Page 169 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

1946 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

In order to defend Paris
during the Franco-Prussian War,
a national guard unit begins
moving toward the front.

that shape war-making in particular soci-
eties. This is not to deny that the funda-
mental constraints of economics and
technology do not shape warfare—the
largest historical patterns certainly can
be constructed around such factors—but
rather that how different societies make use
of technology depends on their pre-existing
social and cultural characteristics. It is the
combination of social organization and
technology, in fact, that marks the first two
stages of the history of war (“types” might
be more accurate than “stages,” because the
two existed concurrently and often in
symbiosis).

Elites and Commoners
In early sedentary societies, the social divi-
sion of elites and commoners proved fun-
damental to military organization, though
different states managed the division in different ways. nal service, exemplified by the phalanxes of the Greek
Though masses of conscript infantry might constitute the city-states, bound foot soldiers together. More often, the
numerical bulk of a polity’s army, a spearhead of warriors emergence of a strong state allowed rulers to raise and
who were elite both by training and social status usually train large infantry forces, imposing cohesion from
made up the most effective and sometimes the only real above: This is the model of imperial Rome and China.
fighting force. The dominance of elites was reinforced Variations of state strength, elite dominance, and social
through differential distribution of the best military tech- structure account for most of the different forms taken by
nology, which meant in the first instance metal weapons, armies from classical times and well into the second mil-
first of bronze and later of iron.A second technology, the lennium CE.
domesticated horse, allowed elite warriors mounted on
chariots to thoroughly dominate ancient battlefields. In Horse Peoples
time, chariots gave way to riding, but the superior social But a second model of social and political organization
position of the cavalryman remained, marked by the coexisted with the sedentary elite-commons model from
height from which troopers looked down on foot soldiers early on, and regularly bested the latter’s many variations
and the cost of their mounts. in combat. Domestication of the horse (and probably the
In later ages, the dominance of often-mounted elites invention of the chariot as well as riding) was in fact a
usually survived socially and politically even when the product of the central Asian steppes, the vast grasslands
massed infantry assumed central importance on the bat- stretching from the northwestern borders of China into
tlefield. Dominant infantry forces were not the product the Hungarian plain.Too dry for agriculture, the steppes
of technology, but again of social and political condi- instead supported a population of nomadic herders.
tions. Cohesion is the key to infantry effectiveness, and it Hardened by constant competition for grazing lands and
emerged in two ways. In certain circumstances, commu- inured by their lifestyle to constant campaigning, when