Persian scythed chariots

The first mobile instrument to be used as a shock tactic in warfare was the chariot.

The January 2009 issue of Armchair General magazine presents our cover story article, “50 Battles That Shaped Our World.” Several of these key battles were fought by the armies of ancient Greece and Rome. This article by Vincent Lopez, currently a student in Norwich University’s acclaimed Master of Arts in Military History program, examines the impact (quite literally) of ancient armies’ shock tactics. – Editor

Subscribe Today

• Subscribe to Armchair General Magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!
 

Shocking the Mind of the Battlefield
Shock Tactics During the Greco-Roman Wars

According to Clausewitz’s dictum, “war is the conduct of policy by other means”. If this is the case, then the Greeks and Romans were masters of this policy. Through the writing of Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch and many more historians, we see evidence of great nations entering into combat during the times of ancient Greece and Rome. Knowledge of the Persian wars, Peloponnesian War, Alexander’s conquest of Persia, Rome’s conquest of Greece, the Punic Wars, and multitudes of others can be found in the writings that ancient historians left behind. What we can deduce from these ancient manuscripts is twofold. First was the necessity of armies to press large numbers of their male population into service for the state. Manpower was essential to these ancient armies as, usually, the army that acquired more soldiers into its service was far more likely to achieve victory through attrition warfare. This was especially evident in the case with the armies of ancient Rome, though both Greek and Roman civilizations depended more on heavy infantry deployment than on cavalry and light infantry operations. The second aspect of warfare which can be deduced from the ancient record was a seemingly unavoidable reliance on shock tactics to defeat the enemy through sheer psychological impact.

Although armies in the ancient Greco-Roman era of warfare emphasized shock tactics, examination of this subject reveals that coverage of it is quite sparse. The focus of most historians consisted mainly of information: the war’s outcomes; battles that took place; locations and dates of battles; causes of battles; and principal commanders. Yet, few works contained the ramifications of psychological events that took place before, during, and/or after the battle through the use of shock tactics. Specifically, the methods of psychological warfare that were a factor in the battles’ and wars’ outcomes were lacking serious research. Although some historians did cover psychological shock tactics in Greek and Roman military history, such accounts are rare.

For example, W.W. Tarn, in his book Alexander the Great, chronicles the events of the life of the Macedonian king, but unfortunately, he does not go into much detail of the psychological shock tactics in Alexander’s campaigns in Asia Minor, Persia, and in Greece. He does make mention of particular morale concerns after the conquest of Persia, yet, with little more than a paragraph being given in this regard; it is not enough to get a well defined grasp of the consequences of these morale implications. N.G.L. Hammond’s History of Greece to 322 B.C. focused on the typical who, what, when, where, and why version of ancient Greek events. There is very little mention of the psychological shock tactics in Greece’s armies. It does convey information which, if properly researched, could help to recognize psychological shock tactics.

Most articles which have been published seem to also lack any significant research regarding psychological shock tactics in antiquity. B.D. Hoyos wrote “Hannibal: What Kind of Genius?” This article took a counter-active stance on Hannibal, explaining that although Hannibal was an excellent general, he was not the ‘Genius’ today’s culture typically perceives him to be. In the article, he mentions integration practices with war but not shock tactics used in battle.

Help Armchair General by bookmarking to