Leadership in military history

In antiquity the "general" was just the biggest, strongest veteran fighter.
They did fight from the front, in the thick of things.
The idea of the general as someone who sits back and observes formation and gives orders comes from organized combined arms warfare, which is a relatively new development, just a few thousand years old at most, and in much of the world less than that.

Wew lads

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>In antiquity the "general" was just the biggest, strongest veteran fighter.

No they were often from the aristocracy and not necessarily the best fighter. They did often fight amongst their men though, but still took the role of commanding rather than simply fighting with their men.

>aristocracy

Again a recent development that didn't exist in the time period being referred to.

>Again a recent development that didn't exist in the time period being referred to.

What?

"The term "aristocracy" (Greek: ἀριστοkρατία) was first used in Athens with reference to young citizens (the men of the ruling class) who led armies at the front line."

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The tripshit that derailed the thread wasn't entirely wrong. Artillery and accurate rifling with its accompanied light infantry doctrine made leading from the front inefficient and wasteful, (even before the rise of missiles and air power.)

That said, leadership outside of the Military has changed as well, mostly due to Democracy becoming the government type for most developed countries. This has led to the transition from Napoleons and Bismarcks to the separation of the Military from the political government.

If you want an interesting early example of how delegation of responsibilities played out (to mostly positive ends,) read up on the reign of based Lizzie I.

Plenty, but it basically boils down to scale of warfare and communications tech available.

Like, a general's presence in a modern battlefield makes little to no sense at all, while it does in a tribal nignog war of our ancestors.

>tribal nignog war of our ancestors.
>ancestors

Hitler lost lad, Slavs are still a thing.

People fought each other before Athens, user. There was civilizaton before greek democracy.

>Phoenicians
>Assyrians
>Babylonians
>Hittites
>Sumerians
>Egyptians
>white

>The tripshit that derailed the thread

??

Yeah, the tripfag derailed the thread, not the bunch of shitposting Anons posting and reposting that copypasta...

What does this post have to do with anything being discussed here?
What are you even attempting to do here?

Thing is, this thread was put in the awkward position that most boards are increasingly finding themselves in. It's a good thread subject, but if you indulge in shitposter appeasement, you end up like /tv/, or for a continuing struggle, the sad remnants of /pol/.

They wear us all down by attrition, until no-one that isn't autistic bothers to post anymore.

Was testing the waters to see if there were shitposters still lurking. This has fortunately proven not to be the case.

So?

Most generals were from the ruling class

Your post makes no sense.

Most professional soldiers were from the ruling class. Your underestimate how many people were "the ruling class" at the time.

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You will learn in time young one.

I say that it makes no sense because it has nothing to do with the subject matter , or with my reply, you moron.

>In ancient and medieval history, officers and generals would take part in battles and lead from the from.

No they wouldn't. Sure they would have to be physically present in order to command, but leaders didn't fight in the front line, because that would be stupid.

My point was more that it was more of a case of their status that lead to generalship, rather than just merit.

And my case is that you needed a certain amount of status to have any merit. Can't be a good general if you never left your settlement in your life, and your whole work experience revolves around farming and fixing roofs.

Among those who could possibly have any merit, the decision was made mostly by merit.
You could have some son/cousin as a general, but there'd always be an actually good general next to him to do the actual generaling.

Except they did engage in combat. There are accounts of for example Alexander the Great almost getting killed and getting wounded at different battles. Even up to the 17th century you still see clear warrior kings who engaged at the front. Even during WW1 you had the king of Belgium at the frontline.

Historically being able to surround yourself with a powerful bodyguard and afford the best armor protected you from a lot of the risks.

>No they were often from the aristocracy and not necessarily the best fighter.
Except for much of history the responsibility of the ruling/land-owning class has been to be fighters and leaders. Especially in the context of ancient Greece but even a century ago the concept was still alive, especially in Prussia.

Many did, actually.

Sulla, Robert the Bruce, Gustav Adolf, Marechal Ney, to name some examples.

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>Even during WW1 you had the king of Belgium at the frontline.
Well to be honest that is a far cry from a warrior-king charging with his knights into the routed enemy. He would have been in the frontlines in the same way a staff general is - relatively far away from fighting, not actually shooting bad guys.

He was at the front lines in between attacks, shaking hands with the depressed soldiers and wounded.

As far as I can tell there's a very thin line between Alexander's real life and a greek fairy tale.

As for the rest of the generals everyone seems to be referencing i have no doubt they "participated" in combat but they were not out there with the rank and file on the front lines.

At best they took strategical positions that allowed them the best command of the battlefield. I'm sure their regulars loved it when it seemed like they were in the thick of things and it boosted morale and created a lot of stories and what not.

In war; death is constant. It's a different morality than you're used to dealing with and most people probably can't even comprehend.

Value is assigned to everything, including life. It just couldn't work any other way. The life of a general is pretty high up there, they didn't take any more risks than were necessary.

To address the OP. Modern communication systems is the correct answer. Anything else is some idealist bullshit romanticizing their favorite general.

I don't disagree that it is a far cry from the warrior kings of centuries past but he was supposed to have been on the actual frontlines and it's supposed to have been noted that he was well within where he could have been shot. But I'm really not an expert on Albert I of Belgium.

Is there anyone arguing that most of these men would have been with the rank and file?

The typical image is of the leader heading some sort of elite/chosen force and I'm not sure there are many exceptions to that.

There are examples of them even dying in combat so I'm not sure you need to put quotation marks around participated. Many of the men we remember as warrior kings were much more so known for risk-taking and boldness than they were for caution.

Because in past armies were smaller and communication more primitive and thus a commander could offer more by being at the helm.
But it wasn't THAT common.
Besides that, there was also moral aspect to it, him being a leader and thus fighting with his men. If he was good fighter it was great for morale.

However, once armies grew huge and gunpowder warfare advanced, along with communications, commander at the helm becomes pretty dumb, because he could easily be killed, he doesn't really have a good overview of the situation, and he can't communicate with his troops properly.

>Except they did engage in combat.

Not really though. There may be isolated exceptions, but those you listed are not among them. Like I said, they had to be physically present, which means they had to be in some danger (especially since they would be an obvious target), but that doesn't mean they would be in thick of it. Alex only jumped in after the enemy was already routed.

It just makes no sense for a leader to be at the front. You can't command and fend off spear thrusts at the same time. And you don't put someone in a dangerous position if their death loses the battle and the war.

Which time period is that?

I don't know where you're getting the idea that Alexander only rode down fleeing units. The cavalry charges he lead were key to victory, not just a mop up operation. Are you proposing that all the accounts of him engaging in battle, getting wounded or being saved by people like Cleitus are pure myth? Even though there are plenty of example of monarchs engaging in combat, both in his period and later and when war was the responsibility of the country's leaders?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Monarchs_killed_in_action
(though not all these are strictly battle deaths)

A lot of historical leaders did engage in combat and died doing so. This list doesn't even include some examples, like Agis III of Sparta.

>And you don't put someone in a dangerous position if their death loses the battle and the war.
People don't always act with perfect logic.

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I remember reading that Shingen Takeda was nicknamed "the mountain" because he didn't move his fat ass from his chair during battles, even when the ennemy cavalary started charging towards his position. He just gave orders to staff or with his commanding fan. Way to be lazy and badass

I don't understand your schtick. I get the caps lock, tripping isn't quite enough attention-whoring for you; I get that by swanning into a thread and responding as breezily as possible you appear clever and the other looks like a tit. What I don't understand is that because you are outright wrong much (if not most) of the time, and when you aren't your responses are pared back to the point of being over-simplistic and pretty well useless, nobody is buying it. Nobody thinks you are Veeky Forums's own intellectual juggernaut. Why persist? Have you got high on your own supply? Are you just engaging in the lowest form of trolling by pretending to be a retard in order to farm (You)s?

Where the increased effectiveness of gunpowder weaponry had influence is upon the development of combined arms tactics at both the unit and battlefield levels, more effective artillery started to be used during the Italian Wars and (more importantly IMO) effective firearms and use of them in mutually supportive blocks of pike and shot, the Landsknechte in the late 15th century while still heavy on the melee component but were able to defeat the renowned Swiss who were fixated on pikes. So you had these mercenaries which had increased in use, fulfilling the need for professional soldiery, then in the Italian Wars the potential of these professionals were utilised effectively leading to the Spanish raising a standing army in the Tercios with bullion from the new world. With them came a stiffening and granularisation of the command structure. So there's the return of professional soldiery that means that they no longer need to be lead from the front for the purpose of morale, the development of combined arms at formation and army level which leads to the stratification of command structure, and to exploit the discipline of standing armies to their full potential it becomes desirable, if not necessary for army commanders to be able to survey as much of the battlefield as possible and have ready access to lines of communication. Of course there's exceptions on either side that muddy things a bit. Now if I were to drop a smug one-liner I wouldn't pick firearms as the primary cause for change.

If you had tried to be helpful people might respect you, instead of seeing you as just another shitheel mouthbreathing cunt trying to carve out a sort of anti-cult of personality by trying to be as obnoxious and retarded as possible.

Most roman generals gave orders through the back of the line or just maintained formations

>You can't command and fend off spear thrusts at the same time.
In the pre-modern era, you can't command 90% of your forces anyway due to dust clouds, and the ones you can see, can't fucking hear you.

Once your men are committed, there's nothing to do but join the damn battle.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Hellespont_(321_BC)

Not go look up EVERY roman to win or try to claim the spoila optima, and the fucking escapades phryus got into.

Oh, and don't forget the long, long list of duels romans got into, nobles included.

And then ther'es the medieval period, where almost every commander fought the enemy face to face.

Why are you retarded?

Is it from playing RTS games?

I bet it's RTS games.