when all else failed, turned to coercion. Still, their primary targets were men down on their luck, not ne’er-do-wells. Finally, during the eighteenth century, France, as did other continental European states, instituted a form of limited conscription to create the provincial milice, or militia, to flesh out the army in time of war. Recruits were chosen for the milice by lot, tirage au sort, at local gatherings. This was not slanted toward undesirables but took away sons from good peasant families. Consequently, the rural population resented the milice, as one government minister reported, because “each tirage was the signal for the greatest disorders in the countryside.”60 As an example of a soldier brought in by recruiting parties, consider Claude Le Roy. He was born in 1767 in the village of Talmay but could not remain there owing to the lack of economic opportunities.61 Being adventurous, he spent with an uncle some years at sea as a cabin boy, but when he returned to his village, it still offered only a hardscrabble existence. He learned the trade of hatmaking from a local hatter and went to Paris to try to get a job, but this was a naïve idea, since he knew how to make only country hats and the Parisian guild blocked him from gaining employment. He was down to his last coins when he and a friend who had come to Paris with him heard the drums of a recruitment party, and they signed up in 1784. Claude served throughout the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon, eventually reaching the rank of major. Prussian service relied on foreign recruits, native volunteers, and conscripted peasants. An unusually high percentage of foreigners entered Prussian service, and in the mid-1750s they constituted about half

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the army.62 Voluntary enlistments by native Prussians added more men but not nearly enough, so starting in 1733 the Prussians instituted a very effective form of compulsory service, the canton system. Young men from the countryside were chosen by lot to shoulder the musket as parttime soldiers in regular regiments associated with their local areas, or cantons. After training, they returned home to carry on relatively normal civil lives for ten months of the year in peacetime, and during the other two summer months, they returned to drill with their regiments. Frederick encouraged such men to raise families “so as to populate the country, and to preserve the stock, which is admirable”: the soldier as breeding stock.63 The canton system maximized agricultural production and army size at minimum cost, since the cantonists were not paid during their ten months at home. During the eighteenth century, other German states, including Wurttemberg and Hesse-Kassel, adopted versions of the canton system.64 English volunteer recruitment also netted a better quality of recruit than the oft-repeated stereotypes would have us believe. It is true that British laws allowed local authorities to conscript men who were a burden on the community. The 1778 press law—that is, the law decreeing the impressment, or conscription, of men—targeted “all able bodied loose idle and disorderly persons, vagrants,” which included “all persons convicted by due course of law of cheating deceiving and imposing upon their employers.”65 But even though this law netted men, they were regarded as particularly untrustworthy and liable to desert the army, so they were sent off to outposts, such as the West Indies, where desertion was difficult.66 Studies by both Sylvia Frey, on the American Revolution, and Edward Coss, on the later conflict in Spain against the Napoleonic French, argue that pressed men were not sent to the primary war fronts. These scholars dismiss the idea that the British soldier was “the scum of the earth,” as the Duke of Wellington would call the men he commanded against Napoleon.67 Rather, they had more in common with Claude Le Roy: solid men compelled by economic hard times to enlist. Social reality, therefore, did not match the cultural perception held by the aristocracy, and there also is very good reason to question the aristocratic prejudice that there was no honor among common soldiers. In fact, there is every reason to believe that common soldiers adhered to their own codes of honor. The most prevalent reference group for

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establishing and enforcing soldiers’ codes was the small group of comrades who shared life and its discomforts and dangers. In the French army, this was the mess group, or ordinaire. In other armies, this might be a similar mess group or squad. Modern military sociology labels this the primary group, but it can be humanized as the “band of brothers” so commonly found in armies throughout the ages. Many volumes have been written on primary group cohesion in modern armed forces, and the concept can also be usefully applied to earlier eras, such as the eighteenth century.68 In a historical paradox, drill—which was a reaction to a belief that soldiers had no honor—may have fostered stronger bonds between the rank and file, bonds that inspired honorable conduct among them. The historian William H. McNeill argues that rhythmical moving together in drill creates a kind of “muscular bonding” as the body affects the mind. “Prolonged drill allowed soldiers, recruited from the fringes of an increasingly commercialized society, . . . to create a new, artificial primary community among themselves. . . . Men who had little else to be proud of could share an esprit de corps with their fellows and glory in their collective sufferings and prowess.”69 While Frederick the Great clearly regarded honor as a superior motivation that inspired his officers alone, he recognized that the rank and file could be moved by esprit de corps, and he welcomed its utility: “All you can do with the soldier, is to give him esprit de corps, that is a higher opinion of his regiment than of all the other troops in the world.”70 Pride in the unit set a code of behavior. One gravely wounded French sergeant made light of his wounds with the remark, “It is nothing; the regiment has shown itself well.”71 A soldier group’s elements of honor differed from the standards held by its officers. For example, it is unlikely that soldiers fought over the status of their family. But the troops surely enforced codes of bravery and responsibility among themselves. Even Frederick the Great stated in his instructions to his generals, “Besides this, the soldiers will not suffer a man to remain amongst them who has betrayed any symptoms of shyness.”72 André Corvisier found that French soldiers “often forced their officers to expel a man for ‘low’ behavior, perhaps for having mistreated a comrade or for having given a bad impression of the military valor of the corps.”73 A British officer serving in America issued instructions to

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his officers in 1780 stressing responsibility born of comradeship in the ranks: “The man who at any time behaves unfaithfully by his comrade must be despised, and he who abandon[s] his friend in danger [must] become infamous.”74 As a parallel to the frequent dueling among their honor-conscious officers, common soldiers tested the manliness of new recruits by forcing them to fight in a kind of blood rite of passage. French soldiers reported clandestine duels of this kind in the mid-eighteenth century, when sometimes the weapon used was a bayonet.75 The noted historian Jean Chagniot concluded that “combat with edged weapons was in effect a kind of rite of initiation for the recruit, and he dare not hide from it under penalty of being discredited.”76

Reform? Despite evidence to the contrary, aristocratic officers were not disposed to accept that while many rogues may have found refuge in the army, the men in the ranks often were solid men with their own sense of honor. Such men might have been trained to bring out qualities other than strict obedience and to fight in other ways than the rigid linear warfare that dominated in Europe. But while reformers glimpsed some possibilities during the second half of the eighteenth century, particularly when experimenting with light infantry, ultimately there is no reason to believe that European military elites had any intention of tearing down the social divide between honorable aristocratic officers and a denigrated rank and file. The second half of the eighteenth century brought some reforms that raised the professional level of the aristocratic officer corps, supplied better technology (particularly artillery), and carried out some tactical experiments (particularly with light infantry). These reforms, however, did not fundamentally alter the social, cultural, and tactical assumptions that formed the basis of European warfare. In France, military reform even moved in the opposite direction when the Ségur Law of 1781 further restricted the officer corps to the old noble families. Under this law, commissions were essentially reserved only for those men who could prove four generations of noble descent. The door to the officer corps had never been wide open to those without a noble pedigree, but some

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men from the middle class or from very recently ennobled families had found a place there. This law subsequently closed the door and locked it.

Necessity or Choice? Social Revolution and Tactical Innovation The development of new tactics and a new military culture as a result of the French Revolution provides a test for the facts, findings, and speculations advanced thus far in this chapter. Given the relative stability in weapons technology from the late reign of Louis XIV through the Napoleonic wars, whatever fundamental changes in battlefield tactics affected Europe after 1789 cannot be ascribed to technological innovation but, instead, to alterations in other foundations of the battle culture of forbearance. The tumultuous events of 1789 in Paris changed the French from subjects into citizens and soldiers from vile to virtuous. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen passed by the new National Assembly in August declared equal political and civil rights for all, ending the special status and privileges of the aristocracy. Soldiers, once feared as instruments of an old and oppressive government, were now redefined as defenders of a new and liberating regime. Only days after the fall of the Bastille on July 14, the journalist Camille Desmoulins (1760–94) declared, “Brave soldiers, mingle with your brothers, receive their embraces. You are no longer the satellites of the despot, the jailors of your brothers. You are our friends, our fellows, citizens, and soldiers of the Patrie.”77 There was more than a little wishful thinking in these words, since the revolutionaries rightly feared that the king might still turn his troops against the people. In the name of defending against this possible threat, the city of Paris, followed almost immediately by other cities and towns, quickly created its own citizen militia, the National Guard. The soldier and politician Edmond Louis Alexis Dubois-Crancé (1747–1815) thus could claim with more authority in December 1789, “Is it not an honor to be a soldier, when this title is that of defender of the Constitution of his country?”78 War broke out in the spring of 1792, and regiments of the old royal army and battalions of the new National Guard marched off to the frontiers. On August 10, crowds stormed the Parisian palace where the king and queen resided and arrested them. France thus became a re-

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public, and the republican soldier in the ranks came to enjoy a political cachet even greater than that of his officer. Before the Revolution, the officer was regarded positively as a man of honor, while the common soldier was considered dangerous; however, this popular vision changed with the coming of war. In 1792 and 1793, leading generals, notably the Marquis de Lafayette—once a hero of the American Revolution—and Charles Dumouriez, tried to use their troops to restore the monarchy in France. In the eyes of the revolutionaries, such men were traitors who demonstrated that the ambition of the officer corps could become a threat to the republic. Officers were needed, of course, but they were not entirely trusted. Conversely, the common soldier fought and died for the republic without the hope of personal gain; he sacrificed for the public welfare. Pierre Gillet, a member of the National Convention who went to the front, proclaimed in April 1794, “The soldiers are like the people, they are good.”79 In contrast to the royal minister of war, SaintGermain, who had condemned the common soldier as “slime,” the republican minister of war, Jean-Baptiste Bouchotte, testified simply, “The soldiers are good.”80 Now that soldiers enjoyed high repute, more was expected of them, and the armies of revolutionary France developed a far more demanding, flexible, and effective tactical system, particularly for the infantry.81 The line remained for massing firepower, most notably on the defensive. But when on the attack, the infantry now formed in columns, which, standing twelve men deep, were only one-quarter the width of lines and thus more nimble. Little concerned with parade-ground alignment and intended to take advantage of the enthusiasm of men dedicated to defending their new society and government, columns swept forward swiftly, often with the men cheering or singing in the ranks. Ideally, attacks were prepared by swarms of light-infantry skirmishers who unsettled the enemy resistance. These skirmishers fought as individuals, seeking cover and selecting targets on their own. If need be, entire regular line battalions could be trusted to fight in this fashion. This combination of line, column, and skirmishers took some time to develop, but it became known as the ordre mixte, or mixed order, in which regiments deployed two of their battalions in column, joined together by one in line, with the whole covered by skirmishers. This became Napoleon’s favorite formation for infantry.

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Other European armies had to adjust to the new French way of war. Superficially, this meant copying French tactical forms, but far more fundamentally, it meant accepting a new view of the common soldier. Different armies adopted varying levels of reform, but all had to respond. After the Prussians were defeated and humiliated by Napoleon in 1806, they went the furthest to reform their military institutions, whereas, for example, the Russians underwent a more modest reform. The English innovated tactically but kept their eighteenth-century style of recruitment and elite command. It is important to realize that tactical innovation after 1789 did not depend on technological innovation, so it is clear that technology did not determine a single way of fighting. Although other European armies found that the more accurate muzzle-loading rifled weapons were particularly useful for skirmishers, the French retained their smoothbores. Even though the Prussian tests referred to earlier demonstrated that rifles were three times more accurate, they also took three times longer to load, because the musket ball had to fit very tightly into the barrel. Thus, if a soldier with a smoothbore had enough ammunition, he could do as much damage in a given amount of time as could a rifleman. Speaking of the Prussian case, the historian Peter Paret concluded, “This should help dismiss the argument . . . that technological deficiencies forbade the more general employment of skirmishing in the old Prussian army. On the contrary, the necessary equipment existed, but the leadership of the army was unwilling to make use of it.”82 The great Prussian general Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst (1755–1813) admitted, “Good marksmanship is always the most important thing for the infantry—it always decides the action. Before the war [with Napoleon in 1806] we taught the men to load quickly, but not well, to fire quickly, but without aiming. This was very ill-considered; we must therefore work with all out might to root out this error.”83

Conclusion Frederick II, so often victorious and, on occasion, brilliantly so, was not a great innovator; rather, he was a consummate practitioner in the context of the battle culture of forbearance. At Mollwitz, although he was just learning the art of command, his officers already had mastered the

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tactics of this battle culture by mastering their men; Frederick’s father, King Frederick William I, had seen to that. Frederick thus defined an age not by his genius but by his conformity. In studying the battle culture of forbearance that Frederick exemplified, there is much to learn. First, we must examine critically the concept of technological determinacy in war. Ways of war certainly must fit within the parameters of contemporary weaponry, but the same weapons can be used differently by different battle cultures. Second, military cultures, like other categories of culture, must be put in the context of the divisions within society. Social class exerted a very great influence in shaping the battle culture of forbearance. The more complex a society is, the more competing cultural constructions vie with one another over conceptions of war and the warrior. Differences in social class, gender, and identity influence cultural conceptions, but the subcategories of analysis may also be much more nuanced than these basic splits. Third, radical changes in society are very likely to bring with them radical changes in military culture, and these often mean a greater or lesser change in the conduct of war. The greatest fractures or transformations in military thought and practice quite often are determined by changes that are not originally military, as was the case with the French Revolution. Notes

1. An Austrian officer, quoted in Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, vol. 4 (London: Chapman and Hall, 1898), 129. 2. Ibid. 3. David G. Chandler, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough (New York: Hippocrene, 1976), 76–77. 4. Ibid., 77. 5. Peter Paret, Yorck and the Era of Prussian Reform, 1807–1815 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966), 271–73. 6. John A. Lynn, “Forging the Western Army in Seventeenth-Century France,” in The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300–2050, ed. Williamson Murray and McGregor Knox (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 43. 7. For details on Gribeauval cannon, see David G. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon (New York: Macmillan, 1966), 358–59. 8. Matti Lauerma, L’artillerie de champagne française pendant les guerres de la Révolution (Helsinki: Akateeminen Kirjakauppa, 1956), 16. 9. Chandler, Art of Warfare, 146, 171.

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10. Maurice de Saxe estimates seven or eight minutes to cover 300 paces. Figuring a pace as 30 inches, 300 paces equal 250 yards. See Maurice de Saxe, Mes réveries (Amsterdam: Arestée et Merkus, 1757), 70. 11. Frederick II, The Instructions of Frederick the Great for His Generals, 1747, trans. Thomas R. Phillips, in Roots of Strategy, ed. Thomas R. Phillips (Harrisburg, PA: Military Service Publishing, 1940), 388–89. 12. Catinat, in Camille Rousset, Histoire de Louvois, 4 vols. (Paris: Didier, 1862–64), 4:524. 13. Catinat, in Jean Colin, L’infanterie au XVIIIe siècle: La tactique (Paris: BergerLevrault, 1907), 25. 14. Paul Azan, Un tacticien du XVIIe siècle (Paris: Chapelot, 1904), 91. 15. Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban, A Manual of Siegecraft and Fortification, trans. G. A. Rothrock (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1968), 123. 16. J. R. Donald, in Journal of the Royal Highland Fusiliers 24, no. 2 (2000), quoted at http://www.phrases.org.uk/ (accessed September 4, 2010). 17. Frederick II, “Das militärische Testament,” in Militärische Schriften, ed. Nikolas von Taysen (Berlin: Richard Wilhelmi, 1882), 205. 18. Louis XIV, Mémoires de Louis XIV pour l’instruction du dauphin, ed. Charles Dreyss, vol. 2 (Paris: Didier, 1860), 112–13. 19. Louis XIV to Luxembourg, August 1691, in Rousset, Histoire de Louvois, 4:510. 20. Maurice de Saxe, My Reveries on the Art of War, in Phillips, Roots of Strategy, 298– 99. 21. Bülow, quoted in Azar Gat, Origins of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to Clausewitz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 85. 22. Frederick II, Instructions, 391. 23. Frederick II, quoted in R. R. Palmer, “Frederick the Great, Guibert, Bülow: From Dynastic to National War,” in Makers of Modern Strategy, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), 103. 24. Frederick II, Military Instruction from the Late King of Prussia to His Generals, trans. Major Foster, 3rd ed. (Sherborne, UK: Cruttwell, 1797), 5–6. 25. Louis de Jaucourt, “Déserteur,” in Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, ed. Denis Diderot and Jean d’Alembert, vol. 4 (Paris: Briasson, David, Le Breton, and Durand, 1751), 881. 26. Guibert, quoted in Julia Osman, “The Citizen Army of Old Regime France” (PhD diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2010), 23. 27. Saint-Germain, quoted in M. Delarue, “L’éducation politique à l’armée du Rhin, 1793–1794” (master’s thesis, Université de Paris-Nanterre, 1967–68), 42. In this sense, bourbe is the slime or mud at the bottom of a puddle. 28. See Osman, “Citizen Army.” For other examples of more positive assessments of common soldiers and talk of a citizen army in the late 1770s and 1780s, see Matthew H. Spring, With Zeal and with Bayonet Only: The British Army on Campaign in North America, 1775–1783 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008).

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29. Benjamin Rush, quoted in Spring, With Zeal and with Bayonet Only, 107. 30. Frederick II, “Das militärische Testament,” 205. 31. Saint-Germain, quoted in Christopher Duffy, Military Experience in the Age of Reason (London: Routledge, 1987), 89–90. 32. Claude Adrien Helvétius, De l’esprit; or, Essays on the Mind, and Its Several Faculties (London: Dodley, 1759), 348. 33. Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1 (London: Strahan and Cadell, 1776), 11. 34. Maurice de Saxe, Reveries; or, Memoirs upon the Art of War (London: J. Nourse, 1757), 79. 35. Joseph Servan, quoted in Osman, “Citizen Army,” 141. 36. Frederick II, Military Instruction (1797), 112. 37. Ibid., 5–6. 38. Chamillart, quoted in Georges Girard, Le service militaire en France à la fin du règne de Louis XIV: Rocolage et milice, 1701–1715 (Paris: Plon, 1915), 325–26. 39. André Corvisier, L’armée française de la fin du XVIIe siècle au ministère du Choiseul: Le soldat, 2 vols. (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1964), 2:736–37. 40. M. S. Anderson, War and Society in Europe of the Old Regime (New York: St. Martin’s, 1988), 130. 41. Willerd R. Fann, “Peacetime Attrition in the Army of Frederick William I, 1713– 1740,” Central European History 11, no. 4 (1978): 327. 42. Frederick II, Military Instruction (1797), 3–5. 43. Frederick II, quoted in Alfred Vagts, A History of Militarism, Civilian and Military (New York: Free Press, 1959), 72–73. 44. For compliance theory as it applies to military motivation, see Steven D. Westbrook, “The Potential for Military Disintegration,” in Combat Effectiveness: Cohesion, Stress, and the Volunteer Military, ed. Sam C. Sarkesian (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1980), 244–78. 45. Michel de Montaigne, quoted in Maurice Keen, Chivalry (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984), 249. 46. Commissaire Lenfant to Louvois, quoted in Louis Tuetey, Les officiers de l’ancien régime. Nobles et roturiers (Paris: Plon, 1908), 61. 47. Augustino de Levis, quoted in Sabina Loriga, Soldats—un laboratoire disciplinaire: L’armée piémontaise au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Les belles lettres, 2007), 60. 48. Yuval Noah Harari, The Ultimate Experience: Battlefield Revelations and the Making of Modern War Culture, 1450–2000 (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan 2008), 118. 49. Ensign Thomas Anburey, speaking of the Convention Army at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, quoted in Spring, With Zeal and with Bayonet Only, 108. 50. Harari, Ultimate Experience, 124. 51. Michael Roberts, The Military Revolution, 1560–1660 (Belfast: University of Belfast Press, 1956), 10. 52. Louis XIV, Mémoires, 2:112–13.

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53. Wayne E. Lee, Barbarians and Brothers: Anglo-American Warfare, 1500–1865 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), chap. 3. 54. Colin, L’infanterie au XVIIIe siècle, 32. 55. Victor Belhomme, Histoire de l’infanterie en France, 5 vols. (Paris: CharlesLavauzelle, 1893–1902), 2:236–38. 56. Service historique de l’armée de terre, Archives de guerre, A2c 346, piece no. 3, Vincennes, France. 57. Dennis Showalter, “Frederick the Great: The First Modern Military Celebrity,” Military History, July–August 2007, available at http://www.historynet.com/ (accessed March 2, 2011). 58. Corvisier, L’armée française; Sylvia Frey, The British Soldier in America: A Social History of Military Life in the Revolutionary Period (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981); Spring, With Zeal and with Bayonet Only; and Loriga, Soldats, all tell a tale that differs significantly from the stereotypes embraced during the eighteenth century before 1789. In addition, Edward J. Coss, All for the King’s Shilling: The British Soldier under Wellington, 1808–1814 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010), describes a somewhat later period, but he reveals a strong continuity with eighteenth-century patterns for British forces. 59. Discussed in Corvisier, L’armée française, 1:165–78. 60. Anne Robert Turgot, quoted in Albert Duroy, L’armée royale en 1789 (Paris: Lévy, 1888), 42. 61. Claude-François-Madeleine Le Roy, Souvenirs du major Le Roy, vétéran des armées de la République et de l’Empire, 1767–1851, ed. Gabriel Dumay (Dijon: Berthier, 1914). 62. Willerd R. Fann, “Foreigners in the Prussian Army, 1713–56: Some Statistical and Interpretive Problems,” Central European History 23, no. 1 (1990): 82–84. 63. Frederick II, quoted in Barton Hacker, “Women and Military Institutions in Early Modern Europe: A Reconnaissance,” Signs 6, no 4 (1981): 660. 64. See Peter H. Wilson, “The German ‘Soldier Trade’ of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: A Reassessment,” International History Review 18, no. 4 (1996): 757–92. 65. The 1778 press law, quoted in Frey, British Soldier in America, 5. 66. Ibid., 6. 67. Wellington, quoted in Elizabeth Longford, Wellington: The Years of the Sword (New York: Harper and Row, 1969), 321. 68. For a discussion of primary group cohesion in the eighteenth century, see John A. Lynn, The Bayonets of the Republic (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996), chaps. 2 and 7. For a discussion of this in a seventeenth-century context, see John A. Lynn, Giant of the Grand Siècle (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), chap. 13. See also Frey, British Soldier in America; Spring, With Zeal and with Bayonet Only; Coss, All for the King’s Shilling. 69. William H. McNeill, Keeping Together in Time: Dance and Drill in Human History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 131.

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70. Frederick II, “Das militärische Testament,” 205. 71. Albert Babeau, La vie militaire sous l’ancien régime, vol. 1, Les soldats (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1890), 192. 72. Frederick II, Military Instruction (1797), 6. 73. André Corvisier, Armies and Societies in Europe, 1494–1789, trans. Abigail T. Siddall (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979), 182. 74. Major Patrick Ferguson, instruction to his American volunteers, January 1780, quoted in Spring, With Zeal and with Bayonet Only, 111. 75. See accounts of duels in Naoko Seriu, “Faire un soldat: Une histoire des hommes à l’épreuve de l’institution militaire” (PhD diss., École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2005), 270–74. 76. Jean Chagniot, Paris et l’armée au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Economica, 1985), 589. 77. Quoted in Cornwall B. Rogers, The Spirit of the Revolution in 1789: A Study of Public Opinion as Revealed in Political Songs and Other Popular Literature at the Beginning of the French Revolution (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1969), 210. 78. Quoted in Theodore Iung, L’armée de la Révolution, Dubois-Crancé, mousquetaire, constituant, conventionnel, général de division, ministre de guerre, vol. 2 (Paris: Charpentier, 1884), 16. 79. Quoted in Albert Mathiez, La victoire en l’an II (Paris: Alcan, 1916), 149. 80. Quoted in Auguste Herlaut, Le colonel Bouchotte, ministre de la guerre en l’an II, vol. 2 (Paris: Poisson, 1946), 128. 81. For the most complete analysis of tactical evolution in the first years of the French Revolution see Lynn, Bayonets of the Republic. 82. Paret, Yorck and the Era of Prussian Reform, 272. 83. Scharnhorst, quoted ibid., 158n10.

8

Success and Failure in Civil War Armies Clues from Organizational Culture Mark Grimsley

Musketry roiled the fields and woodlands along the beleaguered Union front at Chickamauga on September 20, 1863. Surprised the previous afternoon by a massive Confederate attack, the Union Army of the Cumberland braced for a day of combat that surely would be even more desperate. Division commander Brigadier General Thomas J. Wood, with trouble brewing in his own sector, received an urgent message from the headquarters of army commander Major General William S. Rosecrans. “The general commanding,” it read, “directs that you close up on Reynolds as fast as possible, and support him.” Wood realized at once that the order made no sense. The Reynolds to whom it referred, Major General Joseph Reynolds, commanded a division to the north of the sector that Wood was supposed to hold. To “close up” on Reynolds would mean shifting Wood’s own division to connect with the right flank of Reynolds’s division. But between those two divisions was a third under Brigadier General John M. Brannan, so it was obviously impossible to obey this portion of the order. Moreover, to “support” Reynolds’s division meant placing his own division to Reynolds’s rear. That, however, would open a gaping hole in the Union line.1 The obvious thing to do was to remain in place. The staff officer who brought the order quickly realized that it had been badly written and did not reflect Rosecrans’s intent, which was to have Wood’s division close up on Reynolds after Brannan’s division had moved back to allow this maneuver. He tried to explain this to Wood, but Wood refused to listen. The order was imperative, he said, and had to be obeyed at once. The staff officer begged him to wait just ten minutes so that he could ride back to Rosecrans’s headquarters—a mere six hundred yards away—and 182

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clarify the directive. Wood shook his head and carefully placed the slip of paper in a pocket notebook. But before doing so, he waggled it in front of his division staff. “I hold the fatal order of the day,” he said, “and would not part with it for five thousand dollars.”2 Wood then withdrew his division from its sector to place it behind Reynolds’s division. A few minutes later, when the Confederate assault began, thousands of rebel infantry poured through the gap created by Wood’s withdrawal. In the fighting that ensued, the Army of the Cumberland was nearly wrecked. Why on earth had Wood done such a thing? It transpired that in the days preceding September 20, Rosecrans had twice reprimanded Wood in full view of Wood’s staff for failing to carry out an order promptly enough. Wood’s literal obedience to an absurd order was—said many people then and later—a case of payback. Wood apparently wanted to discomfit Rosecrans so badly that he did not care that it might take the loss of a battle and hundreds of lives to do so. An act of greater pettiness would be hard to imagine. Among the units in Wood’s division was the 125th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Raised in August 1862, the regiment had never before fought in a major battle, but as the situation deteriorated, Wood repeatedly called on the 125th to shore up vulnerable sections of the Union line, in one instance ordering it to charge the enemy alone. Without hesitation, its colonel, thirty-four-year-old Emerson Opdycke, led his 314 men against superior numbers.3 Observing them, an admiring Wood shouted to everyone within earshot, “See the Tigers go in!”4 The charge bought time for other Union regiments to assemble for a stand at the crest of a nearby hill. The 125th soon joined them and for hours repelled one Confederate attack after another. Ordered by Major General George H. Thomas to hold the position to the last, Opdycke replied, “We will hold it, General, or go from here to heaven.”5 The colonel stubbornly remained on horseback, despite making himself an obvious target. His courage galvanized the men. Several generals complimented the regiment on its performance, but the men of the 125th relished most the description that Wood bestowed on them, and for the rest of the war they proudly called themselves “Opdycke’s Tigers.” They took equal pride in the fact that although this was their first battle, not a single man broke from the line. By the time the

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combat ended, one of every three men had been killed or wounded or was missing in action. It would be hard to find a greater contrast between the pettiness of General Wood and the blood-soaked sacrifice of the 125th Ohio. Yet the men of the 125th refused to see it that way. After the battle, they learned of the controversy surrounding Wood’s response to the “fatal order”—a response that, viewed rationally, had caused most of the unit’s losses. But the Ohioans rejected any narrative that made Wood seem less than a hero, for to do so would have tarnished the cherished regimental sobriquet: “Tigers.” Thus, in the postwar regimental history of the 125th, Captain Charles T. Clark insisted that “the fault lay with the writer of the ambiguous order” and that Wood did right in “hastening to the point where the uproar of battle, as well as the tenor of the order, indicated that prompt assistance was required.”6 What is going on here? One answer might be simply the idiosyncrasies of an individual general and one of the regiments under his command. But both the general and the regiment were part of organizations, and a better response would acknowledge the way in which those organizations shaped the values of the men within them. Success or failure in Civil War combat often turned on the organizational cultures that cocooned both the senior leaders and the rank and file.

A Definition of Organizational Culture Organizational culture derives from the modern conception of culture. This is not the everyday usage of high culture, in the sense of museums or classical music, but culture as explained by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz, whose definition has been enormously influential. Alluding to a famous statement that “man is an animal suspended in webs of significance that he himself has spun,” Geertz declared, “I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but rather an interpretive one in search of meaning.”7 By this reasoning, human gestures and customs, the architecture of buildings, and a thousand other things are all manifestations of culture, artifacts of the “webs of significance” that surround us and inform our beliefs about the nature of the world around us, the value systems to which we should adhere, our notions of appropriate behavior, and so on.

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Organizational culture therefore concerns the webs of significance found in specific institutions. While the concept usually is applied to modern corporations, it also applies to the modern military, although the goals of corporations and the US Army obviously differ. Nonetheless, civilian managers and military officers have long noticed commonalities between the skill sets required to be a good corporate executive and to be a good commander. Retired officers, for instance, routinely find second careers as business executives. We also might point to staff rides: military tours of battlefields that “combine a rigorous course of historical preparation with an examination of the terrain on which an actual battle occurred.”8 Once the exclusive province of military officers, in recent years business executives have used staff rides as tools for managerial development. Their reasoning is that key aspects of military leadership are analogous to the challenges of leadership in the business world. The army has enthusiastically assisted these efforts and even has looked to corporate management for clues to improving management within its own vast organization.9 At the US Army War College, for example, the mandatory Strategic Leadership course combines three theoretical models of organizational culture.10 The first draws on the work of the social psychologist Edgar H. Schein, who argues that to understand the culture of a specific organization, it is necessary to study three components: artifacts, values, and assumptions. Artifacts are on-the-job behaviors and other things— such as whether employees work in offices or cubicles, individually or in teams—that can be directly observed and studied. The overt values of an organization also can be observed because they are openly stated in corporations’ documents like statements of purpose and rules governing such matters as attendance and employees’ attire. The military counterparts are the oaths taken by officers and soldiers, injunctions such as “Duty, Honor, Country,” and the moral imperative that one must never leave a buddy behind. More elusive are an organization’s subterranean values—what might be called its “lived values.” Some of these actually contradict the stated values. For example, a corporation that ostensibly urges employees to think “outside the box” may in fact promote those who adhere to wellestablished customs and norms. This lived value is sufficiently obvious that few employees overlook it. Consequently, they will ignore hollow

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calls for innovative thinking in favor of conformity, which, they correctly discern, is the real way to get ahead in the organization. Undergirding these values (both stated and lived) are assumptions— taken-for-granted beliefs about human nature and the way in which the world operates.11 The Army War College considered this part of Schein’s model to be valuable but thought Schein’s explication of it was too “esoteric” to be an effective means of presenting the idea to officers.12 Searching for a way to introduce the idea of assumptions more clearly, they found it in the work of a group of analysts who devised the GLOBE project, a list of nine implicit values, termed dimensions, that could be placed on a scale from low to high, coupled with a statistically and conceptually valid way to quantify them.13 Of these, the Army War College course chose five dimensions as being the most relevant to the modern US Army: (1) high performance orientation, the extent to which an organization encourages and rewards innovation, high standards, and performance improvement; (2) in-group collectivism, the degree to which individuals express pride, loyalty, and cohesiveness in their organizations; (3) institutional collectivism, the degree to which the organization’s practices encourage and reward the collective distribution of resources and collective action; (4) power distance, the extent to which an organization accepts and endorses authority, power differences, and status privileges; and (5) assertiveness, the degree to which individuals are—and are expected to be—assertive, confrontational, and aggressive in their relationships with others. When assessing Civil War field armies, it is helpful to bear in mind a sixth dimension: uncertainty avoidance, the degree to which an organization relies on social norms, rules, and procedures to alleviate ambiguity and the unpredictability of future events.14 The war college also uses a third model created by the social psychologists Kim S. Cameron and Robert E. Quinn, who maintain that organizations can be placed somewhere on a quadrant with two scales of “competing values”: on the vertical scale, flexibility versus control; and on the horizontal scale, an internal focus on maintenance and integration versus an external focus on positioning and differentiation. This scheme results in four types of culture: hierarchy, clan, market, and adhocracy.15

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We will leave aside the last two cultures in favor of the ones most relevant to Civil War armies. The hierarchy culture corresponds to the traditional corporate model of strong top-down control. It best fits Civil War armies when assessing the interactions of the high command. The clan is more flexible. “Rather than strict rules and procedures,” the authors explain, “people are driven through vision, shared goals, outputs and outcomes.” Rules do exist “but are often communicated and instilled socially to reinforce [an organization’s] commitment to its people.”16 The clan model works well when assessing the organizational culture of the regiment, which was the fundamental building block of Civil War armies. The need to think in terms of two, not one, organizational culture types is imperative because organizations in the Civil War era differed from their modern counterparts in one crucial respect. Modern organizations have both the desire and the ability to exert their norms and values from the company president all the way down to the lowliest clerk. Their ability to do so hinges on a high degree of what the business historian Alfred D. Chandler terms administrative coordination. In 1860s America, however, this attribute had not yet emerged, although the first modern enterprises—the railroad and the telegraph—were beginning to develop it. Railroads needed administrative coordination for traffic to move efficiently and safely. Telegraph companies needed it to transmit efficiently the thousands of messages across their wires.17 Even though many Civil War officers were familiar with the railroad and telegraph industries, they had little interest in extending this incipient administrative coordination to Civil War armies and even less hope of doing so had they tried. Such armies were simply too cobbled together and too loose-jointed to permit it. Nonetheless, Civil War armies did have identifiable organizational cultures, and the most gifted leaders often displayed a sort of preconscious grasp of how organizational culture works. How do organizational cultures originate? Schein argues that they spring from three sources: the beliefs, values, and assumptions of the founders of organizations; the learning experiences of group members as their organization evolves; and/or new beliefs, values, and assumptions brought in by new members and leaders. Once created, these cultures are remarkably static and resistant to change. Managers locked

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within them display considerable ability to explain away even the most blatant evidence that their cultural norms are maladaptive. Consequently, changing the culture usually requires either a relentless, wellcalculated effort by a strong leader or else an “organizational shock,” a crisis that brutally exposes how much the organization’s self-perception departs from reality.18

Organizational Culture Applied to Civil War Armies Both contemporary observers and subsequent historians have long noticed that Civil War field armies seemed to have distinctive “personalities.” Some behaved with confident aggressiveness, others seemed notably cautious, and still others were riven by squabbles and rivalries that undercut both morale and effectiveness. Although historians have seldom given more than passing attention to the origins and persistence of these personalities, some have offered shrewd hypotheses. These can be roughly divided into three categories. The first emphasizes the societal cultures that allegedly influenced the armies. In 1978, Michael C. C. Adams wrote that the apparently excessive caution of Union armies in the eastern theater could be traced back to Northerners on the Atlantic seaboard who had a pronounced image of white Southerners as barbaric but militant and warlike. But this excessive caution did not influence Northerners from western states, and therefore these armies performed better. A few years later, Grady McWhiney and Perry D. Jamieson argued that the Celtic heritage of many white Southerners fostered among Confederate armies a reflexive, ultimately ruinous cult of the offensive.19 The second hypothesis emphasizes the nature of the Civil War armies, which were ad hoc organizations slightly leavened by officers with experience in the prewar regular army but were dominated by citizens in uniform whose principal allegiance was to their regiments. Gerald J. Prokopowicz advanced this thesis in a 2001 assessment of the Army of the Ohio during the war’s early years. “The reason that the Army of the Ohio . . . fought as it did in 1861–62,” he wrote, began with “the way in which it was recruited, trained, and organized. Assembled out of a collection of independent and fiercely clannish companies and regiments, the Army of the Ohio resembled a strong but ponderous beast whose

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component units could absorb enormous punishment on the battlefield without breaking, but which lacked the agility to execute the maneuvers necessary to destroy its enemies.” Although Prokopowicz restricted his analysis to the Army of the Ohio, he maintained that the same dynamic applied to all Civil War armies.20 The third hypothesis—and the one widely embraced by both contemporary observers and later historians—emphasizes the impact of army commanders, who were presumed to dominate the personality of the armies they led. Their mind-set influenced key subordinates, the theory ran, who in turn influenced lower-ranking officers. Thus, a timid commander fostered an army characterized by timidity, an aggressive commander fostered an aggressive army, and so on. Although none of these hypotheses explicitly uses the concept of organizational culture, they do form a useful point of departure. The main task is to expand, refine, and sometimes reframe these insights by exploring the organizational cultures that had the greatest impact on Civil War military operations: at the top, the hierarchical culture that characterized relations among the senior leadership and, at the bottom, the clannish culture that characterized relations between officers and men at the regimental level. This chapter examines the hierarchical culture of five field armies: on the Union side, the Army of the Potomac, the Army of the Tennessee, and the Army of the Cumberland; and on the Confederate side, the Army of Northern Virginia and Army of Tennessee. (The two Tennessee armies should not be confused. The name of the Union army derived from the Tennessee River, whereas that of its Confederate counterpart came from the state of Tennessee.) Although these were not the only Civil War armies, they were by far the largest. More important, they decided nearly all the campaigns that had the greatest influence on the war’s outcome. This chapter also recognizes that in regard to the clannish culture, each field army was a conglomeration of smaller organizations, of which the most important was the regiment. Prokopowicz, of course, explicitly makes the case that regiments, much more than armies, influenced the conduct and outcome of military operations. Although I believe this is going a bit far, his idea still has great merit. The senior leadership of the various field armies formulated and executed plans, and the level

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of function or dysfunction within these groups greatly affected success or failure at the strategic level. But at the tactical level, the regimental culture mattered more, for unlike modern military organizations, the hierarchical culture of the senior leadership never extended itself to dominate the clannish culture of the regiments.

Senior Leadership Culture The senior leadership culture centered mainly on the relationships between army commanders and a small but potent group of subordinates: the generals who led the army’s corps, consisting of between ten thousand and twenty thousand men. Corps constituted a field army’s major strike force and therefore exerted a critical influence on its operations. While these cultures varied widely from one army to another, all had to contend with four factors that also shaped these cultures. All four were subsets of a single, overriding reality, for in nineteenth-century America, the interplay between the military and the political worlds was great. First, both presidents—Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis— routinely involved themselves not just in major decisions about strategy, allocation of resources, and so on but also in personnel matters. They frequently forced army commanders to retain a subordinate that the commanders disliked. Worse, the presidents often allowed some subordinates to have direct personal access to them, which made it possible for disgruntled corps commanders to complain about their army commanders. Second, professionally trained generals constantly worked alongside amateur generals who owed their rank to political prominence. In those days, it was commonly believed that any man of strong character could make an effective general, and since being a general already was a reliable road to the presidency—examples are George Washington, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, and Zachary Taylor—powerful politicians coveted commissions as generals. Although most political generals were corps commanders, in a few instances they actually commanded armies. Either way, professional and political generals frequently did not get along. Professionals tended to see the war solely as a military problem; political generals tended to be much more aware of its political

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contours. This disparity not only generated much friction but also made it particularly difficult for an army commander to control a corps commander who was at the same time a powerful politician. Third, despite a partial professionalization of the prewar US Army, it was not yet professionally unacceptable to overtly use political patrons. Indeed, most senior commanders had them. Major General Ulysses S. Grant had Congressman Elihu P. Washburne of Illinois, and Major General Joseph Hooker had Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase. In fact, having a powerful political patron was very much the norm. Only a few high-ranking generals—Major General George H. Thomas, for instance—lacked such a patron. (In the case of Thomas, this was largely because he was a native Virginian who had remained loyal to the Union. Thus, the Virginia politicians who normally would have been his patrons were in the Confederacy.) Finally, seniority was important. It was not uncommon for generals with the same rank to delay key decisions while comparing dates of rank in order to determine which of them should be in command. In several instances, a general resigned rather than accept an order placing a general junior to him in a position of greater responsibility. At a critical point in the Atlanta campaign, for example, Hooker abruptly resigned rather than accept a decision to appoint a junior officer to army command while he himself remained a mere corps commander.21 Although influenced by these permanently operating factors, senior leader cultures still differed widely and were generated in different ways. Of potentially great significance was the character of the army’s “founding commander.” The Union Armies of the Tennessee and the Potomac demonstrate the founder’s role in shaping organizational culture, in part because the two armies were such a study in contrasts. The Army of the Tennessee had an unusually healthy organizational culture, but that of the Army of the Potomac was notoriously problematic. The Army of the Tennessee had the good fortune to have as its founding commander Ulysses S. Grant, who led the army for about twenty months, one of the longest tenures of any army commander on either side. Although the army was not formally established until October 1862, for all practical purposes it operated as an army from the time of the Fort Donelson campaign in February 1862. It enjoyed repeated success; even its drubbing on the first day at Shiloh (April 6, 1862) was redeemed the

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next day by a counterattack that recaptured the lost ground and sent the Confederate army in full retreat. Its next major campaign, against the Mississippi River fortress city of Vicksburg, required nine months. Although punctuated by one setback after another, Grant displayed a consistent policy of maintaining the initiative and doggedly pursuing one effort after another to seize the city until, in a brilliant spring offensive, he succeeded in capturing not just Vicksburg but also its entire defending army of thirty thousand men. By then, writes the historian Steven E. Woodworth, the Army of the Tennessee had “completely imbibed [Grant’s] quiet, can-do attitude, and this spirit continued to characterize its operations even after Grant had moved on to higher command.”22 Grant’s success would have been unlikely without his ability to forge close partnerships among key commanders, most notably Major General William T. Sherman but also Major General James B. McPherson and two naval flag officers, Andrew Foote and David Dixon Porter. These last two partnerships were especially significant because riverine operations were crucial to Grant’s victories in the western theater, although he never had direct command of either naval officer. Instead, he gained their cooperation through the careful cultivation of relationships based on regarding them as peers.23 In such instances, the power distance between Grant, Sherman, McPherson, Foote, and Porter was minimal. Nonetheless, the hierarchy culture is the most appropriate lens through which to view Grant’s generalship because he had other corps commanders, most notoriously Major General John McClernand, who actively challenged Grant’s leadership. Grant therefore had to insist on his prerogatives as an army commander. Consequently, when necessary, he did maintain a firm power distance between himself and his subordinates. If that distance diminished, it was because a subordinate earned Grant’s trust, not because Grant was helpless to prevent it. Even so, Grant’s style of command, characterized by a steady promotion of gifted leaders who also exhibited loyalty and the ability to work as a team, became a hallmark of the Army of the Tennessee’s top command. He encouraged assertiveness among his subordinates, so that they felt safe in offering advice, their in-group collectivism was unusually high, and the distribution of resources among the various corps was equitable enough that it would be fair to say the same of the army’s in-

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stitutional collectivism. And one final point must be emphasized. The Army of the Tennessee displayed a low degree of uncertainty avoidance, a trait derived from Grant, who had an unusually high degree of tolerance for the ambiguity and limited information characteristic of combat operations. In other words, he focused far more on what he wanted to do than on what his adversaries might attempt. Very different was the Army of the Potomac, notwithstanding the fact that of all Civil War armies, it was the first to be formed and the most meticulously organized. Its component regiments spent nine months encamped together before its maiden campaign, so that it carried out its initial training together. That training was unusually systematic, with new regiments assigned to a special provisional division specifically designed to hone their military skills. It had examining boards to weed out incompetent officers and large-scale troop reviews—sometimes numbering more than sixty thousand men—that graphically underscored to the soldiers both the power of the army and their place within it. Most important, its founding commander was Major General George B. McClellan, an officer acknowledged even today as having charisma and outstanding organizational ability. McClellan remained in command for seventeen months, and his hallmark traits—a suspicion of the Lincoln administration, a strong involvement in Washington politics, a cautious approach to military operations, and a tendency to overestimate the size and prowess of the enemy forces—characterized the organizational culture of the Army of the Potomac throughout its history. This was exacerbated by the fact that each of McClellan’s successors—Major Generals Ambrose E. Burnside, Joseph Hooker, and George G. Meade—was promoted from within the army and steeped in its organizational culture. The culture of the Army of the Potomac’s senior leadership was characterized by high power distance. McClellan really trusted few commanders, and many he did not trust at all. The army’s in-group collectivism and institutional collectivism both were low, since many corps commanders believed that the army’s resources were unevenly distributed. This dynamic was heightened by President Lincoln, who at numerous points interfered in the army’s senior leadership issues as well as its military operations. Lincoln and McClellan’s mutually suspicious relationship is notorious and is usually blamed on McClellan. But Lincoln

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contributed to the strained relationship as well. Incredibly, it was he, not McClellan, who on the eve of the Army of the Potomac’s first campaign selected its four corps commanders. Lincoln’s principal criterion was that they were generals known to disagree with McClellan’s military judgment.24 In addition, Lincoln tolerated, and often seemed to encourage, disgruntled subordinates who approached him and other Washington officials to criticize McClellan behind his back. This in turn made even more corrosive the bickering that characterized the Potomac army’s senior leadership. One example is that after the army’s severe defeat at Fredericksburg in December 1862, a number of top-ranking commanders tried to get rid of Major General Ambrose E. Burnside by going to Washington and laying their case before several politicians, including Lincoln himself.25 Furthermore, even the audacious Grant discovered he could do little to change the enduring impact of McClellan’s caution. He certainly tried. Well aware of the hard-luck reputation of the Army of the Potomac, as general in chief he located his headquarters with that army from April 1864 until the end of the war. Time and again, he was astonished by the skepticism that the army’s senior leaders harbored about one another’s ability compared with the awe in which they held the army’s nemesis, Confederate General Robert E. Lee. “Some of you,” Grant once snapped at a Potomac army general, “seem to think that [Lee] is suddenly going to do a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time.”26 Grant realized that he could not supervise all the Union armies and at the same time exert direct command over the Army of the Potomac, but it sometimes seemed that he tried. He practically looked over the shoulder of George G. Meade, its nominal commander, micromanaged Meade’s decisions, and sometimes issued orders directly to Meade’s corps commanders. Meade tolerated this arrangement with surprisingly good grace and clearly attempted to do everything Grant asked of him. The problem with the Potomac army’s command structure was not Grant and Meade’s personal relationship but their contrasting command styles. By temperament and experience, Grant had a coping style of generalship, that is, a style aimed at shaping any outcome toward a desired

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objective. A coping style shows greater tolerance for uncertainty and less fear of improvisation and encourages a faster reaction time. Meade’s essential command philosophy was based on uncertainty avoidance. For him, good generalship consisted of control, using resources and manipulating variables so as to guarantee success. Because that is impossible in war, since the enemy will systematically seek to undermine the effort to gain control, the next best thing is to avoid losing. This mentality was squarely in the McClellan tradition. Grant perceived the grip of this tradition on the army but underestimated its strength. He thought that simply by guiding Meade, he could force the army to adapt to his style. It is often said that Grant was the de facto commander of the Army of the Potomac. But it was Meade, not Grant, who remained the principal influence on the army’s organizational culture. And Meade perpetuated the emphasis on control. He never caught Grant’s vision. Although he obeyed Grant’s orders like a good soldier, he was never a true partner in the way that Sherman had been.27 Grant was impressed by not only the Army of the Potomac’s chronic timidity regarding Lee’s army but also Lee’s pugnacity, which Grant had never witnessed in his previous opponents. Midway through the Overland campaign, he conceded that after such an engagement as ferocious as the Wilderness, Confederate generals Braxton Bragg or Joseph E. Johnston “would have retreated!”28 The Army of Northern Virginia is the principal, and arguably the only, example of a Civil War commander who changed an army’s organizational culture. General Robert E. Lee did not create the Army of Northern Virginia; it had existed for nearly a year before he assumed command in June 1862. But its previous commander, General Joseph E. Johnston, was notably defensive in his thinking. Not until the Army of the Potomac got within a few miles of Richmond did Johnston attempt his first and only counterattack, the battle of Seven Pines. In it, his army had fought stubbornly but in a confused fashion and without the fire of a truly offensive spirit. On the battle’s second day, Johnston was wounded, and President Jefferson Davis appointed Lee to replace him. What followed was a startling reversal in the campaign’s momentum. From the outset, Lee thought in terms not of holding McClellan at bay, as Johnston had done, but of organizing a counteroffensive that would destroy McClellan’s army out-

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right. Within a month, he unleashed a campaign, known as the Seven Days Battles, that shoved the Army of the Potomac away from Richmond and into a defensive crouch along the banks of the James River. It was a brilliant achievement but disappointed Lee. “Under ordinary circumstances,” he complained in his after-action report, “the Federal army should have been destroyed.”29 Lee believed that if the Confederacy were to win the war, it would have to do so in the short run, before the US government could fully exploit its massive advantages in population, manufacturing capacity, and wealth. The Confederates therefore could not afford to stand on the defensive. They must attack—early, often, and aggressively—and damage the Union army so severely as to convince Northern public opinion that victory was impossible and thus to accept Confederate independence. It was “a very bold game,” Lee conceded after the war, “but it was the only one.”30 To carry out such a vision given inferior numbers and resources, Lee realized that he must compensate by producing an army that was aggressive to its core. To create it, Lee followed a consistent policy of promoting commanders who showed aggressiveness and quietly but ruthlessly weeding out those who proved cautious or incompetent.31 No officer in the army could fail to notice that the key to advancement was aggressiveness and the key to oblivion was excessive caution. Lee’s bias in favor of aggressiveness was so great that he forgave much from officers who displayed it and little from those who did not. Lee’s handling of two of his corps commanders, Lieutenant Generals Ambrose P. Hill and Richard S. Ewell, illustrates this. Hill attracted Lee’s favorable notice in the Seven Days Battles, even though on its first day, Hill’s aggressiveness led him to launch a rash attack on his own initiative that not only failed but also destroyed the operational surprise Lee had tried hard to ensure. Hill’s subsequent performances at Antietam and Chancellorsville, however, persuaded Lee to elevate him to corps command. After the death at Chancellorsville of the corps commander, Lieutenant General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, Lee’s closest operational partner, Lee selected Ewell as his replacement, also on the basis of Ewell’s track record of bold leadership. Both commanders proved a disappointment. At Gettysburg, Ewell was cautious, and Hill exerted scant influence on the battle (apparently

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because of an illness). Moreover, an error in Hill’s deployment of his corps nearly resulted in disaster at the battle of the Wilderness in May 1864. Although Ewell showed much greater competence in the Wilderness fight, neither he nor Hill distinguished themselves in the remaining battles of the Overland campaign. Eventually both men became seriously ill and temporarily relinquished command, in each case to Major General Jubal A. Early, an officer whose aggressiveness as a brigade and division commander Lee had long admired. The crucial difference in the fates of Hill and Ewell illustrates Lee’s bias toward aggressiveness. When both officers reported themselves fit to resume duty, Lee disingenuously insisted that Ewell was sicker than Ewell believed—despite Ewell’s fervent assertions to the contrary—and flatly refused to let him return to corps command. Instead, he made Early the permanent commander of the corps. In contrast, despite deficiencies in Hill’s subsequent performance, Lee restored him to corps command and retained him until Hill’s death a week before the surrender at Appomattox. The reason for Lee’s differential treatment of Hill and Ewell is obvious: whatever Hill’s shortcomings, Lee could count on his aggressiveness, whereas in Ewell’s case, he had lost that confidence.32 But perhaps more than any single factor, it was Lee’s generalship in the Maryland campaign that cemented the Army of Northern Virginia’s style and gave it the psychological mastery over the Army of the Potomac that eventually frustrated and baffled Grant. Despite inferior numbers, deficient equipment, and an army weary from ten weeks of nearly continuous campaigning in Virginia, Lee invaded Maryland in September 1862. He soon suffered a series of setbacks that would have led most generals to abandon the campaign. Instead, Lee chose to make a stand at Sharpsburg, Maryland, with the wide Potomac River only a mile to his rear, so that in the event of defeat his army would almost surely be destroyed. Lee never explained his reasons for doing so. Some historians have assumed he believed that without a major battle he could not abandon Maryland for political reasons because it was a border state the Confederacy hoped to add to its republic. A few have argued that he had sound military reasons for believing he could win a victory at Sharpsburg. But most believe the decision was almost a fatal mistake.33 Whatever the case, on September 17 Lee managed to fend off McClellan’s Army of the Potomac in the bloodiest single day in American mili-

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tary history, a battle of numerous hairbreadth escapes that came close to destroying the Army of Northern Virginia. Yet despite this near debacle, Lee’s aggressiveness remained unabated. That evening he met with his senior leaders to consider whether a counteroffensive was possible. Reluctantly convinced that it was not, he nonetheless chose to stand his ground on the following day, openly daring the Union army to hit him again, which it completely failed to do. Lee then withdrew in his own good time. Whether or not Lee intended it, the effect was to consolidate the Army of Northern Virginia’s reputation as a mortally dangerous opponent. The success that Lee enjoyed as a result of his offensive spirit paid other important dividends. It gave him unquestioned mastery over the army. Like Grant, Lee tolerated dissenting advice, but unlike Grant, Lee never experienced outright defiance—and he had the moral authority to crush any subordinate who tried it. Moreover, his success gained him the confidence of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who supported Lee’s strategic decisions almost without question, an advantage Lee ensured through careful cultivation of the president’s goodwill. These were no small advantages. The history of the Army of Tennessee, the Confederate’s other major field army, is one long lesson in what can occur when an army commander enjoys neither firm control over his subordinates nor the unqualified confidence of his superior. For most of the war, the Army of Tennessee was led by General Braxton Bragg. Like Lee, Bragg assumed command after the army’s formation. By the time he took charge, the army already had fought the Shiloh campaign under General Albert Sidney Johnston and the Corinth campaign under General P. G. T. Beauregard. Unlike Lee, Bragg was an irascible man. But he shared Lee’s aggressive instincts. Within a few weeks of taking the helm, he had organized an offensive that carried his army into Kentucky and forced the Union Army of the Ohio to retreat all the way to Louisville. Again like Lee, Bragg’s invasion of a border state proved unsuccessful. But whereas the invasion enhanced Lee’s reputation for boldness, Bragg came under serious criticism, much of it emanating from one of his corps commanders, Lieutenant General Leonidas Polk. Polk was a West Point graduate who had long ago resigned from the army in order to become an Episcopalian clergyman. Unfortunately for Bragg, he was

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a friend of President Davis. In the wake of the Kentucky invasion, Davis summoned first Bragg, then Polk, to Richmond to confer about the operation. Polk took the opportunity to inform Davis that although Bragg had good organizational skills, he was a poor field general and ought to be replaced. Davis liked both Bragg and Polk and declined to follow Polk’s advice, but his open solicitation of that advice encouraged Polk to share his critique of Bragg with the army’s other corps commander, Lieutenant General William J. Hardee, and as time went on, Polk lost few opportunities to undermine Bragg with other senior leaders.34 As a result, Bragg could not sustain his status as the army’s undisputed master. It was one thing to treat subordinates like peers if they displayed the requisite ability, temperament, and loyalty. Grant and Lee created command partnerships with great success. But it was quite another to have subordinates treat the army commander like a peer, and an unwanted peer at that. Bragg might have solved the problem by getting rid of Polk, but Davis’s continued friendship with Polk foreclosed this option. On top of that, his inability to change his corps commanders blocked Bragg from promoting younger generals who showed a military ability far greater than that of the rather plodding Polk and Hardee.35 The result was a hierarchical culture characterized by a low power distance but of an unwelcome, destructive kind, that is, low in-group collectivism and low institutional collectivism. This toxic senior-command relationship inevitably affected field operations. During the Chickamauga campaign, for example, two key commanders flatly refused to carry out Bragg’s order to strike the Union Army of the Cumberland while it was spread out and vulnerable. They did so again the next day. Polk also balked at an order from Bragg because he felt he knew better than Bragg and was immune to retaliation. Even the successful Chickamauga attack nearly failed because Bragg’s senior leaders moved sluggishly. Bragg simply did not have the practical authority to force them to accept his will.36 It would be fair to say that the Army of Tennessee’s high command deserved to fail at Chickamauga and won the battle only because the senior-level organizational culture of its adversary, the Army of the Cumberland, was equally dysfunctional. Indeed, this dysfunction led directly to Wood’s gleeful embrace of the “fatal order of the day” that did in fact prove fatal.

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The sources of this culture were similar to those of Bragg’s army but with some interesting contrasts. Unlike the Union Army of the Tennessee, it began in fairly amorphous form under the command of first Major General Robert Anderson and then Brigadier General William T. Sherman, both of whom served for brief periods and had little influence on the army’s organizational culture. Thus, not only did the army have no founder as influential as McClellan or Grant, but it would be fair to say it had no founder at all. It even began its career under a different name: the Army of the Ohio. Major General Don Carlos Buell commanded that army for about nine months, but for most of that period it constituted an army only in an administrative sense. Functionally it was a number of divisions and brigades scattered across much of southern Tennessee and northern Alabama. Aside from the battle of Shiloh, it did not operate as an army except during the Perryville campaign of September–October 1862. Thus, Buell had scarcely more impact on the army’s organizational culture than did Anderson or Sherman. This does not mean that the Army of the Cumberland had no organizational culture during its first year of existence. It simply means that its culture was not the product of its commander but, rather, grew from other experiences. Prokopowicz’s thesis makes sense in regard to the nature of that culture; that is, its officers and men thought in terms of a conglomeration of regiments rather than a unified army. This was just as well, because during Buell’s tenure, the senior leadership culture was utterly toxic. At least three factions were repelled by his cautious generalship and generous treatment of Southern civilians, which struck them as criminally mild, and these factions undermined Buell at every turn: a powerful bloc of Indiana generals egged on by the state’s governor, Oliver P. Morton; officers sympathetic to the division commander Brigadier General Albin Schoepf, who at one point called Buell a traitor; and supporters of the corps commander Major General Alexander McCook, who openly despised Buell. It was said that after the battle of Perryville, McCook and Buell did not even speak to each other. Buell also was quietly opposed by his second in command, Major General George H. Thomas, who nonetheless refused an offer to replace Buell because he had no wish to preside over this den of vipers.37

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Instead, Buell wound up being replaced by Major General William S. Rosecrans. Rosecrans was one of the few Civil War army commanders to come from outside an army rather than by being promoted from within it. It was during his tenure that the Army of the Cumberland acquired its name and also when it finally fought its first battle—Stone’s River—as a collective whole. Rosecrans commanded the army for the longest period up to that point: twelve months exactly. But if Rosecrans effected any change in the army’s organizational culture, it is difficult to see how. First, by that time the culture would have had a strong constraining effect, so that any leader would have found changing it to be a major undertaking. Second, given the general absence at that time of any concept of organizational culture and insight into how to achieve significant change, it is unreasonable to expect that Rosecrans could even have begun to do so. What Rosecrans could and did influence was the army’s “command climate,” essentially though not exclusively a matter of influencing morale through the credibility of the commander and the level of communication, trust, and confidence between members of the senior leadership and their subordinates.38 Although Larry J. Daniel, a modern historian of the Army of the Cumberland, does not use the term command climate, he describes the atmosphere during Rosecrans’s tenure as an incremental improvement over that during Buell’s leadership but still characterized by rampant pettiness, parochialism, and sometimes “poisonous” relationships with subordinates.39 Rosecrans contributed to this culture through an unusually antagonistic relationship with the Lincoln administration as well as his frequent, capricious, and savage criticism of subordinates. In doing so, he fostered the atmosphere that influenced Wood’s decision to obey the “fatal order” at Chickamauga. Eventually Rosecrans’s own chief of staff, Major General James Garfield, grew so disgusted that he exploited his extensive contacts with Washington power brokers to have Rosecrans relieved of command. This took place when Grant, by then chief of the Military Division of the Mississippi—which encompassed most of the Union forces between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River—and therefore Rosecrans’s superior, exercised the War Department’s discretionary authorization to remove Rosecrans and substitute George H. Thomas.40

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Daniel extolled Thomas as the “catalyst that gave the army its lethal edge,” which certainly sounds as if Thomas managed to influence the Army of the Cumberland’s organizational culture.41 But this overstates the case. By the time Thomas assumed command in October 1863, the army’s organizational culture had long since taken on a life of its own and resisted efforts to change it. Indeed, as a commander promoted from within the army, Thomas was a product of its organizational culture and took for granted many of its values, assumptions, and norms. Moreover, just eight months elapsed between the time Thomas took command and the time the Atlanta campaign began—a very short time for any senior leader to change an organizational culture—and it was a period of extensive organizational reshuffling. If intentional and focused toward a specific objective, this kind of reshuffling might have represented an attempt to shift the army’s organizational culture. But in fact it had a somewhat random character and was caused as much by external factors as by Thomas.42 The most that can be said is that Thomas improved the army’s command climate. During the 1864 Atlanta campaign, the Armies of the Tennessee and the Cumberland fought together under the overall command of Major General William T. Sherman. As he embarked on the campaign, Sherman emphatically believed the two armies formed a study in contrasts. Although the Army of the Tennessee was the smaller of the two, he considered that it was the more responsive and aggressive and, whenever possible, used it for the most critical maneuvers of the Atlanta campaign. The Army of the Cumberland he regarded as “dreadfully slow.” Six weeks into the campaign, he complained to Grant that “a fresh furrow in a ploughed field will stop the whole column, and all begin to entrench. . . . We are on the offensive, & yet it seems the whole Army of the Cumberland is so habituated to be on the defensive that I cannot get it out of their heads.”43 Not unreasonably, many analysts have assumed that Sherman’s appraisal of the two armies reflected chauvinism more than reality. Sherman had served in the Army of the Tennessee for most of his Civil War career, had learned much from Grant as his principal partner in command, and had briefly led the army before being vaulted to command of the Military Division of the Mississippi. He had greater confidence in McPherson, his own protégé, than in Thomas, even though

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Thomas was tried and tested in army command, whereas McPherson was new to the job. But was Sherman correct in perceiving that the two armies had contrasting organizational cultures? If so, to what did he ascribe this? And was he correct in assuming that the contrast made a difference? With regard to the first question, Sherman surely was correct. The Army of the Tennessee reflected Grant’s impact in shaping an army characterized by aggressiveness and cordial relationships among subordinates that inspired mutual confidence. During the Atlanta campaign, the Army of the Cumberland seemed to have a very different spirit: one of slowness and seeming defensive-mindedness. Sherman placed the blame on Thomas. To emphasize the value he placed on lightness and speed, Sherman had made a point of bringing no tents along with his headquarters. He ordered his subordinates to do the same. In the nomenclature of organizational theory, the proscription on tents was an “embedding mechanism,” a tangible means by which a leader signals the shift in the values he is trying to achieve. But Thomas, he told Grant, had utterly disregarded his instructions. Every one of Thomas’s aides and orderlies had a wall tent, Sherman insisted, “and a Baggage train big enough for a Division.” Thomas had promised to send it all back, but nothing had come of it. Sherman believed that the Army of the Cumberland’s slowness had cost him “the loss of two opportunities” in the early weeks of the campaign, “which never recur in war.”44 The literature on organizational culture, however, strongly suggests that if the Army of the Cumberland had a predilection for being slow and defensive-minded, the roots of that culture antedated Thomas, so he could not easily have changed it, no matter what he did with his baggage train or anything else. After the fall of Atlanta, Sherman’s ultimate solution was to send Thomas to defend the critical city of Nashville and make his famous March to the Sea with troops drawn largely from the Army of the Tennessee. In sum, the hierarchical senior-leader culture proved very difficult to manage. Only Lee and Grant succeeded, and Grant discovered that even he could not reshape the culture of the Army of the Potomac, just as Sherman discovered that he could do no better with the Army of the Cumberland.

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Regimental Culture The clannish regimental culture differed starkly from the hierarchical senior-leadership culture and was, on the whole, much healthier. To start with, the power distance between the leaders and the led was seldom very great. A Civil War regiment consisted of ten companies of one hundred men, each led by a captain. In nearly every instance, the companies were recruited by community leaders, men of established standing who could persuade other men to enlist under their command. Thus, a successful businessman might announce that he was forming a company of infantry. Other men, familiar with his reputation, would join up, and frequently they would then elect their officers, starting with the community leader, who invariably was elected captain. Furthermore, because a company consisted of men from the same locality who knew one another, an officer usually was familiar to his men from civilian life and could scarcely afford to adopt an imperious attitude. Instead he had to exercise a style of leadership based on persuasion. This dynamic carried up to the regiments and the colonels who led them. Disease, wounds, and death rapidly wore them down to anywhere from 50 to 30 percent of their original strength of a thousand men. A colonel therefore presided over a fairly compact group of men whom he knew and was known by them personally. The regimental environment greatly resembled an extended family. Soldiers routinely called themselves “the boys.” They understood the need for leadership and preferred officers who were militarily competent. Nevertheless, they resented and resisted any officer who tried to put on airs. Colonels discovered that they were most effective if they behaved like benevolent parents, and one of the highest accolades a soldier could pay an officer was to say that he behaved “like a father.”45 Although this clannishness often militated against the strict discipline that characterized a professional army, it paid huge dividends with regard to in-group collectivism, which military historians more commonly call unit cohesion. This cohesion was born partly of mutual loyalty among kinsmen and neighbors and partly from the awareness that if a man shirked his duty or showed cowardice, everyone back home would soon know it. Civil War soldiers identified very closely with their regiment, took enormous pride in it, and, in combat, fought to the death to

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defend the regimental colors from capture, even in circumstances when such fights were tactically meaningless. Two other attributes, high performance orientation and institutional collectivism, are reasonably straightforward when applied to Civil War regiments. The perseverance of regiments in combat, underscored by casualty rates that in most battles ran from 30 to 70 percent, amply attests to the former—and as Prokopowicz asserted, this largely explains the enormous resilience of Civil War armies—while the equal distribution of resources within a given regiment was practically a given. Two intermediary organizations linked the clannish culture of the regiment to the hierarchical culture of the senior leadership: the brigade, commanded by a brigadier (one-star) general and typically consisting of five regiments, and the division, commanded by a major (two-star) general and typically consisting of three brigades. Although the combat power of these units obviously trumped that of the regiment, their organizational cultures had far less impact. The reason was that the composition of brigades and divisions frequently changed as regiments or brigades were reshuffled within them. While it would be wrong to say that soldiers took no pride in the brigade or division to which they nominally belonged, their organizational identification remained firmly fixed on their regiment. The Nineteenth Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment is an instructive case. Recruited primarily from Wayne County, Indiana, at the war’s outset it found itself dispatched to Washington, DC, where it formed part of the burgeoning Army of the Potomac. It was soon attached to a brigade, led by forty-year-old Brigadier General John P. Hatch, whose other regiments hailed from Wisconsin. Hatch was a West Point graduate and a career officer who effectively trained the brigade. But despite his military expertise, Hatch exerted scant influence on the organizational culture of the Nineteenth Indiana, which instead centered on its colonel, fifty-one-year-old Solomon Meredith. Meredith had an imposing personality and an impressive career, first as the sheriff of Wayne County, then as a state legislator, and finally as the US marshal for the district of Indiana.46 He was well known to all the men of the regiment and the principal authority figure in their martial universe. In May 1862, the Nineteenth acquired a new brigade commander, thirty-five-year-old Brigadier General John Gibbon. Like Hatch, Gibbon

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was a West Point graduate and an accomplished career soldier. Unlike Hatch, Gibbon worked hard to shift the primary identification of his troops from their regiments to the brigade. A strict disciplinarian, he routinely “invaded” the regiments with inspections and new regulations intended to bring them more closely into line with regular army standards. He also introduced a major innovation. The regiments of the brigade were now required to wear a distinctive uniform, highlighted by leggings and black Hardee hats that were highly unusual in volunteer regiments, which typically wore kepis or forage caps. Like Sherman’s proscription on tents, Gibbon’s insistence on the black Hardee hats was an embedding mechanism. Gibbon wanted a unit that thought of itself as a brigade, not as an aggregation of regiments. And he indeed achieved an impressive degree of success. The brigade became known first as the Black Hat Brigade and then, thanks to a reputation for stalwart fighting in several major battles, as the Iron Brigade, easily the most famous brigade in the Army of the Potomac. Yet even this formidable pride in the brigade never eclipsed the primacy of the Nineteenth Indiana as the locus of its soldiers’ loyalty. Initially the men of the Nineteenth violently resisted Gibbon’s attempt to forge a well-integrated brigade, despised him as a tyrant, and— encouraged by Colonel Meredith, their regimental “father”—actually refused to buy the leggings that Gibbon insisted that the men of his brigade wear. Meredith justified his resistance on the dubious ground that the cost of the leggings would be unfairly deducted from the soldiers’ clothing allowance. Gibbon retaliated severely, even threatening to bombard the regiment with artillery if it did not comply. The tension between Meredith and Gibbon never abated. The men of the Nineteenth backed their colonel, and Meredith and several of his subordinates did not hesitate to contact powerful political patrons in a largely successful effort to neutralize Gibbon’s attempt to dominate the Nineteenth. Despite the so-called Legging Mutiny, Meredith’s position as colonel was never in jeopardy. Eventually, when Gibbon went on to division command and Meredith assumed command of the brigade, among his first acts—highly popular with the Nineteenth—was to revoke Gibbon’s order requiring the troops to pay for the despised leggings.47 If even within the Iron Brigade, the soldiers’ first allegiance remained to their regiments, it is no surprise that soldiers in most regiments felt only a

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modest identification with their brigades and even less with their divisions, whose composition and commanders continually shifted.

Conclusion Although organizational culture was hardly the sole explanation for success or failure on the battlefield, it merits greater attention than it has so far received. Of particular value would be studies of the brigade and division levels that connected the senior leadership and regimental culture. These appear to have been influenced more by the former than the latter, since officers interested in promotion would naturally look to the culture of the high command. Gerald Prokopowicz surely is correct in postulating that the regimental culture gave Civil War armies the durability to survive battles in which losses of 30 to 70 percent were normal. (In contrast, the modern US Army considers a unit that sustains 25 percent casualties to have been effectively destroyed.) This culture also inoculated soldiers against battlefield defeats, since soldiers usually blamed defeats on senior commanders or other regiments and believed that their own regiments had acquitted themselves nobly. Even so, no amount of regimental esprit de corps could supply the strategic wisdom and operational prowess needed to win the war. What, then, could have been done to improve the hierarchical senior-leadership culture? Many potential solutions were simply unavailable. The extensive staff system characteristic of modern military organizations—and already well developed in the Prussian general staff—did not yet exist. Although Civil War armies did have officers who handled such matters as equipment and ration supply, they had nothing like the large staffs that assist modern commanders in the planning, monitoring, and execution of operations. Instead, most officers who assisted Civil War army and corps commanders were little more than glorified clerks.48 As a result, these commanders were usually overburdened and overstressed, traits that led to short tempers and mutual suspicion. The Union and Confederate War Departments also had limited ability to transmit effective senior-leadership techniques from one field army to another. Officers who worked directly under Grant or Lee might learn the secrets of their success, but no institutional mechanism existed

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to pass these along; and the mere transfer of officers from one army to another had only a negligible impact on their well-established cultures. Even so, one partial remedy stands out. While the strategic guidance supplied by Presidents Lincoln and Davis was entirely legitimate, their chronic interference in personnel matters and their indulgence or even encouragement of disgruntled subordinates who violated the chain of command set a poor example and often compromised the ability of army commanders to be masters of their own house. Ultimately, in the postwar decades, the problem of toxic seniorleadership cultures was partly solved by increased professionalization of the officer corps through advanced military education and a distancing from political involvement. Yet it continues to affect military operations to this day. One simply cannot thrust strong personalities together in stressful environments and expect cordial relationships to emerge naturally. Grant’s and Lee’s intuitive grasp of organizational culture must be intentionally studied and mastered. Notes

1. War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128 vols. (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1880–1901), vol. 30, pt. 1, p. 635 (hereafter cited as OR). 2. Quoted in Peter Cozzens, This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 363. 3. Report of Colonel Emerson Opdycke, September 26, 1863, OR, series I, vol. 30, pt. 1, p. 706. 4. Ralsa C. Rice, Yankee Tigers: Through the Civil War with the 125th Ohio, ed. Richard A. Baumgartner and Larry M. Strayer (Huntington, WV: Blue Acorn, 1992), 65. 5. Ibid., 69. 6. Charles T. Clark, Opdycke Tigers, 125th O.V.I.: A History of the Regiment and the Campaigns and Battles of the Army of the Cumberland (Columbus, OH: Spahr and Glenn, 1895), 105. 7. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 5. 8. William Glenn Robertson, The Staff Ride, Prepared by the U.S. Center for Military History (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1987), v. 9. The Center for Strategic Leadership at the US Army War College, for example, routinely offers a three-day strategic leadership development program for senior business executives, capped by a daylong staff ride of the Gettysburg battlefield. For an overview of the center, see the Center for Strategic Leadership home page, http://csl.armywarcollege.edu (accessed December 17, 2019).

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10. Stephen J. Gerras, Leonard Wong, and Charles D. Allen, “Organizational Culture: Applying a Hybrid Model in the U.S. Army,” Strategic Culture: Selected Readings, US Army War College Academic Year 2010 (Carlisle Barracks, PA: US Army War College, 2009), 114–44. 11. Edgar H. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership, 3rd ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004), 25–38. 12. Gerras, Wong, and Allen, “Organizational Culture,” 119. 13. The inspiration for the GLOBE study was derived from the pioneering work of Geert Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1980). 14. Gerras, Wong, and Allen, “Organizational Culture,” 120–21; Robert J. House, Paul J. Hanges, Mansour Javidan, Peter W. Dorfman, and Vipin Gupta, Culture, Leadership, and Organizations (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004). 15. Gerras, Wong, and Allen, “Organizational Culture,” 116–17. See also Kim S. Cameron and Robert E. Quinn, Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture (Reading, PA: Addison-Wesley, 1999). 16. Gerras, Wong, and Allen, “Organizational Culture,” 117. 17. Alfred D. Chandler Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977), 485. 18. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership, 291–317; W. Clay Hamner, ed., Organizational Shock (New York: Wiley, 1980). 19. Michael C. C. Adams, Our Masters the Rebels: A Speculation on Union Military Failure in the East, 1861–1865 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978); Grady McWhiney and Perry D. Jamieson, Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1982). 20. Gerald J. Prokopowicz, All for the Regiment: The Army of the Ohio, 1861–1862 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 4. 21. Walter H. Herbert, Fighting Joe Hooker (1944; repr., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), 284–87. 22. Steven E. Woodworth, Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861–1865 (New York: Knopf, 2005), ix. 23. See Joseph T. Glatthaar, Partners in Command: The Relationships between Leaders in the Civil War (New York: Free Press, 1994), 135–90; and Steven E. Woodworth, ed., Grant’s Lieutenants, 2 vols. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001–2008). 24. Stephen R. Taaffe, Commanding the Army of the Potomac (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006), 9–13. 25. Stephen W. Sears, Controversies and Commanders: Dispatches from the Army of the Potomac (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999), 131–66. 26. Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant (1897; repr., Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1961), 69–70. 27. Mark Grimsley, And Keep Moving On: The Virginia Campaign, May–June 1864 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002). For the concept of coping versus control, I am indebted to my colleague Alan D. Beyerchen.

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28. Entry for May 19, 1864, in Theodore Lyman, Meade’s Army: The Private Notebooks of Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman, ed. David W. Lowe (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2007), 164–65. 29. Robert E. Lee, The Wartime Papers of R. E. Lee, ed. Clifford Dowdey and Louis H. Manarin (New York: Bramhall House, 1961), 221. 30. William Allan, “Memoranda of Conversations with General Robert E. Lee,” in Lee the Soldier, ed. Gary W. Gallagher (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), 17. 31. Douglas Southall Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command, 3 vols. (New York: Scribner, 1942–1944). Freeman details Lee’s purges after the Seven Days (1:606–14), after Antietam (2:250–83), after Chancellorsville (2:683–714), and during the Overland campaign (3:496–514). 32. For Lee’s relationship with Hill, see James I. Robertson Jr., General A. P. Hill: The Story of a Confederate Warrior (New York: Random House, 1987). On Ewell’s removal, see Donald C. Pfanz, Richard S. Ewell: A Soldier’s Life (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 397–402. 33. Contrasting analyses of Lee’s decision are Robert K. Krick, “The Army of Northern Virginia in 1862: The Circumstances, Its Opportunities, and Why It Should Not Have Been at Sharpsburg,” in Antietam: Essays on the 1862 Maryland Campaign, ed. Gary W. Gallagher (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1989), 35–55; and Joseph L. Harsh, who defends Lee in Taken at the Flood: Robert E. Lee and Confederate Strategy in the Maryland Campaign of 1862 (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1999), 354–67, 369, 444–45. 34. Steven E. Woodworth, Jefferson Davis and His Generals: The Failure of Confederate Command in the West (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1990), 160–62. 35. Steven E. Woodworth, “Davis, Bragg, and Confederate Command in the West,” in Jefferson Davis’s Generals, ed. Gabor S. Boritt (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 65–83. 36. Woodworth, Jefferson Davis and His Generals, 230–32. 37. Larry J. Daniel, Days of Glory: The Army of the Cumberland, 1861–1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004), 126–35, 174. 38. This definition draws on Steven M. Jones, Improving Accountability for Effective Command Climate: A Strategic Imperative (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2003). 39. Daniel, Days of Glory, xii–xiii. 40. T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and His Generals (New York: Knopf, 1952), 276–85; Daniel, Days of Glory, 246, 281. 41. Daniel, Days of Glory, xi. 42. Ibid., 379–93. 43. Sherman to Grant, June 18, 1864, in Sherman’s Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860–1865, ed. Brooks D. Simpson and Jean V. Berlin (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 655. 44. Ibid.

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45. Reid Mitchell perceptively analyzes this dynamic in The Vacant Chair: The Northern Soldier Leaves Home (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), esp. 39–54. 46. Ezra J. Warner, Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1964), 319–20. 47. Alan Graff, On Many a Bloody Field: Four Years in the Iron Brigade (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), esp. 124–38. 48. J. Boone Bartholomees Jr., Buff Facings and Gilt Buttons: Staff and Headquarters Operations in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861–1865 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998); R. Steven Jones, The Right Hand of Command: Use and Disuse of Personal Staffs in the Civil War (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2000).

9

Imagining African Warfare War Games and Military Cultures in German East Africa Michelle Moyd

Introduction: Dancing to War In a memoir of the East African campaign of World War I, Ascan Lutteroth, a German noncommissioned officer (NCO) in the Schutztruppe für Deutsch-Ostafrika, described a lively evening scene that took place in October 1917.1 The African colonial troops (askaris) of the Schutztruppe’s 23rd Feldkompagnie enjoyed leisure time together in their camp in the Mahenge region of German East Africa.2 They played cards, yelling loudly as they took money from each other. And afterward, they danced, performing a style known as ngoma, which according to Lutteroth, was a “dance that play[ed] a most meaningful role in the blacks’ lives.”3 Everyone in the camp—askaris, porters, servants, and women— gathered, dancing with “enthusiasm and abandon,” their bodies moving back and forth as they sang and “marched in single file one behind the other.” They sang “melodious” songs in praise of their company, their commanders’ heroic deeds, and their grit amidst a grueling campaign. The final line of the song identified the true source of their successes: “Sababu sisi Arinoti yamaa!”—roughly, “because we are Arinoti kin.”4 Lutteroth recorded the song lyrics in his memoir, offering a description of his askaris’ participation in ngoma, a dance form that could be found in many parts of East Africa. But he did not explain “Arinoti.” Perhaps he did not know what it meant. Or perhaps he simply wanted to keep things simple for his German readership, not troubling them with an explanation of a complex term laden with meaning for his troops and other members of the company’s “campaign community” but not 212

Schutztruppe deployment map, German East Africa. This “deployment map” (Dislokationskarte) shows Schutztruppe unit locations just before the outbreak of World War I. The black and white rectangular symbols denote companies, and the circles represent company outposts. The map also shows the signals detachment and the recruiting depot in Dar es Salaam. Finally, it depicts which units had machine guns (Maschinengewehr) and how many were present at each location. In the upper-right corner, a small box includes a representation of the German region of Saxony, using the main map’s scale. This technique gave readers a sense of German East Africa’s vastness by offering a comparison to a familiar geographic reference point. (From Rudolf Wagner and Dr. F. Buchmann, Wir Schutztruppler: Die Deutsche Wehrmacht-Uebersee [Berlin: Verlangsanstalt Buntdruck GmbH, 1913], 95)

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necessarily for outsiders.5 Yet his inclusion of the song lyrics with the reference to arinoti offers a glimpse of a key marker of East African military culture. Arinoti referred to one of two branches of the beni ngoma, which was itself just one example within a wider complex of the East African dance style.6 In the song, the askaris celebrated arinoti as the root of the company’s successes, the word yamaa (Kiswahili: jamaa = relative, colleague) signifying that the dance association embodied kinship ties for its members. As we shall see, the beni ngoma also took performance cues from German colonial military culture derived from the various kinds of “war games” the Schutztruppe used in training its troops and showcasing its power.7 It might seem odd to consider beni alongside colonial army training regimes—what could dance possibly have to do with military exercises? In answering that question, this chapter considers different manifestations of East African military culture in order to highlight processes of militarization that shaped life in an occupied space well beyond the relatively short period of German rule in what is today mainland Tanzania. Rather than isolating different military forms from each other or treating them as static examples, this chapter argues that they were entangled, producing ever-new militarization processes and involving more and more people across East Africa in both visible and hidden ways.8 War games, it turns out, served a number of different purposes in German East Africa. But at root, all of these variations reinforced claims to authority across different social registers and on different scales of influence. The enactment of scenarios representing military violence anchored them all.9 Analyzing this colonized, occupied space through the lens of war games reveals the limitations of demarcating colonial armies from the East African armies they encountered on battlefields across the region between the late 1880s and 1914, when World War I brought an altogether new scale of warfare to East Africa. This chapter uses military training manuals, graphic illustrations, field reports, and other primary materials to explore how the Schutztruppe’s war games shaped its encounters with other East African armies between 1890 and 1914 and how military ideas traveled across Tanganyika via the ngoma. Performances of military power infused many different registers of East African societies under colonial rule. It makes sense, then, to use the idea of military culture to bring the colony into starker relief as an occupied space.

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Opposing European Invasion: African Armies and European Conquest African peoples consistently opposed European colonial military invasions in the late nineteenth century, even though their efforts usually ended in costly defeat, killing disproportionate numbers of African men who took up arms against the invading armies. By contrast, colonial armies usually sustained minimal losses. Small, often irregular, military contingents composed of men armed with spears, shields, and muskets were no match for the massed, disciplined firepower arrayed against them by European-led colonial militaries. Strength in numbers, the element of surprise, better mobility, and European miscalculations or arrogance sometimes allowed African armies to defeat Europeanled colonial armies in the field.10 For example, in 1891, Hehe soldiers wiped out a German expedition led by Lieutenant Emil von Zelewsky, a military disaster for the Schutztruppe that resulted from a combination of Hehe military prowess and Zelewsky’s hubris.11 Similarly, the Schutztruppe was caught off guard by early attacks by African soldiers during the Maji Maji War of 1905–7.12 But these were exceptions. European-led colonial armies wreaked havoc on African communities and cultures across the continent in the late nineteenth century, laying the groundwork for colonial rule that lasted into the 1960s for much of the continent and, for some parts, even longer.13 Historians have tended to represent European conquest of African lands in the nineteenth century as the inevitable outcome of lopsided clashes between unequal militaries. Hindsight frames the defeat and subjugation of African peoples across the continent as the logical outcome of European military invasions. It is true that colonial armies brought critical organizational and technological advantages to bear as they campaigned across different parts of Africa. Their frequent battlefield successes promoted a sense of invulnerability among their members. Their violent confrontations with African soldiers who defended their lands and peoples reinforced this superiority complex, contributing to excessive violence.14 In the relatively rare examples of African armies defeating colonial armies in the field, European commanders invariably responded by intensifying the violence, bringing in reinforcements and machine guns, and using scorched-earth methods to deprive their oppo-

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nents of food, care, or shelter.15 “The true key to success,” Douglas Porch writes, “was pitilessly to target anyone and anything that sustained the insurgency.”16 It is indeed difficult to imagine European colonial invasions having produced different outcomes in light of the sobering truth that many African polities could not mount effective challenges to the colonial ways of war that Europeans developed and put to devastating use in the late nineteenth century. The Schutztruppe fits this model. Beginning in 1889, Germany’s violent quest for overseas empire and colonies in Africa brought it into numerous armed confrontations with African peoples who attempted to defend their lands, livelihoods, and kin from German invasion.17 In what became German East Africa, a hastily assembled army of African troops called the Wissmanntruppe (after its founding commander, Hermann von Wissmann) went to war in 1889 against a confederation of coastal Swahili elites who refused to accept German hegemony.18 African men recruited from disparate sites made up the rank and file of the Wissmanntruppe, who were assembled into companies under the command of German officers and NCOs. Some of these troops had received training in other colonial armies prior to becoming rank-and-file Schutztruppe members and could more or less walk into their new roles as Schutztruppe askaris, albeit with some new language challenges.19 For example, “Sudanese” soldiers recruited from Cairo had formerly been part of the Anglo-Egyptian army that until 1895 had fought against the Mahdists.20 Other recruits came into the Schutztruppe with no experience or with experience in military cultures that bore little resemblance to European-style infantry training or operations.21 The Schutztruppe’s defeat of the “coastal rebellion” in 1901 marked the beginning of an askari way of war.22 Schutztruppe officers and NCOs trained these diverse recruits into a new way of war. Part of the askari way of war involved incorporating and reshaping the various military cultures that African soldiers from southeastern, eastern, and northeastern Africa brought with them to the Schutztruppe.23 East African combatants who survived battles with the Schutztruppe either surrendered, shifted to insurgent or guerrilla modes of warfare that were more difficult to defeat, or fled to safer areas.24 In this way, the Schutztruppe gradually conquered the lands that became German East Africa. Violent opposition to colonial rule in German East Africa

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persisted through the first eighteen years of German governance, when the Schutztruppe finally defeated the last holdouts of the Maji Maji War.25 Between 1908 and the beginning of World War I in 1914, a kind of peace prevailed, largely the result of exhausted African populations who reasoned that using violence against the Germans would bring nothing but further harm.26 Despite the overwhelming military force that the Schutztruppe brought to bear, however, its way of war resulted from a complex blend of German and African influences. German colonial officers sought to heighten the Schutztruppe’s formidable, but not infallible, technological, organizational, and personnel advantages. They did so by using acquired knowledge from their accumulated military experiences in East Africa starting in 1889 and continuing through 1914 when World War I began.27 The many violent expeditions the Schutztruppe undertook in the 1890s taught its officers and soldiers significant lessons about East African warfare. In this way, East African military cultures came to influence the Schutztruppe’s training practices.28 The military threats that East African armies posed to the Schutztruppe caused officers, NCOs, and askaris to imagine future war based on their experiences of wars already fought. Despite casting these East African combatants as inferior, often describing them as “savages” or “barbarians,” the Schuztruppe in fact used them as examples in constructing field training exercises, or war games.29 As the opening vignette indicates, war games also carried meaning beyond the formalized exercises that characterized Schutztruppe training regimens. Askari performances of ngoma influenced performances outside the Schutztruppe organization, reaching far across the region.30 The ngoma were competitive modes that built on long-standing East African expressive cultures, in which participants acted out hierarchies of political authority and socioeconomic priorities through the medium of dance. They existed parallel to German colonial military exercises and training. When viewed through the lens of East African cultural history, the Schutztruppe’s war games took on different meanings. Schutztruppe field exercises, which could also appear as performances of a sort, gave ngoma participants useful materials to absorb into their own performances. Schutztruppe performances thus influenced the development of ngoma in important ways, and wider East African ngoma also probably

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influenced how the askaris performed within arinoti and its rival association, marini.31 The dynamic form took hold and spread across Tanganyika, thus helping to spread aspects of this military culture to communities with few real ties to the Schutztruppe.

War Games In German East Africa, war games, whether performed by Germans or Africans, were showcases that demonstrated competing claims to authority. But where did “war games” come from, and what forms did they take in East Africa? Military theorists, strategists, and commanders have long used war games to test their abilities to fight against projected enemies.32 Many varieties have existed in human history, including combat sports, ritualized combat, tournaments, and other two-sided war games that have used real weapons. With the introduction of firearms in the fifteenth century, “other methods for playing at war, simulating war, and training for war had to be found.”33 Board games played by individuals indoors on tabletops became the dominant form of war simulation.34 By the nineteenth century, Germany had become the leader in Kriegspiel, a new and more complex board simulation developed by Georg von Reisswitz, that among other innovations put time constraints on each player’s moves, forcing commanders to “operate as they would in real war.”35 Reisswitz’s Kriegspiel was adopted by the Prussian General Staff and later “spread like wildfire among Prussian soldiers and civilians alike.”36 Variations of the tabletop Kriegspiel continued to influence military training in Germany and elsewhere well into the twentieth century. Before the late 1800s, at least in Europe and the United States, “violent wargames were not two-sided and two-sided wargames were not violent.”37 Rather, they took a turn toward the cerebral and the ceremonial. How, then, were soldiers to learn how to fight on actual battlefields? European armies began using “maneuvers” in their training regimens in the eighteenth century, with large-scale versions becoming important in the nineteenth century.38 Maneuvers, according to Martin van Creveld, were “two-sided wargames that [were] held in the field, thus providing at least a semblance of the fatigues of war.”39 They were often held annually, giving soldiers and their commanders a chance “to practice the

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complicated evolutions that the tactics of the age demanded.”40 Commanders imagined that such field exercises and war games were essential for preparing officers and soldiers for battle. But they were, first and foremost, performances that provided a visual spectacle and entertainment for dignitaries and other onlookers.41 Although armies have used varieties of war games throughout human history, maneuvers emerged at a very specific moment in European military history. With “the rise of the railways,” troops could be moved to and from a maneuver location expeditiously.42 These war games, which were expensive, relied on state wealth and the well-developed logistical infrastructure that state coffers could support.43 Germany’s pioneering role in military training in the nineteenth century primed colonial officers to use field exercises to train askaris in East Africa for future war. From the beginning of Schutztruppe operations in German East Africa, its founders noted the importance of using war games and other forms of repetitive training for their askaris. Wissmann advised fellow officers in an 1894 handbook to adopt a streamlined mode of training for their askaris that would accomplish the singular goal of achieving “superiority over the enemy.” In his estimation, anything beyond that would be “wasted time and effort.”44 He went even further, reducing the Schutztruppe’s African opponents to caricatures built on racist assumptions: “The Schutztruppe in Africa have, for the time being, to overcome an enemy that is in every respect weaker and of lower standing than European troops.”45 As already noted, it was certainly true that European colonial armies had some clear advantages, but Wissmann’s advice equated the Schutztruppe’s military superiority to an implied superiority rooted in Europeanness—a racialized understanding of what kind of training askaris should undertake. And what of the inconvenient problem of the askaris’ blackness? Were they not also subject to “moral inferiority” due to their supposed racial inferiority? Would they not require a more “thoroughgoing drill” to “eliminate” these tendencies? Wissmann’s retort to his imagined critics asserted that providing the askaris with just enough training to best the “natives” sufficed, given that, in his estimation, the “black soldiers” had fewer societal expectations and demands to worry about in comparison to Europeans.46 Their sole purpose, from the Schutztruppe perspective, was to fight for German colonial rule.47

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Wissmann’s proposal for a minimalist askari training regime eliminated elements he deemed superfluous for African troops. Here, too, he invoked a form of biological racism to explain why the basic training that German recruits underwent at home in Germany (which included military bearing, calisthenics, rifle exercises, and gymnastics) was inappropriate for the askaris. “Their litheness, good demeanor, and agility” made such training redundant for the askaris, and besides, according to Wissmann, “the Negro would not understand the above-mentioned preliminary practices” in any case.48 Wissmann advocated that officers begin training their askaris in skills like “weapons-handling, the few most necessary formations, and using the terrain, which the Negro very easily grasps.”49 Wissmann then designated the exercises he deemed most important, including formations for individuals, platoons, companies, and “dispersed order” and specific weapons-handling skills within these different formations.50 He recommended that askaris “exercise,” or train, each day for a three- to four-hour period either in the morning or late afternoon, given excessive heat conditions in the middle of the day, a recommendation that Schutztruppe officers and NCOs followed quite rigorously.51 Although Wissmann did not directly reference “war games” as part of the askaris’ daily training, much of the handbook outlined the specific kinds of warfare the officers and askaris might encounter and how best to plan for them.52 The guide included chapters on “regular troop offensives against natives” and “assault on an African fortress,” among a number of other types of warfare that Wissmann anticipated Schutztruppe companies might encounter.53 Wissmann’s assessment of askaris’ abilities simultaneously cast them as racially inferior and thus incapable of the individual training that formed the basis of German troops’ military education and as quintessential soldierly material in their supposedly innate physical and mental characteristics, which, in theory, made them naturals for the expeditionary warfare they undertook in the 1890s. Later drafts of training handbooks showed that the official line repeated the racist dialectic at the heart of the German idea of the askaris: on the one hand, they were stereotypically childlike and in need of German guidance, and on the other, they were men possessed of innate martial qualities simply in need of some polishing.54 But either way, their officers judged them to be superior to the vast population of “natives”

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and sought to maintain them in that status at all costs.55 Schutztruppe training modes featured prominently in the creation of the askaris as a recognizable, distinct, and powerful group within German East Africa. I turn now to two examples of Schutztruppe war games, the future war fantasies they enacted, and their purposes within German East African military culture.

Schutztruppe War Games: Imagining Enemies In 1911, the retired Schutztruppe captain August Fonck published a colorful volume recalling his fifteen years of military service in German East Africa. It was based on his “rich trove of photographs, observations, and sketches” from his military years, as well as one hundred of his own watercolors—“a diary in the glowing colors of the tropics.” Working with an artist (R. Duschek), he distilled his memories and experiences into twenty-four color images accompanied by brief explanatory texts. He hoped the book would “awaken knowledge, interest, and understanding for [Germany’s] beautiful, valuable colonies” and win “new friends” to the colonial cause.56 His book was one of many such memoirs written by colonial officers that dripped with nostalgia and longing for their military past in German East Africa. True to its genre, the book’s images offered glimpses of some of German East Africa’s most striking scenery, including ancient coastal fortresses, bustling African marketplaces, and impressive mountainous landscapes. Traces of the mechanisms of colonial governance also appeared in the book. For example, one image depicted a shauri, a kind of town hall where colonial authorities heard complaints, adjudicated disputes, and meted out punishments to Africans who lived in proximity to the military stations that served as administrative centers. This was an example of German colonizers adapting a long-standing East African communal practice to suit their administrative needs.57 Several askaris stand at attention along the edges of the fortress courtyard where the shauri is being held, their presence asserting the state’s authority. Fonck’s images reminded readers of the colonial army’s prominent role in securing and maintaining Germany’s colonial ambitions in Africa. This was represented most starkly in another image suggestive of colonial violence, albeit of a bloodless variety. It depicts a platoon of

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Figure 9.1. Askaris and auxiliaries on parade ground in Alt-Langenburg on Lake Nyasa. (From August Fonck, “Exerzierplatz in Alt-Langenburg am Nyassa-See,” in Die Naturschönheit deutscher Tropen: Die Bevölkerung und Erschliessung [Altenburg, Germany: Schneider, 1911].)

African colonial soldiers, arranged in two ranks, the first kneeling, the second standing, aiming their rifles and firing a salvo across an open expanse toward a group of advancing African combatants (see figure 9.1).58 The askaris wear khaki, and their opponents across the field carry large shields and spears, advancing at a run. Mountains, trees, and a row of thatched huts decorate the painting’s background. The accompanying text describes the image as a parade ground (Exerzierplatz) at a German military outpost on Lake Nyasa, where askaris, back in garrison after “weeks-long marches,” spent their “rest-days” conducting field exercises. Askaris needed to be ready, Fonck wrote, for whatever the return march through “partly unfamiliar territory” might bring.59 To that end, the unit’s auxiliary troops—the men across the field carrying spears and shields—played the role of the enemy combatants. They “burst forward,” surprising the askaris, thus giving them an opportunity to practice quickly getting into formation and firing a salvo to achieve maximum firepower against indigenous opponents whose

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only real advantage was strength in numbers. The salvo’s “crack” reverberated through the mountains. With that, Fonck closed the short piece by describing the treacherousness of the mountainous terrain surrounding the station, which had proven a liability for the expedition’s porters.60 Their work was essential to the company’s success, since they transported all of its supplies and equipment. The image depicts soldiers engaged in simulated combat, and the text supplements it by providing further detail on the labor involved in Schutztruppe expeditions. The wargame that Fonck observed in the early 1890s in German East Africa was a miniature version of the maneuvers that arose in Germany in the nineteenth century, which were also dependent on logistical efficiency, though in that case, trains facilitated transport in ways porters never could. The field exercise depicted in Fonck’s illustrated book made no reference to a specific imagined enemy arrayed against the askaris. But according to the accompanying text, the scene that inspired the image came from Colonel Freiherr von Schele’s expedition of 1893–94.61 Von Schele’s expedition was part of the larger German effort to defeat the Hehe, who had been at war with the Schutztruppe since 1891. The auxiliaries were attached to Kiwanga, a Bena leader and German ally who was later killed during the Maji Maji War of 1905–7.62 Fonck had joined the Schutztruppe in 1893 and thus had opportunities to observe the askaris’ “war games,” as well as Hehe tactics, which hindered the Schutztruppe’s efforts to conquer the southern highlands for most of the 1890s.63 It is impossible to know exactly which East African military opponent inspired the artwork in this section of Fonck’s book, and his German readership in 1911 probably gave it little thought. By then, the Schutztruppe had largely defeated armed resistance to German rule across the region. Most Germans cared little for the differences between the military cultures that challenged German rule in East Africa. The Bena auxiliaries, represented as tiny figures in the distance, simply stood in for a generic East African enemy to fall victim to the askaris coordinated rifle fire. A second description of a war game in German East Africa reveals the elaborate planning and performative aspects embedded in their practice. In February 1902, the colonial newspaper Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Zeitung published a description of elaborate military exercises that had taken place one week earlier. Part of the Schutztruppe’s 5th Company,

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made up of ten senior askaris, one hundred rank-and-file askaris, and several German officers and NCOs (including a military doctor), undertook a “practice march” from Dar es Salaam to Bagamoyo. They departed Dar es Salaam on a Thursday afternoon accompanied by music, probably played by an askari band, and camped overnight along the road to Bagamoyo. The next day, they continued the march to Bagamoyo, which then transitioned into an exercise against the Bagamoyo garrison, supervised by the Schutztruppe’s Captain von Schleinitz, during which the unit also practiced wartime encampment. “After taking the town of Bagamoyo in victorious battle,” the newspaper continued, the troops began a long march back to Dar es Salaam, passing through other villages and towns along the way. On the last stretch, between Pugu and Dar es Salaam, they engaged in another major, and quite complex, battle exercise, this time supervised by the colonial governor Graf von Götzen himself.64 Schutztruppe officers conducted this exercise according to a script, a “general idea” that informed the soldiers’ activities during the war game. In this instance, unlike the one Fonck described at Alt-Langenburg, the askaris had to defend against a coastal invasion of “enemy troops.” In the scenario, the colonial government and the Schutztruppe had been forced to retreat to Kisarawe, southwest of Dar es Salaam. Two detachments of troops were given specific instructions to counter this imagined invasion. The Kisarawe detachment was instructed to advance and “clear the capital city of enemies.” The Dar es Salaam detachment’s assignment was to “safeguard” the reinforcements’ arrival and to “hold off the enemy for a specific period of time.” The detachments engaged in a “battle” in which the Kisarawe contingent attacked the Dar es Salaam contingent, forcing it to give some ground. The newspaper described the Kisarawe detachment’s assault as “successful.” The author also highlighted the role of a particular piece of technology in making the exercise into a spectacle: “It was interesting to see the effectiveness of the machine gun, with its furious firing rate, during these battle scenes.” All of the troops then assembled for a “review” from Graf von Götzen. The newspaper described the askaris’ “deportment” as exemplary, “despite the taxing demands of the march.” Following von Götzen’s review, he led the entire company back to Dar es Salaam, where they reentered the city as they had left—accompanied by “ringing” music.65

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Did these war games actually have training utility for the askaris, or was their purpose mainly performative? The answer is that they served multiple purposes. The military exercises just described were one piece in a wider set of training goals that the Schutztruppe expected its troops to achieve. The askaris experienced Schutztruppe training regimens as vital to their ability to mobilize quickly and to fight effectively, even if they also found them grueling and tedious.66 Their training ranged across different registers of military activities, from those focused on honing individual skills to those that emphasized unit-level operations. Alongside their fellow soldiers, they practiced small-unit operations to prepare (at least from commanders’ perspectives) for playing their part in larger operations. Individual soldiers learned and practiced a number of specific skills, including firearms proficiency and firing discipline, designed to increase their battlefield effectiveness and to keep them alive while under fire in the midst of combat. Close-combat training, especially in the use of bayonets, also prepared askaris for battlefield eventualities. Beyond these fundamental combat skills, they also learned to operate communications equipment, to treat combat injuries on the spot, to orient themselves geographically, and to manage the logistics train that accompanied their columns on expeditions. All of these skills mattered a great deal to the askaris’ ability to survive in battle against indigenous militaries. German officers and NCOs believed very strongly in the value of repetitive training for their troops. Whether at the individual or unit level, all of this training served at least two functions from the leaders’ perspective. First, askaris’ everyday training prepared them for violent encounters with various East African combatants, sharpening their survival skills. For Ali Kalikilima, a former askari who narrated his life history to a British colonial official in the 1940s, this sort of training had proven indispensable to his ability to overcome his fears before and during battle.67 The centrality of training to Ali Kalikilima’s soldierly identity lingered decades later as he recalled his time in the Schutztruppe. The Schutztruppe war games instilled in the troops another set of qualities directed at enhancing different kinds of unit operations in response to a variety of military possibilities, including surprise attacks, sieges, and invasions. Scripted scenarios were probably shared informally between Schutztruppe officers until Ernst Nigmann, a veteran of

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the Hehe and Maji Maji Wars, compiled them into a 1910 handbook, Felddienstübungen für farbige (ostafrikanische) Truppen (Field exercises for colored [East African] troops). As Nigmann noted in the handbook’s introduction, the exercises were versatile and could “fit without difficulty anywhere in suitable open country.” This was important because the lands encompassed by German East Africa were diverse, and the Schutztruppe need not limit such exercises over “concerns about cultivation or damage to fields.”68 In viewing the land first and foremost as colonized, occupied space, the Schutztruppe considered it simply another resource to be used as required for training or other purposes. The production of these and other handbooks in the aftermath of the Maji Maji War suggests that Schutztruppe officers had taken stock of the knowledge they had gained through their experiences of fighting against so many indigenous armies over two decades.69 The exercises collected in Felddienstübungen tested the askaris’ abilities to operate in small units and to carry out particular objectives with only limited knowledge of an operation’s full context or purpose. These exercises were also intended to train the soldiers to recognize other ways of war and combatants and to condition them to respond decisively to a variety of threats. The basic assumption undergirding the majority of the scenarios in Felddienstübungen was that the askaris would confront “a numerically superior but poorly armed native as opponent.”70 The scenarios focused on tactics that “diverged” from German ones, most notably “surprise battles at short distance and the reluctant use of open order” formations.71 In one example entitled “Securing a Large Transport,” two opposing sides (“blue” and “red”) followed a scenario in which a Schutztruppe contingent had “subjugated” an area, captured a large amount of war spoils, and “collected” them at a designated location. The “blue” side, composed of an NCO and twenty-five askaris, was to move the seized goods from the collection point to a colonial station. The “red” side, representing indigenous enemy insurgents, was to recover the war spoils from the askaris. The “insurgent” contingent was imagined as twenty “shooters” and one hundred spearmen. All of the roles in the exercise were to be played by askaris, who wore “native clothing” instead of uniforms to perform the insurgent roles. The spearmen, by contrast, were simply represented by two red flags, carried by youthful military apprentices, whom Nigmann described as Soldatenboys.72 In order to

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make the exercise as realistic as possible, Nigmann recommended assembling another 150 Soldatenboys to enact a “long column,” in which they carried marked loads just as porters would on a real expedition. He also suggested that a herd of livestock be included in the column, again to mimic the reality of such an operation. For appropriate terrain, Nigmann suggested finding a well-trodden single-file path with long grass on both sides, which would force the column to elongate itself, increasing its vulnerability to attack by the “insurgents.” The scenario text offered specific tactical advice on how the “blue” side should respond to the “red” side’s surprise simultaneous assaults on different parts of the column.73 This and other scenarios drew from a deep experiential repository of the Schutztruppe practice of expropriating goods from defeated enemies, as well the vulnerability of the column, its main expeditionary formation. The innocuous title of the scenario—“securing a large transport”—reinforced the notion that the seizure of enemy goods was standard practice. For the askaris participating in the exercise, this also upheld their way of war, in which war spoils were a form of supplementary compensation. From the German officers’ perspectives, the field exercises molded individual askaris into larger fighting units that could respond to a variety of battlefield possibilities. Lack of evidence limits what we can know about the askaris’ thoughts about these exercises. But to the extent that they fostered unit cohesion, bolstered the askaris’ gendered understandings of combat, and reinforced their quest for respectability and status within the colony, they were an essential component of the askaris’ everyday lives. A smaller portion of the exercises in Felddienstübungen imagined “encounters with equal opponents,” the seeming premise of the 1902 exercise reported in the Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Zeitung described earlier. At first glance, it might seem odd that in 1902 Schutztruppe officers had their troops perform a scenario based on a coastal invasion. Nothing in the Schutztruppe’s history of warfare in East Africa indicated that such an invasion was a realistic threat. The explanation is likely to be found in Schutztruppe officers’ certain awareness that relations between Britain and Germany were rapidly deteriorating due to a combination of domestic and international factors.74 With British colonies to German East Africa’s north and southwest, it is hardly surprising that in

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1902 Schutztruppe officers imagined the possibility of a British coastal invasion. Twelve years later, the askaris would indeed confront and repel an invasion from the sea, when a British-led contingent of mainly South Asian troops attempted to capture the coastal town of Tanga in November 1914.75 Their victory in that battle secured their reputation as outstanding soldiers well into the post–World War I period. The point of dedicating a portion of the exercises an imagined future war with “equal opponents” was to alert the askaris to the possibility, no matter how outlandish it may have seemed to them at the time. And performing such elaborate field exercises over vast spaces demonstrated to anyone paying attention that this army was not to be taken lightly.76

Auxiliaries As Fonck’s vignette illustrates, some Schuztruppe training called for askaris, auxiliaries, or “responsible people from the [unit’s] appendages [i.e., porters or other experienced column members]” to act as enemy military forces, performing the battlefield tactics and behaviors of imagined opponents. Fonck claimed that the auxiliaries in the AltLangenburg exercise were Kiwanga I’s “people” or, more pointedly, his soldiers.77 Kiwanga I, a “lowland Bena chief of the Kilombero valley,” allied himself with the Germans early in the 1890s as a bulwark against the regional military hegemon and German enemy the Hehe and their leader, Mkwawa.78 Bena men received significant military training from boyhood on, in keeping with Bena sociocultural priorities and gendered paths to adulthood. Anthropologists who studied and lived with Bena communities in the 1930s described early military socialization as “strict” and tightly focused on cultivating courage among Bena boys.79 The details of their training and conditioning paralleled those of other East African societies. During their socialization from childhood to adulthood, they woke up early, then performed labor, including domestic work that typically fell within the realm of women’s responsibilities, “so that [the boys] should not become possessed with too great a sense of their own importance.”80 In the afternoons, “they played games, mock battles with maize-cobs or with dummy spears made of reeds, against which they protected themselves with shields. . . . They thus acquired the art of turning a spear on a shield and learned all the

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tricks of attack and defence, together with quickness of eye and lightness of foot.”81 Their training continued through their adolescence and teenage years until they became “fully fledged warriors” around age sixteen, at which point they were assigned roles within the Bena leader’s (mtema’s) administration.82 Some became “professional warriors” who were organized into “regiments,” two of which were always stationed at the mtema’s headquarters.83 Other nonprofessional regiments performed different roles related to the maintenance of Bena political authority in the region. Some of these men probably became the auxiliaries that Fonck depicted as the targets of askari field exercises in his book. Most Bena soldiers were armed with both throwing and stabbing spears and body-length shields, linking them with wider military cultures in the region.84 Soldiers who supplemented the askaris, such as the Bena, were a military cultural interface between the askaris and the various indigenous armies they fought against between 1889 and the end of German colonial rule in East Africa in 1918. In the German sources, writers used several seemingly interchangeable terms to refer to these troops (including “auxiliaries,” “irregulars,” and “ruga-ruga”), who specialized in executing particular facets of the Schutztruppe way of war. They often were responsible for stealing or destroying agriculture, livestock, and other goods following assaults on communities. They specialized in ambushes and pursuits, and Schutztruppe officers considered them vital to counterinsurgency operations.85 In addition to these wartime functions, the auxiliaries stood in for the generic East African enemies that Schutztruppe officers imagined their troops would face in battle. Their complex position within the Schutztruppe organization reflected an oversimplified racist dialectic similar to the one that characterized officers’ views of the askaris, in which they vacillated between casting the askaris either as childlike or as martial material. Similarly, on one hand, officers saw the auxiliaries as quintessential African “savages” whose uncontrollable ways of war they deemed inherently inferior to those of the Schutztruppe.86 On the other hand, the auxiliaries played the role of “warriors,” a key element in the askaris’ abilities to simulate warfare against potential opponents whose only commonality was that the Schutztruppe judged them as militarily inferior.

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Acting out such confrontations under controlled circumstances such as the one depicted in Fonck’s book was one thing. Allowing auxiliaries to potentially challenge the askaris in less controlled circumstances such as the maneuvers outlined in Nigmann’s Felddienstübungen was something else altogether. In the handbook’s introduction, Nigmann urged caution in using auxiliaries in large field exercises, during which certain vulnerabilities might be exposed. He thus suggested that “natives” should not take part in the exercises “on a large scale.”87 He did not elaborate further on the root cause of these suspicions, a surprising omission given the long-standing use of indigenous auxiliaries in these roles in the previous two decades of German rule. But the recent experience of the Maji Maji War was probably on his mind. In 1905, the Schutztruppe had been caught off guard when indigenous armies attacked without warning, killing a number of askaris and Europeans.88 Perhaps Nigmann’s circumspection was rooted in a fundamental fear that the Schutztruppe could no longer afford to trust auxiliaries with any sort of insider knowledge of their way of war. In addition, Nigmann’s warning seemed to suggest that officers needed to control the dissemination of knowledge about Schutztruppe operations. Yet this desire for control existed alongside the desire to continue showing off the organization’s strength to its East African audiences, real and imagined. The exercises were undertaken in part as a show of force for those who lived in proximity to the march routes, camp sites, and field-exercise sites where they took place.

Ngoma I return now to the ngoma as sites where the wider influences of the Schutztruppe’s military pageantry and violent displays manifested themselves in new performances that encompassed both defeat and survival for East Africans. In 1919, British censors in Tanganyika intercepted a report written by Saleh bin Mkwawa, a Hehe functionary in the new colonial administration that had taken over governance of the former German colony.89 The report detailed a “war game” between two competitive dance associations, or ngoma, from Iringa, a town in the southern highlands and a hub of Hehe life and culture.90 Both ngoma were part of a wider form of East African cultural expression called beni

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(band), which “[took] its name from its essential musical feature—the attempt to reproduce the effect of a military brass-band.” Dances representing the “idea of military drill” accompanied the music. The ngoma competed against each other for bragging rights. They also functioned as mutual-aid associations and social clubs.91 British officials worried that the ngoma might easily become “a valuable aid to any person who might be entrusted with the work of anti-British propaganda among native tribes.”92 They monitored the ngoma and their leaders’ activities, their suspicions making the ngoma visible in the colonial archive. Saleh bin Mkwawa and a fellow ngoma member, Thomas Plantan, both had strong ties to the former German colonial state. Saleh bin Mkwawa was the son of Mkwawa, the Hehe military leader who had waged war against the Germans for most of the 1890s and whose troops had defeated Zelewsky’s column in 1891. Plantan, the son of a decorated senior askari, had been a signaler in the Schutztruppe during World War I. British suspicions of the ngoma were rooted in other suspicions that Africans harboring sympathies for Germany would undermine British authority in the chaotic postwar environment. The war game, or “Manöver,” as it was written in the document, revealed an elaborate exchange between Saleh bin Mkwawa’s ngoma (marini) and its main rival (arinoti). Replete with references to German military ranks and surnames that revealed the ngoma’s internal organizational structure, it explained that rival ngoma participants had been captured and made into “prisoners” because they were “weak.”93 In other words, Saleh bin Mkwawa’s ngoma had won the competition, reinforcing his authority among the Iringa Hehe. Both Saleh bin Mkwawa and Thomas Plantan had reason to resent British rule, since they had both been immersed in the German colonial apparatus before and during the war. The British defeat of Germany threatened their social standing. Beni, like its Swahili forerunners in the 1890s, provided a space within which to assert political authority outside the nascent hierarchies now being created by the British, who had begun administering German East Africa as occupied territory in 1916. Tanganyika, as the renamed territory came to be known, became a League of Nations Mandate under British authority in 1922. The beni ngoma pitted rival dance associations against each other in the interest of solidifying group identities behind aspiring authority figures. The performances

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referenced the period of German rule through words, names, clothing, military commands, and dance steps and patterns. Tanganyika had become its beni’s epicenter because of how it spread among soldiers, porters, and others during and after World War I. In postwar Tanganyika, under the new British colonial government, beni participants and organizers like Saleh bin Mkwawa and Thomas Plantan created their own “war games” within well-established ngoma traditions of eastern Africa. But they had also been keen observers of war games like those described by Fonck, the anonymous DeutschOstafrikanische Zeitung author, and Nigmann. Over the course of two decades of German rule, they had probably witnessed a variety of Schutztruppe training exercises, carried out on parade grounds, Exerzierplätze, and long marches across German East Africa. Severed from their former source of standing and authority by the outcome of World War I, these two men helped construct new channels within the older ngoma form to express their position within the new sociopolitical order of British rule. The military qualities of this form of cultural expression were not new. But its meanings and messages to those who observed, whether East African or British, served the purposes of the moment. In short, it communicated a struggle over visibility and power at the inception of a new colonial regime. Beni had survived the war, and men like Saleh bin Mkwawa asserted that it would play an active part in constructing the new Tanganyika and that it would do so with militarized sensibilities.94 War games had done their work. British suspicions about beni’s place within Tanganyika reflected a common historical pattern, in which colonizers feared the subversive—perhaps even radical—potential of African spiritual or cultural expression. For the East Africans who continued to participate in beni well into the 1950s, it represented a means of preserving some measure of control over their lives in the face of continued colonial indignities and violence.95 In this way, the fusion of militarization processes that beni expressed, which had grown out of the complex interplay of different types of European and African war games, always harbored the potential for insurgency. This realization “unnerved” the colonizers. Nigmann’s warning to fellow Schutztruppe officers to limit the participation of auxiliaries in large-scale exercises and British surveillance of beni both resulted from this nervousness.96 The materials the colonizers produced in order to document their visions of state secu-

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rity also open up possibilities for historians to see the interplay of different military cultures within an occupied space and to use war games as a lens for considering the spectrum of outcomes for African peoples living under colonial rule. We must reckon with defeat and accommodation at the same time that we acknowledge the subtle struggles for survival that beni and other war games represented for many East Africans. Notes

1. The Kaiserliche Schutztruppe für Deutsch-Ostafrika (Imperial Protection Force for German East Africa) was the German East African colonial army. For most of period of German colonial rule, it was a small army of some 1,800–2,000 troops. During the East African campaign of World War I, it swelled to 16,000–18,000 troops as it defended German East Africa against a coalition of troops drawn from across the Entente’s imperial armies. Operational histories of World War I in Africa include Edward Paice, Tip and Run: The Untold Tragedy of the Great War in Africa (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2007); and Hew Strachan, The First World War in Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 2. German East Africa comprised what is today mainland Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi. 3. In Kiswahili, the most widely spoken language in eastern Africa, the word ngoma could mean a drum, festivities or events where people drummed and danced, or competitive dance associations, depending on context. 4. Ascan Roderich Lutteroth, Tunakwenda: Auf Kriegssafari in Deutsch-Ostafrika (Hamburg: Broschek, 1938), 95–96. 5. John Lynn, Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 18. 6. The other branch was marini. The two branches expressed status hierarchies, with arinoti mostly made up of low-status workers and labor migrants and marini associated with educated elites. Michelle Moyd, Violent Intermediaries: African Soldiers, Conquest, and Everyday Colonialism in German East Africa (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2014), 198; Terence O. Ranger, Dance and Society in Eastern Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), 40. 7. The history of beni dance societies in East Africa stretched back to the late 1890s, when urbanizing Swahili peoples on the coast of Kenya found themselves subject to colonial rule. Beni, which developed out of a fusion of regional dance practices and new musical influences from Zanzibar, became an outlet within which to express dissatisfaction with their circumstance, as well as to continue to assert their values. It spread to the Tanganyikan coast and then throughout German East Africa before and during World War I. Many Schutztruppe askari and porters were associated with either the marini or arinoti, preserving beni’s competitive character throughout the war and into the postwar period, when the British took control of the former German colony.

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8. Patrick Porter, Military Orientalism: Eastern War through Western Eyes (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 15–19. 9. The classic analysis of beni is Ranger, Dance and Society in Eastern Africa. More recent analyses can be found in Frank Gunderson and Gregory Barz, eds., Mashindano! Competitive Music Performance in East Africa (Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota, 2000). For a similar phenomenon (malipenga) in neighboring Malawi during the same period, see Melvin Page, The Chiwaya War: Malawians in the First World War (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000), 185–89. For the influence of war games on youth in a different context, see Sabine Frühstück, Playing War: Children and the Paradoxes of Modern Militarism in Japan (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017), 1–3, 41–46. For a similar example from German colonial Togo, see “Samenkörner vom Missionsfelde,” Quartalblatt der Norddeutschen Missionsgesellschaft 1 (1901): 7–8. 10. Hermann von Wissmann, Afrika: Schilderungen und Rathschläge zur Vorbereitung für den Aufenthalt und den Dienst in den deutschen Schutzgebieten (Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn, 1903), 8, 12. 11. Wissmann, 10. Wissmann also noted here that “the history of English colonial battles teaches us in the first instance that underestimation of the opponent was the principal basis of defeat.” For a short summary of the Zelewsky expedition’s defeat and its subsequent effects on the Schutztruppe organization, see Moyd, Violent Intermediaries, 136–37. A useful, brief summary of the Hehe Wars of the 1890s can be found in Timothy J. Stapleton, The Colonial Period: From the Scramble for Africa to the Algerian Independence War, vol. 2 of A Military History of Africa (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2013), 46–49. See also David Pizzo, “‘To Devour the Land of Mkwawa’: Colonial Violence and the Hehe War in East Africa, ca. 1884–1914” (PhD diss., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2007); and Alison Redmayne, “Mkwawa and the Hehe Wars,” Journal of African History 9, no. 3 (1968): 409–36. 12. The Maji Maji War was a millenarian-inspired insurgency against German rule that came to encompass much of the southern half of German East Africa. On African tactics in the war’s initial phases, see Gilbert C. K. Gwassa, “African Methods of Warfare during the Maji Maji War 1905–1907,” in War and Society in Africa, ed. Bethwell Ogot (London: Routledge, 1970), 123–48. On askari responses to these initial defeats, see “‘All People Were Barbarians to the Askari’: Askari Identity and Honor in the Maji Maji War, 1905–1907,” in Maji Maji: Lifting the Fog of War, ed. James Giblin and Jamie Monson (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 149–80. See also Susanne Kuss, German Colonial War and the Context of Military Violence (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017), 57–75. 13. Ernst Nigmann, German Schutztruppe in East Africa: History of the Imperial Protectorate Force German East Africa, 1889–1911 (Nashville, TN: Battery, 2005), 204–18, provides a comprehensive list of the Schutztruppe’s many military engagements from 1889 to 1910.

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14. For a similar formulation, see Douglas Porch, Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 74. 15. For examples, see Eduard von Liebert, Neunzig Tage im Zelt: Meine Reise nach Uhehe Juni bis September 1897 (Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn, 1898), 33. See also Hans Paasche, Im Morgenlicht: Kriegs-, Jagd- und Reise-Erlebnisse in Ostafrika (Berlin: Verlag von C. U. Schwetschke und Sohn, 1907), 118. Paasche, a naval officer during the Maji Maji War, reported that he even encouraged noncombatants “who were loyal to him” to burn down and plunder a hidden village built by Pogoro who were at war with the Germans. 16. Porch, Counterinsurgency, 71. 17. Sebastian Conrad, German Colonialism: A Short History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 79–87. 18. The Wissmanntruppe became the Kaiserliche Schutztruppe für Deutsch-Ostafrika in 1891. 19. Moyd, Violent Intermediaries, 36–60, 95–96. 20. Moyd, 46–51. A brief overview of Anglo-Egyptian wars against the Mahdist state in Sudan between 1883 (Hicks Expedition) and 1898 (Battle of Omdurman) can be found in Stapleton, Colonial Period, 7–10. 21. Wissmann, Afrika, 58–59. 22. Steven Fabian, “Locating the Coastal Rebellion of 1888–1890,” Journal of Eastern African History 7, no. 3 (2013): 432–49; John Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 92–98. 23. Moyd, Violent Intermediaries, 99–100. 24. Charles Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), 97–107. Callwell calls this “desultory warfare.” See also Anonymous, Anleitung zum Felddienst in Deutsch-Ostafrika (Dar es Salam: Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Rundschau, 1911), 14–23. For African testimonies of Schutztruppe violence during the Maji Maji war, see John Iliffe, Maji Maji Research Project, Collected Papers (Dar es Salaam: University College, 1968). 25. On the causes, conduct, and outcomes of the Maji Maji War, see Iliffe, Modern History of Tanganyika, 168–202. See also Giblin and Monson, Maji Maji. 26. Nigmann, German Schutztruppe in East Africa, 177–80, lists several campaigns that occurred between 1907 and 1911. This period marked a significant decline in military actions in comparison to the number of engagements from 1889 to 1907. See also Jamie Monson, “Relocating Maji Maji: The Politics of Alliance and Authority in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, 1870–1918,” Journal of African History 39, no. 1 (1998): 95–120; and Heike Schmidt, “(Re)negotiating Marginality: The Maji Maji War and Its Aftermath in Southwestern Tanzania, ca. 1905–1916,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 43, no. 1 (2010): 27–62. 27. Wissmann, Afrika, 10; Nigmann, German Schutztruppe in East Africa; Anonymous, Anleitung zum Felddienst, 11–14; Freiherr von Schleinitz, foreword to Anleitung zum Felddienst, n.p.; Ernst Nigmann, Felddienstübungen für farbige

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28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

44. 45. 46. 47.

48. 49. 50. 51.

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(ostafrikanische) Truppen (Dar es Salaam: Deutsch-Ostafrikanishe Zeitung, 1910), foreword. Moyd, Violent Intermediaries, 89–111. Wissmann, Afrika, 8. Moyd, Violent Intermediaries, 193–203. Moyd, 198–99. Martin van Creveld defines a war game as “a game of strategy which, while clearly separated from ‘real’ warfare . . . , nevertheless simulates some key aspects of the latter: including, quite often, the death and/or injury and capture that results from warfare’s quintessential element, i.e. fighting.” Martin van Creveld, Wargames: From Gladiators to Gigabytes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 4–5. Although van Creveld uses the spelling “wargames,” I have separated the two words throughout for consistency and to mirror more common usages. Van Creveld, 139. Van Creveld, 140. Van Creveld, 149. Van Creveld, 151. Van Creveld, 189. See also Christopher George Lewin, War Games and Their History (Stroud, UK: Fonthill Media, 2012). Van Creveld, Wargames, 190–91. Van Creveld, 190. Van Creveld, 191. Van Creveld, 192–93. For an example from German East Africa, see “Was Prinz Adalbert in Tanga gesehen hat,” Beilage zur “Usambara-Post” 4, no. 15 (1905). Van Creveld, Wargames, 202. Van Creveld, 202–3. For more on the Prussian military’s use of railroads, see Dennis E. Showalter, “More than Nuts and Bolts: Technology and the German Army, 1870–1945,” Historian 65, no. 1 (2002): 127–29. Wissmann, Afrika, 59. Wissmann, 59. Wissmann, 59. The askaris’ purposes however, were quite different. For the most part, askari fought for the Germans in order to secure paths to respectability within colonial socioeconomic hierarchies. They became quite powerful because of their relatively high wages and the status they acquired as part of the colonial state. Moyd, Violent Intermediaries, 1–6. Wissmann, Afrika, 60. Wissmann, 60. Wissmann, 61. For an askari’s perspective on training in the tropical heat and German strictness during exercises, see Bror Urme MacDonell, Mzee Ali: The Biography of an African Slave-Raider Turned Askari and Scout (Johannesburg: 30 South Publishers, 2006), 85–86. See Nachlass Correck, Handschriftensammlung HS 908, Abteilung

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52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59.

60. 61. 62.

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4, Kriegsarchiv, Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Munich, Germany, for a detailed diary recounting a Schutztruppe lieutenant’s daily activities during the Maji Maji War, including leading askari “exercises.” For additional accounts of askari training exercises, see “Vom Exerzierplatz in Daressalam,” Kolonie und Heimat 1, no. 4 (1907): 8–9; and Rudolf Wagner and Dr. F. Buchmann, Wir Schutztruppler: Die Deutsche Wehrmacht Übersee (Berlin: Verlagsanstalt Buntdruck GmbH, 1913), 105–12. Writing in 1906, a German doctor living in the Nyasa region wrote, “Because the soldiers, who for the most part have been with the [Schutztruppe] for many years, have sufficiently mastered the military exercises, one need not have them exercise daily, rather they can be used under the supervision of European officers and NCOs for building stations, building bridges, road construction and similar.” He noted further that “a very large portion of the agricultural work, especially in the interior of the land, is owed exclusively to the activities of the Schutztruppe.” Friedrich Fülleborn, Deutsch-Ost-Afrika: Wissenschaftliche Forschungsresultate über Land und Leute unseres ostafrikanischen Schutzgebietes und der angrenzenden Länder, vol. 9 (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer [Ernst Vohsen], 1906), 9. See also “Vorschriften über die Handhabung des Dienstbetriebes auf den Stationen der Schutztruppe für Ost-Afrika,” Deutsches Kolonialblatt, 1 February 1891, 55–57. For one ex-askari’s remembrance of railway and other massive construction projects, see MacDonell, Mzee Ali, 123–25. Wissmann, Afrika. Wissmann. Callwell’s Small Wars is organized in a similar way, covering numerous examples of imperial warfare around the world. Anleitung zum Felddienst, 6. Anleitung zum Felddienst, 8–9; Moyd, Violent Intermediaries. August Fonck, Die Naturschönheit deutscher Tropen: Die Bevölkerung und Erschliessung (Altenburg, Germany: Schneider, 1911), n.p. Fonck, “Gerichtssitzung (Shauri) im Stationshof von Mpapua,” in Die Naturschönheit, n.p. This formation (“form two ranks”) was one of the training suggestions for platoons listed in Wissmann’s handbook. Wissmann, Afrika, 61. Fonck, “Exerzierplatz,” in Die Naturschönheit, n.p. See also Michelle Moyd, “From a Hurt Sense of Honor: Violence Work and the Limits of Soldierly Obedience on a Scientific Expedition in German East Africa, 1896–1897,” Slavery and Abolition 39, no. 3 (2018): 579–601. Fonck, “Exerzierplatz,” n.p. Iliffe, Modern History of Tanganyika, 110–12. Fonck, “Exerzierplatz”; Jamie Monson, “Memory, Migration, and the Authority of History in Southern Tanzania, 1860–1960,” Journal of African History 41, no. 3 (2000): 347–72; A. G. O. Hobson, “Some Notes on the Wahehe of Mahenge District, Tanganyika Territory,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 56 (1926): 37–58; Iliffe, Modern History of Tanganyika, 111.

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63. Nigmann, German Schutztruppe in East Africa, 265; “Fonck, August,” in Deutsches Kolonial-Lexikon, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Quelle und Meyer, 1920), 648. Fonck stayed in the Schutztruppe until 1907 and fought against the Hehe, as well as in the Maji Maji War (1905–7). 64. “Aus Daressalam und Umgegend,” Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Zeitung, 8 February 1902. 65. “Aus Daressalam und Umgegend.” 66. Moyd, Violent Intermediaries, 98–111. 67. MacDonell, Mzee Ali, 169. 68. Nigmann, Felddienstübungen, ix, x. 69. Nigmann, German Schutztruppe in East Africa, 172–73. 70. Nigmann, Felddienstübungen, ix. 71. Nigmann, ix. 72. Nigmann, 1, 17. They were more commonly known as askariboys. Moyd, Violent Intermediaries, 124. 73. Nigmann, Felddienstübungen, 17–18. 74. Paul M. Kennedy, “German World Policy and the Alliance Negotiations with England, 1897–1900,” Journal of Modern History 45, no. 4 (1973): 605–25. 75. Michelle Moyd, “Color Lines, Front Lines: The First World War from the South,” Radical History Review 2018, no. 131 (2018): 13–35. For a comprehensive operational history of the Battle of Tanga, see Ross Anderson, The Battle of Tanga 1914 (Stroud, UK: Tempus, 2002). 76. Moyd, Violent Intermediaries, 100–101, offers additional examples of extensive field exercises. 77. Fonck, “Exerzierplatz,” n.p. 78. Iliffe, Modern History of Tanganyika, 111. 79. A. T. Culwick and G. M. Culwick, Ubena of the Rivers (London: Allen and Unwin, 1935), 156. 80. Culwick and Culwick, 157. 81. Culwick and Culwick, 157. 82. Culwick and Culwick, 159. 83. Culwick and Culwick, 166. 84. Culwick and Culwick, 168. The Culwicks also noted that there was a specialty regiment that used muskets to aid in hunting hippopotamus. Another used bows and arrows for hunting, having adopted the technology from the Pogoro, another people in the region. Bena military culture, like that of many other East African peoples, was influenced by the wave of military changes set in motion by Zulus and Ngoni in southern Africa in the early nineteenth century. See Thomas Spear, Zwangendaba’s Ngoni, 1821–1890: A Political and Social History of a Migration (Madison: University of Wisconsin, African Studies Program, 1972), 35. For a brief history of Zulu military expansion, the pressures it exerted on neighboring peoples, and the making of new military cultures as a result, see Richard Reid, Warfare in African History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 120–21.

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85. For a fuller explanation of the Schutztruppe’s use of auxiliaries, see Moyd, Violent Intermediaries, 130–31. For the history of ruga-ruga in nineteenth-century East African history prior to the Schutztruppe’s formation, see Moyd, 75–84; and Michael Pesek, “Ruga-ruga: The History of an African Profession, 1820–1918,” in German Colonialism Revisited: African, Asian and Oceanic Experiences, ed. Nina Berman, Klaus Mühlhahn, and Patrice Nganang (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014), 85–90. Richard Reid contextualizes the ruga-ruga within war-driven generational changes in nineteenth-century East Africa that produced significant populations of “disaffected, aggressive,” youthful combatants who viewed organized violence as one of only a few viable paths to adulthood. Richard Reid, War in Pre-Colonial Eastern Africa (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007), 157–60. See also Richard Reid, “Arms and Adolescence: Male Youth, Warfare, and Statehood in Nineteenth-Century Eastern Africa,” in Generations Past: Youth in East African History, ed. Andrew Burton and Hélène Charton-Bigot (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010), 25–46. 86. Nigmann, Felddienstübungen, ix–x. See also Porter, Military Orientalism, 2–4. 87. Nigmann, Felddienstübungen, ix–x. 88. Gwassa, “African Methods of Warfare,” 123–48. 89. Ranger, Dance and Society in Eastern Africa, 59. Britain began administering German East Africa (which later became Tanganyika) in 1916 as an occupied territory. After Germany’s surrender and the Versailles settlement, Britain formally assumed control of Tanganyika as a League of Nations Mandate in 1922. 90. Ranger, 59. 91. Ranger, 5. 92. Ranger, 59. Ranger’s work cites the Censor’s General Report, September–October 1919, Sec. 065, Tanzania National Archives, Dar es Salaam. I have been unable to consult the original documents that Ranger used. 93. Ranger, 60–61. 94. Compare to Molly McCullers, “The ‘Truppenspieler Show’: Herero Masculinity and the German Colonial Military Aesthetic,” in Berman, Mühlhahn, and Nganang, German Colonialism Revisited, 226–41. 95. Ranger, Dance and Society in Eastern Africa, 77–105. 96. Marissa Moorman, “Guerrilla Broadcasters and the Unnerved Colonial State in Angola (1961–74),” Journal of African History 59, no. 2 (2018): 241–61.

10

German Military Culture and the Colonial War in Southwest Africa, 1904–1907 Isabel V. Hull

From imperial Germany’s unification in 1870–71 until World War I, its only military engagements were overseas. In several of the larger colonial conflicts, the military demonstrated its tendency to adopt extreme, even dysfunctional, policies of destruction, which it did so again during the world war. This chapter explores how Germany’s military culture predisposed commanders to use excessive force and how the military’s place in German political culture made it difficult to rein in that force once it had been unleashed. The example I use is Germany’s largest prewar engagement, suppressing the revolt in Southwest Africa between 1904 and 1907, during which two African peoples suffered genocide or near genocide as a direct result of military operations.1 Military culture describes the lessons that military organizations have learned from their past struggles with foreign armies, with domestic competitors for resources, and with domestic critics—in short, the challenges they have surmounted in the environments in which they operate. These lessons gradually disappear from consciousness as they become embedded in habits, basic assumptions, default programs, and scripts that seem so obviously correct and natural that people inside the organizational culture have trouble thinking beyond or against them. Furthermore, because militaries deal in violence and death and thus have developed imperative command structures, they typically have “strong” organizational cultures, insulating them even further from insiders’ critical insight.2 The Prusso-German military shared many significant features of its military culture with other late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European armies. Some of the most important were the habits and tech240

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niques resulting from the military’s basic task of being the expert wielder of violent force, the imperative command structure, the industrialtechnological revolution in firepower, gender uniformity and shared ideals of masculinity, and the modern organizational-bureaucratic structure.

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But the Prusso-German military also was unique in some respects. Its preeminent importance to the monarchy and, increasingly, to the national imaginary; its constitutional protection from civilian or critical scrutiny; its general staff system that dominated training, doctrine, and planning; its system of “mission tactics” stressing independence, activism, and responsibility even in the most junior officers; its assumptions about the pure, existential nature of warfare, from which it derived an expansive definition of “military necessity”; and its narrow conception of military victory—all these were peculiar traits of the German army. All of them are reflected in how the revolt in Southwest Africa was suppressed. For even though it was a colonial war, the men who fought it were not part of a colonial army. Germany had none. They and their officers, with the exception of a few members of the local armed force of the colony (the Schutztruppe), were sent from home to quash the rebellion. Their methods either were those of European warfare or were derived from European armies’ assumptions about war. Although the colonial situation tended to confirm and strengthen the destructive tendencies of military culture, for the most part it did not create them.

The Revolt in Southwest Africa, 1904–1907 In the twenty years since Germany established a protectorate over Southwest Africa (SWA) in 1883, about two thousand, mostly male, settlers had come to the arid, sparsely populated colony. A combination of factors, not least of which was white pressure on native lands, caused the dominant tribe in the colony’s center, the cattle-herding Herero, to rise in revolt in January 1904. They were followed in rebellion by the much less numerous Nama to the south, in October 1904. Crushing these uprisings took over three years, cost almost six hundred million deutsche marks, and involved fourteen thousand soldiers transferred from the German army. The Germans found the fighting extremely difficult, unused as they were to desert conditions in which no infrastructure of roads, telegraphs, or waterlines eased their movements. The military effort was Germany’s largest before 1914. Some fifteen hundred men died, half of them from illness.3 But the Herero and Nama lost infinitely more. A handful of modern writers have cited poor statistics to justify their denial of the

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vast demographic catastrophe.4 Well-informed contemporary observers and postwar demographic data agree, however, on the immensity of the human destruction suffered by Africans. Most historians accept a death rate of between 75 and 80 percent for the Herero (out of an original population of sixty thousand to eighty thousand people) and of about 45 to 50 percent for the Nama (whose prewar numbers were around twenty thousand).5 Official German military statistics admitted that the internment camps, which contained not just surrendering male rebels but also women and children, had compiled a death rate of 45 percent.6 In addition to these enormous numbers, the commander who set this military policy, Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha (June 1904 to November 1905), announced in October 1904 his intention to achieve a final solution in SWA, in which mass death to the point of extermination was an acceptable outcome. Neither the genocide nor, more generally, the final solution in SWA was ordered in Berlin. If Trotha had received such an order, even a verbal one, he surely would have said so when he later defended his extremism in private correspondence with his superior, Chief of Staff Alfred von Schlieffen, with Chancellor (Bernhard, prince von) Bülow, and with SWA Governor Colonel Theodor Leutwein.7 As it was, he explained, “I received no instructions or directives from His Majesty upon my appointment to commander in Southwest Africa. His Majesty simply said that he expected me to crush the uprising by all means and explain to him later why it had begun.”8 The phrase “by all means” was a standard expression routinely used in connection with colonial revolts.9 Not only was no order given, but Trotha’s Vernichtungspolitik (policy of destruction) was opposed by Governor Leutwein; Chancellor Bülow; the Social Democrats and Left Liberals in the Reichstag; missionaries; even ruthless social Darwinists like Paul Rohrbach, who was in SWA when the revolt broke out; and, finally and belatedly, also the white settlers there, who did not want their labor supply eliminated. The settlers’ inflammatory rhetoric at the beginning of the revolt, however, certainly contributed to an atmosphere conducive of annihilation.10 In the absence of an order and in the face of much opposition, the extreme human destruction in SWA developed out of military practices. The institutional prerequisite for this extremism was therefore total military control over military policy and over the colony. This

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control occurred in two stages. The first was the immediate transfer of authority from the governor, himself a soldier experienced in putting down revolts, to the general staff back in Germany. Although Governor Leutwein still prosecuted the initial campaigns (from January to June 1904), he took his orders from the general staff rather than from the chancellor via the Foreign Office, which was the normal chain of command in the colonies. The “civilians” were unseated in favor of military experts because it was in the kaiser’s constitutional power (his Kommandogewalt) to do so and because the revolt was immediately identified as a national security issue. The deaths of 158 white settlers (98 percent of them male) at the revolt’s start impressed even colonial skeptics in the Reichstag who had a duty to protect German settlers. Even more threatening was the rebels’ challenge to the German state’s authority and prestige. The director of the Colonial Office, Dr. Oscar W. Stübel, declared in the Reichstag to general approval that “Germany’s honor demands the repression of the uprising by all means.”11 If the rebellion were not decisively crushed, Germany’s ability to be a colonial power would seem doubtful, and therefore its status as a great power after the British model would be diminished. Weltpolitik (world policy) and great-power politics made a mere colonial revolt into a major national security threat. The second stage in the consolidation of military power occurred because of strictly military judgments. In April 1904, Governor Leutwein won a difficult military victory at Oviumbo, driving the Herero permanently into a defensive position at Waterberg. But because Leutwein had momentarily retreated for strategic reasons, the general staff viewed Oviumbo as a defeat. This misjudgment rested on a series of basic assumptions embedded in German military culture. First were heightened expectations of easy victory by superior Europeans over inferior Africans (a type of generalized race-thinking ubiquitous in the imperial situation and common to all colonial armies).12 Second was a peculiar German military investment in cheap, quick, symbolically decisive victories. Quick victory circumvented the civilian oversight that came with extra Reichstag military appropriations. The overvaluation of speed was especially desirable to demonstrate absolute German military superiority, since the military—thanks to its own efforts and those of the monarch, Conservatives, and ultranationalist agitators—had become

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synonymous with imperial stability, social discipline, and Germany’s future as a prosperous great power. In short, the German military had tremendous symbolic-political weight, so its defeat, even a momentary strategic retreat, was unbearable and unthinkable. Consequently, the chiefs of the general staff and the military cabinet convinced the kaiser to replace Leutwein with Trotha, who earlier had distinguished himself as a ruthless suppressor of native revolts in German East Africa. When Trotha arrived in SWA in June 1904, he declared martial law, and in November, when he and Leutwein clashed over Vernichtungspolitik, Trotha replaced Leutwein as governor. SWA thus remained under total military control until Trotha’s own removal and return to Berlin in November 1905. Putting the military in charge thus was the result of many complicated factors: Germany’s constitutional setup (which gave the kaiser and his military advisers sweeping power), national foreign policy (Weltpolitik), national identification heightened by acceptance of the doctrine of national security (even by former opponents of colonialism in the Catholic center and left-liberal parties), and central tenets of military doctrine (which themselves were formed in interaction with important characteristics of Germany’s political culture). With Trotha’s arrival in SWA, there began the logical unfolding of the German military’s standard operating procedures on the levels of both doctrine and practice (i.e., on both the conscious and the habitual and un-self-reflexive levels). The resulting pattern can be divided into six moments.

The Military Pattern of Development toward Extremes of Destruction 1. Vernichtung Late nineteenth-century German military doctrine held that the destruction (Vernichtung) of the enemy was the goal of warfare. When Carl von Clausewitz originally enunciated this principle, he meant “destruction of the enemy’s military forces.” Although Wilhelminians meant the same thing, in an age when industrialism and technological growth threatened to expand military targets to include civilians and the economy,13 it is perhaps significant that the phrase had been reduced to

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simply “destruction of the enemy.” Nevertheless, military men believed their foe to be primarily soldiers. By the 1890s, Vernichtung had developed into a specific dogma that called for swift, offensive movement, if possible culminating in a single, concentric battle of annihilation. While the “cult of the offensive” was characteristic of most European military cultures at this time, the single battle of annihilation was peculiarly German.14 It is most evident in Schlieffen’s famous plan, but it also was the basis for German naval strategy.15 In both cases, the dogma was a response to perceived German weakness: on land, in response to “encirclement” by France and Russia; and at sea, in the face of the world’s greatest naval power, Britain. Extreme offense was the simultaneous concentration of all one’s forces; the hope that the country’s technological and technical prowess might overcome numerical weakness; the daring, even foolhardy risking of the country’s entire effort at a single stroke; the demand of extreme selfsacrifice from the country’s troops and sailors; and the discounting of logistical limits and the enemy’s possible responses. All these features of the dogma were required to transcend Germany’s inferiority and to permit it to behave like a world power, a paramount power, instead of merely one of the five European “great powers.” The dogma of the single battle of annihilation was thus the military reflection of that curious mix of ambition and desperation characteristic of Wilhelminian politics.16 This dogma was the default program, the “prescription for victory” in which all German officers were trained.17 Although it was developed for European circumstances, the dogma was applied randomly in the colonies, where it was almost impossible to achieve. Lack of infrastructure made the movement of supplies and the concentration of men extremely difficult; worse, huge supply trains prevented mobility and flexibility, precisely what guerrilla wars required. Not surprisingly, therefore, the single battle of annihilation was what Lieutenant General Trotha attempted in SWA. He spent June and July inching his forces forward until they had nearly surrounded the Waterberg, the last main water source before the Omaheke desert, where an estimated sixty thousand Herero, the entire people, were holed up. The terrain was so difficult that by the time the attack began, the German forces, new arrivals from Europe, were exhausted and had used up their fodder and water. Trotha then deployed his forces unevenly, blocking

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a breakthrough west back into the center of the colony while leaving the eastern route into the desert more sparsely defended. One historian even concluded that Trotha wanted the Herero to escape into the desert, where they would die.18 This is surely wrong, for Trotha informed Berlin just before the battle not only that he would “attack the enemy simultaneously with all units, in order to destroy [vernichten] him,” as the dogma required, but also that he had built a stockade for the eight thousand prisoners (the maximum official estimate of Herero warriors) whom he expected to take and even had ordered one thousand chains for them.19 Everybody expected a great German victory; civilian administrators, missionaries, and businessmen were already meeting to divide the prisoners among themselves.20 Instead, due partly to two errors by unit commanders, the Herero suffered only light casualties and escaped into the desert. Trotha had now (August 11, 1904) achieved a victory somewhat like Governor Leutwein’s at Oviumbo. He had in fact defeated the Herero. Their leaders concluded that they could not win, and they sent out peace feelers. They never again posed a serious military risk or engaged in regular battle. But according to the inflated German military standards of the day, this was not enough to qualify as a victory. It was not a total victory of force in which the enemy was dead or captured or submitted unconditionally. It had not demonstrated German military invincibility and therefore had not convincingly reestablished German authority and order.

2. Rejection of Negotiations If the object of German military intervention had been to defeat the Herero, then Trotha should now have negotiated the Herero’s surrender, as Governor Leutwein urged him to do. But negotiations were unthinkable. Trotha later (1909) explained why: without a breakthrough, “then the possibility of negotiation would have existed, and a regular court would have brought the murderers and ringleaders to the gallows; the weapons and cows would have gone to the government; and the rest of the tribes would have returned to the sunshine of the all-highest [i.e., His Majesty’s] mercy.” In any case, there could be no question of negotiations in the immediate aftermath of the battle if Trotha did not want

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to testify to his own weakness and embarrassment (Ohnmacht und Verlegenheit). This would have been immediately clear to the enemy and would have meant a renewal of the war as soon as the band had recovered from the first shock.21 For Trotha and for many of his fellow officers, anything short of a total victory of military force signaled weakness and constituted a security threat. Again, we see the exceedingly high standards of victory that the German military had manufactured for itself. Trotha’s intransigence, however, was encouraged by several other factors. Both the kaiser and widespread public opinion as it was reflected in the bourgeois press at the beginning of the revolt rejected negotiations until the rebels had been “punished.”22 This trope of colonial warfare, eternalized in the phrase “punitive expedition,” construed rebels as outlaws and understood punishment in the old-fashioned way as physical suffering rather than as the incarceration appropriate to (one’s own) citizens. Infliction of physical suffering was what one did to one’s inferiors, and the military instrument was singularly apt, since it was one of the last spheres in Europe that still permitted flogging and degradation (though it was increasingly controversial). Thus, a number of separate cultural strands combined to make negotiation questionable, especially since it carried the suggestion of some equality between the negotiating parties and recognized the political existence of indigenous groups that German colonialism, at any rate, was trying to erase.23

3. Pursuit (Verfolgung) If the single battle of annihilation was the first default program of German military doctrine, pursuit was the second. As all commanders knew, if the first did not succeed, then they should pursue the enemy ruthlessly until they either had forced “him” (as the books always labeled the enemy) to fight, thus re-creating the conditions of the battle of annihilation, or had ground his forces into oblivion. Not surprisingly, Trotha immediately ordered such a pursuit and, until the end of September, chased the chimera of a final, decisive “battle” with the Herero.24 In fact, the parlous state of the German troops and their mounts dictated that most soldiers remain behind at the waterholes, forming a

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kind of cordon against the Herero’s reinfiltration into the colony, while the two most resilient units pursued the fleeing Herero deeper into the waterless desert. Only the very first skirmish resembled a battle. The rest, although listed as “battles” or “fights” in the official history and reported in the telegrams to Berlin as such, instead were encounters in which German troops fired on fleeing Africans. A very small number of Herero, perhaps two thousand, made it through the desert and into Bechuanaland on the other side. Some even managed to slip through the cordon back into SWA, where they tried to eke out an existence on the veld. But the great majority of the Herero people died of thirst during the “pursuit,” as the surviving daughter of the chief Zacharia graphically described it to Trotha at the beginning of October, as the skeletons beside the dried river beds attested, and as the official history concluded, describing the “shocking fate [erschütternde Schicksal] that the mass of the people had met in the desert”: “The punishment [Strafgericht] had come to an end. The Hereros had ceased to be an independent tribe.”25 The mass death of the Herero people was therefore the result of a standard military procedure, described (and perhaps experienced) by most of the German participants as conventional combat. Mass death came from the practices of waging war, not (yet) from an announced policy aiming at genocide. Perhaps this is one reason why the participants, even Trotha himself, doubted the magnitude of the dying, even though they had daily proof of it. For many, it seemed the Herero had simply vanished, and German officers were seized by the fear that they would return to continue the war. This fear contributed to Trotha’s decision to make the clearance of all Herero people the actual goal of military policy. Before turning to this decision, however, we must examine more closely the practices that made mass killing easy or likely by encouraging or habituating soldiers to indiscriminate slaughter. That is, a great many Herero died not of thirst but by being shot. These practices can be located in institutional habits, deep-seated expectations on the part of troops, and specific orders concerning war conduct.

4. Practices Conducive to Mass Killing Many scholars have noted that suffering, frustrated troops are more apt to engage in retaliatory atrocities than are others.26 Some of the

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reasons that Germany’s troops in SWA suffered and became frustrated were circumstantial, but there also were structural-institutional reasons that made unnecessary suffering likely. One of the main reasons was inadequate provisions; field troops received two-thirds rations, and malnutrition and scurvy were widespread. In addition, medical treatment was wholly inadequate, as the official postwar report acknowledged.27 Provisioning (logistics) was the stepchild of the German military. No ambitious officer chose to specialize in it, for German military culture stressed fighting above any and all ancillary activities. Even the Schlieffen plan’s otherwise-minute choreography left critical aspects of provisioning to the chance of finding food and fodder near the battlefield.28 Aside from the premium placed on combat, the traditional Prussian aversion to those archcivilian concerns of economics and management played a strong role in relegating logistics to the sidelines, despite the advancing “professionalization” of the officer corps before 1914.29 The gap between Germany’s military and colonial ambitions and its actual power to achieve them (evident in the vagueness of Weltpolitik and in all of Germany’s war planning) would only have encouraged the general staff to overlook realistic planning that threatened to expose the unreality of world-power dreams. In the colonies, haphazard provisioning was fatal. Colonies typically lacked a developed infrastructure and reserves of familiar food and potable water, yet the dogma of the battle of annihilation required huge amounts of men and matériel, the very stuff of European superiority. In short, logistical failure was virtually preprogrammed in the colonies. This problem might have been resolved by training small units of colonial-warfare specialists, who, acclimated to overseas conditions, could have moved as lightly and swiftly as the indigenous peoples did. But Germany was a new imperial power and was dedicated to the principle of colonialism on the cheap. The suggestion to form an expensive colonial force was repeatedly rejected. The alternative, relying on African allies, worked in German East Africa but not in SWA, where the influx of metropolitan soldiers brought with it the conviction that “natives” were unreliable and that Germans, superior by nature and by training, should do everything themselves.30 The failures of logistics and preparation, which were deeply institutionalized defects, were all the more shocking because of the high

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expectations they disappointed. The general racial hubris of Europeans in Africa (and elsewhere), combined with the specific military hubris of the Prusso-German military, meant that troops expected a quick and easy victory. They almost seemed offended when that sort of victory eluded them. And frustrated hubris is surely one of the most dangerous kinds. But German troops had another expectation that at first glance seems incompatible with colonial combat. They had been trained for a conventional European war. They were therefore prepared to fight uniformed soldiers, clearly demarcated from civilians, equipped with standard weapons, and behaving according to European standards (e.g., attacking openly and surrendering when wounded). Instead, they met a foe who might be wearing a German Schutztruppe uniform (stolen from a fallen soldier) or be indistinguishable except by sex from noncombatants; who fought stealthily; who often had to resort to homemade weapons that left dirty, ragged wounds; who fought until death; who killed wounded German troops; and who engaged in the ritual mutilation of dead soldiers. The expectations of conventional European warfare were, of course, the foundation of international law, which had been codified in a series of recent conferences. That is, conventional behavior and those who abided by it were covered by legal protection, and those who violated these conventions were subject to reprisals. At the international conferences, the German delegates, military and civilian, had distinguished themselves by their uniquely high standards of “order” and conventionality.31 German representatives were far less willing to grant regular combatant status (and thus the protection of the Geneva Convention for prisoners of war) to irregular troops than were the representatives of France or of smaller European nations. And the Germans were far readier to sanction severe reprisals against civilians for a whole range of activities that other nations found acceptable, even patriotic.32 In short, Germany held a much more rigid conception of order and propriety than did other European powers, and it was quick to label the unconventional a violation of international law even in Europe, much less in a colony where most legal experts determined that international law did not apply in the first place. Wherever international law did not apply, whether because of unconventional practices or colonial exclu-

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sion, German military officials and many jurists argued that there were no limits at all to sheer force. Consequently, the spiral toward the unlimited was a predictable, dynamic result of Germany’s institutionalized practices, which came close to guaranteeing failure while simultaneously nourishing high expectations of the country’s own military conduct and unrealistic expectations concerning that of its foes. In SWA, the status of Herero and Nama warriors was set by these European expectations. The imperial order of December 28, 1899, Criminal Procedure in the Army in Wartime, called for the summary execution of foreign civilians participating in combat against German soldiers. As rebels, indigenous warriors were in the same category as illegal combatants. They thus were subject to the “customs of war” (Kriegsbrauch); that is, officers could execute them summarily if they caught them red-handed. Trotha issued orders to this effect upon his arrival in June 1904. Abandoning courts-martial (the practice under Leutwein) for the summary execution of armed males was a further step in the intensification of force.33 There is other evidence that soldiers in SWA received official encouragement to kill beyond the normal bounds of war. This is a controversial matter, and elsewhere I have discussed at length the complicated evidentiary basis for the judgments I offer here.34 Circumstantial evidence, but no surviving written order or direct acknowledgment by the participants, suggests that when Lieutenant General von Trotha assumed command in SWA in June 1904, he ordered the troops (as opposed to permitting officers to summarily execute armed enemies) to kill all adult Herero males when they commenced the battle of Waterberg. Such an order would have meant killing the male wounded and prisoners but sparing women and children. Whether the motivation for such an order was the assumption that in colonial warfare all adult (no age given) males were, ipso facto, warriors, that this policy would wipe out all further military and especially political resistance, or that revenge was necessary for the Herero’s affront to German authority or to the conventions of European warfare is impossible to reconstruct with certainty. Even if such an order was never given, which is possible, Trotha nevertheless made public statements upon his arrival that “no war may be conducted humanely against nonhumans [Unmenschen],” thereby indicating his approval of “sharp” or extreme conduct by his soldiers.35 Even without a

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direct order, then, German soldiers would have received the impression before the battle that excessive force was expected or certainly condoned by their commanding officer. The massacre accompanying the battle of Waterberg was therefore anticipated, if perhaps not entirely intentional. The indiscriminate killing of the wounded, male prisoners, women, and children also has been a subject of controversy, but eyewitness reports on both sides confirm that it occurred at Waterberg and probably continued during the “pursuit.”36 Trotha himself tried to regain control of his troops and to focus their excessive force on adult males, in an order issued immediately after Waterberg that forbade the killing of women and children but expressly permitted the shooting of “all armed men who were captured.”37 Trotha thus attempted to widen the bounds of the usually permissible while imposing limits against wholesale slaughter. This balancing act was probably not successful. Evidence of various kinds indicates that troops released from one major prohibition found it hard to observe others.38 The “pursuit” consisted largely of German soldiers shooting at fleeing Africans, regardless of their status or condition. I do not wish to suggest that all units shot everyone they encountered; prisoners (male and female) were taken, and some, especially adult women, survived the war. In fact, the very lopsided postwar demographic ratio of women to men shows that there was a tendency to spare women, as Trotha had ordered. Nevertheless, the general pattern of conduct during the “pursuit” was widespread shooting, including that of male prisoners. Relentless shooting, in addition to the direct deaths it caused, pushed dehydrated, desperate people back into the desert, where they died en masse. There was little to choose between these two techniques of mass death. The “pursuit,” which was both a standard operating procedure and a set of practices developing from the circumstances of SWA, effectively destroyed most of the Herero people by the end of September 1904.

5. Trotha’s October Proclamation: Annihilation as an Explicit Goal On October 2, 1904, Lieutenant General von Trotha issued a proclamation to the Herero people. After alluding to their crimes, he concluded, “The Herero people must leave this land. If it does not, I will force it to do so by using the great gun [artillery]. Within the German border every

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male Herero, armed or unarmed, with or without cattle, will be shot to death. I will no longer receive women or children, but will drive them back to their people or have them shot at. These are my words to the Herero people.” To the German troops, he explained what he meant: “I assume absolutely that this proclamation will result in taking no more male prisoners but will not degenerate into atrocities against women and children. The latter will run away if one shoots at them a couple of times. The troops will remain conscious of the good reputation of the German soldier.”39 The most puzzling aspect of Trotha’s proclamation has always been its timing, coming after the actions and effects that it “orders” to be taken. The proclamation does three things: it makes explicit and uniform the already customary tactics employed by German troops (“no more male prisoners”); it attempts once again to regain control over troops tempted to commit “atrocities”; and it takes the effect of the “pursuit” (the complete disappearance of the Herero) as the explicit aim of military policy. Not surprisingly, surviving documents indicate no change in military conduct in the weeks after October 2.40 Trotha’s proclamation was his response to the failure of the second default program of German military doctrine: pursuit. The troops had not managed to get the Herero to turn and fight so that they could be clearly defeated in battle. On September 29, exhausted, suffering German troops had arrived at the last known waterhole in the colony, but apart from finding a few Herero, the expected final battle did not occur. As Trotha did after Waterberg, he now sought to escape pressure to negotiate, the obvious alternative under the circumstances. Knowing that his proclamation would be “controversial,” as he put it, he explained his decision in a letter to Chief of the General Staff Schlieffen: “For me, it is merely a question of how to end the war with the Herero. My opinion is completely opposite to that of the governor and some ‘old Africans.’ They have wanted to negotiate for a long time and describe the Herero nation as a necessary labor force for the future use of the colony. I am of an entirely different opinion. I believe that the nation must be destroyed as such, or since this was not possible using tactical blows, it must be expelled from the land operatively and by means of detailed actions.” Farther along in the letter, when he describes what will happen to the women and children turned back by German troops, Trotha admits that

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he is talking about mass death, not simply disappearance: “I think it better that the nation perish rather than infect our troops and affect our water and food.”41 Nonetheless, engaging in the doublethink typical of the campaign, Trotha sums up the possibilities: “They must either die in the desert or try to cross the Bechuanaland border.”42 We know that only about two thousand Herero made it across that border. Over the course of the campaign, Trotha had thus moved from one sort of finality to a far larger one. The single battle of annihilation was supposed to “destroy” the nation politically, by killing and capturing all its warriors and forcing the people to submit to unconditional surrender. When that failed (even though by different standards of reckoning, Waterberg was a success), the pursuit was supposed to achieve the same thing. The “pursuit,” too, was a success insofar as it destroyed the bulk of the people, but it neither unequivocally demonstrated the superiority of German arms in a conventional battle nor restored unquestioned state authority or order, since surviving Herero might stealthily return to the colony. Therefore, the next logical unconditional solution was not surrender but disappearance. This could take two forms: expulsion or death. Trotha did not care which. The point was to achieve a total and final solution of force: the permanent end of any possibility of further revolt, disorder, or challenge to German authority.

6. Death by Imprisonment In order to give this solution-by-force the greatest chance against the solution-by-negotiation, Trotha sent notice of his proclamation by slow boat, rather than telegraph, and to the chief of staff only, rather than to the chancellor as well. When his proclamation finally arrived in Berlin in late November 1904, both Schlieffen and Bülow rejected Trotha’s policy but, significantly, not for the same reasons. Bülow cited humanitarian, economic, political, and diplomatic grounds, whereas Schlieffen merely judged Vernichtungspolitik to be impractical.43 The military’s bias toward accepting extreme human destruction was once again demonstrated. Nevertheless, with the (reluctant) help of the chief of the military cabinet, both Bülow and Schlieffen persuaded the kaiser to reverse Trotha’s policy and offer amnesty to surrendering, unarmed, and innocent Herero. In the meanwhile, the Nama clans had revolted, and ultimately,

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civilians and warriors of both peoples were collected into internment camps, which defined the last phase of the war. Internment camps, especially when they held primarily or exclusively civilians, were, at that time, called concentration camps. They were an imperial-military invention, designed to frustrate guerrilla warfare by removing the civilian population and thus exposing the remaining fighters to easier and clearer conditions of battle. Both Britain and Spain had established concentration camps before the Germans considered them in 1904. The death rates in such camps were high because European militaries were not trained in, nor did they attach much priority to, mastering the complex logistics required to maintain women, children, the aged, and the ill in overcrowded, hastily built but quasi-permanent locations.44 For a number of reasons, the German military attached an even lower priority to the needs of the imprisoned. The higher symbolic value attached to the military in Germany resulted in producing, if possible, an exaggerated valuation of actual fighting and therefore relegated all other, noncombat considerations to a zone of indifference, if not disdain. The institutionalized disregard for adequate provisioning and the concomitant expectation of German suffering already had set a low standard of care, which, of course, was even lower for the “enemy”: Herero prisoners, whether warrior or civilian, could not be treated better than Germany’s own troops.45 Racism worsened their treatment still more, not just in the idiosyncratic cases of outright viciousness but in more important structural ways, whether because of the widespread belief that “natives” required less food than Europeans or because the Germans simply did not bother to note what food Africans could digest. Administrative incompetence was widespread and made worse by the constant rotation of officers, a practice applied equally, and with equally bad effects, in the field. The most lethal factor, however, was the desire to punish. This motive is clear in the official rations for African prisoners, set under and approved by Trotha. Prisoners received one-fifth the meat of the most punitive ration Great Britain had permitted for civilians interned during the Boer War and only one-sixth of the two-thirds ration that German field troops received, which already had caused widespread malnutrition and scurvy among the Schutztruppe. No provisions were taken against

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scurvy, and no regular milk portion was provided, even though milk in some form was the principal staple of the Herero’s diet. The official ration, like the official allotment of blankets and clothing, was designed to produce extreme suffering at the very least. Disease and death were clearly acceptable by-products of this treatment. When Trotha left SWA, his successors raised and varied the official ration but not by much. Their internal correspondence indicates that they did not want African prisoners to die, but the factors just listed set hard limits to the amount of amelioration they dared to introduce.46 Internment in SWA thus was a lethal mixture of conviction and administrative indifference. The German military acknowledged a death rate of about 45 percent in its camps in SWA, compared with about 25 percent in the British camps in South Africa.47 The deaths in the British camps were ultimately stopped by citizens’ political intervention and outraged public opinion, which led civilian political leaders to remove the camps’ administration from military hands. In Germany, however, such an outcome was not possible, mainly because of several features of Germany’s political culture. First, both the constitution and accepted practice relegated almost complete control over warfare to the military experts. Colonial critics of Trotha’s Vernichtungspolitik were simply ignored, since they had no business interfering in military matters. High-level bureaucrats in SWA, chiefly Deputy Governor Hans von Tecklenburg and his successor, Deputy Governor Oskar Hintrager, accepted the military’s nearly paranoid arguments about security and their punitive schema and consequently agreed with the lethal policies the military pursued. Indeed, they even added to these by demanding the deportation to other colonies of surviving rebels and their families.48 But the deportees’ death rates were even higher than the death rates in the camps in SWA. Meanwhile, the missionaries’ informed criticism of both the conduct of the war and the camp conditions was disqualified from the beginning by Chancellor Bülow’s misguided but well-established tactic of vilifying the missionaries as disloyal in time of war. The government and its conservative and bourgeois allies had always labeled Socialists as traitors, so Socialist criticism in the Reichstag had considerably less effect than similar attacks in the British Parliament, where loyal opposition was a time-honored tradition. Therefore, divide-and-rule, the presumption of military infallibility, and the civilian

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government’s indiscriminate use of nationalist mobilization techniques all combined to insulate military policy from outside intervention. Therefore, the camps could be stopped only from inside, through the intervention of a freethinking commander, Colonel Ludwig von Estorff. His horror at the conditions he found was surpassed only by his feelings of personal honor: “For such hangmen’s services I can neither detail my officers, nor can I accept responsibility,” he notified Berlin.49 He closed the worst camp on his own orders and cleared it in fewer than two days.

Conclusion I have argued here that the tendency for the German military to gravitate toward destructive extremes was built into its military culture, understood as its habitual practices and the (largely unexamined) basic assumptions embedded in its doctrines and administration.50 The imperial situation did nothing to contravene these habits or inclinations and everything to encourage them. Already-pernicious assumptions of racethinking developed into genuine racism under the shock of imperial practices. Many of these factors encouraged European troops toward a spiral of revenge: the difficulty and frustrations of colonial warfare made worse by structural deficits in planning and administration, the enemy’s strange or “exotic” fighting practices, and the difficulties in distinguishing civilians from warriors in guerrilla wars. Worse, the colonies had fewer brakes inhibiting unnecessary violence, since international law was widely thought inapplicable there. In settler colonies, the noneconomically-minded (which is to say almost all military men) could regard indigenous peoples as expendable, and the restraints provided by identification or the intervention of observers sympathetic to the “natives” were largely missing.51 It is important to underscore that while German military culture differed somewhat from the cultures of other late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European armies (chiefly by being even more purely military), European military culture in this period tended to apply progressively more force when lesser operations failed, as they often did in the colonies. Thus, Germany’s military culture and its imperial dilemmas were recognizably European or Western. Germany’s chief difference lay in its political culture and institutions. Otto von Bismarck’s

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effort to safeguard the conservative Prussian monarchy had yielded a national constitution that intentionally truncated parliamentary power and shielded the military from civilian oversight. The structure of government and the resulting political culture were, not surprisingly, less capable than, for example, comparative British or French institutions in subsequently curbing the military’s tendencies to go to extremes. German political institutions were thus less able to slow the development toward destruction, a failure that therefore encouraged the further institutionalization of this tendency inside the military to a degree found nowhere else. This is the often-cited “autism” of the German military, which meant that the propensity to grasp at extremes of destruction was reinforced and more deeply ingrained and therefore more likely to be used in future.52 The genocide in SWA was part of a pattern of developmental possibilities; it was not an aberration. A very similar outcome resulted from 1905 to 1907 in German East Africa, where the tactic of slash and burn used to crush all political resistance during the Maji Maji revolt ended in the deaths by starvation of an estimated two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand Africans, completely and permanently depopulating several large districts in the colony.53 Although the two events are not identical, they do clearly illustrate the military’s institutional preference for solving political problems with total, unlimited force. This developmental logic, which during the Wilhelminian period was not enunciated as an a priori goal, continued to operate during World War I. The European theater of war, with its limits imposed by identification with the enemy, international law, and other factors, acted as a brake to the full-blown development of the logic, but its operations nonetheless were visible in every place. The mass deportation (and typically bad treatment) of civilians from occupied Belgium, northern France, and the eastern territories; ubiquitous forced labor; lethal ill treatment of prisoners of war; unlimited economic exploitation of occupied zones; and total destruction of areas relinquished during retreats were some of the most striking standard procedures of the German war effort in Europe from 1914 to 1918.54 The complex story of the extermination of the Armenians by Germany’s ally Turkey beginning in 1915 also has links to military culture. The genocide was not German policy; rather, it was the idea of a few radical members of the ruling Committee

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of Union and Progress. Once it was launched, many German observers on the spot, including some military men, were shocked and tried to persuade their government to intervene to stop the killings. But certain high-ranking German military advisers to the Turks had recommended the deportations, and they accepted the resulting genocide. Militarysecurity arguments (“military necessity”) identical to those adduced in SWA and German East Africa were decisive in preventing the German government from effectively resisting its ally’s policy.55 The spiral of violence and destruction visible in the colonies before the world war thus assumed far greater dimensions after 1914. The basic assumptions and scripts of imperial German military culture continued to determine how Germany conducted the world war and, afterward, how its military, and increasing numbers of its civilian, leaders interpreted that war and applied those lessons during the next world war. Notes

1. An earlier version of this chapter was published as I. V. Hull, “Military Culture and the Production of ‘Final Solutions’ in the Colonies: The Example of Wilhelminian Germany,” in Genocide in Historical Perspective, ed. Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 141–62, and is used here with permission. 2. On military culture, see Isabel V. Hull, Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), part 2. Note that this usage differs slightly from the categories and definitions as presented in chapter 1 of this volume but is retained here to accord with my longer discussion in Absolute Destruction. 3. Kommando der Schutztruppen im Reichs-Kolonialamt, Sanitäts-Bericht über die Kaiserliche Schutztruppe für Südwestafrika während des Herero- und Hottentottenaufstandes für die Zeit vom 1. Januar 1904 bis 31. März 1907, 2 vols. (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1909), 2:405. 4. Gert Sudholt, Die deutsche Eingeborenenpolitik in Südwestafrika, von den Anfängen bis 1904 (Hildesheim, Germany: Georg Olms Verlag, 1975), 40–44; Brigitte Lau, “Uncertain Certainties: The Herero-German War of 1904,” Migabus 2 (1989): 4–5, 8; Günter Spraul, “Der ‘Völkermord’ an den Herero: Untersuchungen zu einer neuen Kontinuitätsthese,” Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 39, no. 12 (1988): 713–39. 5. Horst Drechsler, “Let Us Die Fighting”: The Struggle of the Herero and the Nama against German Imperialism (1884–1915), trans. Bernd Zollner (London: Zed Books, 1980), 214; Helmut Bley, South-West Africa under German Rule (Evanston,

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7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14.

15. 16.

17. 18.

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IL: Northwestern University Press, 1971), 151–52; Horst Gründer, Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien, 3rd ed. (Paderborn, Germany: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1995), 121. Schutztruppe Kommando, “Sterblichkeit in den Kriegsgefangenenlagern in Südwest-Afrika,” Nr. KA II. 1181, undated, Bundesarchiv-Berlin [BAB], R 1001, Nr. 2140, pp. 161–62. This correspondence is in BAB, R 1001, Nr. 2089. August Bebel, the Social Democratic leader, surmised in the Reichstag that Trotha probably received a verbal order. Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstags, XI Legislaturperiode, sess. 2, 1905/1906, vol. 218, 131st Sitzung, December 1, 1906, 4060. Trotha to Leutwein, Windhuk (copy), November 5, 1904, BAB, R 1001, Nr. 2089, pp. 101–3. Hull, Absolute Destruction, 29. For a detailed account of the Southwest African campaign, see Hull, chaps. 1–3. Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstages, vol. 199, March 17, 1904, 1896; rest of debate, 1889–1906 (hereafter cited as Sten. Ber.). On race-thinking versus racism, see Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: World, 1951), 183–86. (General) Julius von Hartmann, “Militärische Nothwendigkeit und Humanität: Ein kritischer Versuch,” Deutsche Rundschau 13 (1877): 455, 461; Deutsche Rundschau 14 (1878): 71–91. Stephen van Evera, “The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War,” International Security 9, no. 1 (1984): 58–107; Jack Snyder, The Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decision Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984); Jehuda L. Wallach, The Dogma of the Battle of Annihilation: The Theories of Clausewitz and Schlieffen and Their Impact on the German Conduct of Two World Wars (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1986). On the Schlieffen plan as reflective of Germany’s military culture, see Hull, Absolute Destruction, chap. 7. The mix of ambition and desperation is summed up in Kurt Riezler’s marvelous phrase “the necessity of the impossible.” See Kurt Riezler, Die Erforderlichkeit des Unmöglichen (Munich: Georg Müller, 1913); Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann and Imanuel Geiss, Die Erforderlichkeit des Unmöglichen (Frankfurt: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1965). Schlieffen’s phrase; see Wallach, Dogma of the Battle, 124. Horst Drechsler, “The Hereros of South-West Africa,” in The History and Sociology of Genocide, ed. Frank Robert Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990), 241–42. Lothar von Trotha, “Directive for the Attack against the Herero,” August 4, 1904, cited in General Staff, Die Kämpfe der deutschen Truppen in Südwestafrika: Auf Grund amtlichen Materials, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1906–7), 1:153; Paul Rohrbach, diary entry of August 10, 1904, in Aus Südwestafrikas schweren Tagen: Blätter von Arbeit und Abschied (Berlin: Wilhelm Weicher, 1909), 167; August Franke, diary entry of August 5, 1904, Bundesarchiv-Koblenz, Nachlass Franke, Nr. 3, p. 85. For further

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21. 22.

23.

24.

25. 26.

27.

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corroborating statements from contemporaries of Trotha’s intentions, see Hull, Absolute Destruction, 33–37. Missionaries Dannert, Lang, Hanefeld, Elger, Brockmann, and Wandres to Rohrbach, August 1, 1904, Vereinigte Evangelische Mission-Wuppertal, C/o, 5; Rohrbach, Aus Südwestafrikas schweren Tagen, 167; District Administrator Burgsdorff to Governor, Nr. 1364, Gibeon, August 18, 1904, BA-Berlin, Kaiserliches Gouvernement Deutsch-Südwest-Afrika, Zentralbureau Windhoek (R 151 F), D.IV.L.E., vol. 1, p. 1. Lothar von Trotha, “Politik und Kriegführung,” Berliner Neueste Nachrichten, February 3, 1909, 1. The liberal Berliner Zeitung, for example, called for “punishment [Bestrafung],” but when alleged atrocities by German troops were reported, it hastened to add that while “a certain strictness is necessary [in handling the revolt], this must not degenerate into brutality.” See von Gädke, “Die militärische Lage in DeutschSüdwestafrika,” Berliner Zeitung, February 4, 1904, 1; and the untitled article of Berliner Zeitung, March 17, 1904, 1. Kaiser Wilhelm had forbidden negotiations without his prior consent. Colonial Director Stübel had set the goal of suppressing the revolt as “end[ing] the quasi-independence the natives still enjoyed in politics.” Sten. Ber., January 19, 1904, 364. Trotha, telegram, Hamakari, August 12, 1904, reprinted in Conrad Rust, Krieg und Frieden im Hererolande: Aufzeichungen aus dem Kriegsjahre 1904 (Leipzig: I. A. Kittler, 1905), 376–77; Trotha to Bülow, telegram, Okahandja, September 25, 1904, BAB, R 1001, Nr. 2116, p. 25; Lothar von Trotha, diary entries of August 11 to October 3, 1904, Trotha Family Archives, Nachlass Lothar von Trotha, Nr. 315. Trotha to Bülow, telegram, Northeast Epata, October 1, 1904, BAB, R 1001, Nr. 2116, pp. 35–36; General Staff, Die Kämpfe der deutschen Truppen, 1:214. For example, Robert Jay Lifton, “Existential Evil,” in Sanctions for Evil; Sources of Social Destructiveness, ed. Nevitt Sanford and Craig Comstock (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1971), 37, 38; C. Fourniau, “Colonial Wars before 1914: The Case of France in Indochina,” in Imperialism and War: Essays on Colonial Wars in Asia and Africa, ed. J. A. de Moor and H. L. Wesseling (Leiden: Brill, 1989), 83. “Überblick über die bei der Entsendung von Verstärkungen für die Schutztruppe in Südwest-Afrika gesammelten Erfahrungen und die in der Kommissionsberatungen zu erörternden Fragen, 1. Nov. 1908,” Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv Freiburg, RW 51, vol. 18, pp. 74–81; Kommando der Schutztruppe, SanitätsBericht, vol. 2. Martin van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallerstein to Patton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), chap. 4. Michael Geyer, “The Past as Future: The German Officer Corps as Profession,” in German Professions, 1800–1950, ed. Geoffrey Cocks and Konrad H. Jarausch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 183–212; Morris Janowitz, “Professional-

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31. 32.

33.

34. 35. 36. 37.

38. 39.

40. 41.

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ization of Military Elites,” in On Social Organization and Social Control (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 99–112. On Germany’s indigenous troops in East Africa, see Michelle R. Moyd, “Becoming Askari: African Soldiers and Everyday Colonialism in German East Africa, 1850–1918” (PhD diss., Cornell University, 2008). Geoffrey Best, Humanity in Warfare (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 172–79, 180–89, 195–99, 226. Isabel V. Hull, “‘Military Necessity’ and the Laws of War in Imperial Germany,” in Order, Conflict, Violence, ed. Stathis Kalyvas, Ian Shapiro, and Tarek Masoud (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 352–77. Compare Jürgen Zimmerer’s interpretation of von Trotha’s order in “Kriegsgefangene im Kolonialkrieg: Der Krieg gegen die Herero und Nama in Deutsch Südwestafrika (1904–1907),” in In der Hand des Feindes: Kriegsgefangenschaft von der Antike bis zum Zweiten Weltkrieg, ed. Rüdiger Overmans (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 1999), 282. On Kriegsbrauch, see Gerd Hankel, Die Leipziger Prozesse: Deutsche Kriegsverbrechen und ihre strafrechtliche Verfolgung nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg (Hamburg: Hamburg Edition, 2003), 215, 229–40. Hull, Absolute Destruction, 44–55. Otto Dannhauer (military correspondent), “Brief aus Deutsch-Südwestafrika,” Berliner Lokalanzeiger, August 2, 1904, 1–2 (written June 26, 1904). Hull, Absolute Destruction, 44–55. Schlieffen to Bülow, Nr. 13297, Berlin, December 16, 1904, BAB, R 1001, Nr. 2089, p. 107; letter of Trotha’s chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel von Beaulieu, cited in General Staff, Die Kämpfe der deutschen Truppen, 1:186. Wayne E. Lee, Barbarians and Brothers: Anglo-American Warfare, 1500–1865 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), chap. 8. Trotha, Proclamation of October 2, 1904, copy, J. Nr. 3737, BAB, R 1001, Nr. 2089, p. 7; another copy in “Kaiserliche Schutztruppen und sonstige deutsche Landstreitkräfte in Übersee” [RW 51], “Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt: Dokumentenzentrale, Schutztruppe Südwestafrika” [vol. 2], BA-MA Freiburg; reprinted in Rust, Krieg und Frieden im Hererolande, 385; Vorwärts, no. 294 (December 16, 1905); Drechsler, “Let Us Die Fighting,” 243; and Jon M. Bridgman, The Revolt of the Herero (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 128. Hull, Absolute Destruction, 58–61. While the food and water situation was indeed serious, this excuse did not motivate the proclamation; it merely justified causing the certain death of harmless civilians. On justification, as opposed to motivation, see Martha Finnemore, “Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention,” in The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, ed. Peter J. Katzenstein (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 159; Neil J. Smelser, “Some Determinants of Destructive Behavior,” and Edward M. Opton Jr., “It Never Happened and Besides They Deserved It,” both in Sanctions for Evil: Sources of Social Destructiveness, ed. Nevitt Sanford and Craig Comstock (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1971), 23 and 63–67.

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42. Trotha to Schlieffen, Okatarobaka, October 4, 1904, BA-Berlin, R 1001, Nr. 2089, pp. 5–6; partly reprinted in Drechsler, “Let Us Die Fighting,” 160–61; Horst Drechsler, Aufstände in Südwestafrika: Der Kampf der Herero und Nama 1904 bis 1907 gegen die deutsche Kolonialherrschaft (Berlin: Dietz, 1984), 86–87; Drechsler, “Hereros of South-West Africa,” 244–45; and Bley, South-West Africa under German Rule, 164. 43. Bley, Southwest-Africa under German Rule, 166–67; Schlieffen to Colonial Department, Nr. 12383, Berlin, November 23, 1904, BA-Berlin, R 1001, Nr. 2089, pp. 3–4. 44. See the scathing criticisms leveled by the Fawcett Commission at the British military administration in South Africa during the Boer War: Great Britain, Parliament, Report on the Concentration Camps in South Africa by the Committee of Ladies Appointed by the Secretary of State for War Containing Reports on the Camps in Natal, the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal, Cd. 893 (London, 1902), 6–7, 16–18. 45. This was a standard principle: General Staff, Die Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege (Berlin: Mitter and Sohn, 1902), 15; C. Lueder, “Das Landkriegsrecht im Besonderen,” in Handbuch des Völkerrechts, vol. 4, ed. Franz von Holtzendorff (Hamburg, 1889), 435; Christian Meurer, Die Haager Friedenskonferenz, vol. 2, Das Kriegsrecht der Haager Konferenz (Munich: J. Schweitzer, 1907), 122. 46. For data and discussion of provisioning the camps, see Hull, Absolute Destruction, chap. 3 and 153–57. 47. S. Burridge Spies, Methods of Barbarism? Roberts and Kitchener and Civilians in the Boer Republics, January 1900–May 1902 (Cape Town: Human and Rousseau, 1977), 268; Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1979), 518; Hull, Absolute Destruction, 88–90. 48. Hull, Absolute Destruction, 79–90. 49. Estorff to Command of Schutztruppe in Berlin, telegram Nr. 461, Windhuk, April 10, 1907, BAB, R 1001, Nr. 2140, p. 88. 50. The conception of military culture that I use comes from a combination of cultural anthropology and organizational culture theory. Space limitations, however, prevent a discussion of this concept here. See Hull, Absolute Destruction, chap. 4. 51. Militaries are thoroughly uneconomical institutions. See Hans Paul Bahrdt, Die Gesellschaft und ihre Soldaten: Zur Soziologie des Militärs (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1987). 52. On autism in organizations, see Dieter Senghaas, Rüstung und Militarismus (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1972), 46–54; Bernd Schulte, “Die Armee des Kaiserreichs im Spannungsfeld zwischen struktureller Begrenzung und Kriegsrealität, 1871– 1914,” in Europäische Krise und Erster Weltkrieg: Beiträge zur Militärpolitik des Kaiserreichs, 1871–1914 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1983), 72; Martin Kutz, Realitätsflucht und Aggression im deutschen Militär (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1990). 53. The best account is by Detlev Bald, “Afrikanischer Kampf gegen koloniale Herrschaft: Der Maji-Maji-Aufstand in Ostafrika,” Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilun-

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gen 19 (1976): 23–50. On casualties, see John Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 165, 199–200. 54. Hull, Absolute Destruction, chaps. 9–10, 12. 55. See Vakahn N. Dadrian, German Responsibility in the Armenian Genocide: A Review of the Historical Evidence of German Complicity (Watertown, MA: Blue Crane Books, 1996); Christoph Dinkel, “German Officers and the Armenian Genocide,” Armenian Review 44, no. 1 (1991): 77–133.

11

Connecting Culture and the Battlefield Britain and the Empire Fight the Hundred Days David Silbey

This chapter explores the connections between culture and the battlefield, examining how each influenced the other and suggesting that the social, national, and cultural contexts will inform us more deeply about each one. I use the summer and fall campaigns of 1918, particularly those of the British Expeditionary Force, to see whether those battles and encounters reveal anything about British and Dominion culture and whether their cultures reveal anything to us about those battles and encounters. More specifically, I look at the Canadian Corps, the New Zealand Division, and the Australian Imperial Force and the way in which nationalism affected their operational decisions and, in turn, how their operational decisions played a role in the development of nationalisms. Whereas most operational histories extend back only as far as the rear echelons, or perhaps to the political masters back home, this chapter explores how domestic ideas and visions extended all the way to the battlefield. Conversely, whereas most cultural histories extend forward only to the training depot and then leap forward to postconflict memorialization, this chapter looks at how the operational decisions and the battles themselves drove, as they happened, cultural development. We are far beyond the “new military history,” I think. So far, in fact, that it may be a cliché to say so.1 This label was created as an attempt to integrate social history with military history and produce “history from the bottom up,” as opposed to “history from the top down.” The paradigmatic example of this is John Keegan’s The Face of Battle.2 Keegan’s book marked the start of redefining military history, focusing on the experience of the ordinary combatants. But labeling this approach the “new” military history may actually have harmed more than it helped. 266

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By implicitly contrasting itself with the “old” military history, the new military history created a division where none should have existed. Sides were chosen and lines were drawn between operational history (“drums and trumpets” was its label) and social military history (we need a similarly evocative and slightly dismissive phrase for social military history). A war started where none should have, with people declaring sides: “Operational history, once synonymous with military history, has become something of a historiographical stepchild of late. The ‘new military history’ of the 1960s and 1970s . . . seemed willing to discuss everything about armies but the actual wars they fought. It has been an unfortunate state of affairs.”3 The results were often a failure to crosspollinate between the two and a conscious reluctance to cross the line between new and old. This avoidance was problematic. The new modes of studying history over the past half century—social history; oral history; world history; race, class, and gender studies; cultural studies; and the linguistic turn, to name just a few—all are, at their base, tools for the study of the history itself. They are ways of prying into the world of the past and breaking it open for analysis and understanding. Military historians were surely shortchanging themselves by not using these new tools themselves.4 Worse, they were cutting themselves off from the rest of the historical profession by failing to incorporate the tools of the trade. The new military history aimed to incorporate social history, so military history should likewise aim to incorporate all historical tools, both modern and traditional.5 Military historians have started to do this. In Carnage and Culture, Victor Davis Hanson tried to develop a universal theory of history to explain Western dominance by focusing on the culture of those Western powers and how it formed a particular kind of overwhelming military structure.6 Hanson’s approach had numerous failings and has been widely critiqued, but it was at least an attempt to discuss the culture.7 John Lynn’s response, in Battle, was another such attempt.8 Rather than concentrate on the West, Lynn explored a range of cultures and militaries and tried to link them. Despite some problems, Lynn’s approach was a valiant attempt to suggest that the larger cultural structure had a global effect on militaries and wars, without Hanson’s presumption that the West was inherently and eternally superior.9 In fact, that presumption

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has long corrupted the little cultural analysis that military history did have (as it did in all kinds of history) into a reimposition of racial and nationalist visions of the world, with the West being inherently aggressive and straightforward and “Orientals” being sly and indirect. We still do not have ground-level studies of the interaction between culture and war that will progress to the kinds of examinations that Lynn and Hanson attempted. Before envisioning culture and war on a large scale, military historians must construct the bricks for the foundation, through more books like The Cheese and the Worms and The Return of Martin Guerre.10 As Jeremy Black observed in his useful survey of the state of military history, The detailed work that [the cultural approach] requires has simply not been tackled for most of the world. As a result, we are overly dependent on a rather narrow range of research. Not only is much of the world only imperfectly covered, but there is scant evidence for the attitudes that are important if we are to assess cultural factors. Hopefully this will be redressed, and, in a decade or two, we will be able to look back at the current work on the “cultural turn” and understand it as the tentative scholarship that is all that it can realistically claim to be.11

This does not mean that military historians must use all their tools all the time. But they should understand the tools available, even if they decide not to use them. Understanding the tools would offer insights into situations that might not be obvious when looking at them in the traditional way. An example of this, and an example of the kind of foundational cultural work for which Black calls, is Carol Reardon’s Pickett’s Charge in History and Memory, which analyzes the battle of Gettysburg and the Civil War in ways not possible without new methods of inquiry.12 An exception to this lack of basic cultural studies of warfare may be the studies of the memorialization of World War I. These are a common part of the new wave of historiography of World War I that has come out in the past two decades, most notably by people like Jay Winter.13 But even here the wariness of the two sides is apparent. Parallel to the memorialization stream is one that looks more carefully at the operational level of warfare between 1914 and 1918.14 These two paral-

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lel streams have nonetheless tended to remain segregated from each other, to the detriment of both. For example, much of the memorialization literature discusses how people chose to remember the conflict but is not sufficiently skeptical about how the war itself is portrayed in those memorials. Any suggestion that the actual war itself was more complicated than Paul Fussell’s mud-and-blood description has usually been ignored. For example, in Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning, Jay Winter examines the way in which “those too old to fight had created an imaginary war, filled with medieval knights, noble warriors, and sacred moments of sacrifice.” War poets—those with actual combat experience—reacted with fury, Winter insisted, to this “banal” and “obscene” imaginary war, instead writing about the war’s horrifying reality. But Winter’s example of the “imaginary war,” as he himself noted, is the account of an actual French combat soldier’s experience, widely republicized no doubt but with as much claim to being real as that of the war poets. Winter refused to accept that, though, and assumed that the cynical views of the war poets were the only possible correct perception of the war.15 Even when works did try to bring together the two strands, they sometimes were handicapped by the lack of a larger intersection between military history and the larger world. Joanna Bourke’s An Intimate History of Killing, while laudable in its attempt to look historically at the personal experience of killing, is handicapped by her lack of interest in and sympathy for things military.16 Even though military historians long ago abandoned the simple battle narrative, the field is now in a similar situation with regard to culture. Militaries and wars do not simply appear, and they are neither built nor waged according to some universal principles that do not vary from nation to nation, society to society, and people to people. Instead, they are constructions of the cultures and societies that wage the wars, built according to the principles, beliefs, and myths of those cultures. Without understanding how those principles, beliefs, and myths create the militaries and the wars, military historians essentially shun their responsibility to analyze and comprehend war and its institutions. Failing that means failing their central and, indeed, only mission. As Mao Zedong pointed out, culture is the ocean in which the wars swim, invisible to the fish but essential.

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1918 This chapter tries to intersect culture and the battlefield by looking at the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in the summer and fall of 1918, when Entente forces pushed the Germans back nearly to the border of Germany itself and essentially forced the Germans to sue for peace. Until recently, this period in 1918 has been neglected; instead, the British military history of World War I has been concerned with the initial campaigns of 1914, the Somme attack of 1916, the Passchendaele offensive of 1917, and the German offensives of spring 1918. A history that covered the peaks of British interest would leap from the high points of 1914 and 1916–17 and finish with Field Marshal Douglas Haig’s famous “backs to the wall” special order of April 11, 1918, standing stranded months away from the actual end of the war. According to this conception, victory came largely because of German exhaustion. This vision has changed at the scholarly level in the past two decades, although at a popular level the perception remains mired in the mud of exhaustion.17 Nonetheless, much remains to be done on a scholarly level. Figuring out how the Entente won is hardly complete, especially at the tactical and operational level, and figuring out what winning meant in 1918 to the soldiers and the nations fighting has hardly been touched.18 From Amiens in August to the armistice in November, Entente forces were moving forward relatively steadily, though still suffering casualties that rivaled those of 1916–17. Obviously, I cannot fill in the entirety of this historiographical gap in this chapter, so I will concentrate on how the victory in 1918 was, for elements of the BEF, a consciously nationalist one. More than that, 1918 was a victory in which nationalism influenced operational decisions and operational decisions influenced nationalism. In essence, then, nationalism was driven by and drove operational concerns and decisions. Each country’s nationalism was, to a large extent, nurtured by what I call national moments: events, people, or things seen by populations as being peculiarly representative of their nation. An American example is Bunker Hill, which has come to stand as a national moment, as have Pearl Harbor, V-E Day, and 9/11. For a certain segment of the Irish population, the Battle of the Boyne is a national moment. Although national moments are sometimes categorized in that way only long after the mo-

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ment itself, they often become such moments even while they are happening or shortly afterward. There were a substantial number of national moments in World War I. For example, the long, bloody, and fruitless amphibious landing at Gallipoli in Turkey in 1915, at the time and afterward, was seen as a watershed in the Australian and New Zealand national identities.19 Indeed, from Gallipoli came ANZAC Day (the technical term for the Australia–New Zealand Army Corps within the British army), a holiday celebrating the landing as a national moment. In 1921 an Australian explained, “A celebration of this day, on which Australia, by the valor of her sons, became entitled through an ordeal of blood, fire, and suffering to take her place among the great nations of the world, and to stand on equal terms with those peoples, both past and present, who have given of their best that humanity might benefit.”20 No longer was Australia simply “a joint in the tail of a great Empire.”21 Instead, it was its own nation, defined by war and celebrated on the “fifty-third Sunday.” A particular note about Gallipoli was that it included a conscious distinction from the British for much of its power. For the “ANZACs,” the British were, and are, regarded in many ways more as villains than the supposed enemy, Turkey, was. That vision was, for example, still evident in the Mel Gibson film Gallipoli, but it was certainly a strong feeling in 1915.22 Its effect was to distinguish the ANZACs from the British, a distinction that was felt unnecessary with regard to the Turks. Establishing a nationalism in this case required establishing a sense of difference between the mother country and former colony. Australia was different from England, and Australians were different from the English. This led to the stereotype of the Australian soldier’s brash, unruly personality, which contrasted with the obedience of the British Tommies: An officer, inspecting the first line of resistance: “What soldiers are in this trench, my man?” “First Sussex Regiment, sir.” After going along a little further, he questions again: “What soldiers are in this trench, my man?” “What the —— has it got to do with you?” “Oh, this is the Australian trench,” the officer said, quite surprised.23

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For the Canadians, a national moment similar to Gallipoli was the 1917 battle of Vimy Ridge.24 “Canada’s war of independence,” one historian wrote, “was fought between 1914 and 1918, with the Battle of Vimy Ridge marking the watershed between colony and nation.”25 Such a vision of progress has defined Canadian historiography since the war ended, to the extent that the abilities and skills of those Canadian forces who arrived first on the western front are underestimated—“admirable raw material,” as one historian put it—which was the better to show Canadian progression and advancement.26 Canadian soldiers in 1914–15 are, in this literature’s telling, the rough colonials of myth, standing in sharp contrast to the polished citizen-soldiers of 1917–18.27 The narrative needs of the national moment had overcome the demands of strict analysis. By contrast, it would be more difficult to find such a national moment in the Great War for, say, Wales.28 This is not to judge Welsh nationalism, but it does suggest that national moments are particularly important when a nationalism is either defining or redefining itself. For the Dominion countries, World War I was the intersection of a growing national self-awareness with the demand for a great effort by the mother country. It was, in essence, a crossroads for those nationalisms and thus particularly ripe for the development of national moments.29 Let us trace this sense of national and cultural uniqueness through 1918 to find the ways that the victories of that year became part of a national moment. Throughout the war, for domestic consumption, the Dominion forces actively cultivated a vision of the conflict as a national effort, especially through the famed Australian correspondent C. E. W. Bean, which influenced recruits for the Australian Imperial Force.30 Furthermore, major Dominion forces, like the Australians and Canadians, were largely kept together rather than interspersed into “British” units, and they were given some autonomy in the planning and execution of their assaults. Field Marshal Douglas Haig used the forces this way because of their perceived martial valor, because both countries’ divisions were larger than the typical British division, and because of nationalist political pressure from the colonies. Although this is not new information, it is important to note how national concerns influenced organizational decisions.

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In addition, Haig himself reinforced that sense by isolating the national elements within the BEF in his dispatches, highlighting the battles as not just a British effort but the effort of a collection of nationalisms. In his account of the battle of the Somme, Haig wrote that “troops from every part of the British Isles, and from every Dominion and quarter of the Empire, whether Regulars, Territorials, or men of the New Armies, have borne a share in the Battle of the Somme. While some have been more fortunate than others in opportunities for distinction, all have done their duty nobly.”31 This was not merely a British effort or an imperial effort; it was the effort of “every part of the British Isles, and . . . every Dominion and quarter of the Empire.” Specifically, Haig listed the troops and units by their nationality in his later dispatches. So when he described an attack during the third battle of Ypres (Passchendaele), he noted in September 1917 that “Australian, English, Scottish, and South African troops were employed.”32 A month later, in talking about an attack on October 4, 1917, Haig wrote, “The attack was carried out by Australian, New Zealand and English divisions, including among the latter a few Scottish, Irish, and Welsh battalions, and was successful at all points.”33 Again, the effort was effectively an Australian, New Zealand, English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh effort, rather than a British effort. This was more than an affectation on Haig’s part or an attempt to placate the empire. Haig genuinely felt that the Dominion formations were superior, as he told Arthur Currie, the Canadian commander, in the summer of 1918: “With tears showing plainly in his eyes, he said something like this: ‘In all the dark days this spring—and God knows they were dark enough—one comforting thought came to me, that I still had the Canadian Corps unused and fresh; and I felt that I could not be defeated until the Corps had been in action.’”34 Although this might have been a commander talking to a subordinate who had some uncomfortable political powers, Haig’s motivation is somewhat beside the point. Rather, he was making a nationalist point about an operational situation, one that elevated the Canadian Corps as carrying a special martial virtue. The segregation of countries’ troops created large, homogeneous forces whose soldiers had time to grow familiar with one another at both the tactical and operational levels.35 Not surprising, they proved to be effective in the offensives of 1918. In essence, then, what was at least

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partly a decision based on nationalism came to have specific operational effects. The Canadians and Australians were segregated (at least partly) because they represented their own particular countries, and segregation made them more effective tactically. Nationalism became a useful method of organizing large corps of forces into “shock” troops, because they were organized and trained to lead assaults and could be moved relatively easily from one battlefield to another. The successes of those shock troops in turn reinforced and built the nationalism that fueled them. The combination of segregation and operational effectiveness encouraged the strong distinction among Canadian, Australian, and British soldiers. The Australians and Canadians felt themselves militarily superior to the rest of the British Expeditionary Force. “They had a contempt for Britishers to begin with,” one British officer remembered. “I myself heard the expression ‘Not bad for a Britisher’ used by one about some successful feat of British arms.”36 They believed they were excellent soldiers because of their national origin. Likewise, Arthur Currie, the commander of the Canadian Corps, wrote in January 1918, I cannot begin to express to you the regard in which Canadians are held in the Allied Armies. They are looked upon as being the most efficient Corps on the whole Western Front. There are many factors which contribute to that efficiency. In the first place, our men are full of resource and when a difficulty or situation confronts which has not been provided for, they are not the kind to stand around and do nothing simply because they have “no instructions.” It is always well to do something, and the natural common sense, which is such a pronounced Canadian characteristic, usually tells one the best thing to do nine times out of ten.37

“Such a pronounced Canadian characteristic” was Currie’s way of invoking Canadianness and implicitly contrasting the Canadian soldiers with the English. To further distinguish the Dominion soldiers and, by extension, the Dominions themselves, they were described as behaving differently, as acting uniquely Canadian or Australian, particularly in discussions of discipline and obedience. The English were portrayed as adherents of mindless “spit and polish,” unlike the more flexible colonials. “Our men

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are well-disciplined,” Currie might say of the Canadians, but then he would explicitly redefine discipline to separate the Canadians from the English: “To me, discipline is simply the self-control which makes you do the right thing at all times. We are given a conscience which tells us what is right, and what is wrong, and at our schools and in our training camps we are taught the right way of doing military things. If we have the self-control to do that right thing always, we are well disciplined, and in the Canadian Corps I am proud to say the standards of discipline set and maintained is high.”38 Currie thus reinvented the image of the Canadians as raw frontier colonists by making that stereotype a virtue of common sense and doing the right thing. The summer of 1918 was a particularly propitious time for victories. The exhaustion of the German army in the spring offensives and the maturation of both the British and French armies into all-arms forces capable of effective operations meant that substantial victories were likely. As a result, the Entente won the war a year earlier than many people expected. In addition, the Dominion troops had been primed to be the lead units in an attack, since for example, the Canadian Corps had been largely spared by the German offensives of spring 1918. They were therefore one of the few remaining organized forces that could be used for counterattack. The use of the Australians and Canadians as shock troops in the summer offensives meant that such battles would almost inevitably be seen as victories for particular nationalities as well as for the Entente.39 This is nowhere clearer than the offensive at Amiens. Haig’s vision had been drawn to the possibilities of an offensive there by the success of the Australian Corps in that area during the winter and spring of 1918. German fortifications were particularly weak along the line in that area, and so the British offensive, which started on August 8 and was spearheaded by the Australians and Canadians, was successful.40 As he had done before, Haig described it in explicitly nationalist ways: “The brilliant and predominating part taken by the Canadian and Australian Corps in this battle is worthy of the highest commendation. The skill and determination of these troops proved irresistible, and at all points met with rapid and complete success.”41 Each time an assault led by Australians or Canadians led to (often unprecedented) success—Hamel, Amiens, St. Quentin, Canal du Nord—much of the credit redounded to the

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Dominion troops, increasing their feelings of superiority to the British and making it more likely that they would be used in such a role again. Consequently, on August 13, 1918, Arthur Currie sent a special order in the aftermath of the Amiens attack stating, “Canada has always placed the most implicit confidence in her Army. How nobly has that confidence been justified: and with what pride the story of your gallant success been read in the home land.”42 Currie further noted in his diary on September 27, 1918, that a German colonel, a POW, had told him that “in the German Army everyone agreed that the Canadian Corps were most to be feared in all the Allied Armies.”43 Even the form of the war came to be identified through a nationalist lens more suited to the Australians or Canadians. As an Australian lieutenant explained in 1918, “This style of war suits us better and the men are keen. . . . We fight in open fields, among hedges and farm houses and dig trenches all over the country. We have got right away from fixed trench warfare.”44 The tension was obvious between the “open” warfare, which the lieutenant felt particularly suited to Australians, and the “fixed trench warfare,” which, he implied, was more English. This feeling of nationalist self-confidence could even explain setbacks. That is, they were not the result of a lack of effort or quality on the part of the attacking soldiers but the reaction of the Germans, who, knowing that they faced Australians or Canadians, poured a much larger number of reinforcements into the defense than they otherwise would have. Currie said this in October 1918: “The Germans fought us exceedingly hard all the way, for whenever the Canadian Corps goes into battle he seems to throw a far higher proportion of men and ammunition at us than he does at any other part of the front. He assumes that if he stops the Canadian Corps, everything else stops.”45 This may have been true, and given Haig’s continuing use of both the Australians and the Canadians as shock troops, Currie may have been correct that the Germans focused on halting those formations. But at the same time, this conclusion also was convenient. Victory was due to the superior soldiers of a particular nation; failure, or even lack of overwhelming success, was the result of the Germans’ focusing on stopping the superior soldiers of a particular nation. Finally, the creation of such large national forces and their use as shock troops created issues of security. The movement of the Canadian

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Corps before Amiens, for example, was a nightmare for those who were concerned with keeping such information from the Germans. General Sir Henry Rawlinson wrote in his diary, “Wherever the Canadians go they always create suspicion. I must publish several lying orders to deceive my own people who do chatter so.”46 It was much more difficult for Rawlinson to conceal the movements of a large cohesive national group of soldiers than it would have been to assemble a similar-size group that did not have the same cohesion. In this case, then, the military and nationalist advantages created their own security disadvantages. As the campaign wrapped up, the nationalist narrative become one of a redemption that followed failure. The disaster of Gallipoli and the abortive follow-on to Vimy Ridge were vindicated by the triumph of November 11, 1918. In a sense, the national moment of Gallipoli and Vimy Ridge—gallantry in the midst of slaughter—had been bookended by the national moment of Amiens and Canal du Nord: gallantry in service of victory. Even more important, nationalism, the battlefield, and operational decisions clearly interacted. The essential operational decision was to use several large bodies of troops with established bonds as mobile shock forces, moving them to where they were needed. The most readily available of those were the Canadian Corps and the Australian Imperial Force, tied together by bonds of national culture and with home governments insisting on their unity. Using them that way was almost inescapable. Their battlefield success in 1918 then redounded to the national culture, and their successes became Canadian and Australian, as well as Entente, successes.

After 1918 The narrative of the war that emerged after the conflict ended continued this nationalist bent. Histories of the 1918 campaign tend to center on the feats of the American, Australian, and Canadian forces, and the Entente’s overall operational achievements have been somewhat neglected. In a sense, the historiography has focused more on who in the Entente forces won the war as opposed to how they won.47 Thus, for example, almost immediately after the war, a popular history of the victorious campaign, entitled Canada’s Hundred Days, appeared in Canada.48 The value judgment—that the experience of the Hundred Days

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must be broken down by nationality—was obvious. Similarly, “without the Diggers, the Allies would probably have lost the war,” another historian later confidently declared.49 The British Official Histories, written by Sir James Edmonds, continued this discussion over the next several decades: Who deserved credit for the victory? Who deserved the blame? Were particular nationalities being treated fairly?50 Even when the historiography did extend to the operational level, the story was often one of competing nationalisms. This might take the form of contrasting implicitly or explicitly the Canadian general Arthur Currie, the Australian John Monash, the American John J. Pershing, and often a British general like Sir Henry Rawlinson.51 Or it might look at the way the BEF operated by focusing on particular nationalisms to discern, for example, “distinctive Canadian tactical methods.”52 It might analyze one particular nationalism in a battle, as did Glyn Harper with New Zealand and Passchendaele.53 This tendency led historians to extract the performance of particular nationalities in 1918 rather than to evaluate the operation as a whole, and it created a back-and-forth about the relative worth and efforts of particular nationalities. Thus, such judgments as “the Canadian Corps, like the Australian divisions on the Western Front, appears to have been better led and more effective than its British counterparts” became common.54 In essence, operational discussions were distorted by nationalist concerns because of the nationalist ways in which the operations were organized. If a particular battle was identified with a particular nation, then criticism of the execution of that battle became criticism of that nation.55 An example before 1918 is the battle of Poziéres in 1916. Part of the larger battle of the Somme, Poziéres resulted in heavy Australian casualties, becoming, in C. E. W. Bean’s phrase, “more densely sown with Australian sacrifice than any other place on earth.”56 Poziéres symbolized for the Australians an Australian battle and the centerpiece of action on the western front during late July to early August 1916. Not surprisingly, British and Australian perceptions of the importance of Poziéres differed. Sir James Edmonds, the British official historian, reviewed Bean’s drafts of his history of the war and complained about his overemphasis on Poziéres: “Your narrative [Edmonds wrote to Bean] time after time gives the impression that nothing was going on except at Poziéres.” That was not the case, Edmonds insisted: “The most important fighting at

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the end of July was at Delville Wood and then at Guillemont.” Poziéres was one of the many “operations of a minor character . . . going on all along the British and French front.”57 In a sense, both men were right. Edmonds was correct to point out that many other, similar operations were being carried out at the same time, but Bean was correct that it was Poziéres, and Poziéres alone, that served as a foundation for a national mythology. This distinction reinforced the nationalist mythology of young nations like Australia or New Zealand or Canada. They had overcome the blundering of the British at Gallipoli and Vimy Ridge and emerged triumphant in 1918.58 They had saved the western front after the British collapse during the German spring offensives and then won the war in the summer and fall.59 Such memorialization reinforced a distinctive identity and distinguished it from that of the imperial motherland. For the Dominions, the legend after the war was one of a particularly Dominion effectiveness at war, built on a foundation of their native culture. The best example of this was the legend of the “digger,” the Australian soldier, whose stereotype echoed Arthur Currie’s earlier discussion of “discipline.” The Australians were undisciplined and wild—completely different from the English—but not when it really counted. As Ambrose Cull, an Australian officer, wrote in his 1919 memoir, “The fact is that in the essentials of discipline, absolute obedience in battle, the end at which all the ridiculed formalities of peacetime aim, the Australian had no superior. He not only possessed discipline, but was proud of possessing it.”60 Cull’s obvious comparison was with the English, the avatars of the “ridiculed formalities of peacetime.” The Australians may not have matched in the English in parade-ground spit and polish, but that was because the Australians understood when discipline was truly important. They did not need the parade ground because they were “brave, have natural fighting instincts and are fine specimens of manhood.”61 All these characteristics created the “myth of the digger,” in which the Australian national character—so distinctive from the British—fed into the Australian soldier and had proved to be not only adequate but superior.62 I am not saying that the historiography was necessarily wrong in suggesting that Australian or Canadian units were more effective than

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British units. Indeed, they may well have been more effective, particularly given the way that Haig used them. Having said that, the initial historiography of the American effort in World War I was similarly triumphal, and only recently has the scholarship begun to demonstrate that American efforts were not always successful.63 How, then, did the victorious campaigns of 1918 play out in the postwar era? Like the earlier years, that last year of the war had to fit into a narrative of nationalist generation. The year of victory became a year of Australian and Canadian victory, too, and one that mingled overcoming the Germans with overcoming the limitations of the British. It was the story of the rural men and boys of Australia and Canada going to war, usually making long journeys to do so, being almost undone in the early going—whether by English incompetence at Gallipoli or the gas at the Second Battle of Ypres—but both redeemed by the valor of the nation’s soldiers. The narratives end in the ultimate redemption of 1918, when victory was achieved with the particular nationality leading the way. For the Australians, 1918 was “emphatic and everlasting proof of its soldiers’ high performance.”64 That victory was not merely to help the mother country but, as General Sir Archibald Macdonnell noted in 1925, was done by Canadian soldiers “to save their country.”65 Any recounting of 1918 thus had to reemphasize the central role of a particular nationality in winning the final battles. If the men of that nation had not taken a special and specific role in the victory, it could not have been a victory for the nation. For 1918 to be a national moment, the analysis of the victory had to be in explicitly national, and often comparative, terms. Soon after the war, two Canadian generals compared what the Canadian Corps had managed with what the American Expeditionary Force had accomplished. Needless to say, the Canadians came out ahead.66 Moreover, the Canadians had fought above their weight, making “a contribution to the military resolution of the war out of all proportion to [the country’s] relatively small size.”67 The Americans, however, were not the main comparison; instead, it was the colonial motherland of England. As an Australian wrote about Amiens, “At last it had come: a ‘British triumph’ on the Western Front and don’t worry that Canadians and Australians did the best work while the British troops to the north struggled.”68 The quotation marks

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around “British triumph” are ironic, as Amiens was an Australian and Canadian triumph, one that was achieved despite the British. The valor of the particular nationalities in 1918 had to be emphasized after the war in order for the narrative to remain solid. If Gallipoli and Vimy Ridge were the starting points of the narrative and required emphasis, then 1918 was the end of the narrative and also required a particular emphasis. Ian McGibbon’s book on New Zealand military history from the middle of the nineteenth century to the first few decades of the twentieth century ended in 1915 and was entitled The Path to Gallipoli, as if everything in that country’s military history was leading up to those moments on the peninsula.69 Echoing this idea, C. E. W. Bean published a shorter version of his official history of the Australian effort in World War I, which he entitled Anzac to Amiens.70 To be fair, he deliberately focused on the Australians, but the title indicates exactly what Bean thought that Australian story was. One of the fascinating characteristics of this emphasis is the way in which a particular nationality’s valor had to be recognized by outsiders. It was not enough that the Canadians themselves felt elite; they had to be recognized as elite by the rest of the world. Thus, in Canada’s Hundred Days, John Livesay quotes a story that highlighted Ferdinand Foch’s admiration for the Canadian Corps: “[In the spring of 1918] Foch was asked to use the Canadian Corps to stem the tide of invasion. ‘No,’ came the reply—so the story goes—‘I cannot afford to do that. By their valor the Canadian troops won back at Vimy the most valuable of our remaining coal fields. These are the nerve center of France. We cannot afford to entrust their defense out of the hands of my Canadians.’”71 Canada’s valor was a public valor, and its nationalism was a public nationalism. But what makes this story even more telling is that Livesay admitted that it may not have been true: “This story may be apocryphal,” he wrote before telling it. “It does not matter, for in essence it is true.”72 On one hand, Livesay felt compelled to show that Canadian courage was a watchword for Foch, but on the other hand, he asserted that whether Foch actually ever spoke of “my Canadians,” the valor would nonetheless be real. In a similar echo of mingled public admiration of an eternal truth, a historian of the Canadian Corps quoted Arthur Conan Doyle as saying

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that “there are no better soldiers in the world than those of the Dominions.” The historian, however, did not say that Conan Doyle was “arguing” or “asserting” it but that Conan Doyle was “conceding” it. That is, he was not making a judgment open to dispute but admitting a truth that could not be qualified or denied.73 The effects of such judgments on the operational analysis of the battles of 1918 were profound. One of these effects was not specific to nationalism but was a general failing. The perception of the Hundred Days in 1918 as the final victory (and in the British historiography often positioned as a victory achieved by German collapse rather than Entente success) tended to obscure the immensely high casualties between August and November 1918, which, in many cases, were substantially higher than those of the previous years. Indeed, the Canadian Corps suffered the highest casualty rates of the war not during Ypres or Vimy Ridge but during the Hundred Days, a fact “often lost sight of in the historical literature.”74 Because such heavy casualties did not fit well with the narrative of victory, they have tended to be ignored. The second failing of the operational historiography of 1918 is the tendency to extract the national levies from all the great and supporting structures that surrounded them. It is not uncommon to ignore such things as logistics in recounting wars, but it is notable that both World Wars I and II actually produced a number of legendary logistics stories, such as the La voie sacrée at Verdun in 1915 or the Red Ball Express in Normandy in 1944. There are no similar legends for logistics feats in 1918. It is suggestive that the logistics apparatuses for the Dominion forces were predominantly English rather than ANZAC or Canadian. The heroism on La voie sacrée was French and, in the Red Ball Express, American. Telling their stories in a nationalist account reinforced la gloire or the red, white, and blue. Telling the stories of the British logistics services’ achievements in 1918 did nothing to reinforce Canadian or ANZAC patriotism, so seemingly they have disappeared from the record.

Conclusion The very act of raising and sending a Canadian army abroad fundamentally altered Canada’s Dominion status and required substantial

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constitutional adjustments by the Canadian government.75 From the beginning, the participation of Britain’s colonies altered their status and self-conception, an alteration that only deepened as the war progressed. That evolution was influenced by and influenced the operational level of the war. Using the Canadian Corps and the Australian Imperial Force as distinct bodies within the British Expeditionary Force made them implicitly representative of their nations. It was an effective strategy as a way to build elite bodies of troops within the BEF by using their nascent sense of nationalism and cultural similarity as bonding devices. But it had consequences. The victories of 1918 were not only victories for the Entente but also victories for Canada and Australia. Moreover, they confirmed the sense, begun in early moments like Gallipoli or Vimy Ridge, that these nationalisms were distinct and were, in fundamental ways, superior to that of the British imperial motherland. Australian soldiers might have been speaking for all Australians when they complained to British troops returning from an assault that the Australians had “done more than their share of the dirty work when things were hard” and that now the British troops were “getting all the fun when the going was good.”76 In 1914, at the start of the war, an Australian minister stated that Australians were “British first, and Australian second.”77 But by 1918, that sentiment no longer held; the Australians and Canadians were British second, if at all. This distance was reinforced by the postwar historiography, one that reshaped the operational events on the ground in a way that fed into each national mythos but obscured the reality of the fighting. As I have pointed out, operations on the battlefield shaped national culture, and national culture shaped operations on the battlefield, both in 1918 and afterward. If that is my specific argument, then my larger argument goes back to the usefulness of modern tools of historiography to military history. They surely are not the only or even the necessarily dominant mode of interpretation for matters military. Nonetheless, I do not think that we should limit our understanding of warfare to only the most traditional paradigms. This raises the final question of what to offer back.78 What does “military history” or the “history of war” offer to the larger historical project? Are we defined simply by our topic of study, or is there some methodology reserved for military historians? I would, in fact, argue that there

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is. It is perhaps not the only methodology, but military historians seem to me to be uniquely skilled at deciphering and analyzing the role in history of organizations and groups, both formal and informal. We are, after all, focused on institutions and groups as one of the foundations of our history. In a world of “history from the top down” and “history from the bottom up,” such organizations and groups have been, and are, neglected. “History from the middle”—as Paul Kennedy called it—does not have quite the same ring, but it is critically useful all the same.79 Notes

1. Edward M. Coffman, “The New American Military History,” Military Affairs, 48, no. 1 (1984): 1–5. 2. John Keegan, The Face of Battle (London: Cape, 1976). 3. Robert Michael Citino, The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years’ War to the Third Reich (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005), xvii. 4. Not to pick on Robert Citino, but to write a book entitled The German Way of War and argue that there has been a centuries-long consistency in the way that Prussian and then German officers approach warfare without looking at the Prussian society from which they came seems an odd choice. 5. David C. Evans and Mark R. Peattie, Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887–1941 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 511–12. See also Richard J. Smethurst, A Social Basis for Prewar Japanese Militarism: The Army and the Rural Community (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974); Wayne E. Lee, “Mind and Matter—Cultural Analysis in American Military History: A Look at the State of the Field,” Journal of American History 93, no. 4 (2007): 1116–42. 6. Victor Davis Hanson, Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power (New York: Doubleday, 2001). 7. See Steven Willett, “History from the Clouds,” Arion 10, no. 1 (2002): 157–78. Ignore the uncritical Hal Elliott Wert, “Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power (review),” Journal of Military History 67, no. 2 (2003): 545–47. 8. John A. Lynn, Battle: A History of Combat and Culture, rev. and updated ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2009). 9. Gunther E. Rothenberg, “Review of Battle: A History of Combat and Culture by John A. Lynn,” Journal of Military History 68, no. 3 (2004): 943–45. 10. Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a SixteenthCentury Miller (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992); Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984). 11. Jeremy Black, “Determinisms and Other Issues,” Journal of Military History 68, no. 4 (2004): 1227.

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12. Carol Reardon, Pickett’s Charge in History and Memory (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003). 13. For a discussion of the historiographical development of memorialization, see Jay Winter and Antoine Prost, The Great War in History: Debates and Controversies, 1914 to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 14. For example, Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, Passchendaele: The Untold Story (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996); Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, The Somme (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005); Peter Hart, The Somme (London: Cassell, 2006); Nigel Steel and Peter Hart, Defeat at Gallipoli (London: Papermac, 1995); Nigel Steel and Peter Hart, Passchendaele: The Sacrificial Ground (London: Cassell, 2001); Robert H. Ferrell, America’s Deadliest Battle: MeuseArgonne, 1918 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007); Michael S. Neiberg, The Second Battle of the Marne (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008). 15. J. M. Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 204–10. 16. Joanna Bourke, An Intimate History of Killing: Face-to-Face Killing in TwentiethCentury Warfare (New York: Basic Books, 1999); for a useful review illustrating this point, see Graham Fuschak, review of An Intimate History of Killing: Face to Face Killing in 20th Century Warfare, by Joanna Bourke, Journal of Military History 64, no. 3 (2000): 915–16. 17. Daniel Todman, The Great War: Myth and Memory (London: Hambledon, 2005), is particularly good on the disconnect between scholarly and popular perceptions of World War I. 18. See John Keegan, The First World War (New York: Knopf, 1999), for example, the great bulk of which is on 1914 to 1916. 19. Graham Seal, Inventing Anzac: The Digger and National Mythology (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, with API Network and Curtin University of Technology, 2004); Craig Wilcox and Janice Aldridge, The Great War, Gains and Losses: Anzac and Empire (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, Australian National University, 1995). 20. Quoted in Seal, Inventing Anzac, 113. 21. Quoted in Jeff Kildea, Anzacs and Ireland (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2007), 213. 22. For Gallipoli, see Stuart Ward, “‘A War Memorial in Celluloid’: The Gallipoli Legend in Australian Cinema, 1940s–1980s,” in Gallipoli: Making History, ed. Jenny Macleod (London: F. Cass Routledge, 2004), 59–72; Rose Lucas, “The Gendered Battlefield: Sex and Death in Gallipoli,” in Gender and War: Australians at War in the Twentieth Century, ed. Joy Damousi and Marilyn Lake (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 148–61. 23. Quoted in Seal, Inventing Anzac, 44. 24. Larry Worthington, Amid the Guns Below: The Story of the Canadian Corps, 1914– 1919 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1965); John Alexander Swettenham, To Seize the Victory: The Canadian Corps in World War I (Toronto: Ryerson, 1965);

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26. 27. 28. 29.

30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

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Shane B. Schreiber, Shock Army of the British Empire: The Canadian Corps in the Last 100 Days of the Great War (St. Catharines, ON: Vanwell, 2004); Donald James Goodspeed, The Road Past Vimy: The Canadian Corps 1914–1918 (Toronto: Macmillan, 1969); Tim Cook, No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1999); René Chartrand and G. A. Embleton, The Canadian Corps in World War I (Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2007); Angus Brown and Richard Gimblett, In the Footsteps of the Canadian Corps: Canada’s First World War, 1914–1918 (Ottawa: Magic Light, 2006). Jeffrey Williams, “Review of Canada and the Battle of Vimy Ridge, 9–12 April 1917 by Brereton Greenhouse and Stephen J. Harris,” Journal of Military History 57, no. 1 (1993): 157–58. Andrew Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers: The 1st Canadian Division at War, 1914–1915 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 8. Ibid., 6. Angela Gaffney, Aftermath: Remembering the Great War in Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1998), is useful on this. Mark David Sheftall, Altered Memories of the Great War: Divergent Narratives of Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada (London: I. B. Tauris, 2010), does a wonderful job analyzing the different ways in which World War I fed into a variety of colonial nationalisms. John Frank Williams, Anzacs, the Media and the Great War (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 1999), is a good analysis of this process. Douglas Haig and J. H. Boraston, Sir Douglas Haig’s Despatches (December 1915–April 1919) (London: J. M. Dent, 1919), 54. Ibid., 121. Ibid., 125. Schreiber, Shock Army, 18. For an analysis of the effect of this on the Canadian Corps, see Ian M. Brown, “Not Glamorous, but Effective: The Canadian Corps and the Set-Piece Attack, 1917–1918,” Journal of Military History 58 (1994): 421–44. Peter Hart, 1918: A Very British Victory (New York: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2008), 257. Arthur Currie, The Selected Papers of Sir Arthur Currie, ed. Mark Osborne Humphries (Waterloo, ON: LCMSDS Press of Wilfred Laurier University, 2008), 72. Ibid., 73. G. D. Sheffield, Forgotten Victory: The First World War: Myths and Realities (London: Headline, 2001), 239. J. P. Harris, Douglas Haig and the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 486. Haig and Boraston, Sir Douglas Haig’s Despatches, 261. Currie, Selected Papers of Sir Arthur Currie, 104.

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43. Ibid., 119. 44. Jeffrey Grey, A Military History of Australia, 3rd ed. (Port Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 108–9. 45. Currie, Selected Papers of Sir Arthur Currie, 127. 46. Quoted in Sydney Wise, “Amiens, August 1918: A Glimpse of the Future?,” in Canada and the Great War: Western Front Association Papers, ed. Briton Cooper Busch (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003), 177. 47. For a measured discussion of competing claims, with particular focus on the French, see Robert A Doughty, Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations  in the Great War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 504–6. 48. John Frederick Bligh Livesay, Canada’s Hundred Days: With the Canadian Corps from Amiens to Mons, Aug. 8–Nov. 11, 1918 (Toronto: T. Allen, 1919). 49. John Laffin, quoted in Dale Blair, Dinkum Diggers: An Australian Battalion at War (Melbourne: University of Melbourne Press, 2001), 135. 50. Andrew Green, Writing the Great War: Sir James Edmonds and the Official Histories, 1915–1948 (Portland, OR: F. Cass, 2003), 113. 51. Tim Travers, “The Allied Victories, 1918,” in The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War, ed. Hew Strachan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 278–91, esp. 284–87. 52. W. A. B. Douglas, “Marching to Different Drums: Canadian Military History,” Journal of Military History 56 (1992): 257. 53. Glyn Harper, Massacre at Passchendaele: The New Zealand Story (Auckland: HarperCollins, 2000). 54. Douglas, “Marching to Different Drums,” 257. 55. For an example of the way this can happen (albeit in an earlier battle), see Timothy H. E. Travers, “Allies in Conflict: The British and Canadian Official Historians and the Real Story of Second Ypres (1915),” Journal of Contemporary History 24 (1989): 301–25. 56. Quoted in Grey, Military History of Australia, 102. 57. Williams, Anzacs, the Media and the Great War, 145. 58. Tim Cook, Clio’s Warriors: Canadian Historians and the Writing of the World Wars (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2006), discusses this effectively. See also Tim Cook, Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1917–1918 (Toronto: Penguin, 2009). 59. Blair, Dinkum Diggers, 135. 60. Quoted in Seal, Inventing Anzac, 81. 61. This is actually a quotation from James Edmonds, critiquing Bean’s account of the war in the 1920s. See Williams, Anzacs, the Media and the Great War, 6. 62. Jane Ross, The Myth of the Digger: The Australian Soldier in Two World Wars (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1985). 63. Mark E. Grotelueschen, The AEF Way of War: The American Army and Combat in World War I (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007); David F. Trask, The

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66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75.

76. 77. 78.

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AEF and Coalition Warmaking, 1917–1918 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993). Blair, Dinkum Diggers, 134. Quoted in Jonathan F. Vance, “Remembering Armageddon,” in Canada and the First World War: Essays in Honour of Robert Craig Brown, ed. Robert Craig Brown and David Clark MacKenzie (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 428. Schreiber, Shock Army, 133. Ibid., 142. Les Carlyon, “Dark Victories,” in Best Australian Essays 2008, ed. David Marr (Sydney: Black, 2008), 122. I. C. McGibbon, The Path to Gallipoli: Defending New Zealand, 1840–1915 (Wellington: GP Books, 1991). C. E. W. Bean, Anzac to Amiens: A Shorter History of the Australian Fighting Services in the First World War, 3rd. ed. (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1952). Livesay, Canada’s Hundred Days, 7. Ibid. Schreiber, Shock Army, 2. Ibid., 131. Donald Vince, “Development in the Legal Status of the Canadian Military Forces, 1914–19, as Related to Dominion Status,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science / Revue canadienne d’économique et de science politique 20, no. 3 (1954): 357–70. Hart, 1918, 342. John McQuilton, Rural Australia and the Great War: From Tarrawingee to Tangambalanga (Melbourne: University of Melbourne Press, 2001), 19. A question that Roberto Rabel tried to answer, in “War History as Public History: Past and Future,” in Going Public: The Changing Face of New Zealand History, ed. Bronwyn Dalley and Jock Phillips (Auckland: University of Auckland Press, 2001), 55–73. Paul Kennedy, “History from the Middle? The Case for the Second World War,” George C. Marshall Lecture, American Historical Association meeting, January 4, 2009.

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The American Culture of War in the Age of Artificial Limited War Adrian R. Lewis

In the aftermath of World War II, Americans accepted a new theory of war, a theory based on airpower and advanced technologies.1 Although this theory has never proved decisive and has in fact proved indecisive again and again, it has had incredible staying power and, to this day, dominates American thinking about the conduct of war. The latest version of this theory of war is called “network centric warfare (NCW),” which is merely another evolution in air-war theories and not a “revolution in military affairs,” as is too often claimed.2 The basic problem with air-war theories is their exclusivity. From their very inception in the 1920s, proponents have emphatically claimed and believed that airpower made all other forms of war obsolete, that airpower alone was the panacea, the answer to all wars. Humanity, however, has never accepted this verdict. Humanity has consistently acted in ways demonstrating that airpower was not the decisive instrument for the conduct of war. In World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, airpower, while contributing to the outcome of the war, failed to produce decisive results; ground and naval forces were needed as well. The most recent examples are Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. In these wars, we Americans again prepared to fight a high-tech war against a low-tech enemy. We again employed the most advanced airpower against an enemy who could not even produce the handheld weapons they employed. We again tried to destroy our enemies from twenty thousand feet, and we again failed. The North Koreans, the Chinese Communist forces, the North Vietnamese, and now Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Iraqi insurgent forces all have demonstrated again and again the ability to fight and survive against overwhelming American airpower. In Iraq and Afghanistan, we 289

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had to relearn the lessons of the Vietnam War. We had to relearn counterinsurgency warfare, small-unit operations, engagement with people, and the human factors, the human costs of war. Since World War II, we Americans have consistently failed to learn from the experience of war, primarily because the way we fight is in large part a function of our culture. It is not ignorance, neglect, evil intentions, or purposeful misdirection that causes us to continuously prepare to fight the wrong war. It is culturally imbued learning, the unbounded American faith in technology, the unmitigated desire to eliminate the human costs and ugliness of ground warfare, and the unhampered pursuit of happiness that results in excessive consumption that decisively influence the American conduct of war. Culturally consistent ways of thinking and acting are quite literally killing Americans in foreign lands, diminishing the United States in numerous ways, and damaging our ability to achieve political objectives in all parts of the world. A theory of war is not enough to motivate the behavior of a people. It is not enough to cause the expenditure of billions of dollars annually and trillions of dollars over decades. The Cold War, the Soviet threat, the decline of the traditional European powers, the advent of small wars of national liberation, the invention of nuclear weapons, and a new American militarism have combined to create the environment and the conditions for putting into practice this new American vision of war. This chapter examines the evolution of the American culture of war since World War II.

The Traditional American Culture of War The strongest roots of the American culture of war come from the American Revolution, the Civil War, and World War II.3 Traditionally, Americans have drawn a sharp distinction between war and peace. Peace is the norm, and war is an aberration that upsets the norm. Policing actions in Central and South America, the Philippines, China, and other parts of the world were not wars in the American understanding of the word. Even though the US Army and Marine Corps have fought all types of “small wars” in all parts of the world, in the minds of Americans these were not real wars. When you say “war” to Americans, two of the three most significant events in the nation’s life immediately come to

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mind, the Civil War and World War II. Both wars are deeply rooted in American culture, and both are rich sources of myths, legends, history, and symbolism. Americans believe they know what these wars were like, what they were about, and why they ended the way they did. Hence, Americans know what real war ought to look like. The Civil War and World War II formed ideas and constructs in the minds of Americans, which in turn informed our understanding of war and hence influenced our decision-making. These wars created systems of beliefs, values, and ethics that help determine emotions, attitudes, and dispositions in the present that affect the decisions we make. When you say “Civil War,” places such as Gettysburg and Antietam come to mind, and names like Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, and Ulysses S. Grant come to mind. Images of deeds of valor, sacrifice, and honor come to mind. The nation at war comes to mind. Although in one sense, these are only words and images, they are in fact strands of culture that combine in a complex web of meaning called war. Clifford Geertz wrote in his study The Interpretation of Culture, “Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning.”4 The two most significant events in the life of the American people still hold meaning and continue to influence the way we think about war. Part of that thinking included the belief that war is a national endeavor, a serious business, not a balance-of-power game played by monarchs and politicians. Real wars require the total resources of the United States, its industrial power, its military power, its intellectual power, and its population. Real wars require everyone to sacrifice. Americans believe that war is an aberration that upsets the American norm that humans are not a means to achieve some end, not a tool of the state, but the end. War interrupts the American “pursuit of happiness”: the process of producing, accumulating, and consuming wealth. Accordingly, wars must be fought expeditiously and relentlessly in order to bring them to a swift end and a return to normalcy. American wars must be strategically offensive, and offensive operations must commence at the earliest opportunity. The strategic defense is assumed only temporarily to mobilize the nation for war. The preference

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for the overwhelming use of force and an offensive strategy are basic tenets of the American culture of war. Indeed, Americans believe that this is the surest and most direct path to decisive victory. Strategically defensive wars of attrition are un-American. Because on the strategic defense, all that is possible is not to lose the war. Americans prefer strategies of annihilation, and although it has rarely been achieved, it has frequently been sought. Exhaustion is the strategy employed in total wars. Ideally, American wars are operationally and tactically offensive, for the attacking forces hold the initiative. Operations focus on destroying the enemy’s main army. Direct engagement of the enemy’s army at the earliest opportunity is expected. Thus, Americans traditionally believed that the destruction of the enemy’s main army would inevitably lead to the destruction of its government and the occupation of its country. Defensive operations, therefore, were only temporary expedients. Because sustained defensive operations prolonged the war, they were un-American. Likewise, protracted wars of attrition were operationally un-American. Americans believed that soldiers should be supplied with the best weapons, the best equipment, the best food, the best transportation, and the most advanced technologies. They believed this because they understood that the soldiers on the battlefield who were killing, being wounded, and dying were making the greatest contributions and the greatest sacrifices; therefore, no resource should be spared to give them everything they needed to fight and win. Americans expected and anticipated complete victory, unconditional surrender. Compromise solutions and negotiated settlements could not justify the expenditure of American lives and were, at best, only partial solutions. With the occupation of the country, the corrupt ideology and leadership that had caused the war could be rooted out, and a new, democratic, capitalist, American- or Western-oriented government could be put in place. In American eyes, there was a sharp distinction between right and wrong, good and evil. When the war was won, the citizen-soldiers were to be released and returned expeditiously to their homes and their individual pursuit of happiness. Americans did not believe they were responsible for rebuilding the defeated countries or for maintaining significant forces in the regions to preserve the peace. But they accepted these conditions as long as there was no significant fighting and dying. Americans expected states and nations, like people, to

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stand on their own and to be responsible for their actions. This was the way that real wars, total wars, were to be conducted. Americans did not distinguish between total wars and limited wars. War was war. In the wake of World War II, however, the traditional American culture of war was no longer sustainable. During World War II and in the early years of the “Cold War,” the American culture of war underwent a fundamental transformation, caused primarily by the following: 1. The invention of the atomic bomb, which created artificial limited war. 2. The invention of “revolutionary technologies”—jets, rockets, guided missiles, satellites, nuclear energy, radar, and other advanced technologies—that caused many people to believe that the nature of warfare had fundamentally changed, that a revolution in warfare had taken place, and that the new Star Trek vision of war was the future. 3. The assumption by the United States of new roles and new responsibilities in world affairs. These new responsibilities created new missions for the armed forces and the perceived necessity of spending billions, ultimately trillions, of dollars on defense. These responsibilities and missions made the preparation for war big business, creating new, powerful industries capable of influencing Congress and the American people. 4. Expanded expectations from life. The unparalleled growth of wealth and consumption, the new freedoms created by the automobile and interstate highway system and the airplane and national airport system, and the new means of marketing to Americans through television and now the internet created expectations from life that no other people in history could have conceived. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Americans became the planet’s biggest consumers, and the repercussions are evident today. 5. The advent of a new, American militarism. One form of militarism is the expenditure of resources to acquire military equipment and maintain forces beyond those needed for defense. The existence of military capabilities, unbalanced by a similarly capable threat, positively influences the decisions for war and the use of military force. The dynamic nexus of Congress, the armed services, the

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defense industry, and the American people led to the development of this new form of American militarism that has influenced the decision for war, as well as the conduct of war. All these factors came together to transform the American culture of war and, in fact, American culture. But there remains a vast gap between the realities of war and war as Americans conceive and understand it. The consequences of this gap in understanding were evident in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

Nuclear Weapons and the Development of Artificial Limited War In November 1950, a miracle took place that ever since has shaped human history. But this miracle was almost unnoticed and has not been well studied. In November 1950, the US Army, having all but destroyed the (North) Korean People’s Army and defeated Communist North Korea, was violently attacked by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of Communist China. The overwhelming force of the attack, with more than three hundred thousand soldiers, threatened the very survival of the US Eighth Army and caused the longest retreat in US history. Substantial numbers of US, ROK (Republic of Korea), and UN forces were cut off and killed. Although many were forced to surrender, others were able to fight their way out. This military situation was one of the most critical ever faced by US forces. The miracle was what did not happen. The president of the United States, Harry S. Truman, had in his power the means to annihilate the PLA using the atomic bomb. But he did not. The moment he made that decision, Truman created artificial limited war, a way of war that had no precedent in the American military experience, a way of war that in fact did not conform to human nature.5 The atomic bomb’s unparalleled destructive power motivated the creation of artificial limited war. But it did not have to be this way; Truman could have used the weapon, and he would have had the full support of the American people and military leaders. Instead, he went against the American culture of war and against human nature and established the precedent that has informed the behavior of governments to this day. The atomic bomb is the most significant tool for the conduct of war ever invented. Even though it did not change human nature, it caused

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people to seek to change the nature of war, which had tended toward total war. Carl Clausewitz observed that “the maximum use of force is in no way incompatible with the simultaneous use of the intellect. If one side uses force without compunction, undeterred by the bloodshed it involves, while the other side refrains, that first will gain the upper hand. That side will force the other to follow suit; each will drive its opponent toward extremes, and the only limiting factors are the counterpoises inherent in war.”6 In other words, absolute war, while the least common, is the most natural. War is a struggle for survival. There is nothing limited about dying or killing. In war, human nature leans toward the extremes. But the “counterpoises,” inherent in all human activities, place limits on war, limits that confine its destructiveness. In the past, social and political organization, geography and terrain, the availability of resources, the necessity to eat and to grow food, transportation and communication networks, the size and speed of means conveyances, the rotation of the planet, the inability to engage at night, weather and climate conditions, freezing cold and snow, and all other forms of essential human behaviors in a given environment placed very real limitations on people’s ability to kill one another. This started to change with the advent of the modern nationstate, the American and French Revolutions, which made possible the nation-in-arms; the Industrial Revolution, which made mass production possible; and the technological revolutions, which made possible the projection of enormous armies across vast oceans and the concentrated killing of large numbers of people. World War II was the most total war ever fought by humanity. Sixty to seventy million people died between 1937 and 1945. The war ended with the detonation of two small nuclear devices on Japanese cities. The vastness of the sky, the flexibility of airpower, and the small size of nuclear weapons and their great destructive power eliminated the effects of the physical or material “counterpoises” that, in Clausewitz’s day and in all previous generations, placed very real limitations on the conduct of war. By the late 1950s, those limitations no longer existed, and humanity had created the ability to destroy itself. The one remaining counterpoise, and the one to which Clausewitz gave overriding importance, was the “political” counterpoise, the calculation of gain versus cost. In a moment of tremendous significance, President Truman weighed the costs, found them too high, and set a precedent

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that every American president, and the political leadership of every nation possessing nuclear weapons, has followed to this day. Nonetheless, the danger that the true nature of war will reemerge is still with us. Artificial limited war is not in accord with human nature.7 It also is not in accord with the American culture of war. In 1950, a huge chasm was created between the realities of war and the American understanding of war. In 1953, Robert Oppenheimer, the man most responsible for producing the atomic bomb, concluded, “We may anticipate a state of affairs in which the two Great Powers will each be in a position to put an end to the civilization and life of the other, though not without risking its own. We may be likened to two scorpions in a bottle, each capable of killing the other, but only at the risk of his own life.”8 By eliminating military engagements between the two superpowers, the “scorpions,” and by restraining engagements of surrogate forces and engagements in peripheral areas, the superpowers worked to preclude decisive, annihilatory blows with nuclear weapons. These restraints, however, were self-imposed. Artificial limited war required nations to limit the objectives sought, the weapons and soldiers employed, the geographic area of hostilities, and the emotions, passions, energy, attention, and intellectual commitments of their people. War, in essence, became a game between the superpowers. For the major powers, limited wars are limited only at the strategic and operational levels. At the tactical level of war, where the battles are fought and the killing, wounding, suffering, and dying take place, there is nothing limited about limited war. Weapons produce the same effect in “limited war” as they do in “total war.” They destroy life. Furthermore, there is nothing limited about war when it takes place in your homeland. Therefore, there was nothing limited about the Korean War for Koreans and nothing limited about the Vietnam War for the Vietnamese, just as there was nothing limited about the American Revolution for Americans. Limited war is not logical and cannot be sufficiently explained to the American people to gain and maintain their support, nor can it be explained to any other people who have had to commit their most precious gift to it: life. To ask people to commit their most valued possession to an endeavor and then to hold back the resources that would hasten an end to the conflict and possibly save lives was (is) inexplicable.

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The restraints in limited war are artificially imposed, and because everyone understands this, war has an internal illogic. Although political and military leaders have accepted and fought limited wars, the American people have never accepted the doctrine or strategy of limited war. To them, defensive wars of attrition—a function of the limitation imposed on war—are un-American. During the Cold War, Americans lived with many illusions of strategic importance that damaged the United States’ ability to achieve its political objectives through the use of military force. While Americans accepted the “policy of containment,” they did not accept the limited war strategy, which is an inextricable part of it. The illusion of unlimited war, of fighting war in the traditional American way, remained in place, contrary to the policy of containment. There was no way to reconcile the American understanding of war with the theory and strategy of artificial limited war. Even though Americans accepted, at least initially, the political decisions to go to war, they never accepted the strategy for the wars in Korea and Vietnam. Consequently, their expectations were never met. As a result, the gap between expectation and reality caused some political leaders to seek to fight wars on the margins of American consciousness. President Lyndon B. Johnson, for example, sought to fight the Vietnam War in “cold blood,” that is, without the full involvement of the American people, without their passion, and without their emotional participation in what has traditionally been a national endeavor.9 Limited war put the president in opposition to the people he led, and as the war continued and expectations were not met, support for both him and the war dropped. A conscripted army, particularly in a democracy, can exist and fight only with the support of the people. A limited, protracted war of attrition is unsustainable because it violates too many cultural, long-held tenets of the conduct of war. In 1973, after fighting a prolonged defensive war of attrition, this contradiction was resolved. Through the legislative process, the American people created an all-volunteer force, thereby removing themselves legally from the conduct of the nation’s wars. This citizen-soldier army was incapable of supporting limited war as conceived by Robert Osgood and Henry Kissinger and, later, as practiced by Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara. The American citizen-soldier army could fight

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a limited offensive war, war in which the end of hostilities was based on American forces’ positive actions, but such a war also could threaten to become a total war. The ever-present danger in limited war, especially if fought with an offensive strategy, is that the “true nature” of war will reemerge, with all the death and destruction made possible by nuclear weapons.

The Revolution in Military Technology Besides this disconnect between the American vision of total war and the artificial limitation imposed by nuclear weapons, other forms of modern technology have influenced the transformation in the American culture of war. Indeed, the new, post–World War II American vision of war is evident today on evening television. It is the vision of war portrayed in the many Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica series, and it is wrong to conclude that Gene Roddenberry or any other science-fiction writer created this vision alone. Rather, they tapped into the vision of the future of warfare developed in the wake of World War II. Atomic energy, jet aircraft, guided missiles, satellites, and other advanced technologies coalesced with the American drive for progress, sense of modernity, value of human life, and love of technologies to create a new American vision of war, a vision in which wars are fought from the sky and space and in great ships resembling modern aircraft carriers but with warp engines. It is a vision in which war is clean and neat, like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, which was modeled on the bridge of warships like the USS Enterprise. It is a vision in which enemies are killed from great distances, weapons have great precision, and their destructive power is exactly measured to produce the desired results. It is a vision in which highly educated, highly skilled technicians, with traditional military codes of ethics, honor, and valor, conduct battles primarily by giving orders to other highly trained, highly skilled technicians who actually employ these precision weapons from advanced air/space crafts. It is a vision of war in which sensor technologies enable perfect information: constantly updated accurate intelligence on the enemy situation and complete situational awareness. It is a vision in which technologies make it possible to actually see the battlefield in real time on great, theater-like screens. It is a vision of war in which communications are

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instantaneous and everyone has immediate access to all the information generated by the many sensors. These sensors supposedly eliminate the “fog of war” that has plagued military leaders throughout history. They make it possible for leaders to make decisions thousands of miles from the battlefields where the fighting is taking place. It is not difficult, therefore, to see the many parallels between the American Star Trek vision of war and the American military’s vision of “network centric warfare,” the vision of war that dominated the thinking of American military and civilian leaders as they prepared for and initiated war in Afghanistan and Iraq.10 One of the fathers of this new vision of war was the Italian military theorist Giulio Douhet, who in 1921 wrote a book entitled The Command of the Air, in which he prophesized that airpower would fundamentally change the nature of war. He believed that airpower was the decisive instrument for the conduct of war and that armies and navies would be relegated to the position of auxiliary forces. He wrote, “The brutal but inescapable conclusion we must draw is this: in face of the technical development of aviation today, in case of war the strongest army we can deploy in the Alps and the strongest navy we can dispose on our seas will prove no effective defense against determined efforts of the enemy to bomb our cities.”11 This widely popularized vision of future warfare took firm hold in American and British circles, and in World War II, the United States and Britain invested vast sums and vast human resources in this unproven theory, something they came to call “strategic bombing.” Long before Gene Roddenberry created Captain Kirk and the Starship Enterprise, the idea of a decisive war taking place in the air was prevalent. The specter of another Great War, of trench warfare, weighed heavily on the British. Their experience of the carnage at the battles of the Somme and Passchendaele and witnessed at Verdun were enough to motivate extreme efforts to avoid this type of warfare. The vision of war created by writers like H. G. Wells and the predictions of airpower enthusiasts such as Douhet and Billy Mitchell not only planted the seeds of the ideas for a better, smarter way of war but also added to the fears, anxieties, and concerns created during the Great War. Technological competition was (and remains) a tenet of the Western way of war. All sides tried to gain advantage through advances in technologies. The air-

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plane was a versatile technology for reaching deep into enemy countries. Proponents of airpower believed it had the capability to destroy the enemy’s cities, the will of its people, and/or its means of production and to do so quickly, thereby shortening the war and avoiding the catastrophic stalemate of 1914 to 1918. In 1940, after the fall of France, when Britain stood alone, airpower dominated the war effort. Before the German Wehrmacht could invade Britain, it had to control the air above the invasion beaches. Britain’s survival thus depended on the capabilities of the Royal Air Force’s Fighter Command. At the same time that the British were fighting for their survival, the only means they had to strike back at Germany was through airpower. Hence, in the early days of World War II, airpower played a decisive role, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt never lost sight of this fact. Airpower saved Britain. In the years following the victory by the Royal Air Force, the American and British built great fleets of heavy bombers and initiated a strategic bombing campaign, the first such campaign in history. The objective of the American campaign was to destroy the enemy’s means of production, its ability to make war; and the objective of the British campaign was to destroy the will of the enemy’s people. Neither campaign proved decisive. More decisive were the vast land campaigns fought in the Soviet Union and, finally, the American and British landings at Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944. The proponents of airpower nevertheless claimed that airpower had won the war and that had it been employed more effectively, the ground campaign would have been unnecessary. In 1943, US General Henry Arnold concluded, War has become vertical. We are demonstrating daily that it is possible to descend from the skies into any part of the interior of an enemy nation and destroy its power to continue the conflict. War industries, communications, power installations and supply lines are being blasted by attacks from the air. Fighting forces have been isolated, their defenses shattered and sufficient pressure brought by air power alone to force their surrender. Constant pounding from the air is breaking the will of the Axis to carry on. . . . Strategic air power is a war-winning weapon in its own right, and is capable of striking decisive blows far behind the battle line, thereby destroying the enemy’s capacity to wage war.12

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In August 1945, the United States demonstrated to the world the most significant innovation in the conduct of war in history. Two small atomic bombs (Little Boy, the uranium bomb, and Fat Man, the plutonian/implosion bomb) were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bringing World War II to an abrupt end. This technology caused many people to believe that armies and navies were obsolete. Indeed, Dwight Eisenhower, the second Cold War president, asserted, “all the developments in method, equipment, and destructive power that we were studying seemed minor innovations compared to the revolutionary impact of the atom bomb.”13 By the end of World War II, the American people had firmly embraced the air-war theory. In June 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea, General Douglas MacArthur ordered United Nations air and naval forces to stop the advance of the (North) Korean People’s Army, but the Soviet trained and equipped army continued to advance. To save South Korea, MacArthur ordered the deployment of the four understrength and poorly equipped divisions of the US Eighth Army stationed in Japan. South Korea exists today only because US ground combat forces were available in theater. The war was not the high-tech war envisioned; in many ways, it was more primitive than World War II. To be sure, airpower working with ground forces generated greater combat power than would have been possible by ground forces alone. Still, it was a joint effort that saved South Korea. In the aftermath of the war, however, this lesson was forgotten, and Korea was seen as an aberration and a mistake. Korea, however, was the future of warfare because it was the first artificial limited war. Throughout the 1950s, Eisenhower relied on an airpower doctrine called “massive retaliation” to deter war and to secure the United States and its allies. To do this, he committed enormous resources to build the Strategic Air Command. Technological competition between the Soviet Union and the United States was the defining characteristic of the 1950s, as it touched every aspect of American life, from the workplace to the schoolhouse to the backyard bomb shelter. Then, in 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, initiating the “space race.” The Soviets’ capabilities shocked Americans, creating a perception of American technological inferiority and putting Eisenhower on the defensive. The Soviet satellite motivated the creation of the National Aeronautics

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and Space Administration (NASA) and the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in 1958, and it helped push Senator John F. Kennedy into the White House. Kennedy believed there were technological gaps: a “missile gap,” a “bomber gap,” and a space gap. Sputnik reinforced his argument against the Eisenhower-Nixon administration, helping Kennedy win the White House, from which he announced the race to the moon. Sputnik greatly intensified the drive for technological superiority and the push into space. Science-fiction books and films and real-world capabilities combined to create visions of war from space, the Star Trek vision of war. The Army was never convinced, however, that airpower was the decisive weapon for the conduct of war, and throughout the 1950s, it waged a campaign against the policy of massive retaliation and the belief that ground forces were obsolete. In 1954, General Mark Clark wrote, There is much talk these days about push-button warfare and the fact that the technical experts have developed such weapons of mass destruction that the role of the infantryman is now secondary. . . . However, in my opinion . . . the infantryman remains an indispensable element in any future war. Certainly he must be supported by the Air and Navy and every kind of technical weapons, but he never will be relegated to an unimportant role. He is the fellow with the stout heart and the belly full of guts, who, with his rifle and bayonet, is willing to advance another foot, fire another shot and die if need be in defense of his country.14

Army generals Omar Bradley, Lawton Collins, Matthew Ridgway, Maxwell Taylor, and numerous others made similar statements, but in the prevailing environment, they seemed out of place, a throwback to earlier times. The Army and ground warfare in general were seen as not modern, not sophisticated, not high-tech, and not in the hearts and minds of the American people and their political leaders. The US Army fought the Vietnam War entirely on the strategic defensive, the first such war in US history. Airpower was the only strategic offensive arm and indeed was supposed to win the war employing a new air-war doctrine: Graduated Response. With a few highly controversial exceptions, the army fought the ground war entirely within the borders

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of South Vietnam, and consequently, the enemy always had the initiative. The enemy could control its rate of losses and decide when and when not to fight. Although the reasons for the eventual American failure in Vietnam are complex and are still being debated, it is clear that airpower did not prove to be the hoped-for panacea. Stalemate in Korea and failure in Vietnam, however, did not change the minds of Americans in regard to the effectiveness of airpower. American hopes for its efficacy lingered on during the waning years of the Cold War and then received sharp and much-televised reinforcement during the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. Richard Hallion explained the outcome of that war: The Persian Gulf War will be studied by generations of military students, for it confirmed a major transformation in the nature of warfare: the dominance of airpower. . . . Simply (if boldly) stated, air power won the Gulf war. It was not a victory of any one service, but rather the victory of coalition air power projection by armies, navies, and air forces. At one end were sophisticated stealth fighters striking out of the dark deep in Iraqi territory. At the other were the less glamorous but no less important troop and supply helicopters wending their way across the battlefield. In between was every conceivable form of air power application, short of nuclear war, including aircraft carriers, strategic bombers, tactical and strategic airlift, and cruise missiles.15

In Kosovo in 1999, in Afghanistan in 2001, and finally again in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, the decisive nature of airpower was trumpeted, on the last occasion under the operational doctrine of “shock and awe.” But like the strategic bombing theory in World War II and the “graduated escalation” doctrine used in Vietnam, it did not work. The war evolved into an insurgency war, and ground forces were deployed to take up the fight. While billions of dollars of the most advanced aircraft ever produced sat silently on runways, the United States was incapable of providing sufficient numbers of soldiers to implement its counterinsurgency doctrine, soldiers were again poorly equipped for the type of war they were required to fight, and political leaders could no longer call on the American people to serve. The all-volunteer force

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fought the wars, confirming the transformation of the United States from modern nation-state to a state with professional armed forces. The nation and the state are now divided. The state can no longer call on the nation to defend it.

The New Role of the United States in World Affairs The transformation of the American culture of war was in part a function of the United States’ assuming new roles and responsibilities in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and other parts of the world. In the wake of World War II, the American people slowly accepted the status of “superpower” and the role of “leader of the free world.” They also accepted the strategic airpower doctrine of massive retaliation and the forward deployment of US forces around the globe. And they accepted enormous defensive budgets. What they did not accept was the human cost of the Cold War, a cost that many had believed would be negligible because of the great advances in technology and the many predictions that airpower and nuclear weapons were the decisive instruments in war. After President Roosevelt’s death in April 1945, President Truman undertook the task of changing the American perspective on war and the world. He emphasized the special place of the United States among nations, the dominance of American power, the need to look outward, and the burden of leadership it created. He told the American people, Whether we like it or not, we must all recognize that the victory which we have won [World War II] has placed upon the American people the continuing burden of responsibility for world leadership. The future peace of the world will depend in large part upon whether or not the United States shows that it is really determined to continue in its role as a leader among nations. It will depend upon whether or not the United States is willing to maintain the physical strength necessary to act as a safeguard against any future aggressor. Together with the other United Nations, we must be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to protect the world from future aggressive warfare. In short, we must be prepared to maintain in constant and immediate readiness sufficient military strength to convince any future potential aggressor that this nation, in its determination for a lasting peace, means business.16

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In the aftermath of World War II, the United States became a European land power with the occupation of what became West Germany, as well as an Asian Pacific land and sea power with the occupation of Japan and South Korea. These new responsibilities were not simply to secure the regions against vanquished enemies but also to contain Communism, to stop the spread of an ideology and a social, political, and economic system that were unacceptable to Americans and the Western world. While accepting this new role in world affairs, Truman and the American people were slow to understand exactly what this meant: the duties and requirements that went along with world leadership and the resources required to defend such vast regions. This new level of commitment of national resources to the defense of foreign shores and to stop the spread of Communism marked a major change in US foreign policy, national military strategy, and the decision-making processes in Washington. The rapid collapse of the British and French empires, the descent of the “Iron Curtain” in eastern Europe, the Chinese Communist revolution, the Soviets’ acquisition of the atomic bomb, and the outbreak of small wars of liberation in various parts of the world placed extraordinary demands on the United States. This Cold War resulted in creating the environment and the conditions for the transformation in American thinking about the use of military force and the conduct of war. The Cold War (1945–90) was a remarkable period in history, a time when the two most powerful nation-states on the planet, the United States and the Soviet Union, continuously prepared to go to war with each other and indirectly fought wars through surrogate, peripheral, and even nonaligned states. It was a period during which the extinction of humanity became a real possibility, because each superpower had acquired the means to destroy the other, and ultimately civilization, several times over. It was a period when the superpowers employed armies of scientists and engineers in a race to develop the most destructive weapons and invincible delivery systems. It was a period when they formed strategic mutual-defense alliances, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact, to strengthen their ability to defend themselves and destroy their opponents. But perhaps most important, it was a period of global turmoil, when the exertions of World War II caused the collapse of European im-

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perialism, and nationalism spread to India, China, Indochina, Africa, the Middle East, and other parts of the world. The resulting postwar process of “rearrangement” generated great suffering and carnage in developing states racked by wars as they tried to achieve statehood, establish legitimate political systems, reconcile borders that were based on the concerns of European imperialist powers, redress racial and ethnic discrimination, and recover and reorganize after decades and centuries of European rule. Critical among those new states were North Korea, South Korea, the People’s Republic of China, Pakistan, and Israel, each of which in some way challenged the balance of power between the superpowers. It was a period when states in all parts of the world expended vast resources on armies, navies, and air forces, and militarism invaded the social and political fabric of nations. It was a period when the superpowers maintained armies, navies, and air forces forward-deployed in nations around the world, influencing their economies, internal politics, and culture. It was a period of ideological entrenchment when paranoia invaded governmental institutions and the “police state” threatened democracy and individual freedoms. It was a period of great distrust, uncertainty, and anxiety, punctuated by days and weeks of fear and terror. But it also was a period of great prosperity in the United States, during which Americanism spread around the globe and American culture adjusted to the norms of being in a perpetual state of preparing for or fighting a war. The Cold War was ultimately a fight over the political, economic, social, and cultural systems that would dominate the Earth. During this long, costly, and difficult fight, all parties were transformed, politically, geographically, socially, culturally, economically, and militarily. The Cold War and the policy of containment meant intellectually that the armed forces of the United States had to remain in a permanent state of military readiness to provide the force required to maintain the peace and/or fight wars until the Soviet Union collapsed from its internal “deficiencies,” as George Kennan predicted.17 The Truman administration and the Congress, however, opposed spending the money required to maintain American forces at the state of readiness that the Joint Chiefs of Staff believed was necessary, given the Soviet threat. Memories of the Great Depression ran deep, and in the aftermath of World War II, given the totality of that war, it was difficult to imagine a ground war that would not escalate into nuclear war. Strategic airpower had become

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the decisive doctrine for the conduct of war, as it appeared to offer the United States the means of maintaining a high state of readiness without wrecking the economy or placing an enormous burden of debt on the American people. Airpower and the atomic bomb gave the nation a deterrent to war and, in the event of total war, a means of devastating the enemy’s homeland. Truman also believed that American security was enhanced by diplomatic offensives and economic support to allies. Collective-defense agreements such as NATO and the Military Assistance Program were means of enhancing the security of the United States without maintaining a large standing army. Not everyone accepted Truman’s military policy, however. In 1949, Secretary of State Dean Acheson recognized that new worldwide responsibilities required a new worldwide military establishment. The United States could not go back to the pre–World War II paradigm for national defense, nor could it rely solely on airpower. In the early months of 1950, NSC-68, a classified National Security Council policy document advanced by Acheson and Paul H. Nitze, was discussed at the highest level of government. In summary, the policy paper stated, The issues that face us are momentous, involving the fulfillment or destruction not only of this Republic but of civilization itself. . . . In the concept of “containment,” the maintenance of a strong military posture is deemed to be essential for two reasons: (1) as an ultimate guarantee of our national security and (2) as an indispensable backdrop to the conduct of the policy of “containment.” Without superior aggregate military strength, in being and readily mobilizable, a policy of “containment”— which is in effect a policy of calculated and gradual coercion—is no more than a policy bluff. . . . We have failed to implement adequately these two fundamental aspects of “containment.” In the face of obviously mounting Soviet military strength ours has declined. . . . We must, by means of a rapid and sustained build-up of the political, economic, and military strength of the free world, and by means of an affirmative program intended to wrest the initiative from the Soviet Union, confront it with convincing evidence of the determination and ability of the free world to frustrate the Kremlin design of a world dominated by its will. . . . The cold war is in fact a real war in which the survival of the free world is at stake.18

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NSC-68 was designed to be a blunt instrument to move Truman to increase defense spending. The events of 1949, especially the Soviet Union’s explosion of its first atomic bomb and the collapse of the Nationalist government in China and formation of the People’s Republic of China, the so-called loss of China, convinced Acheson and Nitze that the Soviet Union had the initiative around the world. Their response, embodied in NSC-68, divided the world into good and evil, creating a simplistic formulation designed to be easily understood. Nevertheless, concerned about the budget and the economy, Truman wavered and ordered a follow-up study of NSC-68’s implications. Then, in June 1950, North Korea attacked South Korea. A shaken Truman now fully comprehended and accepted the new duties of the United States in the management of world affairs. The Cold War provided the reasons to expend enormous national resources on airpower, and NSC-68 provided the necessary documentation to advance the argument. NCS-68 was referenced by every subsequent administration during the Cold War. It provided the justification for continued military expenditures. Still, while Americans were willing to spend their tax dollars on bombers, they were not willing to send their sons and daughters to defend Koreans and Vietnamese. In 1965, the first year of the Americanization of the Vietnam War, President Johnson also sought to explain to the American people the new role of the United States in international affairs: “There are those who wonder why we have a responsibility there. Well, we have it there for the same reason that we have a responsibility for the defense of Europe. World War II was fought in both Europe and Asia and when it ended we found ourselves with continued responsibility for the defense of freedom.”19 Even though American foreign and military policies and strategies had changed substantially after World War II, the American people had changed little in their vision and expectation of war. One reason was that the partial mobilization for war caused confusion. The American people were unhappy with the partial success in Korea, with the stalemate that left North Korea in existence, and with the way the war was fought—a limited, defensive war of attrition. The biggest problem, however, was the human cost, the sacrifices required. The American people were not asked whether they wanted to fight the Cold War. They were not asked whether they wanted to station hun-

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dreds of thousands of soldiers around the world. Americans did accept the policy of containment and the status of superpower. They also accepted the enormous dollar costs of the Cold War, but they never agreed to pay the human costs it involved. They never agreed to make the sacrifice that containment might require. In fact, they were told again and again that technology had replaced people in the conduct of war. But it did not work that way in Korea, and it failed spectacularly during the Vietnam War. Nothing about that war seemed to match what the American people had been led to expect, and after a decade of bleeding in Vietnam, in 1973 the American people removed themselves from the conduct of the nation’s wars. The United States’ transition from a nationstate to a state with many nations was completed.

The Culture of Wealth and Consumption: The Pursuit of Happiness Writing during the last days of the Roman Empire, Flavius Vegetius Renatus observed that “the chief strength of our armies, then, should be recruited from the country. For it is certain that the less a man is acquainted with the sweets of life, the less reason he has to be afraid of death.”20 A more accurate assessment of human nature is that the less a person has, the greater will be the apparent benefits of military service. Furthermore, the martial spirit is easier to implant in poorly educated individuals, because they have a limited vision of the world and fewer options in life. People who toil in fields or labor in industry are physically and psychologically more adaptable to the toils of the battlefield. As a student of the US Army in the Korean War pointed out, No army can change entirely—either for better or for worse—the civilians to whom it issues uniforms, supplies, and rifles. As a man has lived as a civilian so can he be expected to fight as a soldier. Americans in Korea displayed prodigious reliance on the use of firepower; they became unduly concerned with putting in their time and getting out; they grew accustomed to fighting on a level of physical luxury probably unparalleled in world history to that time. In stark contrast to the American reverence for the programs of “R&R” (rest and recuperation) and the “Big R” (rotation back to the US), Chinese Communist soldiers fought—

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much as they had lived—with little hope of leaving the frontline until the war ended or until they became casualties. Whether the US can maintain the requisite balance between a liberal society which is the master of its armed force and a professional soldiery which is free to preserve the military ethic is the vital question to which the American way of war in Korea offers limited but significant testimony.21

The affluence of much of modern America is diametrically opposed to the destitute conditions of the battlefield. Two of the things that make life most precious are the expectations from life and the finality of death. War at the edge of the battlefield where the killing takes place is ultimately a selfless endeavor. The culture of wealth, which emphasizes selfishness, is diametrically opposed to the culture of soldiers, which requires selflessness. Success in modern America’s competitive, capitalist society is ultimately a selfish endeavor. Self-interest is the bedrock of capitalism. Many people argue that greed is good for the economy and hence is good for America. But without individuals willing to act selflessly, nations cannot provide for their defense. Thus, American cultural tenets conflict, and the tenets that receive the most reinforcement dominate the production of culture. In recent decades, wealth and the pursuit of wealth have been the dominant forces in American life, directly influencing everything that Americans think and believe. Consider the words of Robert Osgood: “Quite aside from the moral odium of war, the fear of violence and the revulsion from warfare are bound to be strong among a people who have grown as fond of social order and material well-being as Americans. War upsets the whole scale of social priorities of an individualistic and materialistic scheme of life, so that the daily round of getting and spending is subordinate to the collective welfare of the nation in a hundred grievous ways—from taxation to death. This accounts for an emotional aversion to war, springing from essentially self-interest motives.”22 In 2008, another student of American life, Andrew Bacevich, wrote, “For the United States the pursuit of freedom, as defined in an age of consumerism, has induced a condition of dependence—on imported goods, on imported oil, and on credit. The chief desire of the American people, whether they admit it or not, is that nothing should disrupt their access to those goods, that oil, and that credit.”23

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Consumption is necessary for human existence: food, clothing, and shelter. But consumption is a self-centered activity, and America’s wealth has produced levels of consumption known to only a very few throughout human history. Such levels of consumption have necessarily influenced American culture and the way that American people live and think. The American economy and marketing practices in the latter half of the twentieth century produced a society in which from birth to death, people are told to consume. Americans thus devote much of their time and energy to the self-centered endeavor of consumption, which informs people that life is about them. No people in the history of the world have been marketed to as Americans have. In the 1950s, television entered American homes, and by the end of 1952, nineteen million TV sets were marketing to Americans. Two years later, television was the largest advertising medium in the country, and as David Halberstam has noted, “Ten years later television had begun to alter the political and social fabric of the country, with stunning consequences.”24 Television influences consumption, the internet influences consumption, and consumption influences every aspect of American life, including the nation’s ability to produce combat soldiers and fight wars. American affluence grew considerably during the 1950s, making possible even greater levels of consumption. The value of each American life in terms of dollars rose to exceed that of all other people on Earth. Home, automobile, and television ownership increased. The interstate highway system and the commercial airline system made Americans more mobile than any other society in history. Individual freedoms, freedom from needs, and the freedom of time gave Americans a standard of living new to humankind. American expectations from life grew as the state prospered, and the definition of the “good life” changed. President Eisenhower noted, “In 1953 we had seen the end of the Korean War. In 1954 we had won out over the economic hazard of a recession. With these problems behind us, we in the United States entered a new era of unprecedented peace and unprecedented prosperity. . . . Compared with any years of the two preceding decades, these surely must have seemed miraculous to most Americans. Not in the lifetime of millions of our citizens . . . had we previously had peace, progress, and prosperity all at one time.”25 Wealth created new cultural tenets to produce this miraculous peace, progress, and prosperity, but they conflicted with the cultural tenets re-

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quired to produce soldiers for war, thereby facilitating the transformation in American thinking about the conduct of war. Wealth in America created importance and privilege, which in many affluent groups diminished the sense of duty to the state and the willingness and ability to perform the labors of soldiers. Those people with less wealth aspired to and aggressively sought the importance and privileges of those with wealth. Families changed. The number of children per family declined, as more children meant less wealth and less personal time. In the latter half of the twentieth century, more and more Americans arguably became too “important” to fight in a war, particularly a limited war. When measured against the lifetime earning potential of a North Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, or Iraqi citizen, American lives were worth many times more. Even though certain affluent groups continued to observe their traditional roles, others scrupulously avoided military service. The physical aspects of work—getting dirty, using muscles, tolerating physical discomfort, summoning the stamina and endurance required for manual labor, and assuming the psychological disposition of laborers—all were practices that better prepared people to become soldiers than did the paper-pushing jobs performed by sedentary white-collar workers. With each subsequent decade in the latter half of the twentieth century, the American people became physically and psychologically less capable of fighting wars. As the service industry expanded, the manufacturing industry contracted. In the 1990s, ROTC departments around the country complained that new recruits could not run half a mile, so new physical-training programs were initiated to get potential cadets up to the minimal physical condition required for service, a standard that was far below that required in US Army infantry units. Recruiters had the same problem, as too many Americans were too overweight to qualify for service. In 2002, 64 percent of Americans were overweight or obese,26 so the percentage of the American population capable of becoming combat soldiers was considerably lower in 2005 than in 1945. In February 2009, U.S. News & World Report asserted, “Our expanding girth is America’s most visible health problem [and national security problem]. Not only are most adults too heavy, but obesity rates for children have more than doubled in the past 30 years. Excessive weight is a significant factor in four of the six leading causes of death; heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes.”27 And in 2019, the Center for Disease

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Control noted, “The prevalence of obesity was 39.8% and affected about 93.3 million of US adults in 2015–2016. Obesity-related conditions include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer that are some of the leading causes of preventable, premature death. The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the United States was $147 billion in 2008 US dollars.”28 This is a national security issue. People who are overweight or obese lack the motivation, energy, confidence, endurance, and physical capabilities to serve in war. They also lack the will and confidence to volunteer for military service. The U.S. News & World Report article concluded that “every year, in fact, an estimated 900,000 people die from avoidable causes: because they failed to maintain a healthy weight, eat nutritiously, and exercise, or because they smoked or drank excessively, for example. That’s roughly 40 percent of all U.S. deaths.”29 This is more Americans than were killed in all theaters of war in World War II. In addition, American addiction to drugs, legal and illegal, has expanded. The National Institute of Drug Abuse notes, “In 2017, more than 47,000 Americans died as a result of an opioid overdose, including prescription opioids, heroin, and illicitly manufactured fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid. The same year, an estimated 1.7 million people in the United States suffered from substance use disorders related to prescription opioid pain receivers, and 652,000 suffered from a heroin use disorder.”30 It is hard to imagine how the United States can remain a superpower when a significant portion of its population suffers from the debilitating effects of obesity and drug addiction. The majority of Americans, over 70 percent, have disqualified themselves from military service. The absence of a national discussion about conscription, given the two long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the known shortages in human capital, is an indication that war and national security are subordinate to the major American endeavor: the pursuit of wealth and consumption. To compensate for the shortage in troops, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon started “outsourcing” war as never before. It employed private military firms, that is, civilian contractors such as Blackwater, Global Risks, DynCorp International, and Halliburton, to provide security, logistical support, maintenance, and training.31 By July 2004, more than twenty thousand private contractors were in Iraq, and thousands more were in Afghanistan. Many of these men were

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carrying out “mission-critical” tasks, which the services had traditionally insisted were exclusively military functions. These private soldiers suffered more casualties than any of the armed forces of President George W. Bush’s “coalition of the willing,” and to some degree, they made up for the shortage of soldiers and marines. The Pentagon then expanded the practice of outsourcing war, increasing the number of privately employed individuals. But outsourcing war only further removes the American people from the obligation to serve their nation in the armed forces. As the American people become less capable and prove less willing to provide for the national defense, the number of private military firms will grow in importance and numbers. Why disturb an American citizen who makes $50,000 a year when you can employ three Egyptian subcontractors for less? Private military firms displace and conceal the cost and trauma of war, and their casualties are frequently not Americans. Moreover, these firms are not required to report killed or wounded to the Pentagon or the press. They also diminish the need for the president to explain the reasons for the war and to seek the support of the American people. Private military firms reduce the political cost of war for the decision-makers in Washington. They are, in fact, a new form of mercenaries because they work for the highest bidder and have no loyalties to any particular government. Patriotism does not matter. Private military firms may be the future of warfare. Throughout the world, Americans are believed to have an abnormally strong aversion to casualties, and if they are bloodied sufficiently, they will abandon their objectives and go home. In Lebanon, Somalia, and Kosovo, the world watched American ground forces retreat after sustaining casualties. The Vietnam War marked the origin of this perception, which has informed our enemies’ strategic thinking. But there is a paradox here. No people on the planet invest as many resources and as much wealth in their war machines, the deployment of military forces, and the display of military capabilities as Americans do. Yet today, Americans are among the least capable people on Earth of fighting war. One of the reasons that the Army is too small and that political leaders rely so heavily on technology and private military firms is that too many Americans are incapable of serving in defense of the nation. Excess consumption is quite literally killing Americans.

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War requires human engagement at the most basic level. By trying to take humanity out of war, Americans diminish their ability to influence events and people. In recent years, the Bush and Obama administrations have taken war with technology to new extremes. They have employed unmanned aerial vehicles mounted with missiles to kill suspected terrorist leaders. In the process, they have killed thousands of innocent people who happened to be in close proximity to the suspected terrorist. There is something very wrong with this practice. It cannot legitimately be called war.

Racism Racism is a fact of American life. It has been and remains a major cultural tenet influencing every aspect of American society. Racism influenced the American conduct of the American Revolution, the Civil War (a war caused by racism), the centuries-long war against Native Americans (which was arguably a war of genocide, racial extermination), the world wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the elective American wars in the Middle East. The white American practices of slavery, massacre, mass imprisonment, terrorism, lynching, Jim Crowism, segregation, and murder of nonwhite, minority populations were, in large part, a function of racism. There is an enormous body of scholarship devoted to this subject. While exploration of it is beyond the scope of this study, some discussion is necessary. Racism influences behavior. It cannot be separated from the American culture of war. Racism influences the decisions for war, the organization for war, the leadership for war, the conduct of war, the treatment of civilian populations in war zone, the treatment of nonwhite allies, and the termination of war. Racism evokes strong emotions in some people that motivate extreme forms of behavior. Racism also causes cultural blindness and arrogance, and an inability to empathize with people who look different, an inability to see the pain and suffering of others. Racism has damaged the ability of the United States to achieve its political objectives through war. Consider the argument of John Dower, advanced in his book War without Mercy: Prejudice and racial stereotypes frequently distorted both Japanese and Allied evaluations of the enemy’s intentions and capabilities. Race hate

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fed atrocities, and atrocities in turn fanned the fires of race hate. The dehumanization of the Other contributed immeasurably to the psychological distancing that facilitates killing, not only on the battlefield but also in the plan adopted by strategists far removed from the actual scene of combat. Such dehumanization, for example, surely facilitated the decision to make civilian populations the targets of concentrated attack, whether by conventional or nuclear weapons. In countless ways, war words and race words came together in a manner which did not just reflect the savagery of the war, but contributed to it by reinforcing the impression of a truly Manichean struggle between completely incompatible antagonists. The natural response to such a vision was an obsession with extermination on both sides—a war without mercy.32

Dower argues that racism decisively influenced the American and Japanese conduct of the war in the Pacific and that the American war degenerated into a war of extermination. The incineration of more than sixty Japanese cities and the employment of the atomic bomb against a nation-state that was largely defeated are evidence to Dower, and others, of extermination warfare. Dower’s thesis has been greatly debated. However, few would argue with the tenet that racism influenced American behavior and, hence, the American practice of war. What is racism, and how does it influence behavior? There are multiple definitions, some more useful than others. Some people argue that racism is a science, others that it is a doctrine and an ideology that is socially, economically, and politically produced.33 Racism and racist ideology are modern concepts and movements. Their origins can be found in the Enlightenment—the rise of science, pseudoscience, and scientific methods; the growth of secularism and the spread of imperialism; and the evolution of the discussion on the natural rights of man, a discussion that had its origins in the Renaissance.34 George Fredrickson, in his book The Arrogance of Race, defines racism and traces the evolution of its meaning: The term racism has been a source of considerable confusion. In its limited, precise, and original sense, racism is “the doctrine that a man’s behavior is determined by stable inherited characters deriving from separate racial stocks and usually considered to stand to one another in

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relations of superiority and inferiority.” Racism, according to this definition, is a matter of conscious belief and ideology and can be distinguished from prejudice, which is a matter of attitude or feeling, and discrimination, which is a description of behavior. In recent popular discussion, however, racism has tended to lose this original meaning and to become synonymous with patterns of action that serve to create or preserve unequal relationships between racial groups.35

Fredrickson does not acknowledge that racism was/is based on science or pseudoscience. For him, it is based on ideology. Ideology serves political purposes. This definition is supported by the work of George L. Mosse, a historian of the Holocaust, who writes, Racism as it developed in Western society was no mere articulation of prejudice, nor was it simply a metaphor for suppression; it was, rather, a fully blown system of thought, an ideology like Conservatism, Liberalism, of Socialism, with its own peculiar structure and mode of discourse. . . . Racism was a visual ideology based on stereotypes. That was one of its main strengths. Racism classified men and women: this gave it clarity and simplicity essential to success. But in addition racism, as an emotion-laden ideology, took advantage of the reaction that set in against the Enlightenment. Many factors came together in the making of modern racism: the underside of the Enlightenment was a crucial one and so were those movements like romanticism and modern nationalism which had their proper beginning in the age of the French Revolution.36

Categories of race are primarily socially, culturally, politically, and economically produced; however, racism was originally a scientific doctrine—often based on pseudoscience—of the human species. In a book titled The Science-History of the Universe: Anthropology, published in 1909, the following was considered “science”: “The famous ‘facial angle,’ or the means of determining gnathism, is of great importance. . . . Generally speaking, facially it is the projection of the jaw beyond a perpendicular line dropped from the forehead. The divisions between the races are clear and sharp. Thus the white races (pethognathous) range from 89 to 81.30 [degrees], and yellow races (mesognathous) from 82 to 76.58 [degrees], and the black races (prognathous) from 69

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to 59.5 [degrees].”37 The scientists who made these “discoveries” also took other measurements of the skull and concluded that “the importance of this measurement is because the relation of mental power to cranial capacity is close.”38 Racism was a doctrine that sought to categorize and explain the different physical traits in the human species, for example, skin color, hair, facial features and shape, height, and other characteristics. Out of the Enlightenment, advances in the “scientific method,” and the work of Charles Darwin came numerous new “sciences,” for example, Racism, Eugenics, Craniometry, Phrenology, Physiognomy, Gnathism, and Anthropology, that claimed to be capable of explaining and measuring perceived intellectual capacities and emotional predispositions on the basis of physical characteristics such as the size and shape of the skull and texture of hair.39 Thus, in 1863, before the Paris Anthropological Society, a researcher named Pruner Bey presented a paper titled “On the Human Hair as Race Character, Examined by the Aid of Microscope.”40 These false sciences reinforced preexisting prejudices against and preferences for certain physical characteristics, certain physical types. Racism, thus, came to mean prejudice against a certain group of individuals who possessed specific physical characteristics, for example, dark skin. The sciences of racism were used to support political, economic, and social institutions and policies in Western nations and their empires. The sciences of racism were used to support European imperialism, the institution of slavery, and the extermination of Jews. Hannah Arendt noted, “Imperialism would have necessitated the invention of racism as the only possible ‘explanation’ and excuse for its deeds, even if no race-thinking had ever existed in the civilized world.”41 Racism influenced people emotionally, psychologically, and even physically. In Europe and America, racism produced hatred, a virulent, malignant hatred, that caused people to disregard their laws, customs, and Christian beliefs and to commit acts of terrorism, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Racism linked with a virulent form of nationalism, creating the conditions for the Holocaust.42 Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, and Vietnamese; Muslims, Iraqis, Afghans, Iranians, and Egyptians; Central and South Americans; Africans; and others were never considered equals to the white Americans and western Europeans, but some races were less equal than others;

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thus, treatment varied. Asians, while not white, were at least not black. These distinctions made important differences in the real world. In November 1944, in Marine Corps Gazette, in an article titled “False Gods–False Ideals,” the following was written to explain the Japanese to marines: “They [American men fighting the Japanese] have learned to know that not only are the Japanese ‘militarist,’ but the average Japanese soldier embodying the characteristics of his nation is a savage, dirty and treacherous, but also a tough and fanatic—and at times a wholly fantastic—fighter who seems incomprehensible to the Western mind.” The author separated the Japanese from the Germans: “The savageries committed by Nazi Germans throughout Europe show that even the most civilized people can relapse into barbarism within a short time. But while German ‘rebarbarization’ is a recent phenomenon produced by the Hitler madness and may be expected to pass with it, Japanese savagery is deep and primordial, and an integral part of the Japanese character through the ages. It is no newly acquired characteristic, but a product of inheritance which has been carefully nurtured and preserved by Japanese religion, tradition, and political indoctrination.”43 During World War II, American racist attitudes toward Japanese evolved with Japanese success. In an essay published in Military Review in 1945, titled “The Man You Are to Kill,” Lieutenant Colonel Charles W. Davis, US Army, traced this evolution: “Prior to Pearl Harbor, we had underestimated the Jap and on the whole regarded him as a bantam, saki-soused race that could be wiped from the face of earth with one stroke. Then Pearl Harbor blazed into view and we began changing our ways of thinking as far as the Jap was concerned.” This change caused Americans to elevate the racial status of the Japanese. Davis continued: “Due to many stories, true and otherwise, that inevitably float from the battle area, we began to think of the Japanese as super-soldiers. In fact, fear of the unknown linked with reports were enough to bring about a subconscious feeling of uneasiness toward the Japanese situation.”44 American racial attitudes toward the Japanese evolved during and after the war. Racist beliefs and attitudes can change. During World War II, the Japanese became more respected but also more hated and even feared. The Japanese became “Gooks.” They were portrayed as monkeys, apes, snakes, rats, and dwarfs. Japanese Ameri-

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cans were imprisoned. Their property was confiscated. During the Cold War, during the Korean War, the Koreans and Chinese—the Chinese were our allies in World War II—also became “Gooks.” During the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese became “Gooks.” White Americans did not distinguish between Japanese and Chinese, Koreans and Vietnamese. Racism against Asians, greatly intensified during World War II, influenced American decisions and conduct of wars in the Pacific throughout World War II and the Cold War. America’s second war in Iraq was also influenced by racism; the perceived inferiority of Iraqi and Muslim forces motivated Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to go into Iraq with a relatively small force. American racism and cultural arrogance in Iraq, in part, caused the counterinsurgency war. In Vietnam and later in Iraq, Americans were incapable of winning the counterinsurgency wars, “the Other War,” the wars for the hearts and minds of the people. Americans’ ignorance of the cultures and peoples whose hearts and minds they were trying to influence diminished their ability to develop effective counterinsurgency strategy and doctrine. They could not put themselves in the place of poor Koreans or Vietnamese or Iraqis. Racism diminished their ability to empathize with the people they were trying to save. Today genetic scientists have mapped the human genome and shown that 99.9 percent of human DNA is the same for the seven billion people on Earth. They have determined that race is not a function of science but of culture.45 While the racist arguments based on pseudoscience have been destroyed, racism still exists and exerts powerful forces on nations, states, war, and individual lives. Centuries of white, European domination of Earth started coming to an end after World War II. The Cold War took place in the midst of another great global struggle, decolonization, wars of national liberation, the destruction of imperialism, the destruction of the two largest empires on Earth, the British and the French. Today, the wealthiest nation-states on Earth are not in Europe but in Asia. Today China has the world’s second-largest and fastest-growing economy. Japan has the third-largest economy. India is emerging as a global power. Militarily it will be decades before China can rival the United States. Still, globalization is changing the racial dynamics on Earth. But racism, like war, is not going away. Racism will continue to influence the American conduct of war.

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Exclusion of Women When explaining victory in World War II, I inform students that one of the arguments is that the United States was a meritocracy, that the best ideas and best people rose to the top, that our system was not based on ideological correctness or family status. However, 50 percent of Americans were excluded: women. Another 10 percent, African Americans, were also excluded. Other minority groups, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans, were excluded from leadership. Hence, the argument is not correct. It was a meritocracy of white men. Since World War II, much has changed. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, American women were killing and wounding and being killed and wounded in combat. Today women are serving as combat soldiers. Today women are commanding combat units and serving as four-star generals and admirals. A Congressional Research Service report on women in combat, notes, “As of October 2015, 161 women have lost their lives and 1,016 had been wounded in action as part of Global War on Terror (GWOT) operations. In addition, in modern combat operations, over 9,000 women have received Army Combat Action Badges for ‘actively engaging or being engaged by the enemy,’ and two have received Silver Stars for ‘gallantry in action against an enemy of the United States.’”46 The all-male bastion of combat has been breached in ways that are evident to all. This evolution in the American practice of war is irreversible. However, we will not see large numbers of women in combat units. Gender exclusion has been a major tenet of the American culture of war. The belief that women are physically, mentally, and emotionally unfit for the difficulties and hardships of the battlefield caused the legal exclusion of women from war. Yet women in war are as old as war itself. Linda Grant De Pauw notes, “The history of women in war is buried beneath centuries of sniggering. The tendency to conflate all women’s roles into sexual ones made the presence of women in war zones a natural target for dirty jokes. Many myths and false assumptions about women and their military roles still survive.”47 The days of “sniggering” are not over, but the sniggering is not nearly as loud as it used to be. Today the United States cannot go to war without women. They make up approximately 15 percent of the active force. And given the nature of the modern battlefield, women cannot be excluded from combat.48

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Some women are capable of serving in combat as effectively as some men and even more effectively than some men. Most men and most women are not capable of serving effectively in combat. The exclusion of women from combat, like the exclusion of African Americans from combat, was primarily a function of culture, not physical or psychological limitations. There is a significant body of scholarship on this issue. A survey of it is beyond the scope of this work; however, such an important tenet of the American culture of war requires some discussion. There are three considerations: physical, psychological, and cultural. These considerations exist for both genders but not in the same ways. The vast majority of women eliminate themselves from war, from combat, and from service in combat units, just as most men do. However, there is a huge difference. American white girl culture, not physical or psychological realities, eliminates the vast majority of women from combat. Physically, men and women are different. Recent and past studies by the Army and Marine Corps have demonstrated that women are less capable of serving effectively in combat than men are. In 2015, the Marine Corps completed a year-long study, which found the following: • All-male squads and teams outperformed those that included women on 69 percent of the 134 ground-combat tasks evaluated. • All-male squads in every infantry job were faster than mixed-gender squads in each tactical movement evaluated. The differences between the teams were most pronounced in crew-served weapons teams. Those teams had to carry weapons and ammunition in addition to their individual combat loads. • Male-only riflemen squads were more accurate than gender-integrated counterparts on each individual weapons system, including the M4 carbine, the M27 infantry automatic rifle, and the M203 grenade launcher. • Male Marines with no formal infantry training outperformed infantrytrained women on each weapons system, at levels ranging from 11 to 16 percentage points.

The physical differences between men and women explain, in large part, the differences in performance.

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• The average male Marine volunteer was 178 pounds with 20 percent body fat; the average female volunteer weighed 142 pounds with 24 percent body fat. • In anaerobic power and capacity, female Marines averaged 15 percent lower levels than their male counterparts. In anaerobic power performance, the top 25 percent of female performers and the bottom 25 percent of male performers overlapped. • In aerobic capacity, female Marines demonstrated levels 10 percent lower on average than male Marines. • Over the course of the assessment, musculoskeletal injury rates totaled 40.5 percent for women, more than double the 18.8 percent rate for men.49

Still, some women are fully capable, and many men are not.50 Consider these words written just after the end of hostilities in 1946: “Another personnel situation peculiar to the ground forces arose in 1943 when it became apparent that conditions under which ground soldiers trained in this country and under which they lived and fought overseas were too demanding physically for many men. AGF [Army Ground Forces] recommended that only the most physically able inductees be assigned to ground arms in the future.”51 This situation has only gotten worse. Infantry soldiers require considerable physical endurance, the ability to move long distances rapidly, over extended periods of time, across rugged terrain, carrying packs and equipment weighing more than sixty pounds, and then to move straight into combat. While the range of potential soldiers is not nearly as narrow as the range of individuals who can play in the NFL, it is a fact that not everyone, male or female, can physically perform the duties of infantry soldiers. The cost for physical failures in combat can be death, of an individual or a squad or a higher organization. The obesity epidemic in the United States means that fewer men are capable of serving now than during World War II. If the current trajectory of the epidemic continues, the role of women in combat will necessarily expand. In addition, the tenet of equality of opportunity and sacrifice supports the inclusion of women who are physically qualified. Psychologically, it is not evident that women are less able than men to kill, risk death, and withstand the trauma that is inherent in war. War damages people. It causes a disease, currently known as posttraumatic stress disorder. Some people are psychologically better equipped than

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others to experience and live with the fear, anxiety, uncertain, doubt, trauma, death, and destruction that are common in war. A World War II study on “war neuroses” found, “The individual’s personality can be fortified by training, modified by experience, weakened or strengthened by leadership. But it can never be completely changed. The reaction of the individual soldier to the situation of battle will be either normal, when he carries on his duties regardless of fear of discomfort, or abnormal, when he develops neurosis and became a psychiatric casualty. . . . Many of the infantrymen should never have been assigned to a combat unit. Because of emotional instability . . . they were certain to crack up in battle.”52 These conditions apply equally to men and women. Infantry soldiers and leaders are necessarily students of humanity. Training under rigorous conditions reveals much about the character of an individual. However, until people are put into difficult situations, the masks that they wear are difficult to penetrate. It may be that American culture has better prepared men to kill and risk life, but an individual’s psychological disposition is not just a function of nurturing. The cultural exclusion of women is by far the most important consideration. American white girl culture tells women what they ought to be, what they should look like, how they should act, what they can be, and what they cannot be. While the roles of women in American culture and society are evolving—for example, we see more women doctors, lawyers, businesswomen, and politicians than ever before—women are still not culturally educated to aspire to be soldiers. And the feminine roles that women are expected to fill are what they tend to do. American white girl culture is epitomized by the Barbie doll, arguably the American standard for female appearance. “For 57 years, the world’s most famous doll has been stick-thin, setting an unrealistic—and, studies show damaging— beauty standard for generations of young women.”53 The pursuit of this image has damaged women physically, psychologically, and culturally. The pursuit of this icon of American womanhood is most evident in the commitment of resources, the billions of dollars spent annually and the time invested, to achieve this look. As a rule, women have excluded themselves from combat. The door to full, open participation of women in the armed forces was partially opened with the end of the conscription of men in 1973

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and the advent of the All-Volunteer Force (AVF). In 2016, America’s first black president opened all branches and all military occupational specialties (MOS), including combat arms, to women.54 In 2015, the first two women soldiers graduated from the Army’s elite Ranger School, First Lieutenants Kristen Griest and Shaye Haver. In 2016, the Senate confirmed Air Force General Lori Robinson as head of US Northern Command, making her the first woman to serve as a combatant commander, the most coveted four-star command in the armed forces. By opening combat occupations to women, the services created the conditions for women to become senior leaders. These developments represent a major cultural change in the American practice of war. However, women will continue to eliminate themselves from the combat arms and the battlefield. Although the doors are wide open to women in all combat arms, there have been very few applicants. This is unlikely to change. The women who are most likely to select military service are the daughters of soldiers and marines, sailors and airmen—women who have grown to maturity on military installations and in service culture. Their numbers, however, are relatively few, and marriage frequently removes them from service. Women make up 51 percent of the population of the United States, but we will not see the 82nd Airborne Division or the 1st Marine Division with 50 percent women. The exclusion of women from combat has had a cost: the denial of full citizenship and participation, which has resulted in diminished roles in every field of business and politics, restrictions in various fields of labor, reduced pay for performing the same jobs as men, and the focus of life and activities on bearing and raising children. The exclusion has meant that women could not live up to their full potential or fully pursue their dreams in certain fields of endeavor. This has not only robbed women of important resources and achievements but has also robbed humanity of the considerable contributions they could have made.

Militarism Militarism distorts American culture and the American conduct of war. Militarism “covers every system of thinking and valuing and every complex of feeling which rank military institutions and ways above the

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ways of civilian life, carrying military modes of acting and decision into the civilian sphere.”55 Militarism is the acceptance of and preference for military ways of thinking and acting. It is a people’s acceptance of military values, ethics, and beliefs above other ways of being. Alfred Vagts observed that “militarism . . . has meant also the imposition of heavy burdens on a people for military purposes, to the neglect of welfare and culture, and the waste of the nation’s best man power in unproductive army service.”56 Militarism does not necessarily mean the love of war. Rather, it can mean the love of the instruments of war—the bombers, fighters, aircraft carriers, and so on—plus the sense of power they produce. Militarism is a predisposition, an attitude, a way of looking at and thinking about the world that emphasizes military perspectives and means, military behaviors and solutions to problems. Militarism is evident in the expenditure and use of resources. The expenditure of resources beyond what is legitimately required for defense is militarism. For example, if a nation needs ten aircraft carriers for national defense and maintains fifteen, it is militaristic. If a nation has a submarine fleet designed to fight a specific enemy and it continues to maintain that fleet even after that enemy has passed into history, it is militaristic. If a state has the world’s most advanced airsuperiority fighter and replaces it with another, slightly more advanced air-superiority fighter—in other words, if it is competing with itself with regard to military capabilities, it is militaristic. If a nation’s political leadership elects to use military force when other options are available or to fight unnecessary wars, it is militaristic. If the political and military leadership maintains military installations that are no longer needed for national security, it is militaristic. And if a nation’s people covet military technologies for the sake of possessing military technology, it is militaristic. Americans are in many ways militaristic. During the Cold War, Americans became addicted to defense spending. Arguably, the United States needs enemies to maintain its economy and to keep its people employed and happy. Americans also became enamored with military hardware: jet aircraft, huge aircraft carriers, submarines, and the like. But this love affair with the military was onedimensional, as it did not include the Army or ground forces. There was nothing high-tech or sophisticated about an infantry division, small-

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unit warfare, or counterinsurgency operations. There were no high-tech, high-paying jobs for maintaining an army division, and few members of Congress supported the retention of significant ground forces. Consequently, the United States has maintained insufficient military capacity in ground forces and considerably more capacity than necessary in air forces. Consider the words of Army Chief of Staff General George W. Casey, testifying before the Senate Armed Service Committee in 2007: “While we remain a resilient and committed professional force, our Army is out of balance for several reasons. The current demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply. We are consumed with meeting the demands of the current fight and are unable to provide ready forces as rapidly as necessary for other potential contingencies. . . . Soldiers, families, and equipment are stretched and stressed by the demands of lengthy and repeated deployments with insufficient recovery time. . . . Overall, our readiness is being consumed as fast as we can build it.”57 Casey’s job and loyalty to the president required that he understate the magnitude of the problem; however, journalists and historians are not bound by the same rules. Consider what Time magazine wrote in April 2007 in an article investigating “why our army is at the breaking point: exhausted troops, worn-out equipment, reduced training, the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan”: The Army’s problems were long in the making, and the extended deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan have exposed them for all to see: more than a decade of under-funding for boots on the ground while cold war administrations from Richard Nixon’s to Bill Clinton’s spent lavishly on the Pentagon’s high-tech wizardry. . . . Even now, more than four years after invading Iraq, the Pentagon seems to be investing much of its current $606 billion budget in an effort to fight the wrong war. . . . The Air Force continues to buy $330 million fighters, and the Navy $2 billion submarines. . . . The Army has been starved for cash since the cold war’s end. (Its leaders gripe that from 1990 to 2005, their service pocketed just 16% of the Pentagon’s hardware budget, while the Air Force got 36%, and the Navy 33%). . . . Amazingly, the Army had only 32,000 sets of body armor when the Iraq war began. . . . The military [again] badly miscalculated what the war would look like.58

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For more than half a century, Americans have been trying to erase the human factor from war. But we have consistently failed to do so, and today’s Army and Marine Corps are again too small, underfunded, and underequipped for the missions they are given. After nearly a decade at war in the Middle East, almost everyone recognizes this fact. But the US Army has been too small since World War II, and the reasons for this situation in the opening days of the Korean War remain applicable today. Out of a nation of three hundred million Americans, not enough volunteers could be found to significantly expand the size of the Army. At the same time, the nation continued to spend billions on weapons systems it does not need. This is militarism. The existence of military capabilities influences the decision for war. The existence of military capabilities also influences the objectives sought through war. The Bush administration’s decision for war in Iraq was based partly on the fact that the war looked easy. In fact, it looked so easy that the Bush administration, unlike President George H. W. Bush’s administration, sought total objectives and few allies. It sought the total destruction of the Iraqi government. Given the US experience in Operation Desert Storm, given the expansion in airpower capabilities, and given the so-called revolution in military affairs, “network centric war,” and “shock and awe,” the Bush-Rumsfeld-Cheney team thought the war would be easy and the return home swift. They deployed too few ground forces and prematurely declared mission accomplished aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. The irony is that another supposedly high-tech war, another war that was supposed to be won by airpower, evolved into a primitive ground war in which soldiers had to kill the enemy in close proximity and learn to work with the local populations. During the Cold War, Americans became militaristic. Militarism became part of the American culture, not simply the American culture of war. The production of military equipment, the development of new technology, and the sustainment of military facilities are not simply functions of military necessity; they are functions of the needs of representatives and senators to get reelected, the needs of regional economies, the needs of specific communities, the needs of various industries, and the needs of the American people. During the Cold War, the military became Big Business. Today the United States is the world’s largest arms producer and dealer, and as a result, American soldiers frequently are

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killed or wounded by American-made weapons. Many of the best minds and best scientific institutions in America are committed to producing weapons systems and military-related technologies. Many universities depend on defense, or defense-related, contracts and grants to maintain their institutions. Many states depend on defense dollars to maintain their economies. The standard of living in certain areas of the country is directly influenced by the production or cancellation of a particular weapons system or the movement of a specific unit. In fact, the most powerful person in the United States after the president is the secretary of defense, who in 2018 managed a budget of more than $700 billion, considerably more than the gross domestic product of most nations in the world. The American people have grown to accept, expect, enjoy, and appreciate the status and pride that comes with the term superpower, a status that was and is primarily a function of military power. The military in the United States is no longer valued for its ability to secure the United States and it allies; it is valued for itself. Militarism has become an established and significant cultural and economic norm for Americans.

The American Culture of War Insufficient ground forces are but one manifestation of a larger problem. The situations in Korea and in Iraq were a function of a new American culture of war that evolved during and immediately following World War II. In brief, we Americans try to minimize the human element in war and overemphasize the role of material and technology. We recklessly invest billions of dollars in weapons technologies and have become the world’s largest arms producer and dealer. We have formed a military that no longer reflects the demographics of the nation. But because of overconsumption and drug abuse, Americans are physically less able to fight war than at any previous time in history. We have formed private military firms that have made war a business for financial gain, a business that can lobby Congress and distort the nation’s political objectives, values, and ethics. We have used the people of other countries as surrogates to maintain our war effort and to fight. We have created a political system in which militarism is a major consideration, in which Congress supports the expenditure of resources on military means, not for

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reasons of national security but for the welfare of its members’ districts and states. We have created a system in which America’s best companies and universities fight to win defense dollars for the research and development of instruments that facilitate the conduct of war. We have been too willing to employ military forces. We have sought to control and manage by military means world affairs and resources like oil to maintain the Western economy and high levels of consumption. But we have little interest in foreign peoples, particularly those in poorly developed countries. In some parts of the world, we use weapons systems with the full knowledge that innocent people will be killed or wounded. Our political leaders have embraced this new way of war because it frees them of direct responsibility and accountability to the American people. The less the American people know, the less involved they will be and the more freedom the White House and Pentagon will have in foreign affairs, military strategy, and war. The end of conscription gave political leaders greater freedom to go to war and to wage war as they saw fit. In 1973, the American people successfully removed themselves from the conduct of the nation’s wars. Since then and since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the deployment of US forces has increased rapidly, and Americans have grown accustomed to being the dominant power on Earth with no obligations to themselves. This is not sustainable. Notes

1. This chapter continues and expands the argument first advanced in my book The American Culture of War (New York: Routledge, 2007). 2. According to former secretary of defense William Cohen, “The information revolution is creating a Revolution in Military Affairs that will fundamentally change the way U.S. forces fight. We must exploit these and other technologies to dominate in battle.” William S. Cohen, Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review (Washington, DC: US Department of Defense, 1997), iv. 3. See John Shy, “The American Military Experience,” in A People Numerous and Armed, rev. ed. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), 265–94; Russell Weigley, The American Way of War (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993); and Russell Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990). See also Brian McAllister Linn, The Echo of Battle: The Army’s Way of War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007). 4. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 5.

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5. In 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon, ending the American monopoly. Even though the Soviet Union did not have the means to deliver the atomic bomb to the shores of the United States, it did have the means to deliver nuclear weapons to South Korea. Arguably the Soviet weapon acted as a deterrent. 6. Carl Clausewitz, On War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 75, 76. 7. Ibid., 313. Clausewitz noted, “The bounds of military operations have been extended so far that a return to the old narrow limitations can only occur briefly, sporadically, and under special conditions. The true nature of war will break through again and again with overwhelming force, and must, therefore, be the basis of any permanent military arrangement.” 8. J. Robert Oppenheimer, “Atomic Weapons and American Policy,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 9 (1953): 203. 9. Harry Summers Jr., On Strategy (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 1982), 23, 17. 10. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Vision 2010 (Washington, DC: US Department of Defense, 1996). 11. Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air, in Roots of Strategy, book 4, ed. David Jablonsky (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1999), 284. 12. General Henry H. Arnold, “Air Strategy for Victory,” Flying 33, no. 4 (1943): 50. 13. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1948), 455–56. 14. Mark Clark, From the Danube to the Yalu (New York: Harper, 1954), 196. 15. Richard Hallion, Storm over Iraq (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), 1. 16. Harry S. Truman, Public Papers of the President of the United States, Harry S. Truman, April 12 to December 31, 1945 (Washington DC: GPO, 1961), 549. 17. George Kennan, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs 24, no. 4 (1947): 566–82. 18. NSC 68, “Report to the President Pursuant to the President’s Directive of 31 January 1950,” April 7, 1950, FRUS 1950, 1:235–92; reprinted in U.S. National Security Policy and Strategy, ed. Sam Sarkesian with Robert Vitas (New York: Greenwood, 1988), 38–43. 19. Lyndon B. Johnson, “Why Americans Fight in Vietnam,” in Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War: Documents and Essays, ed. Robert McMahon, 3rd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), 166. 20. Flavius Vegetius Renatus, The Military Institutions of the Romans, trans. Lt. John Clarke, in Roots of Strategy, ed. T. R. Phillips (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1985), 77. 21. James Toner, “American Society and the American Way of War: Korea and Beyond,” Parameters 11, no. 1 (1981): 79.

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22. Robert E. Osgood, Limited War: The Challenge to American Strategy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 33. 23. Andrew Bacevich, The Limits of Power (New York: Henry Holt, 2008), 173. 24. David Halberstam, The Fifties (New York: Villard Books, 1993), x. 25. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963), 484–85. 26. Results of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2000, available at www.cdc.gov (accessed April 19, 2011). 27. Michelle Andrews, “The State of America’s Health,” U.S. New & World Report, February 2009, 21. 28. CDC, “Adult Obesity Facts,” accessed December 17, 2019, www.cdc.gov. 29. Andrews, “State of America’s Health,” 21. 30. National Institute on Drug Absue, “Opioid Overdose Crisis,” accessed December 17, 2019, www.drugabuse.gov. 31. See Peter Warren Singer, Corporate Warriors (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003), 230–42; and Dina Rasor and Robert Bauman, Betraying Our Troops (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). 32. John W. Dower, War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986), 11. 33. Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racists Ideas in America (New York: Nations Book, 2016), 22. 34. George L. Mosse, Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), ix, xii. 35. George M. Fredrickson, The Arrogance of Race: Historical Perspectives on Slavery, Racism and Social Inequality (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1988), 189. 36. Mosse, Toward the Final Solution, ix, xii. See Philip D. Curtin, The Images of Africa: British Ideas and Action, 1780–1850 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964). 37. Francis Rolt-Wheeler, The Science-History of the Universe: Anthropology, vol. 7 (New York: Current Literature, 1909), 46, 47. The ideas delineated in this work were widely accepted. The introduction to this work was written by Frederick Starr of the University of Chicago. 38. Rolt-Wheeler, 45. 39. Phrenology is the study of the human skull. Physiognomy is the study of the human face. Eugenics deals with the improvement of heredity qualities in a series of generations of a race or breed, especially by social control of human mating and reproduction. Many of these fields of study were pseudosciences that served political, economic, and social purposes. These were the tools used by the Nazis, the slave traders and owners, and other such groups to reconcile their behavior with their cultural beliefs, i.e., Christianity. Darwin’s work The Origins of Species by Means of Natural Selection; or, The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life contributed much to the theories and sciences of racism. See Caroline E.

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40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47. 48.

49.

50.

51. 52. 53. 54.

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Stackpole, The Science-History of the Universe: Biology, vol. 5 (New York: Current Literature, 1909), 182. Rolt-Wheeler, Science-History of the Universe, 43, 44. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Schocken Books, 2004), 241. Mosse, Toward the Final Solution, 34. Otto D. Tolischus, “False Gods–False Ideals,” Marine Corps Gazette, November 1944, 14–21. Charles W. Davis, Lieutenant Colonel, US Army, “The Man You Are to Kill,” Military Review, September 1945, 4–11. Steve Olson, Mapping Human History (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002), 3–7. Kristy N. Kamarck, “Women in Combat: Issues for Congress,” CRC Report 7-5700, R42075, Congressional Research Service, Washington, DC, December 3, 2015. Linda Grant De Pauw, Battle Cries and Lullabies: Women in War from Prehistory to the Present (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998), 1. Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Personnel and Readiness, “Population Representation in the Military Services: Fiscal Year 2014 Summary Report,” Department of Defense, 2016, 31. Active Component forces: Army, 13.2 percent enlisted and 17.9 percent commissioned officer; Navy, 18.0 percent enlisted and 17.3 percent commissioned officer; Marine Corps, 7.7 percent enlisted and 6.9 percent commissioned officer; Air Force, 18.7 percent enlisted and 19.9 percent commissioned officer. Hope Hodge Seck, “Mixed-Gender Teams Come Up Short in Marines’ Infantry Experiment,” Marine Corps Times, September 10, 2015, www.marinecorpstimes. com. The Marine Corps Force Integration Office along with researchers from the University of Pittsburgh conducted the study. The Marine Corps study was not without critics. Some argued that better training and selection and more experience would improve the performance of women. Infantry Journal Staff, “Army Ground Forces,” Infantry Journal, June 1946, 17–23. William H. Kelly, Major, US Army, “War Neuroses,” Infantry Journal, August 1946, 20, 21. Eliza Berman et al., “The Best 25 Inventions of 2016,” Time, November 28–December 5, 2016, 64. See Kamarck, “Women in Combat.” This study notes, “On January 24, 2013, the Secretary of Defense rescinded all ground combat restrictions for women and directed the military departments to implement the new policy no later than January 1, 2016.” Alfred Vagts, A History of Militarism, rev. ed. (New York: Free Press, 1959), 16, 17. More recently, Andrew Bacevich has added to our knowledge of militarism in

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America with his book The New American Militarism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 56. Vagts, History of Militarism, 14. 57. General George Casey, “Chief of Staff of the Army Statement on the Army’s Strategic Imperatives,” testimony before the US Senate Armed Services Committee, November 15, 2007; available at www.army.mil (accessed April 19, 2011). 58. Mark Thompson, “Broken Down,” Time, April 28, 2007, 35.

About the Contributors

Lee L. Brice is Professor of History and Distinguished Lecturer at Western Illinois University. He has published numerous books on military history including Insurgency and Terrorism in the Ancient Mediterranean World, as well as articles and chapters on Greek numismatics, Greek and Roman military history, and the Roman army on film. He is the series editor of Warfare in the Ancient Mediterranean World and senior editor of the journal Research Perspectives in Ancient History. Mark Grimsley is Associate Professor of History at Ohio State University and the author of several books, including And Keep Moving On: The Virginia Campaign, May–June 1864 and The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy toward Southern Civilians, 1861–1865. Isabel V. Hull is John Stambaugh Professor of History Emeritus at Cornell University. The author of Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany, her most recent book is A Scrap of Paper: Breaking and Making International Law during the Great War. Wayne E. Lee is the Bruce W. Carney Distinguished Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is the author of several books, including Waging War: Conflict, Culture, and Innovation in World History and Barbarians and Brothers: Anglo-American Warfare, 1500–1865, and the editor of Empires and Indigenes: Intercultural Alliance, Imperial Expansion, and Warfare in the Early Modern World. Adrian R. Lewis is the David B. Pittaway Professor of Military History at the University of Kansas. He is the author of Omaha Beach: A Flawed Victory and The American Culture of War: A History of American Military Force from World War II to Operation Enduring Freedom. 335

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John A. Lynn II retired from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign and now holds the position of Distinguished Professor of Military History at Northwestern University. He has written several books, including Battle: A History of Combat and Culture and Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe. Timothy May is Professor of Central Eurasian History and Associate Dean of the College of Arts & Letters at the University of North Georgia. He is the author or editor of several books on the Mongol Empire, including The Mongols (2019), The Mongol Empire (2018), The Mongol Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia (2016), The Mongol Conquests in World History (2012), and The Mongol Art of War (2007). Sarah C. Melville is Professor of Ancient History at Clarkson University. She is the author of The Campaigns of Sargon II, King of Assyria, 721–705 BC and coeditor of Opening the Tablet Box: Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Benjamin R. Foster. Michelle Moyd is Associate Professor of African History at Indiana University, Bloomington. She is the author of Violent Intermediaries: African Soldiers, Conquest, and Everyday Colonialism in German East Africa. David Silbey is Associate Director of the Cornell in Washington Program and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Cornell History Department. He is the author of The British Working Class and Enthusiasm for War, 1914–1916, A War of Empire and Frontier: The Philippine-American War, 1899–1902, and The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China, 1900. Kenneth M. Swope is Professor of History and Senior Fellow of the Dale Center for the Study of War & Society at the University of Southern Mississippi. He is serving as the Leo A. Shifrin Chair of Military & Naval History at the United States Naval Academy in 2019–20. He is the author of A Dragon’s Head and a Serpent’s Tail: Ming China and the First Great East Asian War, 1592–1598, The Military Collapse of China’s Ming Dynasty, 1618–1644, and On the Trail of the Yellow Tiger: War, Trauma, and Social Dislocation in Southwest China during the Ming-Qing Transition.

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James B. Wood is Professor Emeritus of History at Williams College. He is interested in early modern warfare on a global scale. He has published The King’s Army: Warfare, Soldiers, and Society during the Wars of Religion in France, 1562–1576 and Japanese Military Strategy in the Pacific War: Was Defeat Inevitable?

Index

Acheson, Dean, 307–8 Adams, Michael C. C., 188 Airpower: in American societal culture, 298–304; atomic bomb from, 294–96, 307–8; for Britain, 300; for Cold War, 304; counterinsurgency and, 289–90; massive retaliation and, 301; in Persian Gulf War, 303; strategic bombing from, 299–300; unmanned aerial vehicles for, 315; in Vietnam War, 289; in World War II, 289, 299–302, 303 Airwar theories: failure of, 289; military technologies and, 298–304; NCW as, 289, 330n2 American culture, militarism in, 290–4 American societal culture: airpower in, 298–304; artificial limited war in, 290–98, 301–3; failures and, 289–91; militarism in, 325–9; military technology revolution in, 298–304; nuclear weapons and, 294–297; political counterpoises in, 295; strategic culture related to, 6 American soldiers: casualty rate of, 313–14; Chinese Communist soldiers compared to, 309–10, 312, 319–20; composed of all-volunteer force, 297–303; health of, 312–13; in Korean War, 309–10; outsourcing for, 313–14; private military firms for, 313–14; qualifications for, 312–13, 322–23; resources for, 293–94, 299, 306 American war culture: limited wars in, 296–97; NCW in, 289, 330n2; pursuit

of happiness compared to, 291–92, 309–15; tradition in, 290–94; transformation in, 190–91 American wars: as aberration, 291; expectations about, 297–98; offensive and defensive, 291, 309–15; peace compared to, 306; pursuit of happiness compared to, 291–92, 309–15; real, 290–91; total compared to limited, 291, 307. See also specific wars Amiens offensive, 275 Anderson, Robert, 200 Antony, Mark (Marcus Antonius): against mutiny, 54, 69n37; Octavian against, 53–55, 62–4; subversion from, 63 ANZAC Day, 271 ANZACs. See Australia-New Zealand Army Corps ANZAC to Amiens (Bean), 281 Aristocrats: honor for, 165–66; knights as, 166; as officers,166–67; privileges of, 165 Armenians, genocide of, 259 Army of Northern Virginia, 197–98. See also Lee, Robert E. Army of Tennessee, 198, 199; power distance in, 199 Army of the Cumberland, 199–200; Army of the Tennessee compared to, 199–200 Army of the Potomac: control style in, 193–94; Nineteenth Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment in, 205–6; organization of, 193; power distance of, 193. See also McClellan, George B.

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Army of the Tennessee, 191–92; Army of the Cumberland compared to, 200, 202. See also Grant, Ulysses S. Arnold, Henry, 300 Artificial limited war, 293–94, 296; creation of, 294–95; human nature compared to, 294–95, 331n7; Korean War as, 296–97; nuclear weapons and, 293–96, 330n5, 330n7; objectives sought, 296 Assertiveness, 186,192 Askari: compared to other African soldiers, 219; German racial ideas about, 219–20; recruitment into German service, 216–17; influence on ngoma performance, 217–18 Assyrian armies: armor for, 21; Babylonian armies compared to, 22–23; campaign narratives of, 32; cavalry in, 33; chariots of, 22; Median armies compared to, 22; offensive character of, 31–32; operations of, 32–33; service in, 21; supplies for, 22. See also Medes, army of the; Sin-sharishkum Assyrian empire: Ashurbanipal for, 23, 38n17; Babylonia’s convergence with, 29; cities’ sizes in, 33, 41n54; collapse of, 19–21, 35–36; heartland of, 19, 22, 37n3, 42n51; invincibility of, 19; Medes armies’ destruction of, 26–27, 30; resources for, 35; Sin-shar-ishkum’s rule of, 24–7 Assyrian strategic culture: capital cities related to, 33–34; context and, 35–36; conventional warfare in, 28–29; fortifications in, 34–35; offensive operations in, 10; punishment in, 29–30, 40–41n43; raids, civil wars, and rebellions related to, 33, 42n5; rebellions in, 30, 42n51; Sargon II and, 34; Scythians’ alliance in, 40–41n31; violence in, 30; warfare in, 28–35

Assyrian war, 23; Assur’s destruction in, 26; defensive errors in, 26–27, 34–35; destruction from, 27–28; Medes armies’ attacks in, 26, 39n26; military practice in, 31; NC on, 24, 39n19; Nineveh’s fall in, 27, 40–41n43; Scythians’ support in, 26–27, 40n41; tradition for, 32–33, 42n53. See also Nabopolassar Atomic bomb, 191–93; Eisenhower on, 198 Augustus. See Octavian Australia, 271–72 Australian Corps: for Amiens offensive, 275; Battle of Poziéres for, 278; BEF compared to, 278; discipline of, 279, 287n61 Australia-New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs), 271; BEF compared to, 271 Australian Imperial Force, 272; nationalism of, 277 Austrians, 154–55 Aztecs. See Indigenous Meso-Americans Babylonia: Assyrian empire convergence with, 29; Assyrian rule of, 23–24; Kandalanu’s death in, 23–24, 38–39n17; Medes compared to, 30–31; Nabonidus for, 28; rebellions within, 23; Sennacherib’s vengeance against, 40–41n43. See also Nabopolassar Babylonian armies: Assyrian armies compared to, 22–23; Medes armies’ alliance with, 26–27; service in, 22 Babylonian Chronicle, 21, 24 Bacevich, Andrew, 310 Battle (Lynn), 267 Battle culture of forbearance: battle avoidance in, 161; charge without firing in, 159; collective synchronized discipline for, 168; drill for, 167–68; elite for, 13; infantry advance pace in, 158–59, 178n10; the line in, 158–59, 163–77; military reform in, 173–74; not firing first

Index

in, 159; orderly advance in, 160; siege warfare in, 161; societal culture and, 166–67, 175–76; soldiers in, 162–65, 172–75; tactics in, 158–60; technology’s challenges in,155–58; terrain in, 158–59. See also Technology Battle of Bunker Hill, 270 Battle of Chickamauga, 182–84, 199 Battle of Gettysburg, 196, 268 Battle of Mollwitz: discipline at, 154; for Frederick II, 154, 176; tactics at, 154–55 Battle of Poziéres, 278–79 Battle of Sharpsburg, 197 Battle of the Somme, 273, 278 Battle of the Wilderness, 195, 197 Battle of Vimy Ridge, 277, 281–82 Bayonets, 225 Bean, C. E. W., 272, 278–89, 281, 287n61 Beauregard, P. G. T., 198 Bebel, August, 261n7 BEF. See British Expeditionary Force Bena, the: as auxiliaries, 229; military culture of, 228–29; relationship between gender and combat, 228–29; German views of, 229; as intermediaries between askari other indigenous armies, 229 Beni, definition of, 214, 230–31; alternative form of political expressed by, 231; incorporation of Schulztruppe military exercises into, 232; as subversive cultural expression, 232 Bismarck, Otto von, 258 Black, Jeremy, 268 Black Legend, 103; historical impact of, 105–6 Bonuses, 13; from Octavian, 54–55, 58–59, 64 Bouchotte, Jean-Baptiste, 175 Bourdieu, Pierre, 15 Bourke, Joanna, 269 Boyd, Robert, 15 Bragg, Braxton, 195; Polk against, 198–99

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Brannan, John M., 182 Britain: for airpower, 299; Australia compared to, 271; conscription in, 171, 180n68; soldiers of, 171, 180n58, 180n68 British culture, 8 British Expeditionary Force (BEF): ANZACs compared to, 274; Australian Corps compared to, 279–80; Canadian Corps compared to, 279–80, 283; Dominion forces compared to, 274; nationalisms and, 266 British Official Histories (Edmonds), 278 Buell, Don Carlos, 200–1 Bülow, Bernhard, prince von, 243, 255, 257 Bülow, Dietrich Heinrich Freiherr von, 161 Burnside, Ambrose E., 193, 194 Bush, George W., 315, 328 Business, 328–29; leadership in, 85, 208n9; organizational culture in, 185 Cameron, Kim S., 186 Campaign narratives, 32 Canada’s Hundred Days, 277, 281 Canadian Corps, 266; American Expeditionary Force compared to, 280; for Amiens offensive, 275; BEF compared to, 279–80, 283; casualty rate of, 282; discipline of, 274; distinction of, 274, 280; Haig for, 273; national moment for, 271; security issues for, 276–77; setbacks of, 276 Cannon, 155, 157 Capitalism, 292, 310 Capitalist, 101, 105, 110, 202 Carnage and Culture (Hanson), 267 Casey, George W., 327 Casualty rate: of American soldiers, 313–14; of Canadian Corps, 282; modern compared to Civil War, 207; World War I victory related to, 282. See also Death rates

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Catinat, Nicolas, 159 Center for Strategic Leadership, 186, 208n9 Chagniot, Jean, 173 Chamillart, Michel, 163 Chandler, Alfred D., 187 Chase, Salmon P., 191 China’s military culture, 89n40–41; case study on, 127–29; Chinese culture compared to, 7–8; civil oversight in, 7–8, 125–27, 145–46, 149n13; Confucian-Mencian paradigm in, 124–25; factionalism against, 7–8, 126–27; parabellum paradigm in, 125; peasant rebels and, 149–50n17, 150n30; study of, 123–25, 148n1; troop salaries in, 130, 150n26; virtues related to, 125–26, 149n10. See also Chongzhen; Peasant rebellions; Yang He Chingiss (Khan): 72, creation of supratribal imperial culture by, 91–94; saw his opponents as horse to be tamed, 83–84, Yeke Monggol Ulus, promulgated by, 90–91 Chongzhen (emperor), 124, 129–31; for pacification, 131–2; for taxes, 137; trust of, 133; vacillation of, 145–46; Wanli compared to, 146; Yang Sichang and, 132–33, 135, 137 Citino, Robert, 284n4 Civil War, 188–89. See also specific battles; specific officers Civil War field armies: commanders’ impact on, 191; nature of, 191; personalities of, 190; societal cultures and, 190–91. See also Army of Northern Virginia; Army of Tennessee; Army of the Cumberland; Army of the Potomac; Army of the Tennessee Civil War organizational culture: administrative coordination and, 187; business organizational culture compared to, 187; clan culture in, 189–90; hierarchy

culture in, 189, 192; societal culture related to, 11; without techniques transmission, 207–8; uncertainty avoidance for, 195. See also Senior leadership culture Clan culture, 204–5. See also Regimental culture Clark, Charles T., 184 Clark, Mark, 302 Clausewitz, Carl von, 245, 295, 331n7 Cleopatra, 61, 63–64, 69n43 Coercion, of soldiers, 164 Cold War, 293; airpower for, 308; alliances in, 202; collective defense agreements for, 308; as cultural fight, global rearrangement in, 202–3; NSC-68 for, 307–8; policy of containment for, 306, 308–9; transformation from, 305–6 Columbian Exchange, 103, 105, 119n6 Command climate, 201–2 The Command of the Air (Douhet), 299 Communism, 305 Communist China, 294, 331n5 Concentration camps: criticism of, 257; death rate in, 256; genocide in, 256–57; provisioning in, 256–57; for punishment, 256–67; racism in, 256 Confucian-Mencian paradigm, 124–25 Confucian statecraft, 130–31 Conquest of the Americas, dimensions of, 101–5, 109–11; interpretations of, 101–3; justifications of, 117; “myths” about, 103–6; revisionist histories of, 106 Conquistador motivations, 105 Conscription: in Britain, 171, 180n58; in France, 170; limited war and, 195, 216–17; of Prussians, 170–71; wealth related to, 210 Consumerism, 310–13 Consumption and wealth, 309–15 Corvisier, André, 164, 169–70, 172, 180n57 Cross, Edward, 169, 171, 180n58

Index

Cull, Ambrose, 279 Culture: agency and, 14–15; behaviors and, 6; change and, 14–15; choices in, 3–4, 13–14; clan, 184, 189–190; community formations and, 3–4; contingency and, 14; definitions of, 3–4, 14, 289; hidden assumptions within, 3–4; hierarchy, 189–90; intergenerational transmission of, 4, 14; norms, 14–15; rational within, 1; regimental, 204–7; types of, 6, 13; war and, 44; world history related to, 2. See also Battle culture of forbearance; Military culture; Organizational culture; Societal culture; Soldiers’ culture; Strategic culture; and specific nations Currie, Arthur, 273–76 Daniel, Larry J., 201 Davis, Jefferson, 190, 195, 198 Death rates: in concentration camps, 256; deportation and, 257; of Herero, 242–43, 249, 254–55; of Nama, 242–43. See also Genocide De l’esprit (Helvétius), 163 Deportation: death rates and, 257; during World War I, 260 Descartes, René, 167 Desmoulins, Camille, 174 Destruction (Vernichtung), 243; of enemy, 245–46; as extreme offensive, 246–471; for genocide, 245–47; single battle for, 246 Di Cosmo, Nicola, 123 Disciplina militaris, 13, 66n5; case study on, 46, 66n2; culture and, 46–47; definition of, 46; mutiny and, 48; physical components of, 49; punishment and rewards in, 49–52; sacramentum and, 47–49; tasks for, 49. See also Octavian Discipline: of Australian Corps, 279, 287n61; at Battle of Mollwitz, 154; of

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343

Canadian Corps, 274; collective synchronized, 168; drill as, 47, 49, 167–69; from Octavian, 52–53, 56, 59–60, 62–63 45, 49–51, 53–54 Discipline of Augustus. See Octavian Dominion culture: British culture compared to, 8; nationalism in, 8, 272. See also Australian Corps; Canadian Corps Dominion forces: BEF compared to, 274; as nation’s representations, 281; New Zealand Division, 266, 271–73; segregation within, 273–74 Douhet, Guilio, 299 Doyle, Arthur Conan, 281–82 Drill: as discipline, 47, 49, 167–69; for esprit de corps, 172, mixture of German and East African elements created by, 23 Dubois-Crancé, Edmond Louis Alexis, 174 Dumouriez, Charles, 175 Early, Jubal A., 197 Economics: bonuses, 13, 54–55, 58–59, 64; within militaries, 264n51; wealth, 191, 205–11 Edmonds, James, 278, 279, 287n61 Eisenhower, Dwight, 198, 199, 208–9; on special interests, 215–16 Entradas, 7; constant flow of, 112; sources of, 113; ineffectiveness of legal codes to contain, 117; immense long-term negative impact of, 113–14; size of, 113 Estorff, Ludwig von, 258 Ewell, Richard S., 196–97 Exceptionalism, Western, 102 The Face of Battle (Keegan), 266–67 Fall of Nineveh Chronicle (FNC), 14 Flintlock muskets, 156, 158 FNC. See Fall of Nineveh Chronicle Foch, Ferdinand, 281 Fonck, August, as memoirist, 221–23 Foote, Andrew, 192 France, 168. See also French Revolution

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Frederick II (the Great), 157–60; battle of Mollwitz for, 154, 162; on esprit de corps, 172; on soldiers, 162–64 Frederick William I, 166, 177 French Revolution: infantry in, 175; National Guard in, 174; officers in, 174–75; soldiers and, 174–75; tactics and, 174–75 Frey, Sylvia, 169–170, 171, 180n57 Gaius Marius, 49 Gallipoli, 271–72 Garfield, James, 201 Geertz, Clifford, 184, 291 Geneva Convention, 251 Genocide: of Armenians, 259; in concentration camps, 256–67; deportation and, 259–60; exile compared to, 254–56; German military culture and, 258–60, 264nn50–51; from German organizational culture, 11, 243–44, 58; German political culture and, 256, 258–59; as illegal combatants, 252; in imprisonment, 256–58; of Maji-Maji, 259; from military practices, 256–58; negotiations related to, 247–48, 262n22; from politics, 245–46, 250, 262n23; practices conducive to, 241–54; of prisoners, 253, 254, 255–56; proclamation related to, 253–54; provisioning related to, 250, 256–57, 263n41; pursuit related to, 248– 49, 253, 155; Trotha for, 246–47, 249, 254–57; from transfer of control, 244– 46; troops’ suffering related to, 249–50, 256; by Turkey, 259–60; Vernichtung for, 245–47; women and, 252–53 Gerbey, Joseph Marie Servan de, 163 Germany, 270. See also World War I German military culture, 18n22; genocide and, 258–60, 264n50–51; German organizational culture for, 11; in World War I, 259–60. See also Genocide; Herero; Prusso-German military

German organizational culture: genocide from, 6, 243–44, 258; for German military culture, 11 German political culture, 245; genocide and, 246, 259 German strategic culture: dysfunction of, 11; logistics related to, 251–52; provisioning in, 251–52, 256–57; racism and, 256, 264n51; troops’ suffering related to, 250, 256 The German Way of War (Citino), 284n4 Gheyn, Jacob de, 168 Gibbon, Edward, 163 Gibbon, John, 205–6 Gillet, Pierre, 175 GLOBE study, 186, 209n13 Grant, Ulysses S., 191; coping style of, 194–95; on Lee, Robert E., 195, 197; Meade and, 194–95; partnerships for, 192; perseverance of, 192; power distance for, 192; Thomas compared to, 203; uncertainty avoidance from, 192–93 Grupos, 105, 114–15 Guibert, Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, 162 Haig, Douglas, 270; for Canadian Corps, 273; for nationalism, 273 Halberstam, David, 207–8 Hallion, Richard, 200 Hanson, Victor David, 267 Harari, Yuval, 167 Hatch, John P., 205 Helvétius, Claude Adrien, 163 Herero, 11; death rate of, 242–43, 249, 254–55; escape of, 247; revolt of, 242–44,255. See also Genocide Hill, Ambrose P., 196 Hintrager, Oskar, 257 History, 2; nationalism and, 267–68; study tools for, 267–68, 283; universal theory of, 267. See also Military history Hofstede, Geert, 209n13

Index

Honor: for aristocrats, 165–67; of soldiers compared to officers, 172–73 Hooker, Joseph, 191, 193 Hunt (jerge), as herding practice, 81–82; not synonym of nerge, 96n28; as battlefield tactic, 79, 82. See also Hunt (nerge) Hunt (nerge), as herding practice, 81; operational value of, 79; strategic value of 79; used to gather intelligence, 80; used to intimidate, 76–77; not synonym of jerge, 96n28. See also Hunt (jerge). Imprisonment, genocide in, 255–58 Indigenous Meso-Americans: agency of, 103, 107–19; impact of epidemics on, 102–3, 110, 119n6; pre-Columbian population estimates of, 119n6; politics of, 106, 108; societal cultural change among, 105–6; as Spanish military allies, 101, 102, 103–4 Infantry, 136–37, 204–5; advance pace for, 158–59; in French Revolution, 175; the line for, 158,159; tactics of, 154 Information revolution, 330n2 In-group collectivism, 186, 199; of regimental culture, 204 Institutional collectivism, 186, 193, 199, 205 The Interpretation of Culture (Geertz), 184, 291 An Intimate History of Killing (Bourke), 269 Jackson, Thomas J. “Stonewall,” 196 Jada (rain stones): use in manipulating weather. 85–87; fall into disuse, 88 Jadachi (weather magician): 84–88: spiritual specialists, as, 84; predate Mongols, 85 Jamieson, Perry D., 168 Jaucourt, Louis de, 162 Johnson, Lyndon B., 194–95, 205 Johnston, Albert Sidney, 198

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Johnston, Iain, 124–25 Johnston, Joseph E., 195 Keegan, John, 266 Kennan, George, 203 Kennedy, John F., 199 Korean War, 191–92, 217n5; as artificial limited war, 198–99; soldiers in, 206 Lafayette, marquis de, 175 Leadership, 185, 208n9; strategy compared to tactics and, 190. See also Presidents; Senior leadership culture Lee, Robert E., 194, 210n31; for aggression, 196–98; for Army of Northern Virginia, 195–98; Maryland campaign for, 197; against McClellan, 195 Lee, Wayne, 168 Lendon, J. E., 46 Lepidus, Marcus, 56–57 Le Roy, Claude, 170–71 Leutwein, Theodor, 243; Trotha over, 245, 247 Limited war, 331n22; in American war culture, 297–98; conscription and, 297, 313, 330; containment compared to, 297; homelands and, 297; logic of, 297; tactics in, 297; total compared to, 296– 97, 307. See also Artificial limited war Limited War: The Challenge to American Strategy (Osgood), 331n22 Lincoln, Abraham, 190, 193–94 Livesay, John, 281 Li Zicheng, 14, 153n111 Logistics: German strategic culture related to, 251–52; in World Wars I and II, 282 Loriga, Sabina, 169, 180n58 Louis XIV, 149, 150, 168–69 Lynn, John A., 13, 180n68 MacArthur, Douglas, 198 Macdonnell, Archibald, 280 Maji-Maji, genocide of, 215

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Manchus, 128,133, 139, 146 Mao Zedong, 269 Marius, 47 Matchlock muskets, 155–56 McClellan, George B.: Lee, Robert E., against, 195; Lincoln and, 193; power distance from, 193 McClernand, John, 192 McCook, Alexander, 200 McGibbon, Ian, 281 McNeill, William H., 172 McPherson, James B., 192 McWhiney, Grady, 188 Meade, George G., 193; control style of, 195; Grant and, 195 Medes, 23 Medes, army of the: Assyrian armies compared to, 22; Assyrian empire’s destruction by, 26–27, 30; Assyrians and, 23, 39n26; Assyrian war attack by, 26; Babylonia’s alliance with, 26; Cyaxares for, 26 Meredith, Solomon, 205 Militarism: in American culture, 293–94, 325–29; in American societal culture, 325–29; business and, 293–94, 325–29; definition of, 325; readiness compared to, 326; resources for, 326–27 Military culture: aristocratic culture derived from, 166–67; consumerism compared to, 310; culture of philosophy on, 167; definition of, 11–12; development of, 240, 260n2; levels of, 6, 17n16; organizational culture conflated with, 11–12, 18n22; social change related to, 173–76; social class and, 174–74; soldiers’ culture from, 11–12; strategic culture related to, 11–12; values within, 12. See also China’s military culture; German military culture; Roman military culture Military history: context and, 267–69, 284n5; globalization for, 2; new compared to old, 266–68; operational

history in, 267; paradigm shift in, 1; societal culture and, 5–6; Western, 1–2 Military leadership, 185, 208n9. See also Senior leadership culture Military reform: in battle culture of forbearance, 173; in France, 173; from Octavian, 65–66, 71n70; for officers, 173 Military revolution, 2, 112 Military Testament (Frederick II), 162 Mingshi, 149n16 Missionaries, 243 Mobilization: American inability and, 307–8; German ability to, 258. See also German military culture Mongols: Eurasian societal culture transformed by, 6–9, 91–92; organizational culture of, 6–7; soldiers’ culture standardized under Yeke Monggol Ulus, 90–92; societal culture transformed, strategic culture of, 72, 79; war captives treated as livestock by, 9, 82–83 Montaigne, Michel de, 166 Montmorency, François-Henri de, 160 Mutiny, 48, 150, 69n37 Nabopolassar, 39n18; Babylonia’s rule by, 24–27; campaigns of 24–27; Cyaxares with, 26; defenses of, 25; diplomacy of, 26, 40n33; Syria’s invasion by, 24–25, 30n21; victories of, 24–25 Nabopolassar Chronicle (NC), 19–20; on Assyrian war, 24, 39n19 Nama: death rate of, 243; revolt of, 242–45, 255 Napoleon, 176 Nationalisms: ANZAC Day and, 271; of Australian Imperial Force, 272; BEF and, 266; competition among, 278; in Dominion culture, 8, 272; Haig’s for, 272–73; history and, 266–67; logistics successes related to, 282; national moments for, 270–71; operational effects from, 273–74; redemption related to,

Index

277; security issues and, 277; setbacks related to, 276; for Wales, 272; war style related to, 274; in World War I victory, 270, 277–82. See also Australian Corps; Canadian Corps; New Zealand Division National moments: for Canadian Corps, 272; Gallipoli as, 271; for nationalisms, 270–71; for US, 270 Nation-state, 304–5; rupture between nation and state, 309 NC. See Nabopolassar Chronicle NCW. See Network centric warfare Negotiations: genocide related to, 247–48, 253–54, 262n22; Manchu for, 139–40; politics and, 248, 262n23 Network centric warfare (NCW), 187, 217n2; science fiction of war compared to, 196–97 New Zealand Division, 266, 271–73 1918, 270–77 Ngoma, definition of, 212, 233n3; functions of, 230–31; as dance style, 212–14; incorporation into German war games, 230–31; British fears of, 231–32 Nineteenth Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment, 205–6 Nineveh, 34, 42n55; fall of, 27, 403; FNC on, 21; size of, 33, 42n55 Nitze, Paul H., 307 Normative compliance, 164–65 Octavian (Augustus), 13, 68n30; Actium campaign for, 64–66; against Antony, 53–56, 61–64,; bonuses from, 54–55, 58–59, 64; against Cleopatra, 63–64; discharges from, 62–63, 64; discipline from, 56, 52–55, 58–59; first command of, 53–55; Illyricum wars for, 61–62; length of service under, 59; against Lepidus, 57–59; military reforms from, 64–66, 71n70; against Pompey, 56–57; rebellions and, 57–60, 70n51; recruitment by, 55, 58–59; Sicily campaign

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347

of, 55–61; status rewards from, 60–61; subversion by, 53–54, 57–59; traditional discipline from, 56, 60–62, 63–65 Officers: aristocrats as, 165–67; in French Revolution, 174–75; honor of, 165; military reforms for, 173. See also Senior leadership culture; specific officers Opdycke, Emerson, 183 Operational history, 267 Operation Iraqi Freedom, 289, 294, 303 Oppenheimer, Robert, 296 Organizational culture: artifacts in, 185; assumptions in, 10–11, 185–86, 209n13; in business, 185; definitions of, 184–88; military culture conflated with, 11, 18n22; orders and, 182–84; origins of, 187; staff rides and, 185, 208n8; strong, 240, 260n2; U.S. Army War College on, 185–86, 208n9,; values in, 185–86. See also Civil War organizational culture; German organizational culture; Senior leadership culture Osgood, Robert, 297, 310 Osman, Julia, 162 Overy, Richard, 196–97 Parabellum paradigm, 125 Paret, Peter, 176 The Path to Gallipoli (McGibbon), 281 Peasant rebellions, 153n10; causes of, 128–29, 150n30; defense against, 134; extermination in, 136, 152n75; famine relief against, 131; Gao Yingxiang for, 129; geography and, 134; Manchu negotiations related to, 133; mobility of, 147; offensives against, 134; pacification toward, 131–32; participants in, 130–32, 149n17; successes against, 131–32; tensided net strategy against, 133–38; troop increases against, 134–35; Wang Jiayin for, 129–30; Xiong Wencan against, 134, 137; Zuo Liangyu against, 134, 137–38, 140, 151n52. See also Yang He

348

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Index

Pershing, John J., 278 Persian Gulf War (1991), 303 Pickett’s Charge in History and Memory (Reardon), 268 Pikes, 156, 168 Polk, Leonidas, 198–99 Polybius, 50 Pompey, Sextus, 59–60 Porter, David Dixon, 192 Power distance, 186; in Army of Tennessee, 199; of Army of the Potomac, 193; for Grant, 192; from McClellan, 193; in regimental culture, 204; in senior leadership culture, 192, 193–94, 199 Presidents: in senior leadership culture, 190, 193–94, 198–99, 208. See also specific presidents Prokopowicz, Gerald J., 188, 189, 205, 207 Provisioning: in colonies, 260; in concentration camps, 256–57; genocide related to, 250, 256–57; in German strategic culture, 251–52, 256–57; punishment and, 256–57. See also Technology Prussians, 156–57; canton system for, 171; conscription of, 170–71 Prusso-German military: colonial army compared to, 242, 250; context for, 240–42, 251, 260n4; conventional warfare expectations of, 250–51; hubris of, 250–51; mission tactics of, 242; uniqueness of, 242 Punishment: in Assyrian strategic culture, 29–30, 40–41n43; capital, 50, 68n23; concentration camps for, 256–6; disciplina militaris for, 49–52; provisioning and, 256–67; in warfare, 30, 41n45 Quinn, Robert E., 186 Rabel, Roberto, 288n78 Racism, 9–10, 256, 258, 261n12, 315–20; effect on US decisions to go to war, 315–16, 319–20; impact on soldiers’

experience, 9–10, science of, 315–18, shapes conduct of war, 315–16. See also Askari: German racial ideas about: German strategic culture: racism and Rawlinson, Henry, 277 Reardon, Carol, 268 Regimental culture: brigade in, 205–7; division in, 205–6; embedded mechanism in, 206; high performance orientation in, 205; in-group collectivism of, 204; power distance in, 204; senior-leadership culture compared to, 204, 207–8; uniforms for, 206–7 Remuneration, 164 Remunerative compliance, 164 Renatus, Flavius Vegetius, 309 Resources, America, 107, 108, 112, 113 Revolt, 242–44, 55. See also Genocide; Peasant rebellions Rewards, 49–50; bonuses as, 8, 54–55, 59–64, 68 Reynolds, Joseph, 182 Richerson, Peter, 14 Roberts, Michael, 168 Rohrbach, Paul, 243 Roman military culture, 44, 52–53, 68n30; Gaius Julius Caesar, 49, 68n30; soldiers’ culture compared to, 8; virtus in, 46, 66n7. See also Disciplina militaris; Octavian Rosecrans, William S., 182–83, 201 Rush, Benjamin, 162 Sacramentum, 47–49 Saint-Germain, Claude Louis, 96–97, 108 Saint-Rémy, Pierre Surirey de, 157 Saxe, Maurice de, 161, 163 Scharnhorst, Gerhard Johann David von, 176 Schein, Edgar H., 185, 187 Schlieffen, Alfred von, 243, 254 Schoepf, Albin, 200

Index

Schwerin, Kurt Christoph Graf von, 154 Schutztruppe, composition of, 216–17; influenced of East African military cultures on, 217 Senior leadership culture: Army of Northern Virginia and, 195–97; Army of Tennessee and, 197–99, 202–3; Army of the Cumberland and, 201–3; Army of the Potomac and, 193–95; Army of the Tennessee and, 191–93, 202–3; command climate in, 201; embedded mechanism in, 203; founding commander in, 190–91,199; political patrons and, 190, 199–201; power distance in, 186, 192, 193, 199, 204; presidents in, 190, 193–94, 198–99, 208; professional compared to political generals in, 190–91; professionalization for, 208; regimental culture compared to, 204–6; seniority and, 191; without staff system, 207–8 Sennacherib, 34, 41n43 Seven Days’ Battles, 196 The Seven Military Classics (Wu jing qi shu), 125 Sherman, William T., 192, 202–3, 206 Shuzhi, Fan, 136 Siege warfare, 161 Sin-shar-ishkum: campaigns of, 23–25, 35; diplomacy of, 24–25, 40n31; inflexibility of, 24, 35; rule of, 21–25 Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning (Winter), 269 Societal culture: battle culture of forbearance and, 165–67, 174–76; Civil War field armies and, 188–89; Civil War organizational culture related to, 11; consumerism in, 206–8; in Mongol warfare, 72; television in, 207–8; war as science fiction in, 195–96; in Spain, 116; in warfare, 6, 8–9, 11, 14–15; wealth in, 208–9. See also American societal culture; Nationalisms

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349

Soldiers: in battle culture of forbearance, 162–65, 172–75; of Britain, 171–72, 180n58, 178n63; civilians compared to, 256, 58; coercion of, 170; collective synchronized discipline for, 168; deployment of, 214–15; desertion of, 163–64; drill for, 168–69; duels among, 173; fears of, 162–63; Frederick II on, 162–64; French, 172–73, 174–77; French Revolution and, 176–77; honor of, 172–73; in Korean War, 206; low opinions of, 161–64, 171; primary group of, 172; Prussian, 171–72; stereotypes of, 169–70, 180n58. See also American soldiers; Conscription; specific armies Soldiers’ culture, 12–13; bonuses in, 13, 54–55, 58–59, 64; culture of wealth compared to, 205–11; rewards in, 164–65; Roman military culture compared to, 13; status rewards in, 60. See also Disciplina militaris; Octavian; Tactics; Technology Southwest Africa (SWA), 245–50, 259. See also Genocide Soviet Union: NSC-68 and, 204; nuclear weapons of, 217n5; Sputnik from, 199. See also Cold War Spanish military culture, influence of societal culture on, 7 Spanish military tactics, terroristic, 114; reliant on indigenous allies, 101, 102, 103–4 Spanish strategic culture, influence of religion on, 117 Spanish strategic vision, 108 Spring, Matthew, 169 Strategic bombing, 299–300 Strategic culture, 17n22; American societal culture related to, 9–10; ConfucianMencian paradigm from, 124–25; definition of, 9–10; military culture related to, 11–12; parabellum paradigm from,

350

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Index

125. See also Assyrian strategic culture; German strategic culture Strategy: tactics compared to,190 Stübel, Oscar W., 244, 262n23 Sun Chuanting, 139; for extermination, 156; against inconsistencies, 136; against Yang Sichang, 135–36, 151n61 Superpowers: pride as, 293, 296, 329; war between, 296 SWA. See Southwest Africa Syria, 17, 39n21 Tactics, 242; in battle culture of forbearance, 158–60; at Battle of Mollwitz, 154–55; French Revolution and, 174–75; of infantry, 154–55; in limited war, 194; strategy compared to, 190; technology and, 174 Tecklenburg, Hans von, 257 Technology, 290, 292, 298, 309–14; America’s Army compared to, 326–28; in battle culture of forbearance, 155–58; importance of in Spanish conquest, 105, 114–15 bayonets, 156; cannon, 156–57; crossbows, 115, horsemen, 115, steel swords and armor, 225; flintlock muskets, 156; inaccuracy of, 156; marksmanship compared to, 158–59; matchlock muskets, 155–56; pikes, 156; tactics and, 174, 176. See also Airpower Ten-sided net strategy, 133–38, 139, 140, 144 Thomas, George H., 183, 191, 200–1; Grant compared to, 203 Time magazine, 327 Trotha, Lothar von, 261n7; for extreme conduct, 253–54; for genocide, 246–47, 249, 254–57; opposition to, 245; orders for, 245; over Leutwein, 245–47, 249; quasi-victory of, 246–47; for summary executions, 252 Truman, Harry S., 294–96, 308; on America’s role, 304–5 Turkey: Gallipoli, 271; genocide by, 259

Uncertainty avoidance, 186; from Grant, 192–93 Unit cohesion. See In-group collectivism United States (US): against Communism, 305–8; debt of, 307; national moments for, 169; weapons production in, 289, 292–96, 302. See also American societal culture US Army War College, 185–86, 208n9 U.S. News & World Report, 312–13 Vagts, Alfred, 211 Values: competing, 186; dimensions as, 186; lived, 185–86; within military culture, 7; in organizational culture, 186 Vauban, Sébastien le Prestre de, 159 Vegetius. See Renatus, Flavius Vegetius Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty (Ming shilu), 125 Vietnam War, 290–97, 302–3, 308–9, 314, 320–21; airpower in, 289, 302–3 Villars, Claude Louis Hector de, 157 La voie sacrée, 282 Wanli, 129, 146 Wapenhandlinghe van Roers, Musquetten ende Spiesson (Gheyn), 168 War: absolute, 295; atomic bomb related to, 293–94, 296, 305, 307; of attrition, 292, 307, 308,; battles’ role in, 160–1; culture and, 44; decision for, 305, 314–16, 320, 326, 328; science fiction of, 289–300; between superpowers, 193–95; total, 189–90, 193–94. See also Limited war; specific battles; specific wars Warfare: for Assyrian armies, 28–35; conventional, 29, 152–53; culture interaction with, 4–6; future of, 15; ideas in, 1, 15n1, 10n1; NCW, 289, 382, 330n2; punishment in, 30, 41n45; siege, 161; societal culture in, 6; war poets on, 269

Index

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351

Yang He, 150n24; analyses of, 129; apWar games, origin of, 218; as military pointment of, 128, 129; Confucian spectacle, 219; askari participation in, statecraft from, 130; criticism against, 219; relationship to beni ngoma, 230–33; 131–32; impeachment of, 131–32; lenihandbooks for, 219–20, 226, 230; East ency from, 130; resignation of, 150n34; Africa variants of, 221–24, 226; racial troop transfers under, 130. See also dimensions of, 220–21; incorporaPeasant rebellions tion into nogma performance, 217–24; Yang Sichang, 128, 150n26; appointsimilarity to askari gendered underments of, 128, 138, 140, 150–51n40, standings of war, 227; importance of 152n98; background of, 128–29; auxiliaries in, 222, 223, 278–80, 23n85 Chongzhen and, 132–33, 135, 137; War of the Austrian Succession. See Battle for commanders’ authority, 137–38; of Mollwitz criticism against, 135–36, 138, 143–45; Washburne, Elihu P., 191 death of, 145; failures of, 138–45; Wealth and consumption, 293, 309–14 Hong Chengchou and, 137–38; imWells, H. G., 299 peachment of, 139; Manchu negotiaWilson, Peter, 17n14 tions for, 133; Manchus against, 1387; Winter, Jay, 268–69 plan from, 128; resignation of, 141; Women, excluded from US military, resource allocation against, 148; 321–25; genocide and, 252–53 responsibilities of, 128; revenues for, Wood, Thomas J., 182–4, 199 132–33, 134–35, 140, 141, 151n41; suborWorld War I: Amiens offensive in, 276, dinates’ defiance of, 141, 142–43; Sun 277; Battle of Poziéres, 278–79; Battle Chuanting against, 135–36, 151n61; of the Somme, 270, 278; deportaten-sided net strategy from, 133–37, tion during, 259, 260; Gallipoli, 271; 138, 139, 140; troop transfers and, 143, German military culture in, 259; 150n26; trust for, 133, 151n43. See also Germany’s exhaustion in, 270; meXiong Wencan; Zhang Xianzhong; morialization studies of, 268; in 1918, Zuo Liangyu 270–77; post-1918, 277–82; Red Ball Yeke Monggol Ulus, 90–94; created by Express, 282; La voie sacrée, 282 Chinggus Khan, 90; created common World War I victory: casualty rate related Mongol organizational culture, 90–91; to, 282; logistics successes for, 282; forcibly transformed societal culture, nationalisms in, 270–72, 277–81 91–92; soldiers’ culture standardized World War II, 290–91; airpower in, by, 91–92 289–90; as real war, 291 Xiong Wencan: appeasements by, 134; end of, 140, 140n89; failures of, 138; opportunism of, 139; against peasant rebellions, 134, 137; Yang Sichang and, 137, 138

Zhang Xianzhong, 137; prince’s death by, 145; Yang Sichang against, 140–45 Zuo Liangyu: orders against, 134; against peasant rebellions, 134, 137, 151n52; Yang Sichang and, 137, 151n52