Recoil - when did it historically happen?

[Erpingham]

Had the heavy pressure on the Roman right produced a recoil?  As Crassus sent up the third line it would seem that the first line had already been relieved by the second and the latter was showing some signs of distress.  'Pressed heavily' is the translator's rendering of 'premebant', which means "press, press upon, oppress, overwhelm, weigh down; to urge, drive, importune, pursue, to press close or hard, etc." (Lewis lexicon) and one might reasonably conclude that Caesar's intent was to convey that the Roman line was being forced back under pressure.

Seems plausible.  Again, the Romans are forced back gradually enough for the fact to be noticed and relief organised.  It would appear that the battle wasn't full on at this stage, as it is "renewed again" when the reserve line is committed.

[Patrick Waterson]

Said it before , will say it again, in the Caesarian period  goes in very shortly after the first as a second shock into gaps the first line leaves, or it is sent in as an almost automatic reinforcement. IIRC only the third line is described as being used as a reserve in Caesar's accounts.

Yes and no: Julius seems to use his second line in close support of his first, but not as an integral part of it.  He clearly draws up in three lines against Ariovistus, and at Pharsalus two of his lines are exhausted by the time three of Pompey's are.  It looks to me as if his second line is more or less breathing down the necks of the first awaiting its turn to relieve them, whereas after the initial near-upset with the Helvetii Julius seems to have customarily kept his third line as a dual-use reserve, either to support the chaps in front or to deal with any unpleasant surprises on the flanks.

Had the heavy pressure on the Roman right produced a recoil?  As Crassus sent up the third line it would seem that the first line had already been relieved by the second and the latter was showing some signs of distress.  'Pressed heavily' is the translator's rendering of 'premebant', which means "press, press upon, oppress, overwhelm, weigh down; to urge, drive, importune, pursue, to press close or hard, etc." (Lewis lexicon) and one might reasonably conclude that Caesar's intent was to convey that the Roman line was being forced back under pressure.

Seems plausible.  Again, the Romans are forced back gradually enough for the fact to be noticed and relief organised.  It would appear that the battle wasn't full on at this stage, as it is "renewed again" when the reserve line is committed.

Caesar actually writes: "Ita proelium restitutum est," (Thus the battle was re-established), and his sense may be that it was again brought under control as opposed to everyone finishing their oranges and the whistle going for the second half.  The observation that the decline was gradual enough to be noticed and acted upon is a good one (again).

[Dave Beatty]

This is waay out of period but I was once caught in a close ambush in jungle and rapidly recoiled about 200 meters and called in artillery followed by close air support so I suppose you could view that as a recoil. The enemy chose not to follow up and mainain contact because they knew we would put indirect fire on them rikky tick. They actually were able to withdraw before getting hit with the 105s even though we walked the arty out.

Any of you who have been in a rugby scrum will be familiar with the effect of mass in close combat as it were and the "push of pike" is well attested in 17th century warfare. The to and fro in both of those situations might be analogous to a recoil.

[aligern]

Could someone just point out to me, please , where in the description of the battle against Ariovistus Caesar  specifically deploys in three lines and the second line is sent in?
Roy

[Duncan Head]

Could someone just point out to me, please , where in the description of the battle against Ariovistus Caesar  specifically deploys in three lines and the second line is sent in?

I don't see any reference to the second line, but the three-line deployment seems to be clear:

Although the army of the enemy was routed on the left wing and put to flight, they [still] pressed heavily on our men from the right wing, by the great number of their troops. On observing which, P. Crassus, a young man, who commanded the cavalry - as he was more disengaged than those who were employed in the fight - sent the third line as a relief to our men who were in distress.

[Erpingham]

Any of you who have been in a rugby scrum will be familiar with the effect of mass in close combat as it were and the "push of pike" is well attested in 17th century warfare. The to and fro in both of those situations might be analogous to a recoil.

I think we have to be very careful assuming that ancient close combat was like a scrum or for that matter a sealed knot style pike push.  The key difference, to me anyway, is the presence of edged weapons and intent to do damage with them.  Doubtless pressure of bodies was important but, in medieval accounts at least, having enough space to keep a firm footing and use your weapons was paramount.  We could, of course, fall to discussing othismos at this point, although I don't personally subscribe to the rugby-scrum model.

[aligern]

Re the second line in Caesar's battles.

agreed that Publius C takes charge of the third line. However, my contention is that this does not indicate that there are three distinct lines in the initial deployments. It is quite possible that the first two lines are so integrated that sending in the second line is not a decision to be taken, it happens automatically. If the checkerboard layout is the deployment of choice than line two is covering off gaps in line one.  It  may exist for manoeuvre, but immediately upon joining combat line two moves into the gaps and fights in line with line one.
I think this makes sense of their being no mention of sending in the second line, it is just a subdivision of the battle line. Line relief has not taken place, i.e line one has not broken off from the Germans and gone behind line two.
I cannot find descriptions of line two doing line relief in the AD 69 battles of Tacitus or the German wars, mind you this might just be because tactics are assumed as understood by his readership..

Is Pharsalus clearly a case of line two relieving line one? or is it capable of being interpreted as lines one and two acting as one formation with line three as a reserve?
Roy

[Mark G]

Interesting notion Roy,

So the first two lines are alternating forward and back as a single fluid body, rather than as descrete formations of their own.

And a third line is much rarer, presumably, and needs commanding

It would also make sense of the lack of intermediate command structure between legion and cohort

[aligern]

 Absolutely Mark.  The Romans would have moved to using the first two lines together which would have made the line of  battle twice as deep as previously . It may be that this was preferable  to two thinner lines interchanging. Would this fit with a move to a cohort being the smallest manoeuvre unit. This would not prevent deployment in three lines and it might allow for two major shocks to the opponent as first line one went in threw and charged and then line two did the same through the gaps left by line one.  This would also tie in with a move from a missile based  operation with lots of sequential javelin throwing before hand to hand to one where the pilum starts the engagement.
By removing the velites the Romans have not just moved to a situation in which foreign specialists take over the skirmishing role . That is, I believe, because the mercenary auxiliaries do a different job from the Velites. I am not doubting that both the old skirmishers and the new are operating to clear away opposing skirmishers and protect their own heavy infantry, but that the velites were a part of the pre clash grinding down of the opponent with light javelins before the first line of legionaries moved forwards, threw pila and charged.  The opponent would then fight line one of the legion and then that wluld withdraw as necessary to be replaced by line two. If that all failed the third line would act as a reserve and defensive barrier.
Removing the velites is a sign that Rome was moving to a system whereby the light javelin phase was abandoned and the strength of the legion devoted to pila followed by a sword charge by a much denser and deeper line.

Maybe someone is going to come up with a description of the second line of a late Republican or Early Imperial legion being ordered to do something which would indicate that it had a role in replacing line one?

Roy

[aligern]

I have just been and checked out the Bohn translation of Caesar 's Civil War. i cannot find there the point about two of Caesar's lines being exhausted by the time that three of Pompey's are? (that's at Pharsalus) .  The whole inference of the battle description is that Caesar's attacking men, apart from his reserve third line act as one body! They go to throw as one, stop when Pompey's men do not advance and then come on again as one.
Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

I have just been and checked out the Bohn translation of Caesar 's Civil War. i cannot find there the point about two of Caesar's lines being exhausted by the time that three of Pompey's are? (that's at Pharsalus) .

"Whereupon Caesar, perceiving the victory so far advanced, to complete it, brought up his third line, which till then had not engaged. Pompey's infantry being thus doubly attacked, in front by fresh troops, and in rear, by the victorious cohorts, could no longer resist, but fled to their camp." - Civil War III.94.1-2

(Eodem tempore tertiam aciem Caesar quae quieta fuerat et se ad id tempus loco tenuerat, procurrere iussit. [2] ita cum recentes atque integri defessis successissent, alii autem a tergo adorirentur, sustinere Pompeiani non potuerunt atque universi terga verterunt.)

Pompey's troops are noted as being 'defessis', wearied or exhausted.  The designation 'tertiam aciem', the third battle-line, rather requires the existence of a second as a discrete entity.

I think the main question here is tactical: was the second line merely a gap-coverer for the first, or was it another entire line whose role was to relieve the first once the latter had lost its edge?  The central question seems to be whether the legion fought with gaps in its front line, and the only reference we have to a legion doing so is at Zama, where Scipio deliberately left lanes for the Carthaginian elephants to run through (in fact he packed them with velites, so they were 'soft spots' rather than gaps).  Every other description I can recall suggests or requires continuous lines.

Our accounts of battles tend to emphasise the points at which significant developments occurred.  Unless the enemy runs off when the second line was committed, we will not see an account specifying the commitment of the second line.  If the third line is otherwise engaged, the second line may be mentioned, as in Gallic War I.49.2:

"He ordered the first and second lines to be under arms; the third to fortify the camp."

( Primam et secundam aciem in armis esse, tertiam castra munire iussit.)

'Secundam aciem' distinctly means 'second battleline'.

[Justin Swanton]

May I propose this definition of recoil:

One of the engaged lines steadily gives ground whilst maintaining its structure and cohesion. This occurs when the troops of the line are outfought by their adversaries. In this process individual soldiers here and there back away from superior opponents. The soldiers behind them back up to maintain the necessary fighting space between one rank and the next, and the soldiers alongside back up to keep a continuous line facing the enemy and prevent their flanks becoming exposed.

This is distinct from a voluntary disengagement of the line (as for example done by cavalry), from the back and forth movement of two lines of roughly equal fighting ability, and from the momentary giving of ground when a charge slams home and physically bowls men backwards.

Examples of recoil as defined above:
Cannae
Bibracte
Zama (following Livy)
The Sucro
Sellasia
Caesar vs Ariovistus (possibly)

Examples of a momentary giving of ground to a charge:
Agincourt

Examples of back and forth movement:
Sellasia

Examples of a deliberate disengagement:
Chaeronea (the Macedonian phalanx on the right wing)

Examples of no recoil at all:
Syracuse

Any other examples, and does any pattern emerge from this?

[aligern]

I am not at all sure that your example proves what you assume it does Patrick.
Clearly the lines are tactical sub divisions of the army. So a general could  order lines one, two and three to carry out tasks. At Pharsalus Caesar creates a fourth line. In the last battle around Dyrrachium Caesar orders a force to advance in two lines. Does this mean the third line was separately tasked or does it indicate that the whole force was organised so that cohorts that might have fought in line three were put into the first two lines?

The action at Pharsalus does not indicate that Caesar's two lines had done the deed on Pompey's there because there is Caesar's fourth line to consider. Had that drawn away Pompey's third.
I really do take your point that the second line would only be mentioned if it did something, but one would have thought that there was plenty of opportunity in all the battle narratives to have an incident occur that would generate such a mention? I would expect to see something that indicated a first line falling back? I would expect to see that an enemy had run away after only the first line had fought, I would think that just one time the second line had suffered some problem that would be remarked upon, but no, nada!

As to the Romans attacking and leaving gaps I think I have been clear that the gaps are not there long. In goes line one, throws pila and then charges in with the sword, line two then does the same into the gaps, or line two closes into the gaps and the the whole battle line charges which would fit with Pharsalus.  As for why the Romans should bother with two lines if one is the fighting formation, then I suggest that it is for manoeuvre , after all that appears to have been the way in the early seventeenth century with battalions covering off gaps in a first line, but then moving up to fight. A quincunx layout  is much better placed to turn to the right and move off as opposed to a solid line.

As usual, if someone cam give us an example that shows that in Late Republic/Early Empire line one fought and then retired through line two it would be illuminating.
Roy

[Justin Swanton]

As to the Romans attacking and leaving gaps I think I have been clear that the gaps are not there long. In goes line one, throws pila and then charges in with the sword, line two then does the same into the gaps, or line two closes into the gaps and the the whole battle line charges which would fit with Pharsalus.

One question: how would gaps form in the first place? If one section of the line recoils surely the adjacent sections would naturally recoil in sympathy, to avoid getting their flanks exposed? The worst thing that can happen to a soldier is to find himself fighting two opponents who attack him from two directions at once. I can't imagine the troops to his right recoiling whilst he calmly stays where he is to be hit from the side as well as front.

Punching a hole in a line at speed is a different matter since it gives the troops on either side of the hole no time to react. This seems to have been the case at Chaeronea. A natural recoil however is a much slower affair as the examples in the thread indicate. Plenty of time for the troops on either side of an incipient gap to decide what they are going to do about it.

[Patrick Waterson]

In the last battle around Dyrrachium Caesar orders a force to advance in two lines. Does this mean the third line was separately tasked or does it indicate that the whole force was organised so that cohorts that might have fought in line three were put into the first two lines?

"The place was about five hundred paces distant from Pompey's new camp. Caesar, desirous to repair the loss he had sustained, and hoping he might be able to surprise this legion, left two cohorts in his intrenchments, to prevent any suspicion of his design; and with thirty-three more, amongst which number was the ninth legion, which had lost many centurions and soldiers, marched in a double line [duplici acie], against the legion which Pompey had lodged in the lesser camp." - Civil War III.67.3-4

Caesar was quite flexible with his cohort-based battlelines, and the duplex acies used here is unusual in that Caesar customarily specifies his forces being in triplex acies, three battle-lines.  Here they are in two.

The action at Pharsalus does not indicate that Caesar's two lines had done the deed on Pompey's there because there is Caesar's fourth line to consider. Had that drawn away Pompey's third.

This is something I wondered, but this 'fourth line' consisted of only six cohorts and would be hard put to handle an estimated 33 cohorts in Pompey's third line.

I really do take your point that the second line would only be mentioned if it did something, but one would have thought that there was plenty of opportunity in all the battle narratives to have an incident occur that would generate such a mention? I would expect to see something that indicated a first line falling back? I would expect to see that an enemy had run away after only the first line had fought, I would think that just one time the second line had suffered some problem that would be remarked upon, but no, nada!

This may depend upon the author as much as anything else: Tacitus, for example, does not refer to lines at all, but to the activities of individual legions (cf. Histories II.25 and II.43).  The writer of the African War and Spanish War similarly does not make reference to lines.  We are left with Caesar as our primary 'line manager'.

Perhaps the most explicit dispositions in Caesar's Civil War are when he is matching up against Afranius in Spain in I.83:

"Afranius' first two lines were made up of five legions, while in the third he had auxiliary cohorts as reserves.  Caesar had a threefold line: in the first line he had four cohorts from each of his five legions, while the second and third had three cohorts in reserve from each of the legions."

This suggests that there may have been no single overriding method of deploying: Caesar is using a model 4-3-3 deployment in three distinct lines, but Afranius is using a 5-5-0 (with the third line consisting of auxiliaries) arrangement.

As to the Romans attacking and leaving gaps I think I have been clear that the gaps are not there long. In goes line one, throws pila and then charges in with the sword, line two then does the same into the gaps, or line two closes into the gaps and the the whole battle line charges which would fit with Pharsalus. 

I cannot reconcile the idea of gaps with the assumed or likely deployment frontages, not to mention the absence of these gaps in any of our surviving sources.  If we consider Caesar's 4-3-3 deployment above, one presumes the frontage of each line would be the same, so the first four cohorts would deploy eight deep and the three in each of the second and third lines six deep, without gaps.  If there are gaps in the lineup then the third line would either have to deploy only three deep to match the frontage of the preceding lines or it would itself cover half or less of the legion's frontage.

As for why the Romans should bother with two lines if one is the fighting formation, then I suggest that it is for manoeuvre , after all that appears to have been the way in the early seventeenth century with battalions covering off gaps in a first line, but then moving up to fight. A quincunx layout  is much better placed to turn to the right and move off as opposed to a solid line.

While one can see some truth in this, there remains the problem that our sources write as if dealing with solid lines.  Tacitus (Histories III 18) writes of the opening stage of Second Bedriacum (AD 69):

"At the fourth milestone from Cremona glittered the standards of two legions, the Italica and the Rapax, which had been advanced as far as that point during the success achieved by the first movement of their cavalry. But when fortune changed, they would not open their ranks, nor receive the fugitives, nor advance and themselves attack an enemy now exhausted by so protracted a pursuit and conflict."

We have here two legions which have not yet been in action.  If they were deployed in quincunx, the fleeing cavalry would not have had any problem slipping between the spaced cohorts, but the need for the legions to 'open ranks' (laxare ordines) if they were to 'receive the fugitives' (recipere turbatos) indicates their front formed a solid, not a gapped, line.