Campaign Planning In History, Classical Or Feudal

[MoLAoS]

I wrote a fancy blog post today about campaign planning, war councils, and stuff like that, which you can find through my blog link in my Other Games thread, Axioms Of Dominion.

But I based my implementation mostly on epic fantasy novel depictions like war councils in The Prince Of Nothing series.

Can anyone discuss, or link to a discussion of, how this kind of thing went down in history? Who was in the command tent. What did they talk about. How did they make final decisions with lots of competing interests. One historical example I am aware of is the craziness of the 4th Crusade which ended up not actually crusading at all and was heavily derailed by Venetian plots.

[conon394]

Well Depends on how much you want to read. For could example you read say Thucydides (I recommend the Landmark version), Kagan's 4 volume commentary on the work and I would toss in Jennifer Roberts a 'Plague of war" and Caven's 'Dionysius I' and you will have what covering a a great bulk of the classical world say 500-300 BC. Make that a bit more expansive and would add Caren's 'The Punic wars' and Herodotus. Pollybius and the invaluable Wallbank commentary used to be available on the PACE project but that may have died (looks gone as I type but a shame two translations, the original Greek and the commentary all for free online - we are stuck with twitter and stupid top of my head comments feeds but loose a profoundly good historical resource).

If want more on the logistics Engels Logistics of Alexander the Great is almost required reading but it is a tad dated and the man has real gaffs he never addressed with updates.

You might find Dr. Bret C. Devereaux's web cite very useful. He writes a lot about military history and does it some intresting ways. He also links to a lot good book or web sources and well its a blog and free...

https://acoup.blog/

The Persues project is still alive here

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/...on:Greco-Roman

Plutarch's lives might be more what you after

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer...ives/home.html

But remember Plutarch was not himself a military man he was writing in many case long after the event but did have access to sources that are no longer available

Of course Caesar's Gallic Wars are a must I would say.

[MoLAoS]

I read almost all the posts on ACOUP that were relevant, took me about a day. Great blog, but heavily Roman focused and a lot of more fun speculative posts. I'll check the other stuff if there is a free version. Thanks.

[Cyclops]

The modern conduct of war with formal campaign plans etc is the product of Napoleonic warfare, and specifically the Prussian response to France having a genius emperor with a coterie of genius generals. The Prussians created a formal staff with protocols around planning, AAR, field exercises and Kriegspiel to institutionalise the expertise that France had achieved by fighting wars by the seat of their pants for several decades.

Prior to that there were surely experienced cadres around particular leaders, and some institutions eg the HofKriegsRath, and military specialists such as the Strelsy, Janissary corps etc. who may have retained a formal professionalism. More bureacratic states (as you say, Venice, and of course most Chinese dynasties) migth well have a formal political and military apparatus allowing for a clear discussiojn of a campaign.

However I think its likely that military councils were largely ad hoc, and depended on the ability of individuals who found themselves thrust into roles as part of other institutions, eg the way Alexander III promoted a circle of his friends from the pages into\leadership roles along with (and sometimes at the expense of) his father's old comrades.

Often military leaders were also the political social and even religious leaders of pre-modern societies, and developed skills across those areas: Roman consuls and proconsuls were experienced men of public liufe before they took command (with rare exceptions such as Scipio Africanus, promoted early) and they chose or were provided with a staff of less experienced officers to aid them.

So imaging a premodern war council, it might include a number of individuals (depending on the nature of the society) with greater or lesser military experience (including in logistics, as usual Conon has nailed it) and differing agendas as a result. If certain people gad a "right" to speak before the commander (or perhaps the ruler) they could use that to set the agenda for war councils, and depending on how rank and prestige worked it might mean relevant voices went unheard. One remarkable feature of Prussian staff culture was the utter openness of war councils, where any officer included could dispute or o0ffer alternatives, I believe it was shocking to British military attachés in 1815 to hear Prince Blucher contradicted my mere captains of his staff. This contrasts with (if we can believe them) the stories of Caligula's campaigns against the sea.

Another series of campaigns I recently read about is the "invasion" of the Roman Empire by the various Goths c.400-700 AD. ("Chronicles of the Middle Ages" by Donald Matthew) The author remarks on how the supposed epic fal of the empire was in some part precipitated by a horde with a series of leaders who more or less blundered around the Empire that had taken them in with no intention of destroying it, and whose leaders proved either unwilling or unable to keep the agreements they made with the Emperors, and seemed not even to able to decide where to stop and settle down for several centuries. The mismatched agendas at Gothic war councils must have been epic.

[Anna_Gein]

You should look to history book on early modern war history. This is a period taht is ideal to look to given the wealth of remaining sources compared to older eras. At the same time the means to conduct warfare were roughtly similar to ealier period as far as Command & Control are involded. So it can give you some insight for earlier periods as well even if similar means =/= similar practices.

I highly recommend you the second edition of The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road by Joeffrey Parker. It is a comprehensive study to the way the Spanish Monarchy mobilized and support its war effort in the Low Countries during the Thirty Years' War.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The book is suprisingly cheap given its quality and its niche subject. This should help you as a starting point and allow you avoid weird wild theories such as the idea that properly prepared conduct of warfare and military campaign was never practiced before the Prussian defeat during the War of the Fourth Coalition.

You can probaly find good quality acedemical work on this subject for eras closer to your interest depending on the languages you are confortable with but those will most certainly have prohibitive cost to acquire. Unless you have access to an university library ofc.

[Cyclops]

Thx A_G for the , will put this on order as soon as I am out of iso.

Regarding similar means =/= similar practices, I feel this is key. Our information about military praxis is so fragmentary that often conclusions are drawn about entire military traditions from very few examples.

Fair enough if you think I've over egged my response, I'm really just thinking with my mouth open, and knocking down my own misconceptions. There's a number of books mocking "military blunders", and its an historians trope to knock WWI USCW and other generals for "senseless slaughters" and "bungled campaigns", but I think they are founded on the idea pre-modern campaigns were run like modern wars. I think some may have been to a lesser extent, but others would be run like modern Somalian pirate ops "I have a bunch of dudes, we will make trouble here but if you give us [resources] we will make trouble elsewhere" "neato, hyg" (Horsa invades Kent).

[Cyclops]

Just started reading "Spanish Road" (sounds like the title of a 50's acoustic guitar classic) and its clear the Spanish Hapsburg polity ("the largest and most powerful army in Europe" says Parker, must have been something because the Ottoman Empire was no slouch) used an absolute hotchpotch of methods, not always super efficient but still extremely impressive to scrape together the money manpower and materiel to wage their interminable and multiplying wars.

One chapter in and I am struck how each crisis fairly quickly becomes the new norm. There's a lapidary policy of Charles V to always maintain a force of Spanish infantry in Italy: this evolves into an ad hoc boot camp, so after two years or so the Italian garrisons are transferred to Flanders (or Hungary or the galleys at Lepanto or whatever) but then this falls apart under the pressure of too many wars and raw recruits get poured into the crucible of Flanders and seem to vanish within a year.

The Army of Flanders uses commissioned companies (later regiments) both voluntary and impressed, raised in Hapsburg lands (which negotiate and sometimes break literally dozens of exemptions to and exceptions from recruiting rules) and contracted troops raised in allied and neutral territories (also under a variety of terms and conditions, ranging from straight up mercs to small feudal lords looking to rent out their warmakers). There's an apparent ignorance on the part of the supreme leadership as to the numbers available prior to commission and contracts being issued, as they are surprised by the non-appearance of forces. The Spanish monarchy also regularly raised forces they lacked the wherewithal to pay. I guess revenues were unpredictable partly because they couldn't foresee the weather, but also because they lacked administrative expertise; this from the most powerful state in Europe.

Its clear Spain wasn't the centralised absolutist terror state of Elizabethan propaganda. Phillip II was bound by the feudal customs of his many Spanish kingdoms (with a whole heap of traditions and laws relating to raising soldiers, militias, revenues etc varying widely and wildly across the land). It took great skill to hold the inherited domains together and while Phillip and his heirs failed in Flanders overall they succeeded in expanding Spanish territory and power across almost a century, and had to be smashed down off their pedestal (with was only a grudging slow retreat) by coalitions of powerful enemies 9e France and Britain, sometimes in combination, as well as geniuses like Gustav Adolph) and their own failing genetics.

In this situation, beset by problems and opportunities, and with a ramshackle assemblage of inherited and newly acquired resources , I feel the Spanish Hapsburgs did their best to plan their overall strategy, but perhaps lacked the tools to establish a clearer vision than "hold what we have, reconquer what we lost and take pot shots if targets appear". Clear and stated strategic goals like "push back heresy" did not survive the reality of European warfare: by the end of the period in discussion the Spanish hired Calvinist and Episcopalian troops for their armies to fight Catholic France.

I think Sully and Richelieu's France show a clearer strategic goal and hold to it. Perhaps Hapsburg encirclement made their strategy easier to focus on? Louis XIV seems to have fallen into Samson's trap of the strong solving problems with strength alone.