The Strategikon - A Forgotten Military Classic - Charles C. Petersen

Return to Military History page.Return to Military Theory page.

A Forgotten Military Classic

Charles C. Petersen

(Article from Military Review, August 1992. Scanned by Air War College.)

The Strategikon was written to serve as a manual to assist with the training of themounted troops of the Byzantine army. The author suggests that this forgotten work hasuse for today's military organizations. He compares the philosophies of the Strategikon tothose of Sun Tzu's The Art of War and discusses their differences. Finally, he notes that itwas not until the 20th century that the Byzantine type of warfare returned to thebattlefield.

O EDWARD GIBBON, "the vices of the Byzantine armies were inherent, their victoriesaccidental."(1) Of all the many distortions in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,this one ranks with the most glaring. For it was largely the excellence of the ByzantineEmpire's military organization and the sophistication of its art of war that enabled it towithstand assaults from Persians, Avars, Franks, Slavs and Arabs (to name just a few ofits enemies) for more than 500 years between the sixth and 11th centuries.

The sources of this excellence lay not in the genius of Belisarious or Narses who, despitethe brilliance of their victories, left no lasting imprint on the Byzantine military system,but in reforms enacted a generation later by the soldier-emperor Maurice (582-602) andcodified in an outstanding military manual, the Strategikon. So successful were Maurice'sreforms that they remained substantially undisturbed for the next five centuries. "Notuntil well into the nineteenth century," writes J. F. C. Fuller, "were military manuals ofsuch excellence produced in western Europe."(2) Yet, very few copies of this work havesurvived; a printed version of the Greek text appeared only in 1981; and the first Englishtranslation, only in 1984.(3) Published by an academic press, it appears not to have cometo the attention of the general military reader and has already gone out of print.(4)

The Strategikon - A Forgotten Military Classic - Charles C. Petersen http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/strategikon/strategikon.htm

1 of 14 10/27/09 2:39 PM

The Strategikon is a practical manual, "a rather modest elementary handbook," in thewords of its introduction, "for those devoting themselves to generalship."(5) Its concernwith contemporary military problems contrasts sharply with the philosophical detachmentof Sun Tzu's The Art of War, written a millennium earlier.(6) Even so, its militarywisdom, like that of the Chinese military classic, speaks to generals of every era, and theprinciples that influenced its instructions for the deployment and employment of the EastRoman army's field forces remain of interest today.

The Strategikon on Maurice's Reforms

The Strategikon consists of 12 chapter-length "books," all but one of which deal with theorganization, training and support of mounted troops. But the mounted troops describedin the Strategikon were no ordinary cavalry; they were balanced and versatile fightingformations capable of winning decisions independently in battle against a variety ofopponents and in many kinds of terrain. The Byzantine army's infantry, as Sir Charles W.C. Oman points out, was "altogether a subsidiary force," used more for garrison duty andsmall-scale mountain warfare than for taking the field with the horse.(7)

The basic tactical unit of the Byzantine army, as reorganized by Maurice, was the bandumor tagma, a mounted company whose size fluctuated between 200 and 400 horsemen."All of the tagmas should definitely not be of the same size," asserts the Strategikon. "Ifthey are, the enemy can easily estimate the size of the army by counting standards."(8)Three or more tagmas formed a brigade or moira; three moiras in turn, a division ormeros—all of them, like the tagma, of variable strength. Twelve hundred years later,Napoleon laid down a similar rule for his own higher formations for similar reasons.(9)Nevertheless, the requirements of efficient command and control did impose upper limitson the size of these units. Thus, the moira could not exceed 3,000 men, nor the meros"more than six or seven thousand"; otherwise, "as they become larger and more extended,they may prove to be disorderly and confused."(10)

The Byzantine army's success on the battlefield as a result of Maurice's reforms wasfounded on its effective blend of striking power, mobility and protection, and on a keenawareness that "the art of fighting depends upon the closest combination of the offensiveand the defensive, so closely as does the structure of a building depend upon bricks andmortar."(11) Every formation in the Byzantine army, from the smallest to the largest,embodied these principles in its organization and tactics and was, consequently, ableequally to fight on its own or as part of larger units, performing specialized roles.

The smallest tactical unit, the tagma, derived its striking power from its combined use offire (from horse archers) and shock (from lancers), an innovation that no Byzantineadversary could match, being proficient in one or the other, but seldom both together.Well in advance of the rest of the medieval world, as the Strategikon reveals, the EastRomans discovered that fire prepares the way for shock more through suppression than


2 of 14 10/27/09 2:39 PM

attrition and that the effectiveness of suppressive fire depends less on accuracy than onsheer volume and high trajectory. For when the enemy has to worry about avoiding themissiles raining down on him, his attention is diverted from what is happening directlyahead, and he becomes vulnerable to the shock of a charge.(12) Therefore, in theinstructions for drilling the tagma, the horse archers line up behind the lancers, reversingthe earlier practice, so that they must use high-angle fire in order to reach the enemy andavoid hitting their own men.(13) The directions for training the individual horse archerare equally revealing: "He should be trained to shoot rapidly . . . . Speed is important inshaking the arrow loose and discharging it with force. . . . This is essential. . . . In fact,even when the arrow is well aimed, firing slowly is useless."(14) This emphasis on speed,and hence volume, of fire, even at the cost of accuracy, was also without precedent inByzantine military practice.(15)

The tagma's high mobility was the product of not only its equine locomotion but also thespecial training to enhance its cross-country capability. "It is essential," according to theStrategikon, "that the horses become accustomed not only to rapid maneuvering in open,level country, but also over hilly, thick and rough ground, and in the quick ascending anddescending of slopes. If they get used to these different types of ground, then neither mennor horses will be surprised or troubled by any sort of land." After describing some drillsto be used in "difficult country," the manual adds: "The men who spare their horses andneglect drills of this sort are really planning their own defeat."(16) The tagma's ability tomove and fight on irregular terrain was further enhanced by the fact that its troopers weretrained to fight on foot, as well as on horseback. This infantry training also improvedtheir chances of survival if they were unhorsed or their mounts were killed in combat.(17)

For protection, the tagma's horsemen relied on helmets and on what the Strategikondescribes as "hooded coats of mail reaching to their ankles, which can be caught up bythongs and rings." The lancers in the two front ranks also carried shields, and theirmounts wore "protective pieces of iron armor about their heads, and breastplates of ironor felt, or else breast and neck coverings such as the Avars use."(18) In addition, thetagma was trained to fight both in extended (offensive) order and in close (defensive)order and to make rapid changes from one to the other as conditions required. During thecharge, the tagma advanced in close order, the horse archers protected by the lancersahead, and the lancers, in turn, by volleys of suppressive fire from the horse archersbehind.(19)

In higher formations, Maurice's reforms introduced a distinction between "assault troops"(cursores) and "defenders" (defensores): one third of each division or meros was toconsist of the former, drawn up on its flanks in open order, and the remaining two thirdsof the latter, drawn up in the center in close order.(20) The task of assault troops was "tomove out ahead of the main line and rush upon the retreating enemy"—in other words, toconduct pursuits, presumably after the enemy line of battle had been successfully chargedand routed. The task of defenders, on the other hand, was to "follow them, not chargingout or breaking ranks, but marching in good order as a support for the assault troops ifthey should happen to fall back."(21) An inherent weakness of mixed infantry-cavalry


3 of 14 10/27/09 2:39 PM

formations had been that pursuits after a battlefield success inevitably entailed theseparation of the formation's mobile striking arm from its less mobile, defensive base,exposing the cavalry vanguard of the pursuit to possible annihilation in well-preparedambushes. The Byzantine army solved this problem by making the defensive base asmobile as the striking arm, enabling the one to support the other in mobile warfare, aswell as in set-piece actions.

The conviction that correct offensive action presupposes a sound defensive also foundexpression in a new order of battle for Byzantine field armies. Each was required to drawup for battle not just in one line, as before, but in two lines, one of them arrayed behindthe other with "about a third" of the entire force. The author of the Strategikon makes aforceful argument to justify this change. "To form the whole army simply in one line . . .for a general cavalry battle and to hold nothing in reserve for various eventualities in caseof a reverse is the mark of an inexperienced and absolutely reckless man," he writes.(22)For "if it should be outflanked or unexpectedly attacked by the enemy, and it has nosupport from its rear or flanks, without any protection or reserve force, it will be forced toretire in headlong flight." With a second line supporting the first, however, such a disastercould be avoided. If, on the one hand, the first line "retreats or is pushed back, then thesecond line is there as a support and a place of refuge. This makes it possible to rally thetroops and get them to turn back on their attackers."(23) On the other hand, "When weare pursuing the enemy, we can make our attack safely, for if some of the enemy turnback on us or if there is a sudden attack from another quarter, then the second line canhold its ground, join battle, and protect the first."(24) In effect, then, the new two-lineorder of battle reproduced, at the grand tactical level, the organization of each meros intoassault troops and defenders at the tactical level.

Of no less importance in the new order of battle were the detached bodies. "Two or threebandums" were to be posted as flank guards to the left of the first line, "where hostileoutflanking and encircling movements may naturally be expected" (against theweaponless left arms of the men on that side). A "bandum or two of archers, known asoutflankers," were to be deployed to the other side of the first line to turn the enemy's leftflank, and an additional "three or four" bandums were to be placed in concealed positionson both sides, from where they could attack the enemy's rear.(25) According to theStrategikon, "well timed attacks against the enemy's flanks and rear are much moreeffective and decisive than direct frontal charges and attacks. . . . [If the enemy must befaced in open battle, therefore,] do not mass all your troops in front, and even if theenemy is superior in numbers, direct your operations against his rear or his flanks. For itis dangerous and uncertain under all conditions and against any people to engage inpurely frontal combat."(26)

These dispositions proved so adaptable that they were still in use, almost without change,300 years later, when the emperor, Leo VI, issued his Tactical Constitutions.(27) Nearly900 years more were to pass, however, before an order of battle of comparablesophistication—Frederick the Great's celebrated "oblique order"—appeared in WesternEurope.(28)


4 of 14 10/27/09 2:39 PM

The Strategikon on the Art of WarThe highest principle of the Byzantine art of war, as the Strategikon makes clear, waseconomy of force. "A ship cannot cross the sea without a helmsman, nor can one defeatan enemy without tactics and strategy. With these and the aid of God it is possible toovercome not only an enemy force of equal strength but even one greatly superior innumbers. For it is not true, as some inexperienced people believe, that wars are decidedby courage and numbers of troops, but . . . by tactics and generalship and our concernshould be with these rather than [with] wasting our time mobilizing large numbers oftroops."(29) The manual likens warfare to hunting: "Wild animals are taken by scouting,by nets, by lying in wait, by stalking, by circling around, and by other such stratagemsrather than by sheer force." In waging war, one should do likewise, "whether the enemybe many or few." To try "simply to overpower the enemy in the open, hand to hand andface to face," is a "very risky" enterprise that "can result in serious harm" even if theenemy is defeated. "It is ridiculous to try to gain a victory which is so costly and bringsonly empty glory."(30) Thus, "a wise commander will not engage the enemy in a pitchedbattle unless a truly exceptional opportunity presents itself."(31) He will avoid emulatingthose who "are admired for their brilliant success [but] carry out operationsrecklessly."(32) He will "watch for the right opportunities and pretexts" and "strike at theenemy before they can get themselves ready."(33)

One does not have to delve very far into this treatise to recognize its kinship with twoother military classics, one of them written a millennium earlier; the other, a millenniumlater. The first, Sun Tzu's Art of War, was already mentioned. "To capture the enemy'sarmy," we read there, "is better than to destroy it; to take intact a battalion, a company ora five-man squad is better than to destroy them. For to win one hundred victories in onehundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acmeof skill."(34) The "master of war," we read elsewhere in Sun Tzu's book, "conquers anenemy already defeated"; "a victorious army wins its victories before seeking battle; anarmy destined to defeat fights in the hope of winning."(35)

Two thousand years later, the 18th-century French general Maurice de Saxe echoes thesethoughts in his Reveries upon the Art of War. "I do not favor pitched battles," he writes,"especially at the beginning of a war, and I am convinced that a skillful general couldmake war all his life without being forced into one." He adds: "I do not mean to say bythis that when an opportunity occurs to crush the enemy that he should not be attacked,nor that advantage should not be taken of his mistakes. But I do mean that war can bemade without leaving anything to chance. And this is the highest point of perfection andskill in a general."(36)


5 of 14 10/27/09 2:39 PM

That the commander must strive to conduct war without leaving anything to chance isalso a recurring theme in the Strategikon. "A general should not have to say: 'I did notexpect it."'(37) "The general should be ignorant of none of the situations likely to occur inwar."(38) "The sharp general takes into account not only probable dangers, but also thosewhich may be totally unexpected."(39) We should not take this to imply that the generalmust strive for omniscience—only that his plans should be flexible, that they "ought tohave several branches," as Pierre-Joseph de Bourcet says, so that alternative courses ofaction are always available if the one initially chosen does not bear fruit.(40)

Just as the wise commander should seek to reduce his own uncertainty, so too must hestrive to magnify the enemy's, "for only those battle plans are successful which the enemydoes not suspect before we put them into action."41) Thus, counsels the manual, "Thegeneral who wants to keep his plans concealed from the enemy should never take therank and file of his own troops into his confidence."(42) "Your plans about majoroperations should not be made known to many, but to just a few and [only] those veryclose to you."(43) Nor should the army ever "draw up in its full combat formation . . .when it is just drilling," for "these dispositions are matters of strategy rather than oftactics, and they ought not be made known ahead of time during drill."(44)

The author of the Strategikon was aware, moreover, that the effort to magnify the enemy'suncertainty must not end with passive security measures such as these. He devotes awhole chapter to what we would now call "exercise deception," describing a series ofmock drills (in addition to one suggested "for actual use") to be practiced "so others[enemy spies and potential deserters] will not find out which one we think is moreimportant." (45) He is also an enthusiastic proponent of misleading the enemy with"disinformation": "It is very important to spread rumors among the enemy that you areplanning one thing; then go and do something else."(46) He has a sophisticatedappreciation of how to make defectors and deserters—who by most conventionalreckonings are a liability—work against, instead of for, enemy interests. "The enemyshould be deceived by false reports of our plans brought to them by deserters from us," hewrites.(47) "Suspected deserters," he says elsewhere, "should be told the opposite of whatwe intend to do, so that we may use them to deceive the enemy."(48) Letters should be


6 of 14 10/27/09 2:39 PM

sent to deserters who have joined the enemy "in such a way that the letters . . . fall intoenemy hands. These letters should remind the deserters the prearranged time for theirtreachery, so that the enemy will become suspicious of them, and they will have toflee."(49)

The author of the Strategikon understood, too, that the best economy of force entailsmore than just misinforming the enemy—he must also be misdirected, "so that, as inju-jitsu, his own effort is turned into the lever of his overthrow."(50) The general, hewrites, "should act like a good wrestler, he should feint in one direction to try to deceivehis adversary and then make good use of the opportunities he finds, and in this way hewill overpower the enemy."(5l) As a practical guide for the Byzantine field commander,the Strategikon offers a rich menu of ruses, tricks and stratagems from which to choose,with special emphasis on ambushes, which "are of the greatest value in warfare, [for] theyhave in a short time destroyed great powers before they had a chance to bring their wholebattle line into action."(52) By the same token, the general must constantly "look forenemy ambushes, sending out frequent and far-ranging patrols in all directions in the areaaround the battlefield," and he must "avoid disordered and uncoordinated pursuits."(53)Above all, the general must avoid being predictable. He "must not always use the samemodes of operation against the enemy, even though they seem to be working outsuccessfully. Often enough the enemy will become used to them, adapt to them, andinflict disaster upon us."(54) For in war, the "line of least expectation" is ever shifting,driven by the independent will of a thinking, reacting opponent, so that a surprise today isalways purchased at the risk of a reverse tomorrow. That is why the Strategikon says, "Ageneral who takes nothing for granted is secure in war."(55)

By no means did the author intend to suggest that advantages should not be pressed, norvictories exploited; for "in war opportunity is fleeting, and cannot be put off."(56) Thus,while "it is essential to be cautious and take your time" in making plans, "once you cometo a decision [you must] carry it out right away without any hesitation or timidity.Timidity after all is not caution, but the invention of wickedness."(57) And if the outcomeof the battle is favorable, "one should not be satisfied with merely driving the enemyback. This is a mistake made by inexperienced leaders who do not know how to takeadvantage of an opportunity, and who like to hear the saying: 'Be victorious but do notpress your victory too hard.' By not seizing the opportunity, these people only causethemselves more trouble and place the ultimate results in doubt. There can be no rest untilthe enemy is completely destroyed. . . . One should not slacken after driving them backjust a short distance, nor . . . should one jeopardize the success of the whole campaignbecause of lack of persistence. In war, as in hunting, a near miss is still a completemiss."(58)

The author of Strategikon understood that the principle of economy of force directs thecommander to know his opponent to avoid his strengths and strike at his weaknesses. Themanual's forceful words again bear repeating in full:

"That general is wise who before entering into war carefully studies the enemy, and canguard against his strong points and take advantage of his weaknesses. For example, the


7 of 14 10/27/09 2:39 PM

enemy is superior in cavalry; he should destroy his forage. He is superior in number oftroops; cut off their supplies. His army is composed of diverse peoples; corrupt them withgifts, favors, promises. There is dissension among them; deal with their leaders. Thispeople relies on the spear; lead them into difficult terrain. This people relies on the bow;line up in the open and force them into close, hand-to-hand fighting. . . . If they march ormake camp without proper precautions, make unexpected raids on them by night and byday. If they are reckless and undisciplined in combat and not inured to hardship, makebelieve you are going to attack, but delay and drag things out until their ardor cools, andwhen they begin to hesitate, then make your attack on them. The foe is superior ininfantry; entice him into the open, not too close, but from a safe distance hit him withjavelins."(59)

Book XI of the Strategikon, "Characteristicsand Tactics of Various Peoples," elaborates atlength on the foregoing advice.(60) Thisassessment of sixth century Byzantium'sprincipal adversaries is of interest todaychiefly to historians of the period. Still, itdoes serve to highlight one of the Byzantinearmy's keys to success—its willingnessalways to learn from its enemies; to make useof methods of warfare acquired fromopponents on one front in order to exploit thevulnerabilities of opponents on another, whileforging its own unique tactical synthesisalong the way. Thus, the skills in closecombat learned from the Franks andLombards, it used against the Persians and Scythians; and the skills with the bow learnedfrom the Persians and Scythians, it used when fighting the Franks and Lombards; but thefire-and-shock combination that emerged from this experience was distinctivelyByzantine.(61)

In this way, therefore, the Byzantine army may be said to have turned its enemies'strengths to advantage as much as it did their weaknesses. Only a fortunate accident ofgeography—the Byzantine Empire's central position vis-a-vis its adversaries—made thispossible. For not only did it confer the inestimable advantage of interior lines ofoperation, it also kept the empire's enemies physically apart and, therefore, largely unableto learn from each other, even as it enabled the empire itself to learn from all of them.

Lessons Learned

In the Strategikon, then, the Byzantine army as reorganized by Maurice possessed thedoctrinal foundations for an effective response to encroachments from any of the


8 of 14 10/27/09 2:39 PM

Empire's neighbors—a response that exploited the versatility of that army's ownformations and the lack of balance in those of its opponents. "Now the troops of thoseadept in war," says Sun Tzu, "are used like the 'Simultaneously Responding' snake ofMount Ch'ang. When struck in the head, its tail attacks; when struck in the tail, its headattacks; when struck in the center both head and tail attack."(62) There lies the essence,perfectly encapsulated, of the Byzantine art of war as expounded in the Strategikon.

Although it is customary to call the Byzantine army's mounted troops "cavalry," theappellation is quite misleading, for they played many more roles in combat than those towhich cavalry in Western Europe was to become confined a millennium or so later. Notonly did Byzantine horsemen pursue and reconnoiter the enemy, they also conducted anearly form of fire preparation, assaulted enemy lines of battle and dismounted to fight onfoot when conditions so required. Only the thickest forests and the roughest terrainremained inaccessible to them, requiring the services of specialized infantry. Thus, for allpractical purposes, the seventh century Byzantine meros was a combined armsformation—as versatile, in terms of the combat requirements of its day, as Napoleon'scorps d'arme'e was to become 1,200 years later; and superior, from the standpoint of itsmobility, which was uniform throughout the formation, to that of the corps d'arme'e thatwas restricted to the marching speed of its infantry.(63) So different, indeed, was theByzantine meros from the cavalry that was to evolve in Western Europe that one mustreach as far as 13th-century Central Asia to find its nearest counterpart, in the Mongoltumen.(64) Not until the 20th century was a comparable combined arms force again toemerge—in Heinz Guderian's panzer division, whose mobility was no longer based onthe horse, but on the caterpillar track. Only then were the standards of striking power,mobility and protection set by these ancient formations reattained.(65) MR

Notes

1. Cited in C . W. C. Oman, The Art of War in the Middle Ages, rev. and ed. John H.Beeler, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1953), 32.

2. J. F. C. Fuller, A Military History of the Western World: From the earliest times to theBattle of Lepanto, vol. 1, (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1954), 395.

3. Das Strategikon des Maurikios, Corpus fontium historiae byzantinae, ed. George T.Dennis and trans. Ernst Gamillscheg, 17, (Vienna, 1981); Maurice's Strategikon:Handbook of Byzantine Military Strategy, ed. and trans. George T. Dennis, (Philadelphia,PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984). Hereafter cited as Strategikon.

4. Until relatively recently, most authorities believed that Maurice himself wrote theStrategikon. About a decade ago, however, Maurice's brother-in-law, the generalPhilippicus, was proposed as the author. See John Wiita, "The Ethnika in ByzantineMilitary Treatises," Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1977, cited in Strategikon,xv-xvii.


9 of 14 10/27/09 2:39 PM

5. Strategikon, 8.

6. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Samuel B. Griffith, (London: Oxford University Press,1963).

7. C. W. C. Oman, A History of The Art of War in the Middle Ages: A.D. 378-1278, 2drev. ed., vol. 1, (London, 1924), 187.

8. Strategikon, 16 -17.

9. Oman, History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, vol. 1, 175.

10. Strategikon, 16.

11. J. F. C. Fuller, Armored Warfare: An Annotated Edition of "Lectures on F. S. R. III[Operations Between Mechanized Forces]" (Harrisburg, PA: Military Service PublishingCompany, 1943), 134.

12. The effect of high trajectory was demonstrated at the Battle of Hastings, where thefire from William the Conqueror's Norman archers was ineffective until he ordered themto "use high-angle fire—that is, to shoot their arrows into the air so that they would passover the heads of his knights and, falling vertically on the enemy, induce the men of[Harold's] shield-wall to raise their shields," Fuller, Military History, vol. 1, 381.

13. In the days of the Emperor Justinian (527-565), for example, the lancers followed thehorse archers, see Oman, Art of War in the Middle Ages, 12; Strategikon, 29, 35-36.

14. Strategikon, 11, 29. The ratio of home archers to lancers in the tagma also indicatesan intention to use massed fire. The men in the first two and last ranks of the formation"should all bear lances. All the others, drawn up on the middle, who know how to shoot,should be archers." Since the tagma normally drew up in seven ranks, each file wouldideally have four archers and three lancers. If we disregard the lancer in the last rank,then the ratio of missile troops to shock troops could have been as high as 2-to-1.

15. An anonymous Byzantine military treatise, written in the mid-sixth century, forexample, places equal emphasis on accuracy, power and rapidity of fire. See "TheAnonymous Byzantine Treatise on Strategy," in Three Byzantine Military Treatises, ed.and trans. George T. Dennis, Dumbarton Oaks Texts 9, (Washington, DC: DumbartonOaks, 1985),129-33.


17. Had this lesson been applied in World War II, many unnecessary tank-crew lossesmight have been avoided. According to the German panzer commander General HermannBalck, "Casualties in the tanks themselves were almost always quite light. However, oncethe tank crew[s] had to abandon their tank[s] we often had to employ them immediatelyas infantry. At this point we took unheard-of losses among the tank crews because they


10 of 14 10/27/09 2:39 PM

had no infantry skills. This is why I feel very strongly that all tank crews . . . must havereally thorough infantry training before they are put in combat." Translation of TapedConversation with General Hermann Balck, 12 January 1979, and Brief BiographicalSketch (Columbus, OH: Batelle Columbus Laboratories Tactical Technology Center,1979), 58-59.


19. Ibid., 38.

20. Ibid., 26, 76.

21. Ibid., 15.

22. Ibid., 23.

23. Ibid., 24.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid., 27.

26. Ibid.

27. See Oman, History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, vol. 1, 197-99.

28. For a brief but perceptive discussion of Frederick's oblique order, see Gunther E.Rothenberg, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon (Bloomington, IN: IndianaUniversity Press, 1978),16-19.


30. Ibid., 64-65.

31. Ibid., 90.

32. Ibid., 87.

33. Ibid., 93.

34. Sun Tzu, 77.

35. Ibid., 87.

36. Maurice de Saxe, "My Reveries upon the Art of War," in Roots of Strategy: The 5Greatest Military Classics of all Time, ed. and trans. Thomas R. Phillips, (Harrisburg, PA:Military Service Publishing Company, 1940; reprinted by Stackpole Books, 1985),298-99. Saxe penned the Reveries in 1732, but it was not published until 1757, seven


11 of 14 10/27/09 2:39 PM

years after his death.


38. Ibid., 91.

39. Ibid., 88.

40. Pierre Joseph de Bourcet, Principes de la guerre des montagnes [Principles ofmountain warfare] (1775), cited in B. H. Liddell Hart, The Ghost of Napoleon (London:Faber and Faber, 1933), 36.


42. Ibid., 88-89.

43. Ibid., 80.

44. Ibid., 40.

45. Ibid., 63.

46. Ibid., 80.

47. Ibid.

48. Ibid., 82.

49. Ibid., 81. These are what Sun Tzu calls "expendable agents," Art of War, 146 ff.

50. The words have been borrowed from B. H. Liddell Hart's Strategy: The IndirectApproach (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1954), 163.


52. Ibid., 52-55. Book IV in its entirety is devoted to the subject. One such ruse, whichthe Strategikon calls the "Scythian ambush," involves drawing up "the smaller part of thearmy" to face the enemy line of battle. "When the charge is made and the lines clash,those soldiers quickly turn to flight; the enemy starts chasing them and becomesdisordered. They ride past the place where the ambush is laid, and the units in ambushthen charge out and strike the enemy in the rear. Those fleeing then turn around and theenemy force is caught in the middle." This ploy was already ancient by the sixth century—indeed a naval version of it was used in the Peloponnesian War's Battle of Cyzicus(410 B. C.). It was a favorite ruse de guerre of the 13th-century Mongols; and in WorldWar II, Erwin Rommel adapted it to armored warfare in the North African desert, luringBritish armor into carefully laid traps lined with antitank guns and then counterattackingwith his own tanks. More recently, the Iraqi army used it effectively in the later stages ofthe Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988).


12 of 14 10/27/09 2:39 PM


54. Ibid., 80.

55. Ibid., 87.

56. Ibid., 85.

57. Ibid., 79-80.

58. Ibid.

59. On irregular terrain, it is very difficult to maintain the unbroken front that shocktactics relying on the spear require. In hand-to-hand fighting, bows are virtually useless.A modern version of this ruse was the series of alerts and stand-downs conducted byNorth Korea in the vicinity of its southern border during the months preceding itsinvasion of South Korea on 25 June 1950. In time, the South Koreans came to disregardthe alerts, so the attack that followed the final, genuine alert came as a stunning surprise.See Richard K. Betts, Surprise Attack: Lessons for Defense Planning (Washington, DC:The Brookings Institution, 1982), 105; Strategikon, 65.

60. Strategikon, 113-26.

61. The Franks and Lombards threatened the Byzantine Empire's western possessions; theScythians (as the Byzantines called the nomadic Avar, Turkish and Hunnish tribes livingnorth of the Black Sea and in the Central Asian steppes), its Danube frontier; and thePersians, its eastern frontier.

62. Sun Tzu, 135.

63. Napoleon's formation, however, still enjoyed a considerable advantage in mobilityover those of his opponents because of its faster marching speeds, greater reliance on"living off the countryside," ability to move dispersed (to minimize road congestion) andyet concentrate swiftly for battle. See David G. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon(New York: Macmillan, 1966), 147-55.

64. For a discussion of the Mongol military organization and art of war, see JamesChambers, The Devil's Horseman: The Mongol Invasion of Europe (New York:Athenaeum, 1985), 54-62.

65. Heinz Guderian, "Armored Forces" (1937), The Infantry Journal Reader, ed. JosephI. Greene, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1943) 469, 481. GermanGeneral Heinz Guderian unlike the "all-tank" school of armored warfare that prevailed inBritain, believed that the panzer division must be a combined arms formation "for," as hewrote in 1937, "like any other arm, the tank is incapable of solving all [tactical] problemsby itself." Thus "auxiliary weapons designed for co-operation with tanks should becombined with them into permanent units comprising all modern arms . . . [A]rmored


13 of 14 10/27/09 2:39 PM

forces without speedy auxiliary weapons are incomplete and will not be able to realizetheir maximum potentialities." When British and German armor clashed in the NorthAfrican desert, the flaws in the "all-tank" approach soon became apparent. See F. W. vonMellenthin, Panzer Battles: A Study in the Employment of Armor in the Second WorldWar (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956), xvi-xvii, 55; Corelli Barnett,The Desert Generals (New York: Viking Press, 1961), 104-5.

Charles C. Petersen is a military analyst who serves as consultant to various USgovernment agencies and professional services firms in the Washington, D.C. area. Heholds a B.A. from the College of Wooster and an M.A. from George WashingtonUniversity. His work centers on Soviet military doctrine and military art.


14 of 14 10/27/09 2:39 PM

The Strategikon - A Forgotten Military Classic - Charles C. Petersen

Documents

Transcript of The Strategikon - A Forgotten Military Classic - Charles C. Petersen