Review of Juho Wilskman, Comparing Military Cultures: Warfare in the Aegean Region from the Fourth Crusade to the Early Fifteenth Century (original) (raw)
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This PhD dissertation is accessible via the link below. ABSTRACT There are arguably two ways of understanding the fundamental processes of military history. One emphasizes unchanging principles in warfare and that conduct of war is largely dictated by the physical realities. The other claims that the ways of war are more-or-less cultural constructs. I approach this “military culture debate” by analysing the land and naval warfare in the area that surrounded the Aegean Sea, which had belonged to the Byzantine empire in the late twelfth century. The period discussed extends from the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) to the early 1420s. The region and era in question are suitable for testing different understandings of military history. It is a geographical and geopolitical region where two major groups of conquerors arrived in the thirteenth century. The Catholic Christian Latins represent the western European ways of war of the time and the military traditions of the Muslim Turks originated from the steppe and from the east. Both settled in the region and founded realms. Therefore, they had to adjust themselves to the environment. Similarly, local Orthodox Christian, mostly Byzantine, rulers had to adapt to the situation. I compare the composition of armed forces and willingness to engage in battles of the above-mentioned three groups fighting in the region. My study analyses what influence their cultural background had on their conduct in these matters. I provide new information about the warfare of the study era and increase our understanding of why the Ottoman Turks were able to conquer most of the region. I found that the “culturalist” understanding of military history usually had the best explanatory potential in the scope of my research. The belligerents tried to construct their armed forces and fight their wars in a manner guided by their cultural background. To a certain extent they had to adapt to the local conditions, but in the issues dealt with here it was mainly a question of adapting to the social structures and the adversaries, rather than to the climate and geography of the region. The armies shared a growing number of similarities as time went by, but the influx of troops from outside the region and religious doctrines contributed to differences in the composition of armed forces and thus how wars were waged. The Ottomans apparently made the best use of the military potential of regions they controlled. This was probably one of the key reasons why they prevailed in the study area. For cultural reasons, the Christian powers tended to neglect the use of certain groups of people in the military. Thus their forces were more often supplemented with mercenaries and allies whose reliability was uncertain and this had adverse consequences, particularly for Byzantium. As regards engaging in battles, an important issue was how reliable the people living in fortified towns were perceived to be, which influenced how necessary it was to fight in the open. Transporting of siege-equipment, on the other hand, hampered the possibility of avoiding battles. The Latins showed more battle-willingness in their warfare than the other belligerents in the conflicts of the region. There were cultural reasons behind this. It should nevertheless be noted that there was variation in the battle-willingness of the Byzantines depending on commanders, circumstance, period, and adversary. Much of the Turkish and steppe nomad warfare consisted of raids in which battles were usually avoided. However, battle-willingness was more apparent in the conflicts of the great Muslim dynasties, and when the Muslim leaders faced one another, or when they repulsed invasions of Christian powers in their own regions. This battle-willingness of the Turks could come as surprise to the latter. In academia.edu you can read the introduction and content. The full work is in the address: https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/335952?fbclid=IwAR2fdr-1l31x5qX2exQLkuHGMRLUqe8mHxNQUe\_VFEoHcg7NvygTINZ-1rM
The soldier, both as an individual and as a member of a particular group, and the army, as one of the most essential components of maintaining the integrity of the Byzantine Empire - to the extent that this was possible at times - and of carrying out its foreign policy, are subject to very frequent references by historiographers. They are also quite often referred to in panegyrics, while they are present also in letters composed by scholars. Particularly useful, however, in providing information about and explaining the attitude of the Byzantine army, are the military treatises (the Tactica), the texts that give instructions to the general regarding the taking advantage of his army. Violence in war emanated from two factors. The first was the orders given by the head of the army, aiming at the defeat of the enemy by the employment of several means: slaughter, captivity, destruction of crop, pillaging or exemplary punishment that could demoralize the opponent. The second factor was the personality of the soldier and his psychological status during the battle. The conduct of the soldiers will be discussed through the presentation of relevant examples in order to clarify the methods of and the reasons for the use of violence by the Byzantine army.
The use of ethnographic knowledge by military organizations has been a topic of intense interest and debate in recent years. Despite extensive discussion of its use in World War II, Vietnam and, to a lesser degree, during the inter-war period, there has been little examination of the deep historical roots of the practice inside Western culture. The purpose of this paper is to provide an initial survey of the development and use of ethnographic knowledge as an applied tool within the political-military practice of Greece, Rome and the Byzantine Empire. The paper tracks the development of "ethnography" from the early (7th century bce) logographers through to its formalization as a practice, its application in the military and political world of the Roman empire, to its final formalization as a standard component of professional military education in the Byzantine Empire. This development of ethnography and its integration into formal military education is situated within a broad evolutionary framework that aims to explain why "culture turns" happen.
The Society of Ancient Military Historians
2016
This volume pairs scholars of various subfields to expose through comparison six themes in ancient warfare scholarship. Armstrong’s introduction positions the volume to showcase via case studies developing approaches to warfare. The first essays address “Narratives of War.” Anthony Spalinger makes neglected connection between inscriptional and pictorial war narratives in empire-period Egypt, demonstrating a “parallelism of narrative techniques” (13). David Nolan then shows how centurions function as military exempla in Caesar’s Bellum Gallicum: Caesar thought they should engage in hand to hand combat only as a last, legionpreserving resort, and that their commitment to order/stability was integral to that of the legions. Matthew Trundle’s essay, the first on “The Economics of Warfare,” shows that the Athenian empire was essentially economic, driven by silver coinage movement among its allies. Nathan Rosenstein’s following article demonstrates via estimated demographic statistics and...