Ancient And Medieval Warfare: What It Was Like

Media rarely shows the Gauls and Celts as the enemies of Rome. They usually get the short end of the cinematic stick. Roman legions fight brave but savage tribesmen.

Many enemies of Rome possessed many developed traits.Carthage.Carthage equaled Rome and inflicted major defeats on the Roman Republic during the Punic Wars.

Gauls were not a simple mob. They had a complex political system beyond what people usually think.The Celts were not blue-faced savages. They mastered metal-working and showed skill as artists..

A pitched battle offered high risk versus high reward for commanders. Two sides must fight for a decisive battle.

Great clashes often happened when one side had no other choice. Henry V of England's forces faced ruin against a superior French force at Agincourt.Agincourt.Lacking other options, the king accepted the fight. He won a great victory due to good terrain and an overconfident enemy.

Before World War I, sickness and infection killed more soldiers than fighting. Soldiers often died from infection, not heroic combat.

This held true even in modern conflicts like the American Civil War.Dysentery.Dysentery caused 95,000 deaths in the Union and Confederate armies. Diseases killed two-thirds of all war deaths.

Earlier times saw worse outcomes. When England faced the Black Death, a Scottish force acted. The situation worsened as the sick troops brought the plague home.Black Death.A Scottish force formed to exploit the situation. You can guess what happened next. But the stricken troops brought the plague back home.

Infection killed many. A deep wound usually meant death. Get hit by an arrow anywhere; you face painful death later. TV and movies rarely show this.Game of Thrones.Game of Thrones showed this. Khal Drogo suffered greatly from a seemingly minor wound.

Fighting as a lone soldier against everyone will not last long in reality. The movie 300 shows this.300.300 is a big example. One scene shows Leonidas fighting alone.Leonidas.Just minutes after preaching the phalanx's importance, Ephialtes despaired.

Leonidas, about 60 years old, fought his last battle. He was a seasoned commander, not the muscle shown in the film. The Spartan-led Greek force held back the larger Persian force because they fought in formation.

If someone breaks from allies to fight alone, the enemy surrounds and cuts them down. The Battle of Bannockburn shows this.Battle of BannockburnEnglish knights lost discipline and sought individual glory. Scottish infantry then pulled them off their horses and quickly defeated them with their pikes.

No movie or TV show shows an accurate battle; it would bore the audience. They cut time and suspense for action. The Battle of Stirling (without the bridge) happened inBraveheart The battle ended in minutes. The real thing finished fast.The real thing lasted hours.Battles lasted hours.

A large fight usually lasts all day before one side loses. Assembling thousands of soldiers to start a battle takes hours. Maneuvering before the close fight also takes hours. When hand-to-hand fighting starts, armies clash for minutes, then separate, regroup, and return.

Chariots travel far and cross cultures. They were used in places likeBritain, China, Egypt, and Sumeria(modern-day Iraq). They used chariots as mobile command posts, not to charge directly.

Celts used chariots to move warriors to key spots. Egyptians used them as mobile archery platforms. Alexander the Great's successors tried using scythed chariots for an edge, but these had little effect.much impact. A generation earlier, at Gaugamela, Darius used hundreds of chariots with little success.

Most ancient and medieval combat shows heroes cutting down many foes in seconds. Battles look like thousands of one-on-one fights where fighters ignore self-preservation.

Formations, armor, and soldiers' basic survival instincts caused fewer battlefield deaths than movies show. Casualties rose when one side ran, not during the fight.

Take the deciding battle ofPharsalus, fought between two elite Roman armies made of tough veteran soldiers fromCaesar and Pompey. Caesar's men lost between 200 and 1,200 soldiers. Pompey's defeated forces lost up to 6,000 troops.

George Washington once remarked: "Discipline is the soul of an army."

History's winning armies usually possess the best discipline. Roman legions showed this skill better than any other.

A Roman legionary did not fight much better than his peers. What set Roman legions apart was keeping formation and lasting longer than the foe. Ancient Greeks won against the Persians because their fighting style relied on group unity, not just individual skill.

The Third Servile War (71-73 BCE) serves as an example. Escaped gladiators led by Spartacus. Spartacus fought as superior individual fighters. Romans defeated him at the Silarius River. Though Spartacus fought hard, the ex-gladiator's skill could not match the disciplined coordination of Crassus's legions.legions.

Trebuchets. Launching 200-pound stones 980 feet, troops scaled ladders, and battering rams smashed gates. This looks great in movies, but most attacking army leaders avoid direct assaults on strongholds.

Attacking strong castle walls meant losing thousands of soldiers needed later. Attacks usually happened only after the defending garrison was already weakened.

A siege usually meant waiting for defenders to surrender or for a relief army to arrive. Sieges took months, or even years..

A saying sometimes credits General of the Army (Five Stars) Omar Bradley. says, "amateurs talk strategy while professionals talk logistics."

Ancient and medieval times followed this rule today. Overseeing supply lines efficiently rarely creates good drama, so that part of warfare often gets skipped. You seldom see an army's baggage train in TV or film. Later seasons of Game of Thrones., the Unsullied took Casterly Rock and lost their supply fleet but showed no trouble.

Historically, targeting the enemy's supply line proved a highly effective strategy., along with destroying the surrounding land to stop supplies reaching the enemy. Soldiers needed food, but treasure mattered greatly too.

The skilled but unlucky Greek general Eumenes. learned this the hard way. During a tough battle, his army's baggage train with their loot was stolen. That night, the men turned over their general without thinking to get it back.

Armies rarely fight to the death. Last stands become famous because they happen so rarely. Almost every battle ended not with the total destruction of the enemy army, but by breaking their will to fight.

Alexander the Great beat Darius twice in battle. He struck the enemy's weakest point, not the whole army.DariusParmenion had a steady hand. This steady hand helped Alexander.Parmenion.Parmenion held off the Persians. This bought Alexander time to win elsewhere. Alexander needed this to beat armies bigger than his own.

The annihilation of a Roman army in 216 BCE was a rare, studied ancient battle. Carthaginian general Hannibal won the biggest battlefield victory by surrounding and destroying a much larger Roman army atCannae..