Infantry - A Summary

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.”

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.

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.

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.

Alexander had to do with an enemy vastly superior in numbers, but inferior in quality and in manoeuvring powers. This determined him to deliver his attack on one wing, that he might not be enveloped. Alike at the Granicus, at Issus, and at Arbela, he struck with his right. At Issus the supporting brigades of the phalanx had a severe struggle with the Greek mercenaries in Persian pay until the Hypaspists and cavalry, having routed the Persian left, took the mercenaries in flank. At Arbela the defensive wing was so hardly pressed by Indian and Persian cavalry that Parmenio had to send to Alexander for help. In the battle on the Hydaspes against Porus the left of the enemy was again selected for attack; Hypaspists and light troops seem to have been the only infantry engaged. When Alexander reorganised his army after his return from India, he proposed to use Orientals for the phalanx to the extent of three-fourths. Only the three leading men and the last man of each file were to be Macedonians; the rest were armed with bows and javelins.

In the wars of Alexander’s successors armies were more alike in numbers and quality, and mobility lost some of its importance. But the increasing use of elephants went along with a deterioration of infantry. Posted at intervals of 50 yards or so along the whole front of each army with shot between them, they made any general advance and engagement of the foot difficult. Practically the fighting was done by the cavalry on the wings, and the infantry of the line only served to fill the space between them. What had hitherto been the best elements of the infantry were attracted to the cavalry, and their places were taken by mercenaries or subject races.

In Europe this was not the case to the same extent as in Asia. Value continued to be attached in Greece to heavy infantry, but it was concentrated upon the phalanx. ” What had formed in the time of Philip and Alexander merely a solid base for the free activity of the other kinds of foot, now came to be regarded as the instrument for deciding the issue, and obtaining the victory.” i Men tried in vain to make it flexible and mobile without forfeiting its own special characteristic, impenetrability. The impossibility of this was shown at Cynos-cephaLe (197 B.C.) and Pydna (168 B.C.) when the Macedonian phalanx was worsted by the Roman legions ; but these actions may be better dealt with as incidents of Roman history.