Posts: 570 Location: Gothenburg/Sweden
Fri 02 Sep, 2005 3:44 pm
The interesting fact that both Machiavelli and Oman leaves out is that the Spanish swiftly abandoned large scale sue of the sword and buckler and armed the men with pikes instead. Indeed the "many more" fights and battles aluded to by Oman in p. 110 are strangely absent from the remainder of his book. Of course at a closer examiantion of battles fought after Ravenna this is no longer strange since the sword and buckler never again played such significant in a large scale battle. Machiavelli was very much in favour of the sword-and-buckler and wasted no opportunity to extoll their virtues while glossign over their weakness and failures. He was quite lucky in that he never had to apply his theories in an actual battle since he would have been in for several rude surprises
Ravenna and the Macedonian defeat at Pydna 168 BC is a good example of the vulnerability of pike phalanx disordered by terrain or obstacles. At Ravenna the Landsknechts had to cross a trench and go over a wall and/or through a series of "war carts" equiped with spears and scythes as well as mounting heavy arquebuses, all under heavy fire, before they could get to "push of pike". It was when the pikemen of both side engaged in a furious fight that the sword-and-buckler men got stuck in as described. Some recent reserach by Spanish historians has suggested that the Swordsmen were not specialist troops but rear rank pikemen who dropped their pikes and went in with sword and small buckler instead.
As in the earlier fightign around Barletta the sword and buckler combination enjoyed success when fighting a disorderd formation of pikemen involved in an assult of a fortified position. When sword-andbuckler men faced well ordered pikes in the open as at Seminara in 1495 they were quickly overrun by the pike phalanx and scattered. Under certain (special) circumstances the sword combined with a buckler enjoyed a clear advantage over the pike but outside those rare circumstances the sword was at a disadvanatge so in the end the pike won out.
The Roman defeat of Philip V at Cynoscephalae had more to do with the flexibility of the Roman tactical system rather. than any automatic superiority of the
Gladius when facing of against the Sarissa. Cynoscephalae was a rare event in ancient times, what today is called a "meeting engagement" in which they two armies had to deploy and fight at the same time. The Macedonian right wing was able to form up and the Romans (as always) were unable to stand up to the superior weight of a formed phalanx. However the Macedonian left wing was disoered due to the difficult terrain were it had to deply and befor eit was fully formed the Romans struck them with a rapid assult involving not only legionaires but also cavalry and war elephants. As the Romans began to pursue the defeated Macedonians an enterprising tribune took command of the entire 3rd Roman line, the Triarii and led them in an attack on the rear of the until then victorious Macedonian right wing.
At Pydna, 29 years later it was once again the superior flexibility of the Roman system combined with a phalanx disordred by rough terrain which lead to the crushing Macedonian defeat.
A couple of good introductions to the battles of Cynoscephalae & Pydna
http://www.barca.fsnet.co.uk/cynocephalae-197bc.htm
http://www.barca.fsnet.co.uk/pydna.htm
Now the Roman fightign technique centered around use of the gladius combined with the pila played an important part in creating the tactical flexibility I mention above but both depended ehavily on each other and were not without weaknesses.
The looser Roman formation with their short weapons were just as vulnerable to good cavalry as the Spanish swordsmen 1700 years later as was proved at Magnesia when the Selucid cataphracts went through a legion like a hot knife through butter.
A stand up fight against a well ordered phalanx on level ground was also a fight in which the legions found themselves at a disadvantage though the Roman way of war gave them two abilites which lessend this disadvantage.
1. The Roman legions possesed a resilience which was until then basicly unknown among heavy infantry, under frontal preasure a Roman legion would bend but it would take a lot of effort to break it. At it was once the enemy formation was broken that a phalanx inflicted most casulities on the enemy.
2. Unlike the pike armed phalanx the Romans fighting with pila and gladius tended to cause a larger number of casulties during actual fighting before an enemy formation was broken. And these casulties were inflicted on the front ranks of the opposign phalanx which conatied the best and most skilled men. This led to Phyrrus famous complaint about another victory against the Romans would be utter ruin. Not becaue he was losing a lot of men but because those he lost to such a high degree was irreplaceable veternas and NCOs.
The resilience and flexibility of the evolved legion combined Tomes superior manpower made the Romans almost unbeatable on the strategic level. They could loose a lot of battles and legiosn and still keep coming while their enemies often only had one army. Once the Macedonians or Seleucids lost a battle they were basicly defenceless since their core troops were few numbers and hard to replace. The carthagians had greater resrouces which allowed them to sustain heavier losses but even they say the quality of their armes decline as they lost battles while the Romans were able to sustain the quality of the legions in the face of repeated defeats and even improved thanks to lessons learned the hard way.
Oops, this got quite long, apologies for the lecture ;)
/Daniel