Why would non-flanked formations rout?

[Justin Swanton]

Talking of files and positions in them may be too rigid.  The key is the loss of the leaders and "figures of inspiration" - the men you would turn to in a crisis.  A barbarian comitatus may not have files and file leaders but it would still have these.  We have talked of surprise and the unexpected.  We might also consider shock caused by casualties and the rate at which they were suffered.   If we look at Captain Naumann's Regiments Kriegspiel based on analysis of casualties in the FPW, the rate at which casualties are suffered has an impact.  Rapid losses are harder to take than gradual ones.

Losses are still comparatively low so long as the line holds. Are there any examples of infantry getting slaughtered by enemy infantry before the rout?

[Patrick Waterson]

Rapid losses are harder to take than gradual ones.

Yes, very true.  And psychological shocks occurring in rapid succession are harder to take than those occurring separately, at intervals.  In the Franco-Prussian war it was usually the troops who suffered the rapid casualties and the generals (almost exclusively on the French side) who suffered the psychological shocks.  In between the two was the efficiency which represented German, and the muddle which passed for French, organisation and communication.

Even so, some troops would still choose to die in place: "Gurth saw the English around falling fast, and that there was no remedy."

Losses are still comparatively low so long as the line holds. Are there any examples of infantry getting slaughtered by enemy infantry before the rout?

The one which comes to my mind is the Nervii facing Caesar.

But the enemy, even in the last hope of safety, displayed such great courage, that when the foremost of them had fallen, the next stood upon them prostrate, and fought from their bodies; when these were overthrown, and their corpses heaped up together, those who survived cast their weapons against our men [thence], as from a mound, and returned our darts which had fallen short between [the armies]. - Caesar, Gallic War, II.28

The Nervii's losses were taken in combat, not flight, and they were, according to Caesar's account of the figures provided by the surviving tribal leaders, considerable:

... in recounting the calamity of their state, said that their senators were reduced from 600 to three; that from 60,000 men they [were reduced] to scarcely 500 who could bear arms ...

The Nervii's allies in this battle, the Atrebates and Viromandui, had been much more conventional, in that the Viromandui took most, and the Atrebates practically all, of their casualties in their own rout and the Roman pursuit.

[Justin Swanton]

The one which comes to my mind is the Nervii facing Caesar.

But the enemy, even in the last hope of safety, displayed such great courage, that when the foremost of them had fallen, the next stood upon them prostrate, and fought from their bodies; when these were overthrown, and their corpses heaped up together, those who survived cast their weapons against our men [thence], as from a mound, and returned our darts which had fallen short between [the armies]. - Caesar, Gallic War, II.28

The Nervii's losses were taken in combat, not flight, and they were, according to Caesar's account of the figures provided by the surviving tribal leaders, considerable:

... in recounting the calamity of their state, said that their senators were reduced from 600 to three; that from 60,000 men they [were reduced] to scarcely 500 who could bear arms ...

The Nervii's allies in this battle, the Atrebates and Viromandui, had been much more conventional, in that the Viromandui took most, and the Atrebates practically all, of their casualties in their own rout and the Roman pursuit.

This interesting. The first two ranks of the Nervii mix it up close and personal with the Romans. When they are slaughtered (= the losses we would expect for a formation that does rout) the remaining ranks stand off and indulge in a missile exchange - they don't close for melee. There are a lot of Nervii fighting not a lot of legionaries so presumably the Nervii had a much deeper line which means only a small percentage of their men were killed in the melee phase of the battle. How did the rest go down? Were the surviving front ranks cut down because the rear ranks refused to run?

[aligern]

A very good point Justin and a good cite Patrick. Tyere might be something in how the Nervii arrive. Don't they come running in and thus the mass might be some way behind the leaders . Otherwise the mid and rear ranks have to have fallen back say 30 yardsvas they are returning darts that gave been thrown fromnthe Roman side and fallen short.
I just do not believe Caesar's casualty figures here. Shortly afterwards the Nervii are in revolt , who is going to be doing the fighting? 500 men?
Roy

[Jim Webster]

This interesting. The first two ranks of the Nervii mix it up close and personal with the Romans. When they are slaughtered (= the losses we would expect for a formation that does rout) the remaining ranks stand off and indulge in a missile exchange - they don't close for melee. There are a lot of Nervii fighting not a lot of legionaries so presumably the Nervii had a much deeper line which means only a small percentage of their men were killed in the melee phase of the battle. How did the rest go down? Were the surviving front ranks cut down because the rear ranks refused to run?

But also interestingly, the Romans aren't keen to close for Melee again either

[Justin Swanton]

This interesting. The first two ranks of the Nervii mix it up close and personal with the Romans. When they are slaughtered (= the losses we would expect for a formation that does rout) the remaining ranks stand off and indulge in a missile exchange - they don't close for melee. There are a lot of Nervii fighting not a lot of legionaries so presumably the Nervii had a much deeper line which means only a small percentage of their men were killed in the melee phase of the battle. How did the rest go down? Were the surviving front ranks cut down because the rear ranks refused to run?

But also interestingly, the Romans aren't keen to close for Melee again either

Actually, reading the Latin one gets a somewhat different picture:

cum primi eorum cecidissent, proximi iacentibus insisterent atque ex eorum corporibus pugnarent, his deiectis et coacervatis cadaveribus qui superessent ut ex tumulo tela in nostros coicerent et pila intercepta remitterent "when the first of them had fallen, those following the fallen stood and fought from their bodies; when these had fallen and been added to the bodies those who remained as it were from a mound threw spears at us and sent back pila they had intercepted."

So the text is not clear about ranks - just the first batch (probably several ranks deep) going in and getting killed, then the next batch following suit, then the survivors fighting from a hill of dead men - obviously the previous ranks of men had died on top of each other - and throwing spears and javelins at the Romans below, who were just a few yards away. There's no actual mention of darts (pila) "which had fallen short". That's an invention of the translator. Why am I not surprised?

The Romans may not have closed immediately since they didn't need to: subjecting the survivors to volley after volley of pila seemed to be quite effective, more than trying to clamber up a hill of human flesh. I imagine though that they would have closed eventually.

[Patrick Waterson]

Justin has done the sensible thing and gone back to the original Latin, and the Nervii do appear to have taken most of their losses in close combat.  Once the accumulated bodies provided 'difficult terrain' the action reverted to missiles.  The key aspect from the perspective of this thread is that the Nervii did not break and run, in keeping with their reputation as the most ferocious and dedicated warriors in Gaul, whereas the Atrebates and Viromandui did.

I just do not believe Caesar's casualty figures here. Shortly afterwards the Nervii are in revolt , who is going to be doing the fighting? 500 men?

'Shortly afterwards' is actually 54 BC, Ambiorix of the Eburones having just given Sabinus' legion its Varian experience, so the Nervii have had three years for warriors to come of age.  In 54 BC the Nervii took the field against Cicero's legion, or rather besieged his camp, in conjunction with their allies the Centrones, the Grudii, the Levaci, the Pleumoxii, and the Geiduni, plus the Atuatuci and Eburones and their allies.  Caesar defeats the entire force of 60,000 with about 7,000 men (Gallic War V.49).

So in conjunction with the Atuatuci, Eburones and various allies, the Nervii form part of a total of 60,000 - about equal to their strength as a single tribe prior to their initial encounter with Caesar.  If we allow them about 2,000 warriors coming of age each year (1/30th of their original 60,000) then in 56 ands 55 BC they would have added 4,000 and in 54 BC another 2,000, allowing them to take the field with around 6,500.  This looks like a suitably representative proportion of a 60,000-strong multi-tribal host.  So Caesar's figures may after all be credible.

[PMBardunias]

With hoplites, where interlocking shields are a crucial part of the formation, any kind of falling back or recoiling is out of the question. Your shield edge, overlapping the edge of a neighbour's shield, makes it impossible for you to give ground. So hoplites don't fall back. The defeat of a hoplite line seems to depend on a) getting outflanked; b) physically being forced back by a deeper opponent; c) seeing fresh enemy appear at the flank/rear. Any exceptions to this?

Yes, many.  Hoplites were known to break:

Just before contact- probably this was due to one side recovering from the charge and getting into cohesive formation faster. (with Spartans who marched to battle rather than ran, this was a constant hazard).

At "spear's length": Presumably after the initial bout of spear fencing. I once calculated how fast men converging at even 5mph passed through the reach of a spear and it was something like 0.3 seconds, so the words would have no meaning if there was a old orthodox style charge into othismos.

After some period of combat: Here I assume it was due to attrition breaking the nerve of the rear ranks watching, or rather feeling and hearing, the fight in front of them ( I think it goes without saying that all armies break from the rear). But with hoplites it could be from giving ground.  Hoplites do not seem to have given ground easy for two main reasons. Tactically, it is hard enough to get hoplite militias to move forward in formation, never mind back.  But more importantly, and somewhat unique to hoplites, the one rule of hoplite battle, the way you get to say you one and build a tropion, is to hold the real estate on the field where the dead bodies are.  If your force is being pushed back from the intial site of the clash and the casualties, you are losing and it is obvious to those in the rear.

After othismos: Given the above, it is easy to see why physically moving the enemy back is a good idea. Either through attrition in the close quarters knife-fight or the perception of losing ground due to pushing as a unit, the result is as above.

There is a lot of communication within and between units locked in combat that is not well understood by us today. We just don't often find ourselves in crowded combat. Thucydides tells us that a hoplite knows only what is immediately around him.  He forms his opinion on how the battle is going from things like how are the men swaying against him, how panicky do they seem, are they shouting.  It is like a giant game of telephone where a front line fighter may have a panic level of X and as it gets passed back, each man in the file might add a +1 or a -1 depending on how brave they are, etc.  The last guy in rank 8 could recieve X-6 in a file of panicky or exhausted men, or he could get X+6 in a veteran unit, or some combination of pluses and minuses. Then you have to add in information from the ranks laterally .  It gets complicated fast, but that is the basic calculus of routing.

[Justin Swanton]

With hoplites, where interlocking shields are a crucial part of the formation, any kind of falling back or recoiling is out of the question. Your shield edge, overlapping the edge of a neighbour's shield, makes it impossible for you to give ground. So hoplites don't fall back. The defeat of a hoplite line seems to depend on a) getting outflanked; b) physically being forced back by a deeper opponent; c) seeing fresh enemy appear at the flank/rear. Any exceptions to this?

Yes, many.  Hoplites were known to break:

Just before contact- probably this was due to one side recovering from the charge and getting into cohesive formation faster. (with Spartans who marched to battle rather than ran, this was a constant hazard).

And green hoplites fleeing at the mere measured approach of Spartans. But that's a pre-battle rout rather than recoiling in the strict sense.

At "spear's length": Presumably after the initial bout of spear fencing. I once calculated how fast men converging at even 5mph passed through the reach of a spear and it was something like 0.3 seconds, so the words would have no meaning if there was a old orthodox style charge into othismos.

Again, that would be a rout rather than a recoil. Can you quote examples of this?

After some period of combat: Here I assume it was due to attrition breaking the nerve of the rear ranks watching, or rather feeling and hearing, the fight in front of them ( I think it goes without saying that all armies break from the rear). But with hoplites it could be from giving ground.  Hoplites do not seem to have given ground easy for two main reasons. Tactically, it is hard enough to get hoplite militias to move forward in formation, never mind back.  But more importantly, and somewhat unique to hoplites, the one rule of hoplite battle, the way you get to say you one and build a tropion, is to hold the real estate on the field where the dead bodies are.  If your force is being pushed back from the intial site of the clash and the casualties, you are losing and it is obvious to those in the rear.

So are there any cases of hoplites recoiling = giving ground outside of othismos?

After othismos: Given the above, it is easy to see why physically moving the enemy back is a good idea. Either through attrition in the close quarters knife-fight or the perception of losing ground due to pushing as a unit, the result is as above.

Othismos is not really recoiling since the backwards movement is not voluntary - the hoplites are shoved back by main force.

There is a lot of communication within and between units locked in combat that is not well understood by us today. We just don't often find ourselves in crowded combat. Thucydides tells us that a hoplite knows only what is immediately around him.  He forms his opinion on how the battle is going from things like how are the men swaying against him, how panicky do they seem, are they shouting.  It is like a giant game of telephone where a front line fighter may have a panic level of X and as it gets passed back, each man in the file might add a +1 or a -1 depending on how brave they are, etc.  The last guy in rank 8 could recieve X-6 in a file of panicky or exhausted men, or he could get X+6 in a veteran unit, or some combination of pluses and minuses. Then you have to add in information from the ranks laterally .  It gets complicated fast, but that is the basic calculus of routing.

My own take is that the biggest single signal the individual soldier has that his formation is not doing well is if it starts falling back. If the formation falls back that means the file leaders can't cope with the enemy - and they are the best fighters in the formation. Being able to fall back is a crucial aspect of hand-to-hand combat. In every single kind of close-quarter fighting I've been able to find all require that a combatant be able to cede ground to evade the blows of his opponent. A combatant backed against a wall is at a major disadvantage: he can't avoid his opponent's blows whilst his opponent can avoid his. But giving too much ground signals defeat - he can't give as good as he gets.

Hence the need to counteract this natural recoil. The Greek phalanx did it by physically locking the hoplite in place: as part of a shieldwall he couldn't go backwards without compromising his own safety - he would need to angle his shield sideways to disengage from the shieldwall, thus exposing himself. The rank behind him was locked in a similar shieldwall and couldn't fall back to accommodate him. And everything he had learned told him not to fall back. It was the height of shame.

The Romans handled recoil by allowing it to happen - one line falls back through the next which takes up the fight. This gave the Romans initally five then three fresh lines of troops to throw against an enemy before their army would finally rout. Unlike the Greeks this system permitted the individual Roman soldier to recoil as necessary to avoid the blows of his adversary, which means that if the Roman advanced into shield contact with a Greek he was at an advantage in the subsequent sword fight. Which perhaps explains why the Romans dropped hoplite warfare for their own brand of combat.

[Erpingham]

Othismos is not really recoiling since the backwards movement is not voluntary - the hoplites are shoved back by main force.

Just a reminder from many threads on this topic - othismos is not recoiling at all - it is a combat state which both sides are in, regardless of how exactly we picture it. So one side may be advancing and the other falling back but both be in a state of othismos.  Also, surely "recoil" is an involuntary reaction, not a voluntary retirement?

[Justin Swanton]

Othismos is not really recoiling since the backwards movement is not voluntary - the hoplites are shoved back by main force.

Just a reminder from many threads on this topic - othismos is not recoiling at all - it is a combat state which both sides are in, regardless of how exactly we picture it. So one side may be advancing and the other falling back but both be in a state of othismos.  Also, surely "recoil" is an involuntary reaction, not a voluntary retirement?

I define recoil as a voluntary ceding of ground before a superior opponent, 'voluntary' in the sense that the soldier does it out of an instinct of self-preservation, but is not physically forced back.

[Duncan Head]

Again, that would be a rout rather than a recoil.

Which was what this thread was originally about, of course. I'm not sure when the goalposts moved.

[Erpingham]

I define recoil as a voluntary ceding of ground before a superior opponent, 'voluntary' in the sense that the soldier does it out of an instinct of self-preservation, but is not physically forced back.

It does help to know when we are using the same word in different ways 

[PMBardunias]

And green hoplites fleeing at the mere measured approach of Spartans. But that's a pre-battle rout rather than recoiling in the strict sense.

Ok, I too am confused now.  Are you talking about intentionally giving ground-vs-being herded back-vs being pushed back?

I will give you an example.  One could argue, and I do, that many hoplite battles ended with one side being physically pushed back. This also seems to have happened in some manner at Zama.  But the crowded conditions I describe also happened at Cannae, and in that battle no one was pushing the Romans.  Instead the Romans were being herded closer together, made to move by threat of violence, and they were pushing each other into a tight mass. Were the Romans at Pydna being herded back by sarissa or where they intentionally breaking off to trade space for time? Given that many had their shields pinned by sarissa, there may have been an element of push as well.

The big difference is tactical doctrine. Light infantry, of which hastatii were at heart, are expected to give ground and maintain cohesion. This is why light troops are often better trained that line troops. The 5th/4th C hoplite was not trained to give ground, thought they could.  Something you have to remember is that in no ordered line formation can a man break off contact with the enemy and run away. This has nothing to do with overlapping shields or the danger of doing so, but with the mass of men behind him.  This is why all such armies must break from the rear. If a hoplite panicked and turned away in the front line, he would simply be stuck there unless he fought his way through the men behind.

At "spear's length": Presumably after the initial bout of spear fencing. I once calculated how fast men converging at even 5mph passed through the reach of a spear and it was something like 0.3 seconds, so the words would have no meaning if there was a old orthodox style charge into othismos.

Again, that would be a rout rather than a recoil. Can you quote examples of this?

Off the top of my head, that line comes from the Athenians at Mantinea.

So are there any cases of hoplites recoiling = giving ground outside of othismos?

That is hard to say because many will tell anytime hoplites are "pushed" back it is figurative and not from othismos.  But a non-hoplite example that avoids this is Sellasia, where the Spartans beat the Macedonians down a whole hill side, only to have the bastards double their depth (or halve their file frontage) and advance again. It seems to me that your "recoiling", if you do not mean being herded back, would be more like what some see Phillip doing at Chaironea, a feigned retreat. For what it is worth I do not believe it. I find it great propaganda for: " we got our asses kick and broke, but rallied and the overzealous Athenians ran into our reformed phalanx in poor order.

It is important to note that routing is routing. A rout that occurs prior to contact, at contact, or mid battle are essentially the same process.

[Justin Swanton]

Again, that would be a rout rather than a recoil.

Which was what this thread was originally about, of course. I'm not sure when the goalposts moved.

Well, we're kind of wandering into a recoil leading to a rout, which I suppose is on topic.