Read The Last Full Measure Online
Authors: Michael Stephenson
The Last Full Measure (58 page)
Although I alone am responsible for any errors in this book, it could not have been written or published without:
Alex Hoyt for finding a publishing home for
The Last Full Measure
and helping me get started as a writer of military history, and Michael Carlisle for his generosity and support. Julian Pavia, my editor at Crown, shepherded the book through the publishing process with impressive intelligence and tact. On more than one occasion his steady head prevented me from losing mine. Margaret Wimberger copyedited the manuscript with great diligence, Chuck Thompson and Chris Fortunato brought a much-appreciated knowledge of military history to reading the proofs. They saved me from the kinds of bloopers that if not caught and corrected will wake you with a sickening jolt in the middle of the night. (And any that may remain are entirely
my responsibility.) The designers Song Hee Kim (interior) and Chris Brand (jacket) have my thanks for making a handsome book. I was fortunate in benefitting from the services of two researchers—Phil White in the US and Chad Henshaw in the UK—who took to death and destruction with quite remarkable enthusiasm. I was very lucky indeed to have a historian at West Point, Lieutenant-Colonel Gregory A. Daddis, critique the book in manuscript. His comments were perceptive and extremely helpful. My friends Joan Goodman and Keith Goldsmith gave me books that otherwise I would have missed, and my friend John Peterson, a Vietnam vet and a historian of dazzling, not to say daunting, depth and breadth, let me pick his brain on many an occasion. My brother Paul allowed himself to be dragged around more battlefields, military cemeteries, and monuments than I think he would have wished. But he did it all with good grace, for which I’m always grateful. My wife, Kathryn Court, showed more patience during my all-too-frequent periods of gloomy misgiving and other deeply irritating bouts of bad behavior than I had any right to deserve.
Finally, I want to acknowledge two gallant men, father and son, who share a windswept family graveyard atop a hill overlooking beautiful Parnham House just outside Beaminster, Dorset, England, which once was their home. The father, William Bernard Rhodes-Moorhouse VC, a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps, was killed on May 22, 1915, in an action that won him a Victoria Cross (the first ever to be awarded to an airman). The son, “Willie” H. Rhodes-Moorhouse DFC, was only one year old when his father died. Shortly after winning the Distinguished Flying Cross, he too would be killed in action (September 6, 1940) as a Hurricane pilot during the Battle of Britain. His ashes were scattered over his father’s grave. When I first discovered that high and austere place many years ago the need to write this book was born.
OTES
PREFACE
1. Quoted in Victor Davis Hanson,
Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power
(New York: Doubleday, 2001).
1.
Ibid., 60.
2.
Lawrence H. Keeley, “Giving War a Chance,” in
Deadly Landscapes: Case Studies in Prehistoric Southwestern Warfare
, eds. Glen E. Rice and Steven A. Leblanc (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2001), 332.
3.
John Keegan,
A History of Warfare
(London: Hutchinson, 1993), 387.
4.
Robert L. O’Connell,
Of Arms and Men: A History of War, Weapons, and Aggression
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 25.
5.
Lawrence H. Keeley,
War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 94.
6.
Ibid., 91.
7.
Keith F. Otterbein,
How War Began
(College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004), 3, 62.
8.
Ibid., 40.
9.
Jean Guilane and Jean Zammit,
The Origins of War: Violence in Prehistory
(London: Blackwell, 2005), 25, 73.
10.
Otterbein,
How War Began
, 50.
11.
Ibid., 56.
12.
Ibid., 64.
13.
Ibid.
14.
Keeley,
War Before Civilization
, 49.
15.
Ibid.
16.
Ibid., 53.
17.
Barbara Ehrenreich,
Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War
(New York: Henry Holt, 1997), 67.
18.
Keeley,
War Before Civilization
, 105.
19.
Ibid.
20.
Otterbein,
How War Began
, 195.
21.
Keeley,
War Before Civilization
, 84. Of the approximately 230 tribal groups that Keeley studied throughout the world he found only 8 “that sometimes spared male adult captives for any reason” (213).
22.
Guilane and Zammit,
Origins of War
, 88.
23.
Keeley,
War Before Civilization
, 99.
24.
Ibid., 101.
25.
Otterbein,
How War Began
, 161.
26.
Quoted in Keeley,
War Before Civilization
, 100.
27.
Ibid., 143.
28.
Stephen Turnbull,
The Samurai: A Military History
(Oxford: George Philip [Osprey], 1977), 10.
29.
O’Connell,
Of Arms and Men
, 33.
30.
J. E. Lendon,
Soldiers & Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), 29.
31.
Guilane and Zammit,
Origins of War
, 215.
32.
Lendon,
Soldiers & Ghosts
, 56.
33.
Ibid., 44.
34.
Ibid., 83.
35.
J. F. C. Fuller,
Armament & History: The Influence of Armament on History from the Dawn of Classical Warfare to the End of the Second World War
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1945), 24.
36.
Lendon,
Soldiers & Ghosts
, 29.
37.
Bernard Mishkin,
Rank & Warfare Among the Plains Indians
(Omaha: University of Nebraska Press, 1992), 31.
38.
Robert Fagles, trans.
The Iliad
(New York: Viking Penguin, 1990), 551.
39.
Ibid., 423–24.
40.
Ibid., 425–26.
41.
Ibid., 554.
42.
Lendon,
Soldiers & Ghosts
, 46.
43.
Ibid., 52.
44.
H. Frölich,
Die Militärmedicin Homer’s
(Stuttgart: Enke, 1879).
45.
K. B. Saunders, “Frölich’s Table of Homeric Wounds,”
Classical Quarterly
54, no. 1 (2004): 1–17.
46.
R. Drews,
The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe, c. 1200 BC
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993).
47.
Fagles, ed.,
Iliad
, 426.
48.
Ibid., 195.
49.
Victor Davis Hanson,
The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece
(New York, Alred A. Knopf, 1989), 213.
50.
Fagles,
Iliad
, 423.
51.
Ibid.
52.
Ibid.
53.
Lendon,
Soldiers & Ghosts
, 41.
54.
Hanson,
Western Way of War
, 224.
55.
Estimating the weight of ancient armor is just that—estimating. What bronze armor has been excavated is so badly corroded as to make calculations of weight extremely difficult. Jack Coggins in his
Soldiers and Warriors: The Fighting Man; An Illustrated History of the World’s Greatest Fighting Forces
(Doubleday, 1966), 19, goes into this in thoughtful detail, and I have tended to use his calculations. Some historians, for example, O’Connell in
Of Arms and Men
and Hanson in
Western Way of War
, favor much heavier weights. O’Connell puts the cuirass alone at 30 pounds (13.6 kg), while Hanson ups it to between 30 and 40 pounds (13.6–18 kg).
56.
O’Connell,
Of Arms and Men
, 36, puts the hoplite helmet at 20 pounds (9 kg), which seems excessive, but G. B. Grundy, cited in Hanson,
Western Way of War
, 49, actually wore an excavated helmet of this period and says: “I have tried on a Greek helmet at Delphi, and I have also tried on various helmets of genuine armour dating from various periods in the Middle Ages. The iron of the Greek helmet was extraordinary thick, and its weight was, I should say, nearly double that of the heaviest helmet of the medieval period.” Hanson finally plumps for five pounds (2.3 kg), 72.
57.
Hanson,
Western Way of War
, 78.
58.
Ibid., 79.
59.
Ibid.
60.
Coggins,
Soldiers and Warriors
, 20.
61.
Hanson disagrees. He states that the panoply was disablingly heavy (
Western Way of War
, 78).
62.
Ibid., 45.
63.
Quoted in Lendon,
Soldiers & Ghosts
, 50.
64.
Ibid., 140.
65.
Fuller,
Armament & History
, 26.
66.
Quoted in ibid., 153.
67.
Quoted in ibid., 154.
68.
Quoted in Hanson,
Western Way of War
, 91.
69.
Cited in ibid., 87.
70.
Coggins,
Soldiers and Warriors
, 20.
71.
Lendon,
Soldiers & Ghosts
, 186.
72.
Quoted in Fuller,
Armament and History
, 25.
73.
Hanson,
Western Way of War
, 209.
74.
Ibid., 203.
75.
Ibid., 201.
76.
Quoted in ibid., 124.
77.
Quoted in ibid., 203.
78.
Lendon,
Soldiers & Ghosts
, 108.
79.
Ibid., 152.
80.
Hanson,
Carnage and Culture
, 74.
81.
Ibid., 77.
82.
Ibid., 35.
83.
Lendon,
Soldiers & Ghosts
, 136.
84.
Hanson,
Carnage and Culture
, 88.
85.
Lendon,
Soldiers & Ghosts
, 118.
86.
Hanson,
Carnage and Culture
, 88.
87.
Ibid., 83, Hanson goes for the higher figure and states that Alexander “killed more Hellenes in a single day than the entire number that had fallen to the Medes at the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea combined!”
88.
Ibid. For example, Dr. Albert Devine puts the figure for Persian losses at 15,000, including wounded and captured. General Sir John Hackett, ed.,
Warfare in the Ancient World
(London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1989), 116.
89.
Quoted in Coggins,
Soldiers and Warriors
, 50. The physics of the
pilum
seems a little contradictory. On the one hand the weapon must have enough straight-on kinetic force and structural integrity to pierce a shield, yet the long iron shank had to be pliable enough to bend when embedded. The penetration could only be achieved if all the force was directly behind the spearhead (and perhaps this was the function of the iron knob at the base of the shank on some pila). Any deviation in flight and the shank would have bent prematurely on impact and dispersed the kinetic energy uselessly.
90.
Quoted in O’Connell,
Of Arms and Men
, 68.
91.
Quoted in Coggins,
Soldiers and Warriors
, 71.
92.
Adrian Goldsworthy,
Roman Warfare
(London: Cassell, 2000), 52.
93.
Ibid., 54.
94.
For example, Hanson estimates 50,000 (
Carnage and Culture
, 104); Polybius puts it at 70,000; Livy at 45,500.
95.
Hanson,
Carnage and Culture
, 103.
96.
Ibid., 110.
97.
John Warry,
Warfare in the Classical World
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), 156.
1.
Bryan Perrett,
The Battle Book
(London: Arms and Armour Press, 1992), 101.
2.
Stephen Turnbull,
The Samurai Sourcebook
(London: Arms and Armour, 1998), 150.
3.
Quoted in Stephen Turnbull,
The Samurai: A Military History
(Oxford: George Philip [Osprey], 1977), 34.
4.
Quoted in Morris Bishop,
The Penguin Book of the Middle Ages
(London: Penguin, 1971).
5.
David Nicolle,
Medieval Warfare Source Book
, vol. 2,
Christian Europe and Its Neighbours
(London: Arms and Armour, 1996), 158.
6.
Ibid.
7.
Matthew Bennett et al.,
Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World, AD 500–AD 1500: Equipment, Combat Skills, and Tactics
(New York: St. Martin’s, 2005), 33.
8.
Hanson,
Carnage and Culture
, 157.
9.
Bennett et al.,
Fighting Techniques
, 35.
10.
Quoted in Robert Hardy,
Longbow: A Social and Military History
(Somerset, UK: Patrick Stephens, 1976), 51.
11.
“Battle of Duplin Moor,” Battlefield Trust,
http://www.battlefieldtrust.com/resource-centre/medieval/battleview
. Hardy puts English knights and men-at-arms at 33 killed.
12.
Quoted in John Keegan, ed.,
The Book of War
(New York: Viking Penguin, 1999), 49.
13.
Quoted in ibid., 59.
14.
Bert S. Hall,
Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 15.
15.
David Nicolle,
Medieval Warfare Source Book
, vol. 1,
Warfare in Western Christendom
(London: Arms and Armour, 1995), 246.
16.
Turnbull,
Samurai
, 45.
17.
Jack Coggins,
Soldiers and Warriors: The Fighting Man: An Illustrated History of the World’s Greatest Fighting Forces
(New York: Doubleday, 1966), 90.
18.
Quoted in ibid., 89.
19.
Maurice Keen,
The Pelican History of Medieval Europe
(London: Penguin, 1968), 121.
20.
Nicolle,
Medieval Warfare Source Book
, vol. 2, 109; and Eduard Wagner et al.,
Medieval Costume, Armour and Weapons
(Mineola, NY: Dover, 2000), plates 26–35.
21.
A. V. B. Norman and Don Pottinger,
A History of War and Weapons
(New York: Crowell, 1966), 126.
22.
Ewart Oakeshott,
A Knight and His Weapons
(Chester Springs, PA: Dufour, 1964), 49.
23.
Quoted in Turnbull,
Samurai Sourcebook
, 205.
24.
Norman and Pottinger,
War and Weapons
, 160.
25.
Quoted in Philip Haythornthwaite,
The English Civil War, 1642–1651: An Illustrated Military History
(London: Brockhampton, 1998), 48.
26.
Ibid., 49.
27.
Oska Ratti and Adele Westbrook,
Secrets of the Samurai: The Martial Arts in Feudal Japan
(Boston: Charles E. Tuttle, 1973), 189.
28.
Turnbull,
Samurai Sourcebook
, 178.
29.
“Arms & Armour,” Regia Anglorum,
http://www.regia.org/warfare/sword.htm
.
30.
Oakeshott,
Knight and His Weapons
, 61.
31.
Hardy,
Longbow
, 72.
32.
Bennett et al.,
Fighting Techniques
, 28.
33.
Ewart Oakeshott,
A Knight in Battle
(Chester Springs, PA: Dufour, 1971), 36.
34.
Nicolle,
Medieval Warfare Source Book
, vol. 2, 244.
35.
R. C. Smail,
Crusading Warfare, 1097–1193
(Cambridge University Press, 1956), 127.
36.
Nicolle,
Medieval Warfare Source Book
, vol. 2, 295.
37.
Hall,
Weapons and Warfare
, 41, 44.
