the persia conversation - now moved to the list
Dan Powers
Cheers
Dan
*** Aaron B:
Hmm...that's par for the course in my facebook feed...academic debates abound...
I don't disagree with your points at all, but I think you might have misread the standard bibliography. Either that or I have, because I think this idea of Persian dominance is pretty debated, not simply a decided issue.
You might get more traction out of 'no longer' a military powerhouse rather than 'never was'. The Median Empire that Cyrus picked up had a lot going for it, the Persian invasion of Greece picked up a string of victories (and, I would argue, was defeated more by its supply train than anything else). Furthermore, xenophon certainly doesn't think the persians are pushovers, he just thinks that these veteran greek phalanxes are better. Losing doesn't mean 'unaccomplished' The Greek evidence tends to write off their losses and dwell on their victories.
I realize you're past that point in your paper, but those are just the ideas that came to mind.
*** Dan P
Hey Aaron,
Well, the standard Persia scholarship goes something like this. The 490-480/79 seems to be generally held as the point Persia is at least a virtual paper tiger - or at least "fang-less claw-less" tigerette." With the exception of Chrstoper Tuplin (2008, 2010) no one spends any time "analyzing" the Scythian expedition(513). And what indicators and implications can be drawn from that.
Let me clarify, I am not calliing Perisa "a never was" - but there is a definite difference in their very talented fighting ability of the Mede-Persia core of troops. Certainly I rank Cyrus the Great as one of the great military+political geniuses of the ancient world. But he is KILLED by other Scythians. I am also analyzing in a stirctyl military context after Cyrus. Cambyses record militarily and politically is quite poor. That is an indicator (not a final analysis) that the "organization, institution, and framework" of the army specifically is not something that lends to a competent army. The note here, is that the army by Cambyses was nothing short of an untraned conglomerate of international tactics, styles and languages. It still has the persian-median core, but they are now only 10% of the fighting force.
My thesis certainly is not of the Greek is better. It still takes a century and a half for someone to finish them off. A completely incompetent army doesn't last that long. But them being a military powerhouse after 513, especially after Ionian Revolt - gets problematic.
Where I depart from the standard scholarship is that By their invasions of Greece, they were already incapable of pulling off an overseas invasion successfully. And I do agree that it was largely their own incapability to plan and execute supplies via logistics. but the fact they can't and don't do this well given their overwhelming advantages in this specific regard - is exactly what makes them militarily inferior. It is a problem they never solve, and they keep repeating the same mistakes. An indicator that they really were never that good, and never really fix the core problem.
Xenophon does not think badly of them at all. It is interesting because I think Xenophon thought quite highly of them, and certainly very highly of Cyrus the younger. Aside from the Anabasis, where he has incredibly nice things to say (especially for a Greek), the Cyropaediea is essentially the "perfect tactical manual of the perfect army" and he superimposes Cyrus the Younger on top of the story of Cyrus the Great. When looked at as a "tactical and doctrine manual" the Cyropaedeia is very enlightening about the capabilities, organization, and respectively severe limits on Persian military prowess.
I agree they were superior in military to those they actually fough, up to 539. But after the death of Cyrus the Great, military power (the ability to win battles) become highly questionable based on all the Greek and Eastern sources that survive. Their political propaganda was circa pre WWII fascism or communis or post WWII western propaganda machines. But saying you won battles and actually winning battles are two very different things. And that essentially is what I am getting at.
:)
But of course, no one has to buy into my particular view. I just think it is an interesting thing to look at.
--
Dan Powers
dar...@gmail.com
“It’s not a matter of being afraid or not, it’s about what you do when you ARE afraid”
Mark
Here are a few brief and disconnected comments (all things that you
may well have considered already, of course).
It is hard to disentangle oneself from the persistent effects of Greek
(and later Roman) “orientalising” propaganda – the theme of the
decadent, effeminate and luxury-addicted Persian was already well-
established by the time of Herodotus. But from a strategic point of
view, the results achieved against Persia by Agesilaus or Cimon, for
example, seem quite limited (not to mention the failed Athenian
expedition to Egypt). Even the notion of saving Greece from any
further threat of Persian invasion is rather suspect, since it
presupposes a continuing Persian intention to invade. Persian kings
after Xerxes had other problems to deal with, e.g. revolts in Bactria
and Egypt for Artaxerxes I.
I am not sure what is to be taken from the Persian employment of Greek
hoplites – can this be seen as an admission of Persian inferiority, or
is it simply that given the general superiority of the Persian
cavalry, and the absence of a standing Royal army, it made sense to
recruit foreign infantry? Greeks were not the only foreigners so
employed.
Nefedkin (26 Gladius 5-18) argues that the development of the Persian
cavalry into an armoured shock-attack role that started in about 460
was in part a reaction to a general decline in Persian morale and
troop quality, but this strikes me as a bit of a paradox; and surely
not every attempted improvement in systems is to be taken as an
admission of failure.
And as for propaganda, it’s hard to top the PR effort Augustus
unleashed after the Parthian return of the Roman standards – a
triumphal arch, Parthian games, commemorative coins, etc., – all for a
result achieved not through conquest, but by diplomatic negotiation!
Regards,
Mark
Patrician
seem (notably from accounts of the Persian attempts at reconquering
Egypt, including the successful campaign of 343 BC) that the Greeks
were consciously used as the spearhead of the army, with the Persian
and subject troops adding weight. This particular battlewinning slot
previously belonged to the Persians and Sacae, who Herodotus notes as
being the only Persian troops who put up a decent fight at Marathon.
At Cunaxa in 401 BC, Xenophon does not single out contingents of
Persians and Sacae as beng of particular note, although in view of his
incomplete description of the Persian OB this is not conclusive
evidence of their relegation to lesser status in expectation of
performance or the line of battle. What is clear from Xenophon's
account of Cunaxa is that Cyrus expected the Greeks would easily go
through any troops on Artaxerxes' side (which is why Cyrus made such
efforts to recruit Greeks in the first place).
The Ten Thousand do seem to have made an impression, together with
Agesilaus' subsequent campaigning in Asia Minor. Almost as soon as
the Persians managed to get Agesilaus recalled, they began to display
an interest in using Greek mercenaries as the cutting edge of their
persistent if unsuccessful attempts to reconquer Egypt (and Nekht-a-
neb in Egypt was already employing them before he broke with the
Persians). When Philip and subsequently Alexander became a threat,
the Persian response was to begin hiring Greek mercenaries in
increasing numbers - from 4,000 or so in 335 (Polyaenus) to around
20,000 in 334 at the Granicus and 30,000 in 333 at Issus. While these
numbers are not universally accepted, the trend seems clear: the
greater the threat, the more Greeks the King hired.
What gave the Greeks this effectiveness? This is a topic in itself,
but there are a few pointers that may be useful.
1) Armour and weapons: Herodotus' account of Plataea, or for that
matter Thermopylae, represents the Persians as seriously outmatched in
close combat by the better-armoured Greeks with their large, robust
shields and longer, heavier spears. Yet these same panoplies
characterised the Greeks who in the Ionian revolt were decisively
defeated by Persian armies in at least two major engagements. Armour
and weaponry alone is evidently not the whole story.
2) Tactics: Herodotus tells us that at Marathon the Athenians were
'the first Greesk to charge the enemy at the run', suggesting that
previously a more deliberate approach had been the norm. Miltiades'
new more rapid approach did seem to make all the difference, although
the Athenian centre was unable to withstand the pressure of the hard-
fighting Persians and Sacae in Datis' centre. This in itself suggests
that the Greek superiority in armour and weaponry was not absolute,
but relied on parity or not being too inferior in other apsects,
notably effective fighting depth.
3) Elan: Xenophon's description of the Ten Thousand (actually 12,500
at Cunaxa) routing contingent after contingent of Persians just by
charging at them indicates that the discipline and battle-shout of a
Greek onset could take the morale of Persian subject troops beyond
breaking-point. Native Persians - kardakes - were apparently
considered more durable (the name seems derived from the Old Persian
for 'brave'), but the great majority of subject troops, however well
they may have fought against Asiatic opponents, seem not to have been
able to endure a Greek charge, whether at Plataea, Mycale or Cunaxa.
One might thus hazard the outline of a hypothesis which predicates
Greek battlefield success against Persian armies on a combination of
the above aspects: armour (including shields) and weaponry more suited
to close combat, the tactic of charging into contact, and superior
elan and fighting spirit. With Spartans, we can add greatly superior
discipline and technique, as demonstrated at Thermopylae. It is
noteworthy that in 490 and 480-479 BC Herodotus portrays the Persians
(as opposed to their subject nations) as in no way inferior to the
Greeks, but if anything superior, in elan and morale. The Greek
(predominantly Athenian) successes against native Persians and Sacae
are ascribed to superior armour, weaponry and battlefield technique.
As Dan indicates, the Persians had the usual difficulty faced by a
great empire of motivating its subject troops. On the one hand, it
does not want them to be useless, because bringing them along would be
pointless. On the other, it does not want them to be too effective,
because this might encourage them to revolt or even begin creating an
empire of their own which might end up conquering the Persians. The
large proportion of subject troops does not seem to have been too much
of a handicap until the Greeks put together their combination of
superior equipment, rapid shock tactics and hard-to-beat elan, but (as
Dan has observed) the subject nations start to give the impression of
being a bit of a dead weight in the campaigns against the Scythians
(Cyrus against the Massagetae and Darius against all comers). And
what does Xerxes do when he invades Greece? He adds *more* subject
nations! Supplying such vast hosts was a challenge, and the Persian
supply system, although apparently quite able to cope when things were
going well, seemed to run short abruptly once things began to go
wrong. Then again, it probably did not do very much planning to cover
what might happen in the event of failure.
The lesson about quality being preferable to quantity seems only very
slowly to have sunk in. Perhaps the apogee was at the Granicus, where
Memnon of Rhodes appears to have sent home the mass of Asiatic foot
levies originally called up to meet Alexander, and concentrated on
stopping the Macedonians with Persian empire cavalry and Greek
infantry alone. At Issus, Darius (III) returned to backstopping the
Greeks with large numbers of Asiatic infantry, and at Gaugamela he had
scraped together even greater numbers. None availed: only a well-
generalled army of crack troops could have halted Alexander.
A good general can get good results even from a variegated polyglot
army (dare I mention Hannibal?), and I would rate the Persian army not
so much as a paper tiger as one whose teeth were loose after c.520 BC
and largely dropped out in 480-479 BC. Just under a century later,
having in the interim confined itself to the occasional paw swipe
against rebellious satraps and provinces, it found that Greek
mercenaries made serviceable if occasionally uncomfortable dentures.
Patrick
Chris Stratton
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Dan Powers
A couple of important details.
1) Warfare, (particularly tactical and armament elements), develops
differently in different regions for different reasons. These developments
might be due to the resources and technology available, it may also be due
to the physical environment i.e. light armor is effective in hot dry
flat/open dessert vs. heavily armored in steep mountains and so on.
2) levies of any kind are no match for a well trained force. However it is
possible to lose against levies. See Operation Babarosa, the German
invasion of the Soviet Union. But the cost to the Soviet Union was tens of
millions. In the end, it was enough. (Of course there were other factors).
This is a point that has not really been addressed, and should be fully
explored. The Persian Army is constantly in an evolution.
3) The main problems that I have found with Persian Armies, is their lack
of "teach-ability". They really do not learn. In their entire history
they make almost no effort to establish any sort of naval tradition. Which
severely limits their broader military success. Their attempt to take
Carthage by land, lasts until the get (presumably) to the west side of the
Greek settlements in Cyrene, and are nearly wiped out once they try and
return. Yet that same army disappeared overnight near the oasis at Siwa.
This particular campaign was originally supposed to be conducted via
flotilla courtesy of the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians who refused to
provide ships for an assault on their own kin.
4) The other major problem they seem to not learn no matter how many times
it stops them, is logistics. leading into their 2nd attempt on Greece, they
have had many major failures, yet never address it. It destroys their
first attempt on Greece in 492, causes problems in 490, and creates
significant havoc during the 480/79 attempt. (3rd failed attempt, just on
Greece). This was a critical failure (in my opinion at least) of Darius'
campaign into European Scythia.
5) Army 'organization' in the post-Cyrus periods present any number of
problems. In several cases outsiders are brought in, and provide good
advice, but due to the sensibilities the good advice is met with literal
execution. This for me raises questions about the safety of the
environment, which is not good for new ideas, nor is it good for getting at
real solutions to the various challenges faced.
As to the points about their specific make up of armament, not much of that
material survives to give us an accurate sampling. There are two excellent
books on Persian Armament for anyone who is interested. They are not cheap,
I would suggest checking a local library first.
A - Lexicon of Arms and Armor from Iran: A Study of Symbols and Terminology
[Hardcover]
Manouchehr Moshtagh Khorasani. Legat Verlag. (2010)
B - Arms and Armor from Iran: The Bronze Age to the End of the Qajar Period
[Hardcover]
Manouchehr Moshtagh Khorasani. Legat Verlag. (2006)
Dan Powers
dar...@gmail.com
"It's not a matter of being afraid or not, it's about what you do when you
ARE afraid"
Patrick
--
Chris Stratton
-Chris
Dan Powers
No Problem Chris.
The whole idea behind this list was to have an environment that we could share and discuss openly. And in my experience in life (and academics) people have something to contribute. There is something encouraging about sharing ideas and perspectives, there is always something new for us to learn - provided we are willing to learn. Certainly there is always something for me to learn, and a new perspective that I had not considered before. These are the things that keep the topics fresh, and they certainly keep it fun!
Original thoughts and ideas are always encouraged!
Best,
Dan
Dan Powers
“It’s not a matter of being afraid or not, it’s about what you do when you ARE afraid”
Chris Stratton
http://www.iranchamber.com/history/achaemenids/achaemenid_army.php
I am highly suspicious that the Achaemanid army is described rather idealistically. The Persians did not invent cataphracts. If I recall correctly, the Scythians did. The horseman depicted in that link has a partially armored horse, which I am willing to believe, but I am not certain that they used these proto-cataphract like cavalry.
Patrick Waterson
| Chris, I share some of your thoughts. I think the illustration of the horseman is based on the equipment described and recommended in Xenophon's 'On Horsemanship', because the rider seems to have metal leg guards attached to his saddle and a metal-looking armband on his left forearm. If so, this particular rider would date from the 4th century BC, when one has the impression that Persian cavalry was definitely getting heavier. He is still a long way from being a true cataphract, which would (in theory) require complete armour for the man and at least half-armour for the horse. As far as I am aware, there is no definite consensus about the origin of cataphracts, only that the concept appears to have developed under the Persian Empire and to have reached fruition under the Parthians, maybe in the 3rd century BC. Some refer to Assyrians, Babylonians and Scythians as having 'cataphracts' when what they really mean is armoured horsemen (as opposed to unarmoured) with partially-protected horses. A proper cataphract in the full and accepted sense of the term is shown in the picture accompanying this Wikipedia article: http://uk.ask.com/wiki/Cataphract The horse's mail coat and mask (modern reconstruction) have several scales out of line and the coat is parted at just the point where it is really needed for protection, but apart from that it gives one the idea of what a 'cataphract' should be. And you are right: the Achaemenids did not have these. :-) The two surprises in Prof Shahbazi's article, for me at least, were 1) the old fallacy that lack of stirrups makes it hard to stay on a horse, and 2) the remarkably arbitrary shrinkage of Persian numbers to something less than the combined cities of Greece could put into the field (Athens alone deployed 9,000 or 10,000 fighting men at Marathon) without a single word of explanation as to how this conclusion was reached. 1) Members of the group who have experience with riding may already know that the primary feature of stirrups is that they allow you to get on more easily than the traditional method of vaulting, and keep your feet where you want them once you are up. They do not help you stay on (unless you are in the habit of leaning over dangerously), but can drag you if you happen to come off. Cataphracts through the centuries were never inhibited by lack of stirrups, and Plutarch's account of Carrhae has them developing sufficient impetus in a charge to run their lancers through two Romans at a time (incidentally suggesting a 3' spacing between legionary ranks for close combat). 2) I would be interested in the Professor's explanation of how Xerxes could scrape up only a paltry 70,000 infantry from his whole empire and yet maintain 10,000 Immortals, leaving a mere 60,000 for the Persians, Medes, Sacae and many other nations that formed the empire. Each of the 29 Persian commands (most drawn from several provinces) would have only just over 2,000 men, and this is supposed to be a muster of the whole empire! Each command of several provinces or peoples (or one huge one like Media, Egypt or Babylonia) fields less men than a single Greek city! Without having seen his reasoning, one suspects he has counted only satraps' permanent contingents retained at their seats of government, as these would be the most frequently documented troops in the empire. Overall, I think the Prof has the decimal organisation correct, but errs woefully on the numbers available for the full muster, when the manpower of the entire empire was raised to fight invaders or gratify the vanity of a Xerxes seeking to expand his rule. It is incidentally rather hard to see the Persians running into any logistical difficulties at all with armies of no more than 80,000 men and the resources of practically the entire Near and Middle East to draw on. Patrick --- On Thu, 23/6/11, Chris Stratton <eaglet...@gmail.com> wrote: |
Marleen...@aol.com
Patrick Waterson
| Fred, You are right - from what I know of Assyrian military organisation we have a very similar picture: on the one hand comparatively small permanent standing forces (qurubuti) and on the other the huge armies that routinely appear in Biblical texts, Diodorus, etc. The latter contingents seem to have been based on a large-scale call-up of Assyrian and allied manpower, with two mobilisation stages involved. The first (and most often used) were the 'kisir sharruti', the 'king's men', who were liable for military service more or less at the king's pleasure. These would, together with allied/subject contingents, make up the 100,000-200,000 strong armies that under Sargon, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon trampled Israel, Babylon and Egypt and ploughed through the Van and Median uplands and into Asia Minor. The second stage of mobilisation was the emergency levy, the 'dikut mati', a mobilisation of practically all available men of military age, usually seen only when Assyria was invaded (notably in the campaigns when the Medes and Chaldeans were trying to defeat Sin-shar-Ishkun and subsequently Ashur-uballit). My own conjecture is that the Persians would have inherited - and used - a very similar system. Normal duties (dealing with brigands and minor upsets, collecting late taxes, etc.) would have been performed by the satraps' personal troops, probably on something like the establishment you describe. Major expeditions (a satrap sent to expand the empire or put down a major revolt) would mobilise the men customarily liable to military service, or as many of them as he could get his hands on, and army sizes of 200,000 to 300,000 appear in Diodorus et. al. in connection with attempts to reconquer Egypt. What can safely be said is that these forces were intended to be much more substantial than just the satraps' guards and retainers. Finally, when the empire was threatened or the King just wanted to exercise his vanity by seeing how many troops he could bring together, the emergency levies could be called up, and this would result in really huge armies (and supply challenges). Hence we get reports of 900,000 at Cunaxa with another 300,000 on the way, 600,000 at Issus and 1,000,000 plus at Gaugamela. Darius is also said to have taken 800,000 or so into Scythia, suggesting he may have pulled together some of the emergency levy to eke out numbers. Whatever the actual figures, I think this shows a very similar pattern to the Assyrian arrangements: the few permanent standing troops, the much more substantial conscript armies, and the huge armies of levies strictly for emergency use only (unless you happen to be Xerxes). I do not think our understanding of the Persian military system will be anywhere near complete unless we take this triple-tiered practice into account. Then we can get to work on the demographics. :-) Patrick --- On Thu, 23/6/11, Marleen...@aol.com <Marleen...@aol.com> wrote: |
|
|
Dan Powers
I have not dusted it off in quite some time, but Hans Delbruck (early 1900's) hhis first volume on warfare (of a 4 vol set) is on antiquity. What I can remember off the top of my head is that he uses painstaking detail to discuss his views of the numbers presented in ancient sources and battles, particularly the greco-persian conflicts.
Hence a serious treatment of this ought to be done for the field.
Dan
Chris Stratton
Also, I have not read Delbruck's work, but I've read work which quotes him. I am sure there is validity to his arguments but he does tend to tone numbers down to numbers are seem far too small. The wiki page on the Battle of Gaugamela (yes i know it is wiki) quotes him stating that their was about 53,000 on the Persian side. I would put the number much higher, though not exceeding 100,000, since Darius had plenty of time to prepare and gather troops. So while most historians take a number far too high, 200,000+, Delbuck takes it too low. Mesopotamia was densesly populated, so there are conscripts available from there, and not just the various provinces. I would suspect the number of soldiers under Darius would number 80,000 or under. Forgive me, since I am about to make a gross comparison. The Ottoman army on the field from about 1450-1600 consisted of about 90,000 personnel. This is a figure that pops up in just about every secondary source I have read. The late Achaemanid empire is certainly far removed, but if the Persian army had the proper logistics, I can't see why Darius would field any less than the maximum number possible at Gaugamela.
Marleen...@aol.com
Dan Powers
Hi Chris,
After a long day, I am thinking sleep tonight. I will give my disclaimer that I think that Delbruck was on more the right track by going smaller in numbers.
enter my opinions:
1) I think the Persian logistics is a farse. My own research reveals the "swiss cheese" boat in which most perceptions (including the logistics) as wishful thinking. I think the "perception" is that they were great militarily and all things associated with that. Their lack of logistics ruin the Scythian Campaign, 3 invasions into Greece, loss of a major army/ strike force near Siwa in the dessert. That is more than
2) Comparing Ottoman numbers to Persian numbers, would be acceptable to me if the Ottoman Empire was essentially the same area/geography but they are very different in many ways.
3) I tend to side on the smaller numbers. There are very particular reasons for that beyond the research. My own military experience which there is no way to not sound arrogant, so my apologies. (That background is deep and extensive.) It is also not a credential I cite lightly - Even for a modern state of the art logistics system that is well practiced with airlift capability, moving troop formations of Delbruck's size is monumental. Take away the technology, maybe half that number is possible for the very best.
The other great source, sadly I have only had a dozen hours to spend with due to its out of print since 1940 - Kromeyer and Veith's "ancient battlefields" in Alt-Deutsch. All of them were extensively involved in Prussian military affairs, and K&V numbers are not far different from Delbruck.
*I don't buy the hype of the Persian military at all. I think it is mostly hype. Xenophon who was quite friendly and enamored with noble Persians - unlike Herodotus does not give us a mobilized army numbers of 5 million plus.
-end opinion
I wish my library had a copy of K&V, it doesn't. Regardless of where each of us agree and disagree, the topic in general is only briefly alluded to in footnotes and summaries. I am certainly in the camp that the whole topic deserves some detailed on long term research to really explore the possibilities from all sides and come to a better set of ideas than exist. Even knowing on the result side, there will be many differing ideas, but having a critical research treatment would be helpful for all of us that do want to understand the topics.
I love to discuss this stuff. Going back to having meaningful discussions - this is what I live for. I will try to get and report back on the info in K&V and Delbruck exactly. As a group, we might be able to make some headway. It is also very nice to see several people actively involved in the conversation.
Cheers!
Dan
Dan Powers
“It’s not a matter of being afraid or not, it’s about what you do when you ARE afraid”
Marleen...@aol.com
Patrick Waterson
| Fred has a good point: we need to look at the manpower base to see what kind of armies are possible; we need to look at the logistics base to see what kind of armies an area can support, and we may need to lay aside Delbruck's arbitrarily small numbers while payng careful attention to his methods. So what data do we have? The simple answer is: nowhere near enough. This means we have to work - provisionally - from estimates. Estimates of the population of the Achaemenid Empire currently range from 10 million to 80 million people, with 50 millon being the preferred choice (a handy listing of estimates and sources is given in note 10 of the Wikipedia article on the Achaemenid Empire - here, for anyone interested): http://uk.ask.com/wiki/Achaemenid_Empire#Notes If we use the popular 50 million, we can estimate available manpower by taking 20% of the population as fit men of military age, giving a theoretical mobilisation pool of 10 million. This is theoretical, as to mobilise this number would leave lands untilled and canals unmaintained, and based on Herodotus VII.186 we can estimate that each fighting-man needed one man acting in a supporting role for supply, engineering and all the other tasks associated with keeping an army in the field. The practical mobilisation limit is thus about half the fit manpower pool, or 5 million men, half of whom would be armed and half in support. Curiously enough, this is the figure Herodotus arrives at when calculating Xerxes' force at Thermopylae in 480 BC. Now comes the crunch: logistics. As Dan will be the first to tell anyone, a fighting formation in the 21st century needs a LOT of supplies and transport in order to function. A battalion of 600-800 men could fit into a single super-Jumbo. The vehicles and base equipment would need something like 40-50 C5 Galaxy aircraft - huge planes capable of carrying 120 tons each. Fuel, ammunition, spares, lubricants, drinks (unless you trust the local water) and daily rations of everything from food to toilet paper will probably need another 4-5 Galaxy sorties per day (more if you are on the move). This assumes one is airlifting rather than airdropping: if airdropping supplies the rule of thumb used to be that you need twice the capacity to carry the same load because of the extra packing, pallets and parachutes. So how much does your 5th century BC soldier need? The Greeks seemed to reckon on about two pounds (just under 1 kilo) of bread per day, supplemented by cheese, onions and whatever else one could scrounge or carry. Meat travelled on the hoof and was served up at intervals - perhaps when one felt fairly sure of laying one's hands on a fresh supply (Xenophon and the Ten Thousand often consumed theirs on the spot immediately after acquisition). We can average this out as 3-4 pounds of food per man per day, or 3.5 lbs. One day's worth can easily be carried on a soldier's person, and it is likely that 2-3 days supplies were carried by soldiers, with an indeterminate amount on wagons and/or pack animals. There have been a number of studies concerning how many wagons one needs to operate one week away from a base of supples, but this does not seem to be how Greeks, Persians or any other army of the period actually functioned. What seems to be the case (at least from my reading of the sources) is that armies tended to live off the land in an organised fashion - not by looting and plundering, but by making arrangements with the populations they moved through (Xenophon illustrates this quite well: Herodotus describes the Persians doing this on their march into Greece, but with longer prearrangement and on a much grander scale). The locals brought out their stores as you approached, and you thanked them or paid them or both. If they were not forthcoming with the food, your men were free to help themselves to the resources of the locality as they saw fit, so the locals usually preferred to come to an arrangement. In addition, whenever we encounter a Persian army campaigning around the Mediterranean littoral, we hear of huge fleets massed in their support (Herodotus mentions 3,000 ships supporting Xerxes' invasion). There was a fleet supposedly supporting the invasion of Scythia, but exactly how they managed to cooperate with an army moving well inland is an open question - perhaps they sailed up the navigable stretches of the great rivers of the Ukraine - and Dan's assertion that this invasion was let down by its logistical system (or lack of it) looks quite likely. In essence, as long as each man could be provided with his 3-4 pounds of food per day, and each horse something like 20 pounds of grain and fodder, the army could continue. Leaving aside water for the moment, this gives us a theoretical yardstick that, assuming 3.5 pounds per man per day, a ton of food can support 640 5th century infantry (say 600, as I used a long ton) or 95 cavalry and their horses (say 90). For a hypothetical army of c.20,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry, we would need 33.4 tons for the infantry and 22.3 tons for the cavalry - daily. This total of 56 tons could be conveyed as follows: 1) On the men and mounts themselves. 2) On pack animals at c.120 lbs per animal 3) In wagons at c.half a ton per wagon 4) In boats and ships The force would thus need 1,046 pack animals or 112 wagons to carry one day's supply, something like one pack animal per 20 men or one wagon per 180 men per day's supply carried once one adds supplies for the draft animals themselves. This requirement could be cut by having the animals graze once the marching day was over, although only open areas (grassland) would usually be suitable for this. This would be the essential sum total of the army's logistical arm, because replacement arrows and javelins do not seem to have been carried in any great quantities, and most armies seemed to travel on the basis that they would manage to resupply every few days. If assembled near a large city with immense granaries, the army could be fed directly until the time came to move elsewhere (this is probably how Darius III sustained his forces concentrated for use against Alexander). Inside the Persian Empire, or at least in Mesopotamia and Syria, the Persians could make good use of the inland waterway system built and maintained by the Assyrians and Babylonians (and ultimately destroyed by the Mongols). Mesopotamian river boats were customarily of the bundle-of-reeds type, but wooden boats with keel-and-ribs construction are also known from cuneiform texts. A large Mesopotamian riverboat seems to have been about one sixth of the dimensions of Noah's Ark (assuming a Sumerian cubit of about 28 inches), and could presumably carry a volume tonnage not dissimilar to a Mississippi river barge. The standard Mississippi barge of 195 feet carries 1,500 tons: the newer 290 foot barge about double that. I would be inclined to at least halve these weight figures for large Mesopotamian vessels on the basis that wooden construction would not be anywhere near as strong as steel. One large wooden Mesopotamian barge could thus carry at least one week's supply (c.400 tons) for our entire force of 20,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry and their draft teams or pack animals. This kind of rough estimation indicates that shifting supplies for very large armies within the Persian Empire, or at least the civilised portions with waterways, would be a snip. Outside the empire, shipping becomes more important as distances to the nearest friendly city with supplies increase and convenient offloading opportunities would not occur every day. Major Persian expeditions were always accompanied by major Persian fleets, and where our sources go into any sort of detail, the war fleets are covering swarms of transports. As Dan would also point out, it is no good launching an operation without logistical preparation: one needs a good stockpile of supplies otherwise lex Murphicus will ensure one runs out at precisely the most inconvenient moment. Stockpiling takes time. In this context, it is noteworthy that the big Persian expeditions are usually preceded by long preparation times: three years for the attempted reconquest of Egypt c.375 BC; four full years in the case of Xerxes' invasion of Greece. Long preparation times imply large stockpiles, and large stockpiles imply large armies - or extremely well-fed small ones! By contrast, the Athenian expedition against Syracuse (415 BC) was prepared between 'early in spring' when Sicilian envoys arrived and 'midsummer' when the ships and troops left - about 5,000 fighting men in 100 ships, exclusive of naval crews, who might add another 11,000 (!) on the basis of 170 men per trireme and 20 per transport. Indeed, Thucydides reckons Athens' mobilised manpower in the early years of the war, before the plague, to have reached 13,000 hoplites, 3,000 metics (resident aliens) and 'a multitude' of light troops. Even counting the 'multitude' as being less than the number of hoplites, Athens alone would have been fielding something like 20,000 fighting troops, all but 3,000 (besieging Potidaea) concentrated for a single campaign. If 17,000 or so troops from a single Greek city-state can be fielded with almost zero preparation, this suggests to me that either the Persians were incredibly inefficient or their armies were customarily much larger. My two staters. Sorry this is so long. Patrick |
Justin
Lost Battles forum at this link:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lostbattles/message/1527
The thread 'Lost Battles in the 18th Century" (highly relevant subject
title but there you are) covered the logistical problems of supplying
and moving a very large army in antiquity. The conclusion was that in
certain conditions it was possible to feed an army hundreds of
thousands or even millions strong on the march. There is no
insurmountable obstacle provided sufficient preparation was made
beforehand, and we know the Persian Empire could take several years to
prepare for its major campaigns.
On Jun 25, 12:26 am, Patrick Waterson <patrick_water...@yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:
Dan Powers
Patrick, I will need a few days to digest that. "That was AWESOME man!"
(For those not from the western US, that is a compliment.)
I will make a very brief comment on Persian 'prepared' logistics.
1) Scythian Campaign - The supporting fleet (and that description is a
stretch) is not operating as supplying anything that we know of for certain.
2) The invasion of Xerxes, had preplaced supplies - but it wasn't enough.
The original point of the Greek stand was to be at the Vale of Tempe on the
East side of Mount Olympus where Macedonia meets Thessaly. I will attach a
very ugly map. The problem is that you can go further west (inland) and go
through other passes - so the Persians would just out maneuver them and cut
them off. Alexander I of Macedonia let the Greeks know - at which point
they dropped back to Thermopylae.
But after only 3 days of fighting at Thermopylae - the Persians were nearly
out of supplies. The Persians did not risk meeting Greeks on the east side
of Olympus. Hence from Macedonia until the AFTER the last stand at
Thermopylae - the Persian main force had been out of direct contact for many
more days than the fighting.
Another day, would have crippled the Persian Army, and there is not much to
forage on in craggy rocky mountains. Coming through Thessaly they used what
was there = it wasn't enough. And Thessaly AND Macedonia are probably the
two richest agricultural areas of Greece.
* So what I am getting at, is they "planned" but obviously were still
clueless how much material they needed to support this invasion army. This
was far from their first operation, that lack of ability to adapt, the lack
of knowing what to plan - and suspiciously they either didn't know how
barren Greece was (i.e. not able to support their army) - they didn't know
or more likely ignored it - the decision makers at least.
Based on all of this, I suspect there army was at least 100,000 (low)
soldiers plus double (200-250 thousand total) that for support. If they
were separated into multiple columns or waves I would be willing to venture
to as high as 250-300 thousand soldiers, with again double to include
support/ followers; bringing my high number to around 500-600 thousand
total. BUT I think that is was probably a total of around 260-300 thousand.
The other method that seems to have been a critical point of analysis by
Delbruck, is you can only physically put so many people in a defined space.
We do not hear of any major outbreaks of contagious disease. You put 600
guys in a 500m square area - for more than 2 days with little or no water -
there will be outbreaks of typhoid, cholera, and a number of other nasty
bits. What to consider, given Herodotus fondness of the theatrical
especially dealing with gods - yet there is not a peep in Herodotus about
this. To me that is a very important indicator. It also means that however
big the force it was moving pretty fast. The plains of Thessaly and
Macedonia have very poor drainage. There were many swamps, with all the
nastiness that comes with mosquitoes and other almost tropical diseases.
My apologies for killing the dead horse. There are other critical factors
that need to be considered. The Greeks were quite good with medicine, the
Persians - well I won't go there.
Like I said the other day, it is a large topic that has not been adequately
treated by scholars. The two best works are by Jonathan Roth 'The Logistics
of the Roman Army at War 264BC - AD 235) Brill. 1999. And Paul Erdkamp
"Hunger and the Sword, Warfare and food supply in Roman Republican Wars
264-30 BC" Gieben. 1998.
On the Greek side the Only one I am aware of is Donald Engels "Alexander the
Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army" Univ. of California. 1978.
Which leaves a lot to be desired. Nick Hammond took the work, premise, and
analysis to task on several occasions. I am squarely in Nick's camp because
he operated as the SOE commander in Epirus, Thessaly, and Macedonia during
WWII and had to do the clandestine logistics using donkeys. Based on my own
experience, Nick knew what he was talking about.
As far as a complete work on logistics in the ancient world - so far one
does not exist. It should. Modern militaries invest billions, and train
full time pros to handle it. I would refer anyone to modern shipping and
freight transit. Transportation (logistics) is one of the most lucrative
enterprises, always has been.
These represent my own views. I think the actual numbers, have some flux
ability.
Mark
You've mentioned Darius' Scythian expedition a few times in these
discussions. Since using it as evidence seems to require coming to at
least some provisional conclusions about its nature and extent, I'm
curious to know where you've come down on that question.
For example, if all that was intended was a brief show of force on the
far side of the Ister to discourage Scythian interference, leaving the
fleet behind appears sensible. I appreciate the work done by Russian
scholars in particular to give some credence to the idea of deeper
Persian penetration into the steppes, but Herodotus' description of
the business is surely exaggerated, and once his account is left
behind, there's not much basis on which to establish what actually may
have happened (though Ctesias, for example, speaks of the Persians
spending only 15 days in Scythian territory: FGrHist 688 F 13, para.
21).
Regards,
Mark
Dan Powers
My apologies for the Scythian Expedition references. I stand on my own
side, and I think it is highly unlikely that the Persians crossed the
Dniester River. It is the first major river beyond the Ister (modern
Danube). The way that they used their supporting fleet which seems to have
been left at the Danube crossing, along with their engineers (seem to mostly
have been Ionian Greeks).
So I don't think that the "adventure" went above the Crimean peninsula. (I
wonder are you referring to Rostovtzeff's Iranians and Greeks in Southern
Russia? A very good book, I was happy to find a very nice copy for less
money than I expected.) Some have expressed the idea that the expedition
went west, and hit the mountains (Transylvanian Alps). I am less sure about
that, but it is easily possible. Far more likely than Darius reaching
Mongolia - which Herodotus and even some modern scholars have asserted.
Since we are talking about 'logistics' here is what I think. Their supply
train (if it was working at all is highly questionable) but let us say that
is was working. Even giving the Persians that the fleet or parts of it were
helping the point of termination or forward edge of supplies would have been
the bridge crossing the Danube. Since forces were left there, it would have
been fairly secure - and then they could have trickled the supplies out
following the expedition force. Based on that I give them about 400-600
mile radius of reasonable operating distance beyond that point. That puts
the Crimea in range as well as into the western mountains of Balkans. But
once they hit a major topographical feature, (sea, major river, or
mountains) I terminate their ability to progress beyond. In those mountains
they might be able to push two days worth into them, but on the high side
that is only. This probably makes me the most skeptical of them, than most
people I know. So in this case I represent the very conservative end. of
the spectrum.
Fragments are very good for enlightening smaller details and what not.
It was the Scythian expedition, 3 years ago, that got me started into this
very detailed analysis of the Persian Army under Darius. Since then my own
work has expanded to the end of the Ionian Revolt. So with the spread of
515-492, for me I see it as a relatively continuous piece of the Persian
Army and its history. That said, I use a lot of evidence within that period
about other parts. SO often I am comfortable interchanging details of the
Ionian Revolt with the Scythian expedition, or even the failed 492 invasion
of Greece that punched Xerxes rout across the Hellespont into the Chalcidice
peninsula as I think the Persian Army was essentially the same institution
throughout. I certainly may be wrong in that approach, but it is how I come
up with comparative evidence for the Persian military actions under Darius.
I apologize for not referencing this methodology previously.
Dan
Dan Powers
dar...@gmail.com
“It’s not a matter of being afraid or not, it’s about what you do when you
ARE afraid”
Dan:
Regards,
Mark
--
Marleen...@aol.com
Patrician
The question of sanitation for Persian camps that Dan perceptively
raised is one that as far as I know had not really been considered in
any depth, but there are a couple of pointers that might help to
explain why Persians (and for that matter Assyrians, Egyptians et. al.
were able to field quite substantial forces without suffering endemic
epidemics.
Pointer one is an extract from T. E. Lawrence's 'Seven Pillars of
Wisdom', describing his experiences with and impressions of the First
World War Arab revolt.
"The assiduous food-habit of a lifetime had trained the English body
to the pitch of producing a punctual nervous excitation in the upper
belly at the fixed hour of each meal: and we sometimes gave the
honoured name of hunger to the sign that our gut had cubic space for
more stuff. Arab hunger was the cry of a long-empty labouring body
fainting with weakness. They lived off a fraction of our bulk-food
and their systems made exhaustive use of what they got. A nomad army
did not dung the earth richly with by-products."
A spare diet and a population used to outdoor exertion could have
reduced considerably the output of that particular matter wherein lay
the principal risk of contamination.
Pointer two is from our old friend Herodotus (VII.187).
"... nor [can] the Indian hounds which followed the army be calculated
by reason of their multitude."
In India, sanitation has traditionally been achieved by letting dogs
run loose in the streets and allowing them to follow their natural
dietary inclinations, which includes a significant amount of what we
might call 'recycling'. While on the face of it this would just seem
to replace a human problem with a canine problem, in practice it is an
effective way of moving the problem away from human-frequented areas
and depositing it elsewhere.
It looks as if the sanitation problem a) may not have been as large as
we might expect for a given number of men, and b) would have been
largely addressed by the canine cleanup crew.
Disease is another matter, and may well have contributed to the
appalling Persian mortality on the return journey, especially as
starvation greatly reduces the resistance of the body to microbial
organisms. Anything delivered by the mosquitoes of Macedonia would
possibly have matured in time to manifest around the time of Salamis
or shortly after. Add that to the stark logistical crisis that hit
the Persians at that point and they had a recipe for catastrophe.
Fred, if you ever feel like a chat, please feel free to use my email:
patrick_...@yahoo.co.uk (the address listed on this Google group
is alas obsolete since Windows 7 prevented me from using it).
Patrick
Dan Powers
The point about the dogs is an excellent one. Something else to throw into
the mix. These are also very important factors to consider, and the
difference in "diet to expended work output" is also a critical point for
the discussion.
A place that I am currently looking is the history of the British cavalry
from 1850 through the end of World War One - particularly in the Middle East
to Central Asia. It is proving to be a very worthwhile endeavor, looking at
the same technology as the ancient world, but with incredibly better
records for the campaigns. *I did not think of this, it was a reference
point used by Nick Hammond, and it makes sense.
I dare say we have a very interesting conversation going on with this topic.
Dan
Dan Powers
dar...@gmail.com
"It's not a matter of being afraid or not, it's about what you do when you
ARE afraid"
-----Original Message-----
From: arkaion...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:arkaion...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Patrician
Sent: Saturday, June 25, 2011 1:37 PM
To: Arkaion Bellum (Ancient Battle and Warfare)
Subject: Re: Logistics
Patrick
--
Patrick Waterson
| Agreed, Dan: I think we are making it quite constructive, too. It might even be worthwhile to flip through T. E. Lawrence's 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom' at some point and skim a few notes on the operation of his Arab cavalry and camelry. There is an online text at http://www.wesjones.com/lawrence1.htm and if TEL's florid philosophising does not put one off, there are quite a few interesting actions described plus some good, hard military data. His Arabs operated on a much more stringent scale than British cavalry or camelry, as indicated by this handy little quote from the latter part of Chapter 59 (in Book V): "The camel, that intricate, prodigious piece of nature, in expert hands yielded a remarkable return. On them we were independent of supply for six weeks, if each man had a half-bag of flour, forty-five pounds in weight, slung on his riding-saddle." This works out to about a pound of flour per day. Mixed with water and baked on the embers of a camp fire, it yielded perhaps two pounds of digestible bread flavoured with traces of ash and the local flora. This was the sole ration unless a camel foundered, in which case two hundred pounds of meat would be shared out among the raiders. One pint of water was carried as an emergency ration. Apart from that, men drank when they watered their mounts. The scale of maintenance was similarly lean: each man looked after his own mount, attending to the feet, combing out ticks and other parasites, and doing the same for himself. The following extract (from Chapter 104 - yes, it is a long book) shows something of the difference in operation between Lawrence's Arabs and the Imperial Camel Corps, which had been assigned to support them. The 'baggage train' was carrying no supplies, but 6,000 pounds of gun-cotton for use against bridges and railways. "However, it was a perfect morning, with the sun hot on our backs, and the wind fresh in our faces. The Camel Corps strode splendidly past the frosted tips of the three peaks into the green depths of Dhirwa. They looked different from the stiff, respectful companies which had reached Akaba, for Buxton's supple brain and friendly observation had taken in the experience of irregular fighting, and revised their training rules for the new needs. He had changed their column formation, breaking its formal subdivision of two hard companies: he had changed the order of march, so that, instead of their old immaculate lines, they came clotted, in groups which split up or drew together without delay upon each variation of road or ground surface. He had reduced the loads and rehung them, thereby lengthening the camels' pace and daily mileage. He had cut into their infantry system of clockwork halts every so often (to let the camels stale!) and grooming was less honoured. In the old days, they had prinked their animals, cosseting them like Pekinese, and each halt had been lightened by a noisy flapping massage of the beasts' stripped humps with the saddle-blanket; whereas now the spare time was spent in grazing. Consequently, our Imperial Camel Corps had become rapid, elastic, enduring, silent; except when they mounted by numbers, for then the three hundred he-camels would roar in concert, giving out a wave of sound audible miles across the night. Each march saw them more workmanlike, more at home on the animals, tougher, leaner, faster. They behaved like boys on holiday, and the easy mixing of officers and men made their atmosphere delightful. My camels were brought up to walk in Arab fashion, that bent-kneed gait with much swinging of the fetlock, the stride a little longer and a little quicker than the normal. Buxton's camels strolled along at their native pace, unaffected by the men on their backs, who were kept from direct contact with them by iron-shod boots and by their wood and steel Manchester-made saddles. Consequently, though I started each stage alongside Buxton in the van, I forged steadily in front with my five attendants; especially when I rode my Baha, the immensely tall, large-boned, upstanding beast, who got her name from the bleat-voice forced on her by a bullet through the chin. She was very finely bred, but bad-tempered, half a wild camel, and had never patience for an ordinary walk. Instead, with high nose and wind-stirred hair, she would jig along in an uneasy dance, hateful to my Ageyl for it strained their tender loins, but to me not unamusing. In this fashion we would gain three miles on the British, look for a plot of grass or juicy thorns, he in the warm freshness of air, and let our beasts graze while we were overtaken; and a beautiful sight the Camel Corps would be as it came up. Through the mirage of heat which flickered over the shining flint-stones of the ridge we would see, at first, only the knotted brown mass of the column, swaying in the haze. As it grew nearer the masses used to divide into little groups, which swung; parting and breaking into one another. At last, when close to us, we would distinguish the individual riders, like great water-birds breast-deep in the silver mirage, with Buxton's athletic, splendidly-mounted figure leading his sunburnt, laughing, khaki men. It was odd to see how diversely they rode. Some sat naturally, despite the clumsy saddle; some pushed out their hinder-parts, and leaned forward like Arab villagers; others lolled in the saddle as if they were Australians riding horses. My men, judging by the look, were inclined to scoff. I told them how from that three hundred I would pick forty fellows who would out-ride, out-fight and out-suffer any forty men in Feisal's army. At noon, by Ras Muheiwer, we halted an hour or two, for though the heat to-day was less than in Egypt in August, Buxton did not wish to drive his men through it without a break. The camels were loosed out, while we lay and lunched and tried to sleep, defying the multitude of flies which had marched with us from Bair in colonies on our sweaty backs. Meanwhile, my bodyguard passed through, grumbling at their indignity of baggage driving, making believe never to have been so shamed before, and praying profanely that the world would not hear of my tyranny to them. Their sorrow was doubled since the baggage animals were Somali camels, whose greatest speed was about three miles an hour. Buxton's force marched nearly four, myself more than five, so that the marches were for the Zaagi and his forty thieves a torment of slowness, modified only by baulking camels, or displaced loads. We abused their clumsiness, calling them drovers and coolies, offering to buy their goods when they came to market; till perforce they laughed at their plight. After the first day they kept up with us by lengthening the march into the night (only a little, for these ophthalmia-stricken brutes were blind in the dark) and by stealing from the breakfast and midday halts. They brought their caravan through without losing one of all their charges; a fine performance for such gilded gentlemen; only possible because under their gilt they were the best camel-masters for hire in Arabia." The cavalry of the Persian Empire probably operated somewhere between the British and Arab 'systems'. (The above extract deals with camelry, but mirrors the respective peoples' approach to cavalry, as far as I can judge.) By sketching out the two 'systems' and looking for indicators as to which trend the Persians were more closely associated (not necessarily the same in all cases), it might be possible to locate them somewhere on the continuum and put together a few reasonably definitive pointers about how they handled their cavalry and its logistical requirements. This would be something of a first. I am too lazy to attempt this, but please feel free. :-) Patrick --- On Sun, 26/6/11, Dan Powers <dar...@gmail.com> wrote: |
Dan Powers
This is great stuff. A few people have also suggested to me to look into the Ottoman Cavalry up to the end of WWI. When I have some more time hopefully at some point this summer. Putting the Arab accounts we have, with the British, and Turkish operations in the area - I personally think would be extremely enlightening. Of course that takes time and recourses to get all the information and sort through it - it a multi-year long endeavor alone. It seems I keep having more of those.
Then of course to sit down with each of the ancient sources and begin to look at them in comparison. The finished product I think would be most excellent. Come to think of it, Napoleon's campaign in the east Med, may also provide some very useful tools. (I think I have only ever read one book on him.) It makes me wonder if there is any surviving archival material in France about that.
Constructive is good, I like constructive a lot.
Dan
Dan Powers
“It’s not a matter of being afraid or not, it’s about what you do when you ARE afraid”
From: arkaion...@googlegroups.com [mailto:arkaion...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Patrick Waterson
Sent: Sunday, June 26, 2011 6:59 AM
To: arkaion...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Logistics
Patrick Waterson
| That is excellent, Dan: using three different sources of WW1 data covering three different though related traditions of practice in the mounted arm will give much better perspective than just two. It does mean a lot of work ... The French are reasonably certain to have maintained records about Napoleon's East Med campaign: the main French expedition came to grief after Napoleon left, but he would almost certainly have taken copious notes with him (he reorganised the entire French cavalry in 1799-1800) and they, or copies of them, plus period memoirs and other documentation, are probably lovingly guarded by curators in France's more prestigious museums. Bourienne's memoirs http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?pageno=108&fk_files=1818003 are rather brief, but p.109 outlines the supply organisation (or absence of it) and p.113 covers their approach march to the Battle of the Pyramids: "The misery we suffered on our passage from Rahmahanie'h to Gizeh is indescribable. We lived for eleven days on melons and water, besides being momentarily exposed to the musketry of the Arabs and the fellahs. We luckily escaped with but a few killed and wounded." The Acre campaign was characterised by supply scarcity. At Jaffa, the French took around 4,000 prisoners. "We gave them a little biscuit and bread, squeezed out of the already scanty supply for the army." "On the evening of the following day the daily reports of the generals of division came in. They spoke of nothing but the insufficiency of the rations, the complaints of the soldiers..." The prisoners were killed the following day, for no reason other than that they could not be supplied. Bourienne also makes a note about the Emperor's reporting of events through public channels: "The siege of St. Jean d'Acre was raised on the 20th of May. It cost us a loss of nearly 3000 men, in killed, deaths by the plague, or wounds. A great number were wounded mortally. In those veracious documents, the bulletins, the French loss was made 500 killed, and 1000 wounded, and the enemy's more than 15,000." He adds: "Our bulletins may form curious materials for history; but their value certainly will not depend on the credit due to their details. Bonaparte attached the greatest importance to those documents; generally drawing them up himself, or correcting them, when written by another hand, if the composition did not please him." The phrase: "Lie like a bulletin" had become a common saying in the French army by 1807. The moral is really that Napoleon's writings for public or foreign consumption are not reliable, but such things as staff returns and equipment inventories, whch circulated solely at headquarters, should be. For the archives, these people might know where to start looking: http://www.napoleonica.org/us/na/na_contact.html Or we may have a group member who could give a few pointers. I think 'constructive' is becoming the watchword of this forum. Nice to keep it that way. Patrick --- On Mon, 27/6/11, Dan Powers <mas...@thedarkgoalie.com> wrote: |
Mark
No apologies are neeed - thanks very much for the elucidation.
Just as an aside, by Russians I wasn't thinking of Rostovtzeff so much
as more recent work (e.g. Chernenko's piece on the Scythian expedition
in "Drevnosti stepnoi skifii" [1982] and his "Skifo-persidskaya
voina" [1984]) with arguments that Darius reached the Sea of Azov or
perhaps even further.
>
> Discussion Forum Sponsored by:http://arkaion-bellum.com/- Hide quoted text -
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> - Show quoted text -
Mark
the Classical Quarterly: "Immortals and Apple Bearers: Towards a
Better Understanding of Achaemenid Infantry Units", 61 CQ n.s. (2011):
114-133. While it does not turn the world upside, down, it does
present a comprehensive review of all the literary evidence (seemingly
for the first time), and among other things a convincing argument that
the 1,000 "apple bearers" (mêlophoroi) of the royal guard were not a
sub-unit of the 10,000 Immortals.
It's probably best to let the conclusion (p. 133) speak for itself:
"A much better understanding of the Persian standing infantry of the
Achaemenid
era is possible, although the Ten Thousand and the Persian royal guard
must remain
enigmatic. This investigation, however, makes it clear that the royal
guard, known
to the Greeks as the μηλοφόροι, was the true elite regiment of Persian
infantry
throughout the Achaemenid period, while the so-called Immortals, by
way of contrast,
comprised the permanent Persian infantry in the Great King’s service –
at
least while this collective entity lasted. It is not possible,
however, to offer any
clarity regarding the other 1,000-strong unit of αἰχμοφόροι described
by Herodotus,
although the suggestion that the two groups are halves of the same
1,000-strong
unit of μηλοφόροι could well be meritorious. The fame of the Immortals
among
the Greeks was not because they possessed any extraordinary military
prowess
but because they constituted a standing army of 10,000. They were thus
superior
(excepting the αἰχμοφόροι) to other Persian infantry units on account
of their
constant state of readiness and royal rather than satrapal
association. While this is
not remarkable from a modern perspective, it must have been a source
of wonder
to the Greeks, whose standing armies, if such they could be called,
were very
small indeed, or in some cases practically non-existent. Furthermore,
this analysis
refutes the widely accepted notion that the μηλοφόροι were part of the
ἀθάνατοι,
rather than a wholly separate unit. To suggest otherwise calls into
question several
passages of Herodotus, yet nobody has yet mounted a compelling case as
to
why his material relating to the Ten Thousand and the Apple Bearers
should be
discounted. Herodotus, though his initial account of the Persian
infantry remains
rather muddled, suggests elsewhere that the royal guard operated
independently of
the ἀθάνατοι. Likewise, Arrian’s reference to the μηλοφόροι at
Gaugamela without
any hint of the Immortals – a formation surely known to the author and
which
seemingly did not exist by the time of Darius III – is highly
suggestive of the
independent nature of the royal guard. What became of the so-called
Immortals,
however, remains a mystery."