The Art of Battle: Animated Battle Maps

Battle of Maling, 342 BC

Jonathan Webb — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 18:49:26 +0000

T’ien Ch’i and Sun Pin versus Prince Shen and P’ang Chuan: A Ch’i army under T’ien Ch’i and Sun Pin plans a daring ruse to defeat a Wei army under Prince Shen and P’ang Chuan, known as the Tactic of the Missing Stoves. Will the Wei commanders see through this deception or will Sun Pin retain his masterful reputation? Click on images below to view PowerPoint presentation. | Legend |

Pure examples of warring states periods are relatively unique across history but they nonetheless produce much great literature of war. It was the Chinese Warring States period in which Sun Tzu wrote, and the Italian Wars in which Machiavelli wrote. Both of these authors can teach us much about operating in an environment filled with threats and deceit. What is interesting about such periods of intense competition among many powers is the ambivalence of outcomes. A victory, like the Ch’i victory at Maling, can result in overall defeat if one cannot handle the hegemony that comes with it; one can become a target for strong coalitions and lose more than the spoils of the victory that gained one such pre-eminence. Any player of the board game Risk is well-aware of this. In international relations theory, such time periods and concepts support realism, a theory based on the assumptions that the primary actors in politics are states, that they all seek power, and that the great competition between states is a zero-sum game. As stated previously, such time periods are relatively unique.

This battle immortalized the Tactic of the Missing Stoves as an ingenious ploy. It may seem that such a deception plan can only truly work once since any future commanders will recognize the ploy when utilized against them. However, this illustrates the intelligence dilemma commanders and their intelligence staffs (which they hopefully possess) face when trying to assess the enemy’s capabilities, intent and objectives. If one assumes that the decreasing numbers of stoves indicates a deception plan, how is one able to recognize when the enemy soldiers are actually deserting? One simple answer is to use multiple sources; an effective reconnaissance could have gained the Wei commanders more insight into the Ch’i army’s capabilities. However, Sun Pin’s deception plan was accepted more easily because it fit the Wei commanders’ low opinion of Ch’i soldiers and P’ang Chuan’s own assumptions:

rather than profiting from his expensive historical lesson at Kuei-ling, he succumbed to the dangerous error of evaluating military intelligence and analyzing behavior through the matrix of his own expectations and desires. Naturally this is a complex issue, for raw, unevaluated information may easily prove worse than useless, leading to completely skewed actions. However, assessments based upon false premises, which detect in enemy behavior the confirmation of these premises, are equally fatal. In this Sun Pin’s genius for “knowing the enemy” proved vastly superior. While P’ang Chuan’s reaction may be interpreted as simply anger and arrogance, in fact the more fundamental issue may be termed fostered misperception, Sun Pin having exploited a tendency he recognized in P’ang Chuan by structuring events to sustain and nurture it. (Sawyer, 1995: 53)

In modern military terms, Sun Pin was able to “get inside the enemy’s decision cycle” and completely defeat Wei. For more information on this concept, commonly referred to as the OODA loop, please check out John Boyd’s briefings available online.

In Sun Pin: Military Methods, Sawyer provides excellent analysis and discusses some of the uncertain aspects of the battle.

This is the first of hopefully many animations from China’s rich military history, especially the Warring States period.

There are no casualties listed for this battle because I did not encounter any figures aside from Sawyer’s vague “100,000 men from Wei could have easily been killed and captured [if such and such happened” (1995: 57). Wikipedia lists casualty figures but they appear to be pulled out of nowhere as there is no citation.

This battle was actually quite difficult to animate as it took place outside my realm of knowledge. From my general reading, I possess a good idea of what ancient Roman or Greek warfare looks like, but I could not assume that ancient Chinese warfare operated along the same lines. I found myself continuously referring back to my sources just to answer simple questions. For example, what role do chariots play? In ancient Chinese warfare, they are often employed as stationary weapons platforms on the defensive. Due to the scanty sources for this battle, much of the animation is based on such presuppositions: what tactics were often utilized at the lowest levels, and how were weapons and units often employed. Future animations for this region and time period will be much better as I familiarize myself with the topic.

- Jonathan Webb

Works Consulted

Lau, D.C. and Robert T. Ames. Sun Pin: The Art of Warfare. New York: Ballantine, 1996.

Peers, C.J. and Angus McBride. Ancient Chinese Armies 1500-200 BC. London: Osprey, 1990.

Sawyer, Ralph. D. Sun Pin: Military Methods. Oxford: Westview, 1995.

Images

Ch’i soldiers: http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_16c_figure_1.htm

Sun Pin: http://history.cultural-china.com/en/50H11289H14402.html

Wei soldiers: http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_16c_figure_1.htm

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Operation Crusader, 1941

Jonathan Webb — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 02:13:23 +0000

By Mark Cannon

This animation includes sound.

Click here to view animation.

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About Mark Cannon

Jonathan Webb — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 01:00:47 +0000

Mark Cannon is a PhD Scientist who worked for around 35 years in the Aerospace Research Labs at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. During those years, he found time to read widely in his second area of interest; military history. After retirement, he found a place to put his knowledge of military history to use. The University of Dayton conducts an adult education program for seniors over 50, known as the Lifelong Learning Institute. Mark has taught courses on the American Revolution, The American Civil War, WWI and WWII as well as biographies of Napoleon and Civil War General George H. Thomas. His main fields of expertise are WWII and the American Civil War. He has made extensive use of PowerPoint to create animated battle simulations in his courses which seem to please the students. His battle simulations on this web site have been extracted from those courses.

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Battle of Gazala, 1942

Jonathan Webb — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 02:36:05 +0000

By Mark Cannon

This animation includes sound.

Click here to view animation.

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Battle of the Ice, 1242

Jonathan Webb — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 04:20:21 +0000

Alexander Nevsky versus Hermann von Buxhövden: A Crusader army under Hermann attempts to charge through a Russian army under Nevsky. Will the impact of Hermann’s knights rout Nevsky’s militia in a single charge? Also known as the Battle of Lake Peipus. Click on images below to view PowerPoint presentation. | Legend |

History, military history especially, is most concerned with what actually occurred and why in a given time and place. So while the account of Crusader knights falling through ice and drowning is almost certainly fiction, the fact that Russian chroniclers added this to their accounts and Soviet film maintained this myth is historically significant. To understand this battle’s place in Russian national discourse, one must understand why Sergei Eisenstein, director of the 1938 Soviet film Alexander Nevsky, chose to include the iconic image of the Teutonic Knights falling through the ice. Seton, an Eisenstein biographer, argues his inspiration for the scene was Milton’s Paradise Lost (1978: 381). Ostrowski explains that

Just as the "Chrystall wall of Heav’n … opening wide" and Satan’s army fell into "the bottomless pit" of "the wastful Deep," so too the Livonian knights fell through the ice into the "bottomless depths" of shallow Lake Chud. In other words, the "traditional interpretation" of the "battle on the ice" was most likely the result of Eisenstein’s cinematic interpretation of the Battle in Heaven from Milton’s Paradise Lost. (2006: 312)

The parallels tell us much about Russian national discourse’s deep and bitter representation of the foreign invader. It is clear why Soviet World War II propaganda evoked the image of Nevsky in the struggle repel the Western invader of the time, Nazi Germany in this case. It is also understandable how such representations and images sustain themselves over time, given the frequent invasions of Russian lands throughout history.

Hermann’s battle plan relied on the shock of his knights’ charge to break the average Russian soldier’s resolve to stay on the battlefield. Convincing the enemy that the battlefield is inhospitable is typically the main element to victory, rather than killing each enemy soldier so this tactic was not entirely fantastical. When the Russian line did not break at first contact, Hermann’s secondary plan may have been to kill Nevsky, again, not an unrealistic goal. Nevsky’s own plans doomed the Crusaders however. Nevsky’s early use of his horse-archers, which were not expected by the Crusaders, disrupted the Crusader attack (Nicolle, 1997: 80). Nevsky also utilized his superior numbers against superior quality by immediately hitting the flanks of the Crusader knights as they engaged the Russian center. Defeating quality with quantity requires as much skillful handling as defeating quantity with quality, which we often see in the great battles of history.

Numbers vary somewhat for this battle but agree that the Crusaders were greatly outnumbered. I have accepted Nicolle’s numbers (1997: 41, 90) although this is not one of his best works. His version of events differs from other sources, such as the placement of the Kazak horse-archers on the Russian side; he places them on the right wing whereas every other source places them on the left wing since they fired into the unarmoured right side of the Danish knights on the Crusader right wing (Dickie, 2006: 105; Jestice, 2007: 166).

If you are familiar with the Soviet film version of the battle, you may be surprised by the events depicted in this animation. In "Alexander Nevskii’s ‘Battle on the Ice’: The Creation of a Legend,” Ostrowski (2006) offers an informative explanation for how the battle’s accounts evolved over time, culminating in the fiction of knights breaking through the ice. The battle’s accounts are muddled with those of another battle on ice in 1016 (Ostrowski, 2006: 291). Although not mentioned, the Russian experience of falling through ice as a result of French cannon at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 may have also influenced Russian discourse.

- Jonathan Webb

Works Consulted

Dickie, Iain. “Peipus, 1242.” In Battles of the Medieval World 1000-1500. London: Amber, 2006.

Jestice, Phyllis G. “Lake Peipus, 1242.” In Battles of the Crusades 1097-1444. London: Amber, 2007.

Nicolle, David. Lake Peipus 1242: Battle of the Ice. London: Osprey, 1997.

Ostrowski, Donald. "Alexander Nevskii’s ‘Battle on the Ice’: The Creation of a Legend.” Russian History 33 (2006): 289-312.

Seton, Marie. Sergei M. Eisenstein. London: Dennis Dobson, 1978.

Urban, William. The Teutonic Knights: A Military History. London: Greenhill, 2003.

Images

Alexander Nevsky: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alexander_nevsky.jpg

Crusader knights: http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_148a_figure_1.htm

Crusader light infantry (Estonians): http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_148a_figure_1.htm

Russian light cavalry: http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_129_figure_1.htm; http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_130_figure_1.htm

Russian light infantry: http://www.pressdat.com/mtw2/Novgorod/Spear_Militia.html; http://www.pressdat.com/mtw2/Novgorod/Archer_Militia.html

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Battle of Bannockburn, 1314

Jonathan Webb — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 03:16:29 +0000

Edward II versus Robert Bruce: A Scottish army under Bruce advances against the encamped English army under Edward unexpectedly. Edward’s knights only have to break through a line of Bruce’s pikemen four ranks deep, assuming this many survive a barrage from the feared English longbowmen. How will Bruce exploit the battlefield’s terrain to even the odds? Click on images below to view PowerPoint presentation. | Legend |

This is one of the battles one can identify as the reason for this or that nation existing today, in this case the Scottish one. While this is true in hindsight, one must keep in mind that the significance of the battle at the time was not one of victory of the Scottish nation over the English nation, but a battle between factions within Scotland and England. Nationhood and nationalism are extremely young concepts in the scheme of history that one must resist forcing upon the past.

The English were utterly defeated by the Scottish at Bannockburn (see below for why) but it likely made them stronger consequently. The English learned to dismount their knights and men-at-arms, while maintaining the deadly firepower of the longbowmen: “soon this irresistible combination . . . would become known as the English manner of fighting” (Armstrong, 2005: 90). The English regained military superiority at the Battles of Dupplin Moor and Halidon Hill in 1332 and 1333 respectively, and retained it for most of the Hundred Years’ War. This was likely only possible due to the knowledge gained from their defeat, as is so often the case; Prussian re-organization and re-orientation following their defeat at Jena-Auerstedt in 1806 immediately comes to mind.

The intense class divisions within the English army doomed it in this battle. As the sum of its parts, the English army outclassed its Scottish counterpart; however, the relationship between these parts, how they work together matters more. By allowing the nobility and their knights lead the charge, Edward ignored the conceptual triangle of weapons systems which often governs warfare, not unlike rock-paper-scissors. In this war, longbowmen decimate pikemen (as at Falkirk in 1298), cavalry run down longbowmen, and pikemen repulse cavalry. At Bannockburn, each of these formulae played out: Bruce was able to match up his units with those they can defeat, using all of his army’s parts to their fullest potential.

Of the Scottish units, Bruce’s longbowmen’s role in the battle cannot be understated. They screened the deployment of the schiltrons, preventing the English longbowmen from thinning their already dangerously thin ranks. The Scottish longbowmen also also fired a deadly and demoralizing rain of arrows into the packed English masses on the verge of collapse. Armstrong argues plainly that, “it may have been their fire that tipped the scales at the climax of the battle. Their contribution to the victory has been much undervalued” (2005: 65).

I was forced to discount a great deal of sources when determining numbers. Estimates of the English army are typically around 20,000 even as recent as Reese (2000: 68). However, this estimate and others before it are based on the number of English troops summoned to fight. This means that just because this many lords were charged with sending this many levies does not mean they sent even half that amount (Delbruck, 1982/1921: 441). I thus rely on Armstrong’s detailed order of battle (2005: 43).

The most significant controversy within the accounts of this battle is the role of the Scottish “small folk.” Some sources describe the appearance of 2,000 camp followers and half-trained levies moving towards the battlefield as decisive because the English believed them to be Scottish reinforcements, thus contributing to their collapse (Reese, 2000: 167; Heath, 1984: 56). Reid doubts they had any effect at all (2004: 39) and Scott (1982) does not even mention them. Between these sources, they disagree as to whether the appearance of the small folk was on their initiative or Bruce’s. Armstrong argues that the small folk did advance towards the battlefield from the Scottish rear, which concerned Bruce because there was a reason he did not want these rabble involved in the battle in the first place, and that they had little to no effect on battle (2005: 69). The whole story of the small folk sounds to me like the plot of a poorly depicted battle scene in a Hollywood movie and I have chosen to omit this event which appears utterly blown out of proportion.

The frustrating part of visually depicting this battle is my perceived failure to properly illustrate the cramped terrain and its effect on the battle. To me, it just did not turn out as well as Kulikovo in which cramped terrain was also a theme. Unfortunately, the process of animation is not one you can suddenly go back and change painlessly because you want to tweak it without a real solution to the problem in the first place.

- Jonathan Webb

Works Consulted

Armstrong, Peter. Bannockburn 1314: Robert Bruce’s Great Victory. London: Praeger, 2005.

Delbrück, Hans. History of the Art of War Within the Framework of Political History: The Middle Ages Vol. 3. Translated by Walter J. Renfroe Jr. Westport: Greenwood, 1982.

Dupuy, Trevor N. The Harper Encyclopedia of Military History: From

3500 BC to the Present, Fourth Edition. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Heath, Ian. Armies of the Middle Ages Vol. 1: The Hundred Years’ War, the Wars of the Roses and the Burgundian Wars 1300-1487. Sussex: Flexprint, 1982.

Reese, Peter. Bannockburn: Scotland’s Greatest Battlefield Triumph. Edinburgh: Canongate, 2000.

Reid, Stuart. Battles of the Scottish Lowlands. Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2004.

Sadler, John. Scottish Battles: From Mons Graupius to Culloden. Edinburgh: Canongate, 1996.

Scott. Ronald McNair. Robert the Bruce: King of Scots. London: Hutchinson, 1982.

Images

Edward II: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_II_of_England

English cavalry: http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_145_figure_1.htm

English longbowmen: http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_145_figure_1.htm

English spearmen/pikemen: http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_145_figure_1.htm

Robert Bruce: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_I_of_Scotland

Scottish cavalry: http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_111_figure_1.htm

Scottish longbowmen: http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_140_figure_1.htm

Scottish pikemen: http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_140_figure_1.htm

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Battle of Cape Ecnomus, 256 BC

Jonathan Webb — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 22:43:42 +0000

Marcus Atilius Regulus and Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus versus Hamilcar: A Carthaginian fleet under Hamilcar attempts to encircle and destroy a Roman invasion fleet under Regulus and Manlius. Will Manlius and Regulus simply blast through or will Hamilcar achieve a naval Cannae forty years before its land counterpart? Click on images below to view PowerPoint presentation. | Legend |

The Roman victory was not followed by immediate success, as the victors were largely annihilated at the Battle of Tunes and subsequent storm during the withdrawal. Cape Ecnomus did prove to be a part of a growing trend of Roman competency at sea however, with Rome defeating Carthage at Mylae (260 BC) and Aegates Islands (241 BC), losing only at Drepanum (249 BC). This growing competency was largely the result of tailoring technology to their strengths. In this case, the corvus “enabled the Roman soldiers to make victory turn on their valor and swordsmanship, instead of on the seaman-like skill of the Carthaginians in maneuver and the use of the ram” (Rodgers, 1964: 304).

At this battle, Hamilcar’s intent was to surround and annihilate the Roman fleet, and this plan relied on the assumption that Regulus and Manlius would keep their fleet in a tight mass. Instead, the Roman consuls illogically surged ahead, became separated, and in doing so upset Hamilcar’s plan. Tipps argues that the battle demonstrates the “dangerous unpredictability of the amateur which in battle is so disconcerting to the expert” (Tipps, 1985: 484). Hamilcar had ordered his wings to surround the Roman mass, but there was no mass to surround, and by carrying out this outdated plan, allowed the Roman consuls to smash the Carthaginian center. The Carthaginian wing commanders could have hit the Roman lead squadrons’ flank and rear but this would have exposed their own rear to the follow-on Roman squadrons (Tipps, 1985: 463). The best option would have been for one wing to hit the Roman consular squadrons in flank and rear while the other delayed the follow-on Roman squadrons. Of course, this was well outside the command and control capabilities of the Carthaginian fleet and would have required such a contingency plan to be developed beforehand.

The Roman rear squadrons discovered their commanders’ plan to smash through the Carthaginian fleet in a compact formation was upset by the lead squadrons’ hasty charge. The commanders of these Roman squadrons took good initiative to the changing battlefield by shaking out into some semblance of a line of battle to protect the Roman lead squadrons’ flanks, and then fix the Carthaginian wings until help could arrive. Although Rodgers offers a slightly different description of the battle, he writes that the battle is noteworthy in the context of naval tactics for how the slower Roman ships “were successful in meeting and holding each detachment of the enemy” and how “each consul took his own squadron into a second engagement after victory in the first . . . the highest tribute to their leadership” (1964: 290-1). Battles are chaotic affairs and analysis of the decision-making process of commanders on the ground/sea level induce a further understanding of what happened during the battle and why.

The current scholarship on this battle is very conflicted in their accounts of what happened during this battle due to differing interpretations of Polybius. As one will notice from my above analysis, I’ve opted to rely on Tipps’ convincing account (1985) of the battle; his analysis fits the events and the historical context well. At the same time, I’ve rejected Tipps’ defence of Polybius’ numbers (350 Carthaginian versus 330 Roman ships), and accepted Tarn’s well-known assessment (1907). While the most recent account of the battle uses Polybius’ numbers (Montagu, 2006: 171), the work is a general survey of Greek and Roman warfare and merely describes the event of the battle largely without in-depth analysis on this specific battle. Tipps makes a good argument for why Tarn’s calculations may be incorrect but not enough to prove why Polybius’ numbers should be accepted over Tarn’s own. In an appendix, Tipps describes the influence of Tarn’s estimates on fleet assessments for the time period by identifying works and authors who use Tarn’s estimates as a basis. The staggering amount of authors who have accepted Tarn’s estimates is enough evidence for this animation to use them.

This is the fifth Roman versus Carthaginian battle featured on this site. This may appear disproportionate at first but not when one considers the intensity and duration of conflict between these two ancient Mediterranean powers. However, there are many more conflicts and pairs of historical enemies to cover, so this will likely be the final animation between Rome and Carthage for some time.

I particularly enjoy Tipps’ concept of the “dangerous unpredictability of the amateur” and its relevance to more than battle. Try reading the poker face of someone who themselves don’t know how good their hand is and you’ll understand.

A note on the actual animation sequence: I’m fairly proud of the way my visual illustration of the corvus turned out. Like I’ve told many people already, you can make PowerPoint do anything you want if you get creative and are persistent.

- Jonathan Webb

Works Consulted

Dupuy, Trevor N. The Harper Encyclopedia of Military History: From 3500 BC to the Present, Fourth Edition. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Montagu, John Drogo. Greek and Roman Warfare: Battles, Tactics and Trickery. London: Greenhill, 2006.

Rodgers, William L. Greek and Roman Naval Warfare: A Study of Strategy, Tactics and Ship Design from Salamis (480 BC) to Actium (31 BC). Annapolis: Stevens & Brown, 1937.

Tarn, W.W. “The Fleets of the First Punic War.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 27 (1907): 48-60

Tipps, G.K. “The Battle of Ecnomus.” Historia Zietschrift für Alte Gechichte 34.3 (1985): 432-465.

Images

Carthaginian quinquereme: http://wildfiregames.com/0ad/page.php?p=1531

Corvus: http://www.cogandgalleyships.com/blog/614543-the-corvus/; http://www.livius.org/cn-cs/corvus/corvus.html

Marcus Atilius Regulus: https://sites.google.com/site/alostrome/marcus-atilius-regulus

Roman quinquereme: http://pc.ign.com/articles/549/549046p19.html

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Battle of Breitenfeld, 1631

Jonathan Webb — Mon, 21 May 2012 00:50:18 +0000

Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly versus Gustavus Adolphus: A Swedish-Saxon army under Gustavus fields new, innovative tactics against an Imperialist army under Tilly. Will these superior tactics matter if Gustavus’ Saxon allies flee the battlefield in the face of Tilly’s fierce attack? Click on images below to view PowerPoint presentation. | Legend |

Commentators typically note how Gustavus’ victory was “the first great test and trial of the new tactics against the old, and therefore the first great land battle of the modern age, a victory of mobility and firepower over numbers and push of pike” (Fuller, 1954: 64). The Swedish infantry brigades – the brigade itself making its first appearance – utilized twice as many musketeers as pikemen, reversing the traditional ratio. Considered the decisive battle of the war, Davis adds that the Thirty Years’ War overall “marked the beginning of the modern age, not only in military affairs but in religious and political arenas as well” (1999: 213). The battle ensured Germany remained outside of Catholic-Hapsburg influence, which helped characterize the eventual Peace of Westphalia. This treaty permitted each sovereign to choose which religion his state followed without others interfering. This concept was soon expanded to greater politics to create a system of sovereign states, still in use today.

Aside from the tactical organization of the opposing armies, operational maneuver did affect the battle’s outcome. Tilly’s long line of troops aimed to “concentrate a formidable shock” against the entire Swedish-Saxon line (Bonney, 2002: 47). In this sense, this deployment achieved what it was intended to, as the weaker Saxon forces were routed from the field, exposing the Swedish left flank to attack. Tilly’s exploitation of the Saxon rout with an oblique advance by his infantry against the Swedish left flank is lauded by commentators:

Tilly had in fact conducted a tactical manoeuvre of some skill, following up Fürstenberg’s success against [Johann] George with an oblique advance, to bear with his full weight on the now depleted and vulnerable Swedish wing. It was a manoeuvre worthy Alexander the Great and Epaminondas and one that was to be repeated with startling success by Frederick the Great. (Goodenough, 1979: 74-75)

Of course, Gustavus had the time to reinforce his left due to the Imperialist infantry’s unwieldy and slow-moving formations. It was then the Swedes’ effective combined arms cooperation between pikemen, musketeers and cavalry which crushed the Imperialist attack. Imperialist tactical deficiencies doomed their operational maneuvers.

Tactics did play a more prominent role in this battle but operational maneuver also affected the scale of the Swedish victory. Despite the murderous barrage that was raining down on the Imperialist army, Tilly did not intend to open to battle with cavalry attacks on both wings. So when Pappenheim surged forward, prompting Fürstenberg to advance, Tilly cried out that “he was ruined” (MacMunn, 1931: 203). Fürstenberg routed the Saxons but Pappenheim was utterly defeated, exposing the Imperialist left flank to Gustavus’ decisive counterstroke. Even had the Imperialist infantry faltered, the Imperialist defeat would not have been so decisive had Pappenheim’s cavalry engaged the Swedish right throughout and prevented it from seizing its army’s guns.

This battle presented me with some difficulties in deciding how to best illustrate what occurred. Each sector of this battle was decided by tactics which seemed to be at too low a level to properly illustrate. The solution was a lengthier narrative, subtle visual sequences and a brief zoom-in to compare how each infantry unit was organized as a starting point. While I strive for standardization, each battle presents its own unique dilemma, which must be resolved on a case by case basis to determine the best way to visualize the battle.

For such a well-documented and popularized battle, sources were relatively vague in many respects especially as the battle developed. For example, Adolphus fielded seven infantry brigades, three of which were held in the second line. When Tilly advanced against the Swedish left flank, Adolphus sent two of them to reinforce Horn. However, the sources I consulted did not explicitly mention the third brigade’s activity during the battle. There is a similar discrepancy when MacMunn writes that Tilly sent one of his seventeen infantry regiments to reinforce Pappenheim’s attack on the Swedish right (1931: 203); no other source mentions this maneuver. Such minute discrepancies frustrate me when I am in the midst of animation. If I create seven infantry boxes for example, I need to have some idea as to where each of them is and what they are doing. Unlike written narratives which can just omit these details, a visual presentation requires the creator to resolve the issue.

- Jonathan Webb

Works Consulted

Bonney, Richard. The Thirty Years War 1618-1648. Oxford: Osprey, 2002.

Delbrück, Hans. History of the Art of War Within the Framework of Political History: The Modern Era Vol. 4. Translated by Walter J. Renfroe Jr. Westport: Greenwood, 1980.

Dupuy, Trevor N. The Harper Encyclopedia of Military History: From 3500 BC to the Present, Fourth Edition. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Fuller, J.F.C. The Decisive Battles of the Western World Vol. 2. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1956.

Goodenough, Simon. Tactical Genius in Battle. Oxford: Phodian Press, 1979.

MacMunn, George. Gustavus Adolphus: The Lion of the North. New York: Robert M. McBride & Co.,1931.

Wilson, Peter H. The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009.

Images

Gustavus Adolphus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavus_Adolphus_of_Sweden

Imperialist artillery: Brnardic, Vladimir. Imperial Armies of the Thirty Years’ War: Infantry and Artillery. Oxford: Osprey, 2009.

Imperialist cavalry: Brnardic, Vladimir. Imperial Armies of the Thirty Years’ War: Cavalry. Oxford: Osprey, 2010.

Imperialist infantry: Brnardic, Vladimir. Imperial Armies of the Thirty Years’ War: Infantry and Artillery. Oxford: Osprey, 2009.

Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Tserclaes,_Count_of_Tilly

Swedish & Saxon artillery: Brzezinski, Richard and Richard Hook. The Army of Gustavus Adolphus: Infantry. Oxford: Osprey, 2000.

Swedish & Saxon cavalry: Brzezinski, Richard and Richard Hook. The Army of Gustavus Adolphus: Cavalry. Oxford: Osprey, 1999.

Swedish & Saxon infantry: Brzezinski, Richard and Richard Hook. The Army of Gustavus Adolphus: Infantry. Oxford: Osprey, 2000.

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Battle of Gallipoli, 1915-1916

Jonathan Webb — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 03:12:53 +0000

Sir Ian Hamilton versus Liman von Sanders: An Allied army under Hamilton attempts to seize the Gallipoli peninsula, held by an Ottoman army under Sanders. Will the expedition prove as easy as the Allies expect or will they have to test their strength against the Turks yard by yard? Also known as the Battle of Çanakkale, Gallipoli Campaign and Dardanelles Campaign. Includes the Battles of Krithia, Kereves Dere, Gully Ravine, Achi Baba Nullah, Sari Bair, Lone Pine, Chunuk Bair, Suvla, Anafarta and Scimitar Hill. Click on images below to view PowerPoint presentation. | Legend |

British military historians would surely prefer to forget the Gallipoli campaign ever happened, dismissing the campaign’s failure to be the result of incompetent generalship. This conceptualization of the battle as an Allied failure does not recognize the reciprocal reality that it was also an Ottoman triumph. So while Allied commanders made some grave mistakes but the logic does not proceed that had they not made these mistakes, the Allies would have necessarily won. The Turkish victory literally made the Ottoman army: all but one of the senior commanders leading the Turks in their War of Independence 1919-1922 served in Gallipoli at some point (Erickson, 2010: 228-229). So while Allied commanders made some grave mistakes but the logic does not proceed that had they not made these mistakes, the Allies would have necessarily won. For Turkey, Australia and New Zealand, Gallipoli is of huge psychological importance, representing “a coming of age of a people about to test themselves against the currents of the twentieth century” (Erickson, 2001: 76).

Much of the explanation for framing the campaign as a British failure is the latent racism involved in planning, fighting, and recording the campaign. The Allies believed they could knock Turkey out of the war in a single campaign, either by simply bombarding Constantinople with naval guns or marching on it from the beaches of Gallipoli. Even with success at Gallipoli, marching on Constantinople would have entailed sweeping aside 150,000 Turkish soldiers British intelligence estimated to be in the area (Carlyon, 2001: 87) with a mere 75,000 Allied troops in the context of World War I combat. The whole plan is reminiscent of a colonial campaign against some indigenous people armed with bows and arrows. Such latent racism persists even in modern accounts of the battle. Up until Erickson’s excellent Gallipoli: The Ottoman Campaign, many of these myths persisted simply due to lack of accurate information available in Turkish archives. While the Ottoman Empire may have been declining, its army was strong and increasingly adept.

Erickson describes at length the Ottoman army’s strengths at Gallipoli:

If there is a singular observation about why the Turks were able to stop Hamilton so completely it is that they were able to operate inside the British decision cycle. As a military doctrine the concept of ‘getting inside the enemy’s decision cycle’ was articulated by the United States Army in its AirLand Battle doctrines of the late 1970s. It is based on the idea of leveraging fresh intelligence and information about the enemy in a way that enables a force to react faster than the enemy. It depends on a number of factors such as empowering commanders with the authority to act and training them to use their own initiative to accomplish the mission. On the ground in real combat the essence of operating inside the enemy’s decision cycle is succinctly captured by the American Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s famous maxim ‘Get there firstest with the mostest.’ On the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915, the locally outnumbered Turks showed up most of the time with more troops, more favorably positioned, in the hands of more active commanders. How they managed this deserves consideration.

The Ottoman army’s reporting system was, in comparison to the Allied system, much more effective because of its standardized formations and bottom-up driven requirements. The Fifth Army commanders, at every level, were consistently in possession of accurate and timely information that enabled them to make rapid and effective decisions. This also created a superior condition of situational awareness for army, corps and division commanders, which enabled them to calculate and take risks. Cumulatively, these factors led to the capability to mass the available forces effectively and efficiently. This was enhanced by the army’s ability to task organize regiments and battalions at will between divisions and corps. This seemingly effortless ability to cross-attach units was a result of the triangular division architecture as well as a result of the hard-won experiences of the Balkan Wars. The generation of combat power by the Ottoman army, then, was really an expression of doctrines and methods rather than the simple accumulation of men and weapons. Four operations illustrate this point: Sefik and Mustafa Kemal’s coordinated attack on 25 April, Kemal’s subsequent massed night attacks, Mahmut Sabri’s defence of Cape Helles and Nicolai’s massing at Kum Kale. In each case the Turks brought their forces to the right place in time to thwart the Allied offensives. (2010: 90-91)

Erickson argues that while adept at the operational level, the Ottoman army’s main weakness was its strategic thinking and planning:

Finally, in the author’s opinion, the most significant mistake made by the Turks in the Gallipoli campaign occurred [during the initial Allied offensives]. Enver Pasha eventually sent thirteen additional Ottoman army infantry divisions to the Gallipoli front to reinforce the Fifth Army’s original six divisions. Had he sent six to eight divisions immediately from the massive force pool then held in Thrace in the late spring of 1915, these could have had a dramatic effect on the Ottoman attacks in phase three of the campaign – possibly leading to the destruction of the Anzac and Cape Helles bridge heads. This was a significant strategic error that immobilized critical military assets when they were most needed. There were two reasons for this: Enver thought that the Russians were about to launch a corresponding amphibious invasion on the Bosporous strait and, moreover, he worried about a Greco-Bulgarian alliance attacking western Thrace. That he thought these things were possible highlights the generalized weaknesses in strategic thinking and planning which affected the Ottoman high command throughout the war. As the British managed to throw away their victory so too did the Turks manage to discard the possibility of a campaign of annihilation. (2010: 91)

While eventually victorious, the Turks suffered heavy casualties in catastrophic offensives May-June. The Gallipoli front was just as susceptible to stalemate as the Western Front during World War I. Erickson lists a number of reasons why the Ottoman senior officer corps undertook such offensives, despite learning such lessons from the Balkan Wars 1912-1913. The one relatively unique explanation within the context of World War I is the fact that

the lack of positional depth of the Allied beachheads meant that the Turks did not have to develop complex plans involving deep penetrations or pursuits. The simple act of punching through and driving forward 2 or 3 kilometers would have put them on the landing beaches themselves. Unlike the Allies, they did not have to plan for follow-on objectives and multi-phase attacks. The very simplicity of objective was itself decisively seductive. (Erickson, 2010:137)

Unlike the unrealistic hopes of ending the stalemate in the West with a single decisive attack, the Turks could have annihilated the Allied forces on the Gallipoli front with such a success.

Of the Allied shortcomings, there are many and they are well-documented in English accounts of the battle, which often lack sustained research of Turkish accounts. The purpose of these comments is largely to push back against this overwhelming discourse based on English sources, which has been made possible by Erickson’s well-sourced account from the Turkish perspective based on Turkish sources set against these secondary English accounts. For example, writing of the Third Battle of Krithia June 4-6, it is understood that Hunter-Weston made a grave mistake by committing Allied reserves to the flanks where Allied forces made little progress on rather than reinforcing the center where Allied forces had broken through. As is clearly visible in this animation, this notion is ridiculous as none of the Ottoman Southern Group’s reserves were yet committed to the battle (Erickson, 2010: 110). The other Allied blunder that warrants discussion is Stopford’s unwillingness and/or incapability in pushing his divisions forward to capture Anafarta Ridge in the first few days of the Suvla landings August 6-7. This predominant theme is illustrated in the 1981 film wherein the fictional Australian General Gardner observes that while Australians are slaughtered, “the [English] officers are sitting on the beach drinking cups of tea.” While Stopford and the British 10th and 11th divisions’ performance was abysmal at Suvla, the operation’s objective was actually Sari Bair ridge, which the ANZAC failed to capture regardless of events on their left.

I have largely omitted depicting the corps level for this battle for the sake of clarity. During WWI, the Ottomans preferred using ad hoc groups to manage crises anyways, and so these are represented as the commander of any such group wielded great influence over the battle. For example, at one point (August 21 to be exact) Mustapha Kemal commanded seven divisions in the Anafarta Group without any corps organization. There were a few points where I was forced to lengthen the text to explain who was making what decision but the omission of the corps-level decision-making offered few issues overall. For the sake of clarity, I will likely omit the corps level during the Battle of the Bulge animation, another animation at the divisional level.

One of the reasons this animation took so long is the fact that Erickson’s Gallipoli: The Ottoman Campaign, was not available in McMaster’s regular book stacks. This meant I had to request it via interlibrary loan, wait a week for it to arrive from a different university, use it for two weeks, then return it and begin the cycle anew. In normal circumstances, two weeks is sufficient to finish off any animation but not a massive one like Gallipoli. I began requesting the book from a second university as soon as I received it from one university so I always had a copy even if it continuously changed. However, an e-mail from McMaster library staff politely telling me to stop doing that returned me to the usual cycle. As soon as the animation was complete, McMaster purchased its own copy of Erickson’s great book. I could think of this as bitter irony but I would like to think that my repeated interlibrary requests convinced the staff of the book’s value and demand.

The image I used to represent the Allied soldier is specifically ANZAC. Australia and New Zealand possess a greater attachment to the campaign than their British comrades and so I felt it made sense to represent this.

- Jonathan Webb

Works Consulted

Carlyon, Les. Gallipoli. New York: Doubleday, 2002.

Carver, Michael. The National Army Museum book of the Turkish Front 1914-1918. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 2003.

Dupuy, Trevor N. The Harper Encyclopedia of Military History: From 3500 BC to the Present, Fourth Edition. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Erickson, Edward J. Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman army in the First World War. London: Greenwood, 2001.

. Gallipoli: The Ottoman Campaign. Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2010.

Esposito, Vincent J. and T. Dodson Stamps. A Short Military History of World War I. New York: Praeger, 1954.

Hickey, Michael. Gallipoli. London: John Murray, 1995.

Moorehead, Alan. Gallipoli. Victoria: MacMillan, 1989.

Prior, Robin. Gallipoli: The End of the Myth. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.

Travers, Tim. Gallipoli 1915. Stroud: Tempus, 2001.

Images

Allied soldiers: http://www.tracks-n-troops.eu/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=14_2&products_id=6919

Otto Liman von Sanders: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Liman_von_Sanders

Ottoman soldiers: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=398692&page=11

Sir Ian Hamilton: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Standish_Monteith_Hamilton

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Battle of Fornovo, 1495

Jonathan Webb — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:49:15 +0000

Francesca II Gonzaga versus Charles VIII: A League army under Gonzaga seeks to destroy a French army marching home under Charles, but the Taro River separates them. Will Gonzaga’s audacious attack plan overcome not only the terrain but one of the most reputable armies in all of Europe? Click on images below to view PowerPoint presentation. | Legend |

This battle is classified as a draw and had little eventual consequence but did create a situation in which decisive results and consequences were possible. In a strategic sense, the French were able to achieve their objective of continuing on to France as a result of their tactical victory over League forces on every front. However, League cavalry was able to loot the French baggage train, claiming 180,000 gold ducats as well as forcing most French soldiers to go without tents, dry clothes and food for the night (Nicolle, 1996: 73). Aside from sowing tensions among the League commanders, the League army may have been in a better state compared to the French after the battle, suffering proportionately fewer casualties and possessing more fresh soldiers. Of course, neither army followed up the battle with any bold action, and thus the battle is remembered as an indecisive draw.

Gonzaga’s plan of attack appeared faultless but obviously had significant problems. Contradictorily, the League’s goal was the enemy’s total destruction and yet over a quarter of its soldiers guarded the camp. Taylor explains that the battle is notable for the “bad choice of ground by the [League], and for the over-elaboration of their tactical scheme. Lack of determination prevented tem from driving their attacks home or from making use of their reserves, while indiscipline ruined the most promising feature of the plan – the diversion of the [light cavalry]” (1973: 115). The League plan correctly identified the French center and Charles as the most promising target and allotted 10,000 men in the battlegroups of Gonzaga, Garlino, Fortebraccio and Montefeltro to defeat the 3,900 men of the French center and rearguard. However, the above factors eroded the mass and energy of the main thrust: “Thus, at the moment of confrontation, Gonzaga and Fortebraccio were left without support, and the French probably outnumbered them” (Santosuosso, 1994: 242).

Following the failure of the League plan, League commanders showed some initiative in securing the fords Gonzaga and Fortebraccio’s battlegroups used to retreat as well as firing off artillery to deter any French counterattack.

Numbers for this battle are drawn from Santosuosso who describes the composition of each army’s many moving parts in detail (1994: 228-232). Nicolle’s Osprey edition was extremely helpful with the battle’s events, with only a few difficult reconciliations between the two sources. However, Nicolle appears to have forgotten to multiply the number of French lances, which denote units of six, not individuals, and as such Santosuosso is favoured in this regard. I did however add the 1,000 low-quality infantry to the French baggage train that Nicolle mentions (1996: 53) but Santosuosso omits.

- Jonathan Webb

Works Consulted

Dupuy, Trevor N. The Harper Encyclopedia of Military History: From 3500 BC to the Present, Fourth Edition. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Nicolle, David. Fornovo 1495: France’s Bloody Fighting Retreat. Oxford: Osprey, 1994.

Santosuosso, Antonio. “Anatomy of Defeat: The Battle of Fornovo in 1495. International History Review 16.2 (1994): 221-250.

Taylor, Frederick Lewis. The Art of War in Italy 1494-1529. Westport: Greenwood, 1973.

Images

Charles VIII: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_VIII_of_France

Francesca II Gonzaga: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_II_Gonzaga

French artillerymen: http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_178_figure_1.htm

French infantry: http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_161b_figure_1.htm

French light cavalry: http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_169_figure_1.htm

French men-at-arms: http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_178_figure_1.htm

Italian artillerymen: http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_178_figure_1.htm

Italian infantry: http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_169_figure_1.htm

Italian light cavalry: http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_169_figure_1.htm

Italian men-at-arms: http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_169_figure_1.htm

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