How the fuck were they carried out? How were they commanded? Was it simply the General who commanded the battle? If so, how did he communicate his orders? And in general, how did formations of men know what the orders were in the mayhem of a battle? Any information on how battles progressed, how long the average battle was & just general info is appreciated too.
I have complete trouble imagining battles in any way. It's easy to come up with some Hollywood battle from Gladiator but the idea of squads of men marching towards each other with stabby bits of metal seems so foreign. I'm sure even people in the medieval/ancient world who had never witnessed a battle had trouble imagining one also though.
Extra points for historical/contemporary sources too.
Pretty much the same as today, general sends letters to groups, local leaders in the form of officers who distribute orders down the line until you get to squad formations of some sort, thus everyone knows what they need to do
Justin Myers
They smashed them together like a autistic kid with two wooden blocks
Jonathan Brown
But upon new orders, how would this reach those on the frontline? Would they be in a position to obey and break off fighting? I know that battles mostly ended in routs but frontline sounds like complete suicide.
Most realistic recreated battle I can find but it doesn't answer questions regarding the orders, and of course its specific to Cannae.
Matthew Miller
This. The general will tell his staff officers (Legates or Tribunes) what the plan is, how he wants things deployed, what he expects the different sections of the army to do. Then he picks his spot, which if he's a good Roman, will be close to where he expects the fighting to be the thickest.
The staff officers pass this down to the senior and junior centurions, who then tell the private soldiers what their role will be in their particular sector. Centurions had a fair bit of latitude for independent action, and the legates or tribunes are going to be within sight and trumpet range of you. The general himself may ride in close to a trouble spot to unfuck it, as Caesar did many times.
Basically the same as now. The difference now is that radio allows our fronts to be spread out over dozens of miles, rather than one or two. This is what made being a gifted commander so important; not so much that you were controlling every little detail, but that you trained your army to the point that they don't require a lot of micromanagement, they know what to do, they know what YOU expect of them, and they trust you even if they can't see you.
Jaxon Jackson
Runners, on or off horseback, and the use of bugle calls and drum tattoos. The generals would be mounted or have horses nearby, and were likely to situate themselves up high somewhere so they could see what was happening all along the line. If things got bad, you would personally rush there to rally.
Obviously this was not a perfect system, but it's important to remember these battles could and did last from early morning until it got too dark to go on. There was time to get around the battle if you needed to.
David Brooks
>Legates or Tribunes Thanks for the titles. Going to research them in a bit. I do remember while reading Cassius Dio (I think), he said Caesar gave order to his Officers (presumably Legates) that if they saw Brutus in battle, on account of his mother, not to hurt him. It's a bit indirect and not even describing a battle specifically but it gives you an idea of what sort of control was held over a battle.
>If things got bad, you would personally rush there to rally. This makes sense, I can imagine battles becoming pretty unorganised and chaotic rather easily.
Evan Bennett
> Would they be in a position to obey and break off fighting?
If they were directly engaged, probably not. That's why most battles started with as much as 80% of their men in reserve (although this varied HUGELY across time and space), but it was really hard to break off if you were clashing swords and spears with other people.
Ian King
Actually the narration of Hannibal giving orders to his officers throughout gives some insight. But yeah not on the field it doesn't.
James Cruz
And would they just continue holding whatever frontline they had established even amongst the mayhem or did battles ever turn into how we see them in most ancient/medieval movies? (completely disogranised with no formation or frontline at all). These are largely all assumptions based on my own logic, but I imagine battles that lasted from morning to night as the other user described would have trouble holding the same frontline consistently.
Ryder Turner
Again, you're talking about something that has no single answer among literally thousands of years of warfare across entire continents.
Generally, good, disciplined troops would hold to their lines, although often the location of the line wouldn't remain static for an entire battle; usually, you'd either be advancing or retreating if there was melee combat.
Less professional troops often would break apart and grow ragged as the battle raged, and often would need to cycle out, reform. (How well they did so again varied enormously) You could get completely disorganized melees, but usually you'd at least try to get your troops out of the line of fire before they degenerated to that.
Elijah Walker
Well that question I was really addressing any pre-modern period, but my study is Late Republican-Early Prinicipate history (Rome) if that narrows it down at all, but I'm interested in all history regardless.
>you'd either be advancing or retreating if there was melee combat. This seems so simple, not sure why I didn't just know that instinctively.
A general plan would be determined beforehand and lieutenants would have authority to change their ordered course of action during the battle, if they saw fit. Communication was carried out by couriers on foot or horseback, sending messages to lieutenants (Centurions etc.), units were generally ordered by signals from flags or trumpets / horns / noise-making instruments, which simple commands could be carried out.
Two infantry units engaging eachother would probably turn into unless a third unit could engage one from the back or side, providing some tactical advantage beyond numbers.
Jaxson Taylor
I think better quastions how could they be supplied. We have decent knowledge about European battles of 17 century and army sizes of that time. Degradation due fall of Rome wasnt so much to explaine huge armies of ancient and middle age. Logistcs says no to legends like Hannibal, Alexander the Great or Mongols.
Isaac White
why would you ever send your army out to fight instead of fortify your position and slowly advance
Brandon Nelson
Because while you're dicking around building defences and going slowly, your enemy is moving quickly and capturing important stuff that makes your fortifications less useful or important.
Caleb Bell
>spend a fuckload of time building fortifications you plan on inevitably abandoning and advancing past >meanwhile the enemy is outmaneuvering you and has now enveloped you on both flanks
William Collins
Depends on the time, culture, and manpower. Small armies rarely clashed in all out, violent conflicts. Skirmishes were common. All out assaults and pitched battles were very costly even to win.
Anthony Lopez
>how did formations do shit in the mayhem of battle? Most of the times they actually didn't and thus their commanders had to make independent decisions taking in consideration how those decisions will affect the other parts of the army. One of the main reasons Caesar managed to conquer Gaul was because his Centurions were the best of the best instead of being politically picked. >how long the average battle was? Depends on the size. You'd call two bands of ~100 men each fighting each other a battle, right? That'd be done in less than an hour. A fight between giant armies of tens of thousands could last over a day, with the reserve troops sleeping and eating in the back. >How battles progressed I'm gonna talk about pre-gunpowder era things here, and it's gonna be pretty lengthy.
The battle can be split up into 3 parts. Some battles don't really follow the order but most do. >Skirmish >Melee/Fight >Pursue
The Skirmish phase(usually) is the least important, scouts and groups of scouts would intercept one another and have small fights. When the armies assembled the skirmish continued with the ranged troops firing on the other side and cavalry trying to scare them off while avoiding getting too close to the main unit Very few people died in the skirmish phase and it factored more in terms of morale.
The Melee phase is when the armies clash, either charging into one another or one charging into the other. This is when the fighting takes place until one of the armies is overwhelmed and routs. Infantry would push the enemy or hold the line while cavalry would try flanking the enemy.
The Pursue phase is where most of the enemies were killed or captured. After one of the armies chooses to retreat entirely, the other would chase down individual solders and try to kill or capture them. The more cavalry the winning side had, the fewer got away in this phase.
The melee is where equipment, tactics, morale, discipline and everything else post deployment matter most.
