ELi5: In ancient wars, how did the commanders know if they are winning a war while they were in the chaos of the war?
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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.
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