Infantry - A Summary

According to Baker of Swynbrook, the archers were placed, not in front of the men-at-arms, but at the sides of the king’s army, like wings, so that they might not get in the way of the men-at-arms, nor meet the enemy face to face, but discharge their arrows at his flanks. Similarly a Valenciennes chronicler says that King Edward “ne fist que deux batailles d’archiers a deux costes en la maniere d’un escut ; et au milieu d’eulx se tenoit le prince de Galles.”  Froissart, on the contrary, says of the Prince’s “battle” that the archers were placed in front in the form of a “herse,” and the men-at-arms at the back. He mentions that in the course of the fight some of the French knights went round the archers, and others broke through them, and fought hand to hand with the Prince’s men-at-arms. King Philip would gladly have done the same, but there was such a great hedge of archers and men-atarms in front that he could not.

Sir John Smythe, who wrote when archers were still to be seen in the field, and described how they were drawn up by “our most skilful and warlike ancestors,” helps us to reconcile these conflicting statements. He says they were formed ” into hearses  that is broad in front and narrow in flank, as for example if there were 25, 30, 35, or more or fewer archers in front, the flanks did consist but of seven or eight ranks at the most. . . . They placed their hearses of archers either before the front of their armed footmen, or else in wings upon the corners of their battles, and sometimes both in front and wings.”  A contemporary plate of the battle of Pinkie (1547) shows the archers extended across the whole front of the three corps which are advancing to attack the Scots. George Monk, writing during the Civil War, shows how musketeers forming wings to a body of pikemen should be moved forward and spread out across its front for more eft’ective fire. We may conclude that the archers at Crecy were formed by companies of 100 men in oblongs not more than eight men deep, with open ranks and files, that their normal position was on the flanks of the men-at-arms and a little in advance of them, but that they may also have formed a continuous screen in their front, at all events at the beginning of the action. Shallow pits were dug in front of the line of battle, and would give the archers some protection from charging horsemen. ‘

It was late in the afternoon when the French army came up, but the impetuosity of the lords, each eager to be foremost, disregarded Philip’s orders to halt. The Genoese crossbowmen were sent forward, weary from a long march, and their bowstrings wet from rain, for they could not be taken off’ and put under cover like the string of the longbow. As they came on they gave great shouts at intervals to scare the English, and when they reckoned themselves within range they shot fiercely; but their bolts fell short. ” Then the English archers stept forth one pace and let fly their arrows so wholly and so thick that it seemed snow. When the Genoese felt the arrows piercing through heads, arms, and breasts, many of them cast down their crossbows and did cut their strings and returned discomfited.”

Such considerations as these, together with his previous experience at Halidon Hill, led Edward III. to make his Knight s dismount, when he turned to offer battle to Philip of Valois at Crecy (1346).’ Hejiad about 4000 cavalry, but nearly half of these were ” hobelars,” light-armed men mounted on little nags : and of the men-at-arms only one-fourth were ” knights ” in the restricted sense which the word had reached by that time. The rest were variously described as squires, sergeants, &c. In Philip’s army there were 12,000 men-at-arms, of whom two-thirds were “gentils gens,” and about 60,000 foot, mainly communal troops, but including 6000 Genoese crossbowmen and other mercenaries. The English army was under 20,000 men all told, but there were 10,000 archers, of whom one-fourth were mounted.

To make up for the disproportion of numbers an advantageous position was chosen between Crecy and Wadicourt, fronting south-cast. The right flank was covered by the forest of Crecy. There was a shallow valley in front, and in rear there was a small wood, by the side of which the king caused a park to be made, “and there was set all carts and carriages, and within the park were all their horses, for every man was afoot ; and into this park there was but one entry.” i The men-at-arms were formed in three “battles” with corps of archers, as_ at Halidon Hill ; that of the Prince of Wales was in front, that of Lord Northampton (rather weaker than the others) was in immediate support “on a wing,” and that of the king was in reserve on higher ground. Thus they were in echelon right in front.

At the battle of Bouvines (1214) the French cavalry were told  “One knight should not make another his shield; draw up so that all the knights may be in the front line.”  It seems likely that this was the general rule, and that at Crecy (as at Agincourt) the English men-at-arms were four deep. Behind them there would be hobelars, and other men less well armed, ” rascals that went afoot with great knives,” Welsh or Irish. Villani says that the English, when fighting on foot, formed a compact body, almost round (like a Scottish schildron), and that each lance was held by two men. An eighteen-foot lance was unwieldy for a single man on foot, but the common practice was to cut it down to a length of five feet, that dimension referring no doubt only to the part in front of the hand-grip.

According to Giraldus Cambrensis, the South Welsh, especially the men of Gwent, excelled in archery. They had bows of elm so stout that they would serve for cudgels, and could send the point of an arrow through a three-inch door.i It became a rule in later days that the length of a bow should equal the archer’s reach with his arms outstretched, and Welshmen are abnormally long in the arm. Three hundred Welsh archers formed part of the first expedition to Ireland ; and the secret of success in Irish warfare, Gerald says, lay in mixing archers with the troops of knights. The spear was the weapon of the men of North Wales. The South Welsh were Edward’s allies, and in the first war against Llewelyn (1277) there were special corps of sagittarii nearly all of whom came from Gwent.

At Falkirk (1298) five-sixths of the foot in Edward’s army were Welsh. They numbered more than 10,000 men. Falkirk was a repetition of Hastings. y’allace’s horsemen and light troops were soon driven away, and the solid rings or ” schlldrons ” of his spearmen were at length demoralised and broken by the combined action of the English heavy cavalry and archers. At Bannockburn  a much larger English army hough its numbers must have been vastly exaggerated by the chroniclers  was less skilfully handled and met with disaster. The Scottish and English accounts differ, and may be best reconciled by supposing that Baker describes what took place on the English right, Barbour what occurred on the left. On the right, then, the English cavalry advanced along the Roman road with bogs on either side of them, and floundered into the pits or trenches which the Scots had dug in front of their position covered with grass and brushwood. The archers whom they had left behind, were brought up to help them, but did more harm than good ; for being in rear instead of on a flank, most of their arrows fell short of the enemy and wounded their own horsemen. On the left there was firmer ground, and there the archers were thrown out on the flank, after crossing the burn, to prepare and support the advance of the knights. But they were rolled up and swept away by a well-timed charge of a small body of light horsemen.

At Halidon Hill (1333) the tables were turned. Edward III. was besieging Berwick ; the Scots marched to its relief, and were obliged to be the assailants. Adopting a plan which had proved successful the year before at Dupplin Muir, Edward made his knights dismount, and formed them in three bodies or ” battles ” with wings of archers. The archers were posted in marshy ground which probably secured them from direct attack. The Scots were blinded by the rain of arrows as they advanced, and though they began to mount the slope on which the men-at-arms were drawn up, their courage failed, and they fled. Edward remounted his men and pursued them for several miles. The chronicler says: “Ibi didicit a Scotis Anglorum generosilas dextrarios reservare venacioni fugienciuin et contra antiquatum morem suorum patruni, pedes pugnare.”

With this we may compare the rules given by Vegetius three centuries afterwards for the drawing up of infantry. It is true that he habitually ” mixes up and confuses the rules and habits of his own and of earlier times” (Lipsius), but in this case he had evidently the warfare of his own day in view. The men were to be formed in six ranks. The two front ranks should be armed and armoured for hand-to-hand fighting, but the men of the second rank should also have bows. Light-armed men with bows, darts, &c., formed the third and fourth ranks, and slingers the fifth ; while the sixth, like the triarii of old, was to consist of the most trusty and best-equipped men, as a reserve. The light-armed troops should run out and engage the enemy, but if they failed to drive him back they should take shelter behind the front ranks, whose duty it was to stand immovable as a Avail.

Such a formation would hardly resist a very serious shock. A happier combination was tried by Narses at Tagina; (5.52 a.d.). He dismounted his heavy cavalry  Lombards, Heruli, &c.  and placed them in the centre of his line, between wings of foot archers wheeled up to cross fire in their front. Repeated charges of the Gothic horsemen were repulsed, and when at length they gave way, the Roman cavalry, which had been held in reserve, completed the victory.^ This was an anticipation of the English tactics of the fourteenth century, but it stands alone. Infantry continued to decline in general estimation, and came to be regarded as only fit for mountain warfare or garrison duty.

Vegetius  complained that the armour which had been cheerfully borne in earlier times was discarded in his day. It was probably found to give only partial protection from missiles, and to be seldom needed for anything else ; but its discontinuance became a reason for avoiding hand-tohand combat.

Auxiliary troops raised in the provinces were attached to the legions and were commanded by their legates. They were cohorts of .500 or 1000 men, some wholly of foot, others including horsemen to the extent of one fourth. Some were armed according to the custom of their country with bows, slings, &c. ; others were equipped and trained in the Roman manner. There were also bodies of horsemen of about the same strength as the cohorts.

In the armies of the Republic there had been a bodyguard for the commander-in-chief which was styled the praatorian cohort. This corps was raised to nine cohorts by Augustus, and did guard duty in Rome, and at the imperial residences elsewhere. It comprised horse and foot, grew by degrees to 50,000 men, and played a prominent part in the making and unmaking of emperors till it was abolished by Constantine.

Under the system adopted by Augustus and his successors, the empire ” presented to its foes a hard shell and a soft kernel.” There were no reserves of troops in the interior, and when legions were drawn from the frontier to support rival claimants to the imperial title, the outer barbarians broke through the shell. The Goths crossed the Danube, stormed Philippopolis, and destroyed the emperor Decius and his army (a.d. 251). A few years afterwards another emperor, Valerian, had to surrender to the Persians, who overran Syria and stormed Antioch.

When order was restored by Diocletian at the end of the century, new corps were formed to serve as an imperial field force. The legions of these Palatini and Coviitatenses numbered only 1000 men, and comprised both horse and foot. They had auxiliary cohorts attached to them, and themselves contained a large barbarian element which increased as time went on. They were moved from one region to another as occasion arose. The older legions, left as garrison troops on the frontiers, gradually became bodies of military colonists rather than soldiers. Service in them was unpopular, for the work was hard, discipline severe, and rewards tardy.i The cavalry was again withdrawn from them and separately organised. From one-tenth it rose to about one-third of the infantry. The strength of the frontier army is reckoned at 060,000 by Mommsen, and the field force, or emperor’s army, at something under 200,000, making a total of more than half a million of men, of whom nearly 160,000 were mounted.

Nothing tests troops more than a surprise. Six legions were intrenching their camp on the Sambre (57 B.C.), two others with the baggage train were still on the march in rear, the cavalry and light troops had been sent over the river and were skirmishing on the fringe of a wood in which the Nervii and their allies, numbering some 60,000, lay concealed. Suddenly the Gauls issued from the wood, forded the Sambre, driving the Roman horse before them, and fell upon the legions at work. “So short was the time allowed us, and so eager for fight was the enemy, that the men not only could not fix their plumes, but could not even put on their helmets and take the covers off their shields. Each man joined the nearest ensign rather than search for his own company when he might be fighting.”

The two legions in the centre soon repulsed their assailants and followed them to the river. The two on the left did more ; they crossed the river in pursuit, and took the enemy’s camp. But meanwhile the Nervii, the bravest of the tribesmen, had enveloped the legions on the right (Seventh and Twelfth) and gained possession of the unfinished camp of the Romans. Ctesar, on joining his right wing, found the men crowded together and discouraged, with no reserve to help them. He retired them a little and placed them back to back, to show a double front to the enemy. The two legions that formed the rearguard hurried up, and the Tenth legion (one of those which had taken the enemy’s camp) was sent back to give assistance. The cavalry rallied, and at length by united efforts the Nervii were overpowered and cut to pieces, after fighting obstinately behind a i-ampart of dead bodies.

Each cohort, being made up of three maniples or six centuries, had six centurions, who might rise to the position of primipUus, or first centurion of the legion, but seldom obtained any further promotion. Each cohort had its own ensign, and a silver eagle was given to the legion. On the march the legionary was loaded “like a sumpter mule,” with clothing, rations, cooking implements, and intrenching tools. To carry these more conveniently, Marius provided him with a forked pole, which was known as Marius’s mule, and is represented on Trajan’s column. The soldier had often to carry also three or four stakes, with side shoots that might be intertwisted, to form a stout palisade. Yet he was expected to march twenty miles or more in a day.

If the professional soldier of the later days of the Republic was inferior in some respects to the citizensoldier of earlier times, if he was less patriotic and religious, and looked more to plunder and promotion, he was as enduring and stout-hearted as ever, and he knew his business better. He was incessantly employed either in military exercises or on civil works. Josephus, a century after the downfall of the Republic, was full of admiration of the Roman soldiers that Titus led against Jerusalem. “Neither can any disorder remove them from their usual regularity, nor can fear affright them out of it, nor can labour tire them.” Body and soul were strengthened by exercises and hardened by fear; for death was the penalty, not only of running away, but of sloth. ” When they come to a battle the whole army is but one body, so well coupled together are their ranks, so sudden are their turnings about, so sharp their hearing as to what orders are given them, so quick their sight of the ensigns, and so nimble are their hands when they set to work; whereby it comes to pass that what they do is done quickly, and what they suffer they bear with the greatest patience.”

Examples of their behaviour under all conditions of warfare are to be found in Csesar’s Commentaries. Their readiness to endure privation was shown at Avaricum (52 B.C.). When Cajsar offered to raise the siege if they found the scarcity of food intolerable, they assured him they would rather bear anything than fail to avenge the slaughter of their fellow-countrymen. The labours they would undertake were exemplified at Alesia (52 B.C.), where the lines of circumvallation and contravallation were together 25 miles in length, and had to be guarded by 50,000 men against a more numerous enemy within, and a very much larger relieving army outside. Even bolder, though less successful, were the lines by which Cffisar invested Pompey’s army at Dyrrhachium, shortly before Pharsalia : a chain of twenty-four redoubts with a circuit of 15 miles, to which an outer chain was afterwards added.

The legionaries had brass helmets, with lofty plumes to add to their height and “strike terror into the enemy,” leather corslets with iron rings forming a sort of chain mail, or in default of these, metal breast-pieces, 9 inches square, and greaves or leggings. The light troops had round bucklers and leather head-pieces. They were armed with a sword and several darts, which were about half the length of the pilum. From the time of the long siege of Veil (406 B.C.) it had become the practice to give pay for military service, and this made it possible to exact something like uniformity of equipment. The horse soldier received three times as much as the foot soldier.

To allow the foot soldier to use his weapons freely 6 feet of front was given to each file ; so that a maniple occupied 40 yards, and a legion half a mile, of front. Two legions with a corresponding force of allies made up a consular army. The two Roman legions formed the centre of the line, and the allies the wings. In cavalry the proportions were unequal. There were 300 horse to each Roman legion, and 600 to each legion of the allies ; in addition to which the allies also furnished extr aor dinar ii, picked troops (both horse and foot) for special use. The strength of a consular army, therefore, was nearly 19,000 foot and 2400 horse.

Six military tribunes were appointed for each legion. They superintended the enrolment of it, and commanded it in turn. The men of the legion then elected sixty centurions, two for each maniple, and the centurions chose lieutenants to assist them. The latter were posted on the right and left of the rear rank, the centurions on the right and left of the front rank.

The Romans had an uniform pattern of camp which Polybius describes. He remarks that the Greeks disliked the toil of digging, and thought no defences so good as those afforded by nature ; so they took pains to choose a site of great natural strength, and varied the arrangements of their camp to suit it. But the Romans preferred to expend great labour in intrenching that they might secure a plan of encampment which should be convenient and familiar to all.

In 280 B.C. Pyrrhus came to Italy, invited by the Tarentines to help them against Rome, and the first collision between Greeks and Romans took place at Heraclea. It was ten yeai’s after the close of the last Samnite war, and in the interval the Romans had been fighting successfully against Etruscans and Cisalpine Gauls, so that ” they came to the contest like trained and experienced gladiators.”  The battle was an obstinate one, and Pyrrhus owed his victory to his elephants, who scared the Roman horses and drove them back in confusion upon their foot.

Next year he won a second victory at Asculum. The battle was again fought in an open plain, well suited to his phalanx and his elephants. The laltcr it was his custom to keep in reserve, to decide the action. He had intermixed bands of Italians (probably Samnites) with the divisions of his phalanx, that he might be able to fight the Romans in their own fashion. In this case, however, the phalanx vindicated itself. The Romans tried in vain to open gaps in the serried lines of pikes, hacking at them with their swords, or seizing them with their hands. At length they gave way, and the elephants coming up put them to the rout. It has been conjectured that it was this experience which led to the adoption of the pilum by the hastati and principes.

The triarii were the oldest soldiers. They were sometimes called pilani, and the others antepilani, and these names seem to be survivals from the earlier phalanx formation, when the front ranks had spears and the men behind threw javelins. The best men, the principes, would then form the two front ranks. But when the manipular organisation was introduced the youngest men were sent to the front, and while they retained the name hastati they were armed with the pilum. The principes became the supporting line, and were similarly armed. The veterans now became a reserve, and exchanged the pilum for the spear.

The primary weapon of the Roman soldier was the sword. Polybius says that the Romans surpassed all other people in their readuiess to adopt foreign fashions when they were better than their own ; they had borrowed their sword from Spain. It was a straight, two-edged weapon, 2 feet or less in length. It had a very sharp point, and was used for thrusting rather than cutting. It hung on the right side, and there was a dagger on the left. The shield, said to have been borrowed from the Samnites, was rectangular, 4 feet long and 2 feet wide, curved in its width. It was of wood, covered with canvas and hide, bound and bossed with iron.

The pilum, a javelin nearly 7 feet long, was given to the men of the two front lines to enable them to close with adversaries armed with long spears, especially the Macedonian sarissa. According to Polybius, each man had two, a heavy pilum with a shaft 3 inches thick, and a lighter one like an ordinary hunting-spear. The latter became afterwards the only pattern.The head was barbed, and various methods were adopted to secure it to the shaft, and to prevent the enemy from throwing the javelin back, or disengaging it from his shield. Thrown by hand at 30 paces, it would go through an inch of fir or half an inch of oak. By the use of a leather thong {amentum) the range could be doubled.

A normal Latin township was reckoned to consist of ten wards {curim), eachcomprising ten families (gentes) or one hundred households. Each household had to furnish one foot soldier (miles, one of a thousand), and each family one horseman (eques). But in the earliest days the three tribes of Rome yielded a levy (legio) of three times that strength, 3000 foot and 300 horse.Before long the one legion was increased to four. The reforms which bear the name of Servius extended the duty of military service, and its privileges, from the original burgher families to later comers. A property classification was introduced : the first three classes formed the heavy infantry, but only the first class was bound to be fully equipped with arras and armour. It furnished the front ranks of the legions, which were drawn up for battle six deep in continuous line, like the Greek phalanx. The fourth and fifth classes served as light troops (rorarii), armed with slings and darts. Men were liable to military service from seventeen to sixty years of ago, but the seniors (those over forty-six) were reserved as a rule for garrison duty. The liability of the juniors was discharged by sixteen campaigns on foot or ten on horseback. The cavalry, which was held in high estimation, was increased to 1800, or 15 per cent, of the heavy infantry. The poorest class (proletarii) was exempt from taxation, and from military service, except in great emergencies, when they were equipped at the cost of the State. Carpenters, smiths, and musicians were attached to the legions, and also a certain number of light-armed substitutes to take the place of disabled legionaries.

It is supposed to have been during the Samnite wars that the Romans made a fundamental change in their tactical formation. The extended line was ill adapted to mountain warfare. The disaster of the Caudine forks (321 B.C.) was the result of an attempt to march a Roman army through the Southern Apennines into Apulia. It found itself caught in a trap, with defiles which it could not force before and behind it. Whether as a result of this disaster or not, continuous lines were given up, and the legion was subdivided into thirty maniples which were placed chequerwise in three lines (luistati, principes, triarii) so that the maniples of the second line were opposite intervals in the first line. It was a handy flexible formation which adapted itself readily to broken ground, and aftordud strong reserves. It was in fact something like that which Xenophon’s Greeks had to improvise in forcing their way through the mountains of Kurdistan.

The maniples of the first two lines were normally 120 strong, those of the third line 60. The men seem to have been drawn up six deep, as before ; but after a time light troops, better armed and organised than before, and renamed velitcs, were incorporated in the maniples, and formed a seventh and eighth rank when not detached. They numbered 1200.