1 Cf. Vegetius and Maurice.

2 Lord Mahon in his Life of Belisarius is wrong in asserting that the legion was no longer known in Justinian’s day. The term is mentioned, though rarely, in Procopius, who more frequently calls the legionary troops ?? ?? t?? ?ata????? {hoi ek tÔn katalogÔn}.

3 Cf. Tacitus, Annals, ii. 21.

4 The old legions of the first century are found in full vigour at the end of the third. The coins of the British usurper Carausius commemorate as serving under him several of the legions which, as early as the reign of Claudius, were already stationed in Britain and Gaul.

5 He had 132 legions and ‘numeri,’ besides 100 unattached cohorts.

6 See Gibbon, ii. cap. xvii.

7 See Tacitus, Annals, ii. 14.

8 When the Romans entirely abandoned the offensive an increased army became necessary, as a frontier held against raids requires to be protected on every point. Hence the conscriptions and large composition money of Constantine’s epoch. He is said to have had nearly half a million of men in his forces.

9 See ????????? ?????????? {OURBIKIOU EPITÊDEUMA}, a fourth century work, printed at the end of the Paris, 1598, edition of Arrian.

10 The Grand Masters of the infantry and cavalry, the Count of the Palace, and 45 commanders of different corps.

11 Cf. Ammianus Marcellinus with accounts of the Egyptian crowd at the first battle of El Teb.

12 Maurice’s StratÊgikon, vi.

13 At the still fiercer fight, where the army of the usurper Eugenius almost defeated Theodosius, we find that it was the barbarian cavalry of Arbogast, not the native infantry, which had become (only seven years after Maximus’ defeat) the chief force of the Western Empire.

14 Vegetius, bk. i; ii. (15) and iii. (14).

15 This Teutonic word is in full acceptation in the sixth century.

16 Agathias.

17 Though often called ‘bipennis’ it had not necessarily two blades, that word having become a mere general name for ‘axe.’

18 See Hewitt’s Ancient Armour, vol. i. 8.

19 ‘Terrae glacialiter adstricti’ are the Chronicler’s words.

20 Capitularies, ed. Baluz, i. 508.

21 A short weapon like the ‘francisca,’ not the long Danish axe which afterwards became the national arm.

22 If these were the ‘lignis imposita saxa’ of which the Norman chronicler of Hastings spoke, as being English weapons.

23 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under A.D. 866 and passim.

24 See in the Roman de Rou, ii. 262:?--?

25 The fate of the only one of Wellington’s squares which attempted to deploy, in order to drive off the infantry which were annoying it, may well be compared with that of Harold’s soldiery. ‘The concentrated fire of this close line of skirmishers was now telling heavily upon the devoted squares of Alten’s division. It was, however, impossible to deploy, as in the hollow, near La Haye Sainte, there lay in wait a body of the enemy’s cavalry. At last the 5th line-battalion of the King’s German Legion, forsaking its square formation, opened out, and advanced against the mass of tirailleurs. The French gave way as the line advanced at the charge; at the next moment the battalion was furiously assailed by a regiment of cuirassiers, who, taking it in flank, fairly rolled it up. So severe was the loss sustained, that out of the whole battalion not more than 30 men and a few officers were gradually collected in their former position.’ (Siborne’s History of the Waterloo Campaign, ii. pp. 114–15.)

26 ?e?e??fÓ??? {PelekuphÓros} had become such a mere synonym for Englishmen at Constantinople, that Anna Comnena considers that she defines Robert of Normandy sufficiently, when she calls him ‘the brother of the King of the ?e?e??fÓ??? {PelekuphÓroi}.’

27 For these details see Anna Comnena’s Life of Alexius. She calls the commander of the Varangians ?aÉt?? {NamÉtÊs} or ?apÉt?? {NampÉtÊs}: what English or Scandinavian name can this represent? Considering the remote resemblance of some of Anna’s Western names to their real forms, it is perhaps hopeless to expect an answer.

28 See especially:?--?Maurice’s StratÊgikon (Upsala 1664), written about A.D. 595; Leo’s Tactica (Leyden 1612), written about A.D. 900; Nicephorus Phocas’ ???? ?????????S ??????? {PERI PARADROMÊS POLEMOU} (in Migne’s Patrologia), written about A.D. 960.

29 Gibbon, v. p. 382.

30 Nic. Pho. ?e?? pa?ad???? p????? {Peri paradromÊs polemou}, § 17.

31 Nothing better attests the military spirit of the Eastern aristocracy than their duels: cf. the cases of Prusian, etc., in Finlay’s Greece.

32 Leo, Tactica, § 18. The paragraphs here are a condensation of Leo’s advice, and sometimes an elucidation, not a literal translation.

33 s???tÁt?? {skoutÁtoi}, one of the curious Latin survivals in Byzantine military terminology. In translitterating Latin words the Greeks paid no attention to quantity.

34 Much confusion in military history has been caused by writers attributing the archery of the Turks to the Saracens: the latter were not employers of archery-tactics, but lancers. Battles like DorylÆum, which are given as examples of Saracen warfare, were fought really by Turks.

35 Leo, § 18. 124.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid. 120.

38 Leo, Tactica: various scattered notices in § 18.

39 In Leo’s day the Oriental themes had not been sub-divided, as was afterwards done by his son Constantine. There were then eight themes in Asia Minor, each of which contained a military division of the same name, and could be reckoned on for some 4000 heavy cavalry. These were ‘Armeniacon, Anatolicon, Obsequium, Thracesion, Cibyrrhoeot, Bucellarion, and Paphlagonia.’ Optimaton, the ninth theme, had (as Constantine tells us in his treatise on the empire), no military establishments.

40 See in the next section of this treatise for the plan of his formation, p. 45.

41 Leo, Tactica, 18. 118.

42 Ibid. 136.

43 Ibid. 118.

44 See Colonel Clery’s Minor Tactics.

45 Leo, Tactica, 18.

46 Compare with this the stratagem by which the Russian army escaped from a compromised position during the retreat before the battle of Austerlitz. ‘In agreeing to an Armistice,’ wrote Kutusoff, in a very Byzantine tone, ‘I had in view nothing but to gain time, and thereby obtain the means of removing to a distance from the enemy, and saving my army.’ Dumas, xiv. 48.

47 The Middle Ages dimly felt this, and (as Gibbon tells us) the Italian Chroniclers name him the ‘first of the Greek Emperors.’

48 As, for example, the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who, in his book on the ‘Themata Orientis,’ attributes the invention of the ‘Theme’ and ‘tagma’ to Heraclius.

49 ???d?? {Bandon}, bandum, had become a common word in Justinian’s time: it is used as a Teutonic equivalent for ‘vexillum’ in both its senses.

50 Comes had in Constantine’s days been applied to five great officers alone.

51 This curious word is first formed in Vegetius, where it is only applied to the masses of a barbarian army. (Cf. English ‘throng.’)

52 See the evidence of coins: the title ??S??S ?? T?? ??S????S ?O? ?O???O? {PISTOS EN THEÔ BASILEUS TÔN RÔMAIÔN} only becomes common under the Amorian dynasty.

53 See Leo’s Tactica, xii.

54 Ibid. vi.

55 Leo, Tactica, vi.

56 E.g. a ?e????? {kelikon} and a at??????? {matzoukion}.

57 The century contained 10 decuries, but the ‘decury’ was 16 not 10 men: thus the century was 160 strong. Three centuries went to a ‘band,’ which would thus be about 450 men.

58 Gold coin, worth perhaps 12s. in metal value.

59 Nicephorus Phocas, in his ????????? ??????? {PARADROMÊ POLEMOU}, says that ‘Armenians must never be placed in this line of picquets, as their habitual drowsiness at night makes them untrustworthy.’

60 Leo, Tactica, iv. § 1.

61 Nothing gives a better idea of the real military character of the Byzantine aristocracy than a perusal of the curious tenth century romance of ‘Digenes Akritas,’ a member of the house of Ducas, who is ‘Klissurarch’ of the passes of Taurus, and performs with his mighty mace all the exploits of a hero of chivalry. He really existed, and bore the name of Basil Pantherios. See Revue des Deux Mondes, vol. 118.

62 Eustace de Ribeaumont, for instance, who gave the madly impractical advice which lost the battle of Poictiers, was, we are told, an officer of high ability.

63 The Black Prince’s campaign in South France, for example, before the battle of Poictiers, was merely an enormous and destructive raid. He besieged no important town, and did not attempt to establish any posts to command the country through which he passed.

64 The difficulty experienced by Edward III and Henry V in crossing the Somme is equally remarkable.

65 ‘Capitales barones suos cum paucis secum duxit, solidarios vero milites innumeros.’ Rob. de Monte, 1159.

66 The classical instances of the successful employment of the mine in England are the captures of Rochester Castle in 1215, and Bedford Castle in 1224, both works of enormous labour.

67 A revival of the old Roman system of fortification.

68 As, for example, did Edward III before Calais. He fortified all approaches passable for a relieving army, and waited quietly in his lines.

69 This was borrowed either from the Byzantine or the Saracen: it is quite distinct from the rude club occasionally found in the West at an earlier date, as, for example, in the hands of Bishop Odo at Hastings.

70 See, for example, the case cited in Von Elgger’s Kriegswesen der Schweizerischen Eidgenossen, where a patrician of Constance having refused to accept a Bernese plappert (small coin) in payment of a wager, and having scornfully called the bear represented on it a cow, the Confederates took the matter up as a national insult, and ravaged the territory of Constance without any declaration of war.

71 At Novara, for instance, they put to death after the battle several hundred German prisoners.

72 See Montluc’s Commentaries.

73 At Morat the contingent of Bern alone brought with them (besides the great standard of the canton) the flags of twenty-four towns and districts (Thun, Aarau, Lenzburg, Interlaken, Burgdorf, the Haslithal, the Emmenthal, etc. etc.) and of eight craft-guilds and six other associations.

74 The halberd only differed from the English ‘brown-bill’ in having a spike.

75 The ‘Morning-Star’ was a club five feet long, set thickly at its end with iron spikes. It had disappeared by the middle of the 15th century. The ‘Lucern Hammer’ was like a halberd, but had three curved prongs instead of the hatchet-blade: it inflicted a horrible jagged wound.

76 Macchiavelli, Art of War, tr. Farneworth, p. 32.

77 Macchiavelli even says that the pikemen in his day did not wear the steel-cap, which was entirely confined to the halberdiers. But this can be shown from other sources to be an exaggeration.

78 See Kirk’s Charles the Bold, book iv. chap. 2.

79 At Morat, according to Commines, they were nearly a third, 10,000 out of 35,000. At Arbedo they were a seventh: among the Confederates who joined Charles VIII in his march to Naples only a tenth of the force.

80 E.g. the Forest Cantons were bitterly opposed to the Bernese policy of engaging in war with Charles the Bold; but their troops did no worse service than the rest at Granson or Morat.

81 Rudolf von Erlach’s position as commander-in-chief at Laupen was quite exceptional. If we hear in the cases mentioned above of Swiss commanders, we must remember that they were co-ordinate authorities, among whom one man might exert more influence than another, but only by his personal ascendancy, not by legal right. It is a mistake to say that RÉnÉ of Lorraine formally commanded at Morat or Nancy.

82 Macchiavelli has a very clear account of this form of advance, see Arte de Guerra, tr. Farneworth, book iii.

83 See Elgger’s Kriegswesen der Schweizerische, etc. p. 280.

84 See Elgger as before.

85 Arte de Guerra, tr. Farneworth, p. 57.

86 Quoted at length in Elgger.

87 At Bannockburn, the Scots had made good use of their cavalry, which, though not strong, gave them an advantage wanting to the Swiss at Laupen.

88 Similarly at the battle of the Standard the English knights dismounted to meet the furious rush of the Galwegians.

89 The numbers which the Swiss Chroniclers allow to have been present at Sempach are evidently minimised. The whole force of four cantons was there, yet we are told of only 1500 men! Yet the three cantons seventy-one years before put the same number in the field, and the populous state of Lucern had now joined them.

90 The Confederates were forming their column in Sempach Wood, when Leopold’s artillery opened on them?--?

[Rough translation of Halbshuter’s contemporary ‘Sempacherlied.’]

91 Sismondi, who writes entirely from Swiss sources as to this fight, gives a very different impression from Machiavelli. The later cites Arbedo as the best known check received by the Swiss, and puts their loss down at several thousands (Arte de Guerra, tr. Farneworth, p. 33). MÜller evidently tries to minimise the check; but we may judge from our knowledge of Swiss character how great must have been the pressure required to make a Confederate officer think of surrender. Forty-four members of the Cantonal councils of Lucern fell in the fight: ‘The contingent of Lucern had crossed the lake of the four Cantons in ten large barges, when setting out on this expedition: it returned in two!’ These facts, acknowledged by the Swiss themselves, seem to show that the figure of 400 men for their loss is placed absurdly low.

92 From a Lucern ‘Raths-Protocoll’ of 1422, ‘Da es den Eidgenossen nicht so wohl ergangen seie,’ etc.

93 Yet even the Duke said, that ‘Against the Swiss it will never do to march unprepared.’ Panagirola, quoted by Kirk, vol. iii.

94 ‘If we attack Romont,’ said Ulrich KÄtzy at the Swiss council of war, ‘while we are beating him the duke will have time and opportunity to escape; let us go round the hills against the main-body, and when that is routed, we shall have the rest without a stroke.’ This showed real tactical skill.

95 Machiavelli, Arte de Guerra, book ii.

96 Frundsberg, the old captain of landsknechts, gives a cool and businesslike account of these shocks, ‘Wo unter den langen Wehren etliche Glieder zu grund gehen, werden die Personen, so dahinter stehen, etwas zaghaft,’ etc.

97 The two-handed sword had almost entirely, and the ‘morning-star’ and ‘Lucern hammer’ quite, disappeared from use by the end of the fifteenth century.

98 Machiavelli, Arte de Guerra, book ii. p. 34.

99 It is a curious fact that Chaka, one of Cetywayo’s predecessors as king of the Zulus, set himself to solve this problem. He took a hundred men and armed them with the shield and the ‘short assegai,’ a thrusting weapon resembling a sword rather than a spear in its use. He then set them to fight another hundred furnished with the shield and the ‘long assegai,’ the slender javelin which had previously been the weapon of his tribe. The wielders of the shorter weapon won with ease, and the king thereupon ordered its adoption throughout the Zulu army. It was this change which originally gave the Zulus their superiority over their neighbours.

100 Machiavelli, Arte de Guerra, book ii.

101 See Sismondi’s Italian History, vol. ix. p. 213.

102 E.g. by the diminutive archer who crouches under a thegn’s shield, like Teucer protected by Ajax.

103 Giraldus Cambrensis, Itin. CambriÆ, c. 3, speaks of the Welsh bowmen as being able to send an arrow through an oak door four fingers thick. The people of Gwent (Monmouth and Glamorgan) were reckoned the best archers. Those of North Wales were always spearmen, not archers.

104 Stubbs’ Select Charters, p. 374.

105 In the Pay Roll of the garrison of Rhuddlan castle, 1281, we find ‘paid to Geoffrey le Chamberlin for the wages of twelve cross-bowmen, and thirteen archers, for twenty-four days, £7 8s., each cross-bowman receiving by the day 4d., and each archer 2d.

106 Nic. Trivet, Annales, 282.

107 It is surely unnecessary to call in the aid of treachery?--?as historians have so frequently done?--?in order to account for the rout of a force numbered by hundreds, by one numbered by thousands.

108 The characteristic of their descendants in the second decade of the present century.

109 320 miles in eighteen days; a rate surpassing any continuous marching recorded of late years.

110 See for Henry’s columns of route Viollet-le-Duc’s Tactique des ArmÉes FranÇaises au Moyen Age.

111 See Viollet-le-Duc’s Tactique des ArmÉes FranÇaises au Moyen Age, p. 300.

112 ‘Gladio ad usum fossarum verso, et ungue verrente tellurem concavant: et ante se campum equis inadibilem mira hostium astucia efficiebat.’ Blondel, iv. 6.

113 ‘Et si Anglici, incaepto conflictu praestantes, Gallos retrogressos insequi ansi fuissent,’ etc. Blondel, iv. 7.

114 ‘Fusis enim Anglorum bellis robusti quingenti sagittarii in hortum sentibus conseptum prosiliunt ... ac inexorabili Gallorum ferocitate, ut quisque genu flexo arcum traderet, [in sign of surrender] omnes (nec unus evasit) gladio confodiuntur.’ Blondel, iv. 8.

115 Grafton, Henry VI, year xxvii.

116 Hall.

117 The whole country being disaffected and ready?--?as the events of the autumn proved?--?to revolt in favour of Warwick or Henry VI, the suppression of the Lincolnshire rebellion and the expulsion of the King-maker were remarkable achievements.

118 This must have been in the Stroudwater, as Edward marched from Wooton-under-Edge by Stroud and Painswick on Cheltenham.

119 Somerset attributed this to treachery on the part of Lord Wenlock, commander of the ‘centre-battle,’ who was a follower of Warwick and not an old Lancastrian. Escaping from the advancing Yorkists he rode up to Wenlock, and, without speaking a word, brained him with his battle-axe.

120 Grafton.

121 Edward IV is said to have had in his employment in 1470 a small corps of Germans with ‘hand-guns.’ Better known is the band of 2000 hackbut-men which the Earl of Lincoln brought to Stoke in 1487. The name of their leader, Martin Schwart, survives in the ballads of the day.

122 For an excellent description of Hussite tactics, see Denis, Hus et la Guerre des Hussites.

123 At the first battle of Kossova we know that the allied Servians and Bosnians outnumbered the Turks.

124 Already since the middle of the 15th century known as ‘Hussars.’

125 Montecuculi notes that even in his day far into the 17th century, the Turk had not yet taken to the pike.

126 The arquebus and cannon were novelties to the Mamelukes as late as 1517, if we are to trust the story of Kait Bey.

127 Richard III of England is said to have adopted this expedient at Bosworth.