Posts: 2,698 Location: Indonesia
Tue 20 Oct, 2015 8:10 am
Re: Chainmail vs Plate Armor
Pieter B. wrote: |
While the Romans conducted a fair number of impressive sieges it was hardly their modus operandi. |
Oh, man. Nothing could be more wrong than that. The Romans' tenacity in prolonged warfare and their ability to dig deep into their manpower resources combined with their engineering expertise to make them essentially the siege juggernauts of the ancient world. Their numerous sieges tend to get eclipsed by more spectacular battles in the eyes of many modern historians and writers, but there's very little doubt that Rome would have gone nowhere with its wars and conquests if not for its armies' siegecraft resources and expertise. Just to draw attention to some of the Roman sieges that were really decisive:
Siege of Veii (405-396 BC). If we believe Livy, this was a watershed moment where Rome began to develop its Republican army's organisation on a separate track from the Greek models it previously followed, and also when it began to develop a professional army by officially paying its serving soldiers. Wikipedia calls it a battle rather than a siege, which I find to be completely bizarre since the "battle" -- or rather the assault -- was just one event at the end of a long and transformative siege.
Fabius Maximus' campaigns against Hannibal (late 3rd century BC). Do people really think Fabius was just sitting on his hands? Seriously, no. While his mobile field army was shadowing Hannibal's main army, he also had armies elsewhere actively besieging cities that had allied themselves with Hannibal, chipping away at Hannibal's support and resource bases. These sieges tend to receive only cursory mention in the accounts and only rose to prominence when they came to one end or another, but it's pretty interesting to note that at many points Rome had enough resources to maintain several sieges at once!
Caesar's campaign in Gaul is usually best remembered for the battles against the Chatti/Cherusci, Gergovia, and Alesia -- but notice that the last two happened within the context of sieges against Gallic towns/oppida? At Alesia in particular, it was the Gauls who needed and wanted to engage the Romans in battle. If the relief army hadn't arrived (only to be crushed by Caesar's forces), the Romans could have gone on merrily besieging the town and eventually taking it through assault or starvation.
And jumping by several centuries, remember Belisarius and his recapture of Rome, followed by the defence of the city against a prolonged siege by Ostrogothic forces?
Last but not least, remember that medieval European commanders' tendency to avoid battles unless they could secure a distinct advantage can be attributed to Vegetius -- a Roman author. And we can see from the accounts of professional Roman soldiers like Ammianus Marcellinus that in this regard Vegetius didn't confuse things as much as he usually does.
Posts: 645
Tue 20 Oct, 2015 12:20 pm
Re: Chainmail vs Plate Armor
Lafayette C Curtis wrote: |
Pieter B. wrote: | While the Romans conducted a fair number of impressive sieges it was hardly their modus operandi. |
Oh, man. Nothing could be more wrong than that. The Romans' tenacity in prolonged warfare and their ability to dig deep into their manpower resources combined with their engineering expertise to make them essentially the siege juggernauts of the ancient world. Their numerous sieges tend to get eclipsed by more spectacular battles in the eyes of many modern historians and writers, but there's very little doubt that Rome would have gone nowhere with its wars and conquests if not for its armies' siegecraft resources and expertise. Just to draw attention to some of the Roman sieges that were really decisive:
Siege of Veii (405-396 BC). If we believe Livy, this was a watershed moment where Rome began to develop its Republican army's organisation on a separate track from the Greek models it previously followed, and also when it began to develop a professional army by officially paying its serving soldiers. Wikipedia calls it a battle rather than a siege, which I find to be completely bizarre since the "battle" -- or rather the assault -- was just one event at the end of a long and transformative siege.
Fabius Maximus' campaigns against Hannibal (late 3rd century BC). Do people really think Fabius was just sitting on his hands? Seriously, no. While his mobile field army was shadowing Hannibal's main army, he also had armies elsewhere actively besieging cities that had allied themselves with Hannibal, chipping away at Hannibal's support and resource bases. These sieges tend to receive only cursory mention in the accounts and only rose to prominence when they came to one end or another, but it's pretty interesting to note that at many points Rome had enough resources to maintain several sieges at once!
Caesar's campaign in Gaul is usually best remembered for the battles against the Chatti/Cherusci, Gergovia, and Alesia -- but notice that the last two happened within the context of sieges against Gallic towns/oppida? At Alesia in particular, it was the Gauls who needed and wanted to engage the Romans in battle. If the relief army hadn't arrived (only to be crushed by Caesar's forces), the Romans could have gone on merrily besieging the town and eventually taking it through assault or starvation.
And jumping by several centuries, remember Belisarius and his recapture of Rome, followed by the defence of the city against a prolonged siege by Ostrogothic forces?
Last but not least, remember that medieval European commanders' tendency to avoid battles unless they could secure a distinct advantage can be attributed to Vegetius -- a Roman author. And we can see from the accounts of professional Roman soldiers like Ammianus Marcellinus that in this regard Vegetius didn't confuse things as much as he usually does. |
I knew the Gothic - Byzantine wars in Italy had a a fair number of sieges and that Gaul had fortified towns but outside of that this is all new to me. I always held the notion that the period between 1000-1648 was dominated by siege and attrition warfare, shall I dial the former number back to Roman times? I have read Vegetius but I always thought he was describing the late Roman strategy and tactics of avoiding battle and destroying the enemy army by starvation.
I knew they performed a few impressive sieges in the middle east during the classical period but that a battle seeking strategy was standard procedure in Europe. Fabian tactics being the exception.
Who am I to blame besides myself? :\
Posts: 2,698 Location: Indonesia
Wed 11 Nov, 2015 11:51 am
Yes. Battle-avoiding, siege-oriented strategies were certainly not restricted to medieval and Renaissance Europe. The advice to avoid battle unless certain of victory (in the sense that one has engineered the circumstances beforehand to gain a major or even overwhelming advantage in the upcoming battle) wasn't only found in Vegetius -- Sun Zi said pretty much the same thing, though not necessarily in so many words.
Our modern understanding of military history certainly has a bias in favour of pitched battles due to the influence of the battle-seeking strategies that became more important from the French Revolutionary Wars onwards, especially as armies grew during the 19th century to become large enough to hold contiguous nationwide fronts. But even then we still see the use of effective positional warfare and battle-avoiding manoeuvres by the Coalition/Allied armies, especially towards the end of the period when Allied armies were specifically instructed to avoid battle against Napoleon's main army while giving or even seeking battle against other armies led by his marshals.
You
cannot post new topics in this forum
You
cannot reply to topics in this forum
You
cannot edit your posts in this forum
You
cannot delete your posts in this forum
You
cannot vote in polls in this forum
You
cannot attach files in this forum
You
can download files in this forum