Battle Studies

tics, the legion; the tactics of the barbarian

l elementary books. Polybius enters into a mechanical discus

onal. But such was not the case. Greek tactics proceeded from mathematical reasoning; Roman tactics from a profound knowledge of m

ed the maximum effort

oldiers of a Roman army t

ts of discussion. The R

he barbarians, Gauls, Cimbri, Teutons, made him tremble. But to the glorious courage of the Greeks, to the natural bravery of the Gauls he opposed

iscipline of the Romans was secured also by the fear of death. They put

diers miserable by excessive work and privations. He stretched the force of discipline to the point where, at a critical instant, it must break or expen

iscipline has for its aim the domination of that instinct by a greater terror. But it cannot dominate it completely. I do not deny the glorious examples where discipline and devotion have ele

is the crowning achievement in the science of combat. In general, here was the strength of the

ual conflicts, juxtaposed, with the front rank man alone fighting. If he fell, if he was wounded or worn out, he was replaced by the man of the second rank who had watched an

but a short time. With like mora

d by the violent fluctuations of the struggle of the first rank. They heard the clashes of the blows and distinguished, perhaps, those that sank into the flesh. They saw the wounded, the exhausted crawl through the intervals to go to the rear. Passive spectators of danger, they were forced t

ping the rest as a support or reserve outside of the immediate sphere of moral tension. The superiority of the Romans lay in such tactics and in the terrible discipline which prepared and assured

d impulse of deep files, and did not understand that deep files were powerless to push the first ranks forward as they recoiled in the face of death. It is a strange error to believe that t

alf of their dense ranks. But the idea of mass dominated. They placed

e files in order to add to the mass, but to give to the combatants the confidence of being aided and reli

f ranks as to bring about this condition. The Greeks did not observe and calculate so well. They sometimes brought the number of files up to thirty-two a

ed stoically, kept in the second and third lines. They were far enough away not to suffer wounds and not to be drawn in by the fro

d the most reliable men in the last lines, i.e., the oldest. The youngest, the most impetuous, were in the first lines. The legion was not increased simply to make num

atants by increasing the front. His men having a moral, and sometimes also a physical endurance superior to that of the adversary, the general knew that the last ranks of the latter would not, under pressure, hold sufficiently to relieve the first lines nor to forbid the relief of his own. Hannibal had a part of his infantry, the Africans, armed and drilled in the Roman way; his Spanish infantrymen had the long wind of the Spaniards of to-day; his Gallic

better examples of battle more clearly and more impartially exhibited. This is due in one case to the clear presentation of Polybius, who obtained his information