ELi5: In ancient wars, how did the commanders know if they are winning a war while they were in the chaos of the war?
In: Other
They often didn’t. The first sign that you were loosing a battle was that your dudes are running away.
Out on campaign, you had scouts to tell you where the enemy was and how many were there. You can make plans and issue orders to your subordinates but once you ordered all your men into combat you could only hope and pray. In fact, there are records of Roman generals, performing religious rites in the middle of battle.
As a rule: if they were experiencing chaos in a battle they were losing it.
Ancient warfare wasn’t about feeding two opposing armies into a chaotic melee like you see commonly depicted on TV. They were about keeping your infantry in formation while trying to out-maneuver the opposing side, either with a second force or cavalry, to get the opposing side to break formation and run.
In initial stages you’d have two opposing shield walls/spear walls butting against each other, but often with light casualties. These formations were much more effective defensively than offensively. As long as your side kept discipline and kept in formation you kept a strong defensive advantage.
When one side broke – due to being flanked, a cavalry charge breaking through their front line, an attack from the rear, loss of command communication, morale failure, etc the battle turned to a very one sided blood bath as the side that maintained order butchered the opposing side.
They really didn’t. Even wars less than a century ago were fought without the local commanders in a battle knowing the overall state of the war. For a shocking example, there were (a very small number of) WWII combatants still fighting in the 1970s. Let that one sink in for a bit.
Mark Antony says in HBO’s Rome when Augustus has the same question
> When in doubt, attack!
During Medieval times Heralds were official messengers and would often observe and record the outcome of battles. They are experts in recognizing coat of arms and keeping detailed track of noblemen. In the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Years’ War the English herald and French herald observed the battle and then agreed that the English were the victors.
Fun history trivia. The last battle between the British and the US during the War of 1812 was fought after the war had ended. Word of the war’s end hadn’t reached either of the two armies in the field in time to avoid the fight.
America won that battle, but it didn’t matter as the treaty had already been signed.
Most battles never really devolved into chaos. A lot of battles would start with a long period of skirmishing (fighing with lighter missile troops) where army’s would have time adjust and organize. Once the real fighting starts, most successful armies held very tight formations like a phalanx (a spear formation). This made it easier control men in groups and kept them in line. Typically when one side lost organization, a rout would start and the battle would be over.
Most generals could trust the comanders in each unit to maintain order while they dealt with larger scale tactics. Many armies would have static formations that were maintained by commanders, and then more mobile pieces the general could use to expose enemy weaknesses or protect his own. This might mean leading the cav on a flank or directly commanding infantry, depending on the general.
For information the general could ride around the battlefield himself or rely on updates from his scouts and commanders. I imagine a great general could fully understand how a battle is going based on the basic status of each unit and know how to adjust just from that. Almost like blindfolded chess
So, a lot of the top answers are looking at how they’d know they were winning a battle, rather than a war.
as i understood your question, you’re asking about how they’d know about how the war was going while they were at home?
So, firstly, often they wouldn’t. Medieval European armies were often a mix of levied forces (so the peasants required to fight) and professional soldiers (nobility and warriors given land so that they can maintain high quality equipment).
If you’re a woman in a rural environment, away from where the armies are marching, you would know that your son has been levied (required to fight), and if they came back and levied your younger son or older husband, that would tell you that things were going poorly. You might also get news by trade caravan, but this is v susceptible to the rumour mill. Some monarchs/aristocrats might send town criers or the like out to disseminate information/propaganda, but this would be propaganda.
.
So in short, you’d likely know very little.
War isn’t actually total chaos. War most of the time is just movements, manœuvring and logistics, and can even be pretty boring from a soldier’s perspective. Only the battles or skirmish can go full insanity.
Now, how did commanders know if they were winning or losing the war ? Well first they had to know their war objectives and their opponent’s : controlling a specific region/city, destroying the enemy’s force or its willingness to fight.
Now that you, as a commander, have established what your objectives are, and what the opponent’s are, you need to understand the means to achieve them : how to move your troops and supply them, where to cut off the enemy lines, how to concentrate powers at the right place and time to strike, what can you do to hinder the enemy’s morale (taking specific locations, turning their population weary, losing key allies, access to materials etc etc)
If you now know what you should do to win the war and how to achieve those goals, and have an idea of the same thing on the opposing side, you can know the state of the war, winning or losing, by studying at what point in those objective completion both sides are.
If you know you have them on the run, are on the verge of taking a key supply chain, that their population is growing weary of the war or whatever, you know you ate winning . If you realise you’re being cornered, that Your supplies are getting low etc, you know you are losing.
But war isn’t total chaos 100% of the time. It’s much more about strategy (and tactics on the field)
Do you mean a war or a battle ?
They often didn’t know for some time:
There’s a famous, not so ancient, exemple at the battle of Marengo, during the Italian wars between Revolutionary France and the empire of Austria
Due to shoddy recon, Bonaparte’s army made camp next to the Austrian army without detecting it. Bonaparte sent away detachments to try to locate the Austrians, leaving the camp weaker.
At dawn, the Austrians of general von Melas crossed the river and launched a surprised attack. The French outposts did not immediatly rout and managed to delay the advance some time. Still, by noon, the outnumbered French were retreating everywhere while the Austrians were preparing to pursuit.
***Seeing that he had won,*** Von Melas left the battlefield to this subordinates and sent messages of victory to Rome and Vienna.
But one of the scouting detachments that Bonaparte sent away earlier, led by General Desaix, heard the battles and had marched back towards the sound of the guns.
Desaix said to Bonaparte “Sir, this battle is lost, but there’s time to win another one” and led a charge in the flanks of the pursuing Austrians column.
The surprised Austrians routed and the retreating French turned and counterattacked.**Later that day, Von Melas got a message that his army was destroyed with 50% casualties** and nothing stood between the French army and Milan.The Austrians signed an armistice soon after and evacuated Northern Italy.
for the anecdote: The false news about Napoleon’s defeat, followed by the reveal of his victory is an important part of the story in the opera “Tosca”.
Latest Answers