...what? What is this?!

[eggs_maledict]

I don't understand some scholars. They just don't make sense.

Also, 'received opinion' needs to be taken out the back and beaten with the stick of thinking. Citing someone as 'great' when they are patently wrong repeatedly is stupid. It's particularly bad when they were taken to task for their mistakes fifty years before you started to gush about

Comments

[goblinpaladin]

I've never, ever, ever thought that medieval warfare was a matter of 'more men' or anything resembling that. Now I wonder if I learned that from books or if it was a matter of playing too much Warhammer- where combined arms are required for victory.

I seem to vaguely recall an article or a book that I read once about Carolingian warfare that pointed out clearly and explicitly that the pedites were quite distinguishable in terms of combat, were disciplined and that medieval warfare was not all about the horses.

Perhaps that author -whoever he was- was referencing Verbruggen. Hmm.

At any rate, what you write here isn't entirely news to me.

[eggs_maledict]

I'm exaggerating a bit here, especially in the last section - even Delbrück doesn't think it's only about the number of men, but it's a big part of the arguments people keep making. But even when they acknowledge it being more complex, there's still this automated response that everyone seems to have, almost like an inferiority complex. They'll say "Oh yes there was x and y and z but, uh, itwasn'tasgoodasithadbeenorasitwouldbe

[goblinpaladin]

This reference which I can't remember also said that there was a lot more control than people assume. As with the 'massed soldiers' thing, it's something I've never believed. Not sure why.

Yeah, battles are super rare. Rarey rare rare. Because they tend to kill people, and quite often important, leading people.

[eggs_maledict]

I never really believed the horde thing either but that may have just been because I conflated all kinds of warfare together at an early age. Reading about Hannibal from an early age probably contributed...

The leaders-dying-thing was quite important, since they tended to get targetted, but it was also that there was also the issue that battles are inherently chancy. Something can always go wrong...

[eggs_maledict]

Oh and I also love that LiveJournal searched 'an imaginary menagerie' in Google Maps and snap-shot'd it...