QuoteThe 'heaps of dead' topic could conceivably make an interesting thread of its own - examples in ancient and medieval battles, comparative examples in other periods, physical realities and limitations, literary tropes or battlefield reality, and so on. If anyone wants to, that might be worth starting.
To prevent a side topic completely overwhelming discussion of the attributes of Parthian camel riders, Rich T made the suggestion above. I think I would add to it under what circumstances is it recorded as occurring? What effect is it said to have had on combat, if any?
While I can't find anything concrete about Waterloo, I thought I'd share this
"It was a most dreadful sight to behold,
Heaps upon heaps of dead men lying stiff and cold"
Not because of any evidential value but simply because it is part of McGonagall's Waterloo poem - which is up (down?) to his usual standard. It finishes
'Then, panic-struck, the French were forced to yield,
And Napoleon turned his charger's head, and fled from the field,
With his heart full of woe, no doubt
Exclaiming, "Oh, Heaven! my noble army has met with a total rout!"'
A thorough treatment of the subject will require a long look at numerous accounts of battles, so just to ease ourselves in gently, a few observations (which are completely open for discussion).
1) Exception rather than the rule.
While it is a very rare battlefield which is not littered with casualties, 'heaps', especially piles or walls of dead which significantly impede the ability of combatants to get at each other, are noticeably rare.
2) Tactical disadvantage.
Where we get piles of bodies high enough to be considered worthy of remark, it is usually the result of one side persisting or being forced to persist in situ while being taken apart by the other. This is usually through an imbalance in weaponry and/or tactical ability.
3) Non-clearance.
In a 'normal' situation, one might expect bodies to be cleared out of the way once they start to become a problem , especially if there is any sort of break in the action. Hence despite the repeated massacres of Persian contingents by the defenders of Thermopylae, no wall of corpses hindered the attack by the Immortals. For heaps to accumulate, circumstances or inclinations must allow the bodies to continue to accumulate.
4) Psychological imperatives.
Usually, troops who are caught in a disadvantageous situation and are being slaughtered will break and run, spreading the body distribution widely and fairly evenly across the field. Those who have some overriding urge to close and fight even when the situation is obviously disadvantageous or the foe clearly superior will however continue to press themselves and their comrades forwards and into the 'meat grinder'.
2, 3 and 4 really need to occur together in order to create the kind of extraordinary heaping of corpses envisaged. That at least is my suggested starting point: please feel free to investigate whether this basic idea holds together in detail when considering actual examples.
I did a bit of a search of this topic and interestingly, it saw an internet spike following a Game of Thrones episode (which I haven't seen) featuring such a heap, and subsequent discussion of the historical precedents. Nice that a TV show can provoke interest in history, I suppose (shame it's such a gruesome topic).
Anyway, it might be useful to gather some evidence of tactically significant heaps of dead before getting too far into the interpretation (which could then include consideration of what constitutes a 'heap'). So some examples, which I have largely lifted from http://www.scottmanning.com which discusses the Game of Thrones example.
Cremera (477 BC, Romans v Etruscans):
"Not long afterwards those also who had seized the hill, being oppressed by both hunger and thirst, resolved to charge the enemy; and engaging, a few against many, they continued fighting from morning till night, and made so great a slaughter of the enemy that the heaps of dead bodies piled up in many places were a hindrance to them in fighting." Dionysius of Halicarnassus 9.21.2.
(Livy 2.50 and Diodorus 11.53.6 don't mention any such heap in their accounts of this fight).
Leuctra (371 BC, Thebans v Spartans etc)
"Now as long as King Cleombrotus of the Lacedaemonians was alive and had with him many comrades-in-arms who were quite ready to die in his defence, it was uncertain which way the scales of victory inclined; but when, though he shrank from no danger, he proved unable to bear down his opponents, and perished in an heroic resistance after sustaining many wounds, then, as masses of men thronged about his body, there was piled up a great mound of corpses." Diodorus 15.55
Xenophon's account doesn't mention a pile of corpses.
Issus (333 BC, Macedonians v Persians)
"The Persian Oxathres was the brother of Dareius and a man highly praised for his fighting qualities; when he saw Alexander riding at Dareius and feared that he would not be checked, he was seized with the desire to share his brother's fate... He took up the fight directly in front of Dareius's chariot and there engaging the enemy skilfully and with a stout heart slew many of them. The fighting qualities of Alexander's group were superior, however, and quickly many bodies lay piled high about the chariot." Diodorus 17.34
Arrian has no such pile, nor the fight. Curtius has the fight, but not the pile. Arrian does record (2.103) "So great was the slaughter [in the pursuit] that Ptolemy, son of Lagus, who then accompanied Alexander, says that the men who were with them pursuing Darius, coming in the pursuit to a ravine, filled it up with the corpses and so passed over it" - but this is moving those killed in the pursuit, not a pile forming in battle.
Zama (202 BC, Romans v Carthaginians)
"The space between the two armies that still remained in position was full of blood, wounded men, and dead corpses; and thus the rout of the enemy proved an impediment of a perplexing nature to the Roman general. Everything was calculated to make an advance in order difficult - the ground slippery with gore, the corpses lying piled up in bloody heaps, and with the corpses arms flung about in every direction." Polybius 15.14
Livy's version: "such heaps of dead men and their arms filled the place where the mercenaries had been standing a short time before that the Romans began to find it almost more difficult to make their way through them than it had been through the dense ranks of the enemy" (Livy 30.34).
Sabis/Sambre (57 BC, Romans v Gauls)
"The enemy, however, even at this critical moment showed such determination in their bravery that when those in the front rank had fallen the men behind them stood upon the slain and continued the fight from on top of the corpses. When they were overthrown the pile of bodies grew higher, while the survivors used the heap as a vantage-point for throwing missiles at our men, or catching their spears and throwing them back" (Caesar, Gallic War, 2.27).
Plutarch's version (Plutarch, Caesar 20.4-5) doesn't mention this, though earlier he claims Caesar "fell upon the enemy as they were plundering the Gauls that were in alliance with Rome, and so routed and destroyed the least scattered and most numerous of them, after a disgraceful struggle on their part, that the Romans could cross lakes and deep rivers for the multitude of dead bodies in them" (20.3)
Nisibis (217 BC, Romans v Parthians)
"So great was the number of slaughtered men and animals that the entire plain was covered with the dead; bodies were piled up in huge mounds, and the dromedaries especially fell in heaps. As a result, the soldiers were hampered in their attacks; they could not see each other for the high and impassable wall of bodies between them. Prevented by this barrier from making contact, each side withdrew to its own camp." (Herodian 4.15)
And that's all I've got. Two Medieval examples get mentioned:
Agincourt
Dupplin Moor
I don't have primary sources for these - anyone? I believe both refer to piles of "spear's length height", whatever that may be.
From other periods - the Game of Thrones discussions cite a number of American Civil War examples, of which the chief seems to be the 'Bloody Angle' at Spotsylvania Courthouse - on which the Wikipedia page offers this:
"The appalling sight presented was harrowing in the extreme. Our own killed were scattered over a large space near the "angle," while in front of the captured breastworks the enemy's dead, vastly more numerous than our own, were piled upon each other in some places four layers deep, exhibiting every ghastly phase of mutilation." (Grant's aide Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant). Wikipedia further comments "The combat they had endured for almost 24 hours was characterized by an intensity of firepower never previously seen in Civil War battles".
I'll hold off on comments or interpretations in the hope that more examples may be forthcoming.
Battle of Roosebeke 1382 (after Froissart)
There was a great pile of
Flemish dead, long and high, but never before in so great a
battle in which so many were killed had so little blood been
seen flowing. This was because by far the greatest number
were crushed or smothered to death, and these men did not
bleed.
This is one of those crush battles, where attacks on multiple sides compress the enemy to the point they can no longer move or fight. There is no evidence that the pile inhibited the killing in the text.
I've got an Irish one (naturally :) ). Battle of Corcomroe, 1317AD (See the Historical Battle Reports section):
"In the end there grew between them rows of the noble dead; so that across those mounds of them no one might reach another, but it was by fetching a compass round about the thick-laid slain that they had to keep the battle going."
So in this instance the pile of dead did inhibit fighting. I don't imagine the entire battle-line "fetched a compass" around the dead and given the small numbers involved in the battle (about 1,000 men a side) I suspect we're talking about a few localised clumps of corpses forming an obstacle.
Cheers
Mick
Agincourt 1415 after Gesta Henrici Quinti
For God had smitten them also with another irrecover-
able affliction, thus, when some of them in the
engagement had been killed, and fell in the front,
so great was the undisciplined violence and pres-
sure of the multitude behind, that the living fell
over the dead, and others also falling on the
living, were slain ; so that in three places, where
the force and host of our standards were, so great
grew the heap of the slain, and of those who
were overthrown among them, that our people
ascended the heaps, which had increased higher
than a man, and butchered the adversaries below
with swords, axes, and other weapons. And
when at length, in two or three hours, that front
battle was perforated and broken up, and the
rest were driven to flight, our men began to
pull down the heaps, and to separate the living
from the dead, proposing to keep the living as
slaves, to be ransomed.
Note here that the heaps are mainly caused by men falling on each other. Height here is "higher than a man" i.e. over 5ft 6in. Note that these heaps are quite confined, not all over the battlefield.
Battle of Dupplin Moor 1332 (from Lanercost Chronicle)
One most marvellous thing happened that
day, such as was never seen or heard of in any previous battle,
to wit, that the pile of dead was greater in height from the earth
toward the sky than one whole spear length.
This is perhaps the earliest reference to the "spear's depth" story (mid 14th century) but it repeated in several other places apparently. Other chronicles (this is a well covered battle, though many sources draw from each other) are more forthcoming on what led to the heap - essentially another crushing battle caused by the second division colliding with the back of the front division. If anyone can lift some of these descriptions, it may be helpful in building our understanding.
Could any of those be describing the bodies after the battle when they had been collectd from the field for disposal?
Quote from: Mark G on January 26, 2017, 08:29:37 PM
Could any of those be describing the bodies after the battle when they had been collectd from the field for disposal?
No; as is evident from the narrative they a) occurred during the fighting and b) often directly affected it.
At Agincourt, the process of sorting out the dead (and ransomable still-living) after the battle explicitly disassembled the heaps.
Useful examples, thanks people.
On Dupplin Moor Wikipedia adds:
"The chronicler and historian John Capgrave describes the carnage at Dupplin thus:
In this battle...more were slain by the Scots themselves than by the English. For rushing forward on each other, each crushed his neighbour, and for every one fallen there fell a second, and then a third fell, and those who were behind pressing forward and hastening to the fight, the whole army became a heap of the slain."
I'll add here John Keegan's views on the wall of dead at Agincourt, since this is most often quoted in this context (and I suppose there might still be some benighted fools out there who haven't read the book):
"This 'building of the wall of dead' is perhaps the best known incident of the battle.... Brief reflection will, moreover, demonstrate that the 'heap higher than a man' is a chronicler's exaggeration. Human bodies, even when pushed about by bulldozers, do not, as one can observe if able to keep one's eyes open during film of the mass-burials at Belsen, pile into walls, but lie in shapeless sprawling hummocks. When stiffened by rigor mortis, they can be laid in stacks, as one can see in film of the burial parties of a French regiment carting its dead from the field after an attack in the Second Battle of Champagne (September, 1915). But men falling to weapon-strokes in the front line, or tripping over those already down, will lie at most two or three deep. For the heaps to rise higher, they must be climbed by the next victims: and the 'six foot heaps' of Agincourt could have been topped-out only if men on either side had been ready and able to duel together while balancing on the corpses of twenty or thirty others. The notion is ludicrous rather than grisly."
Other opinions are available, of course.
Quote from: Mark G on January 26, 2017, 08:29:37 PM
Could any of those be describing the bodies after the battle when they had been collectd from the field for disposal?
Yes that could certainly be a possible origin for stories of man high, spear high piles, with chroniclers confused by two pieces of evidence (bodies piled up in the battle; the pile of bodies was spear high; conclusion, the two piles are the same - not necessarily so). Other alternatives - chroniclers (or their informants) exaggerated; or the piles really were that high.
Quote from: RichT on January 26, 2017, 10:12:14 PM
Quote from: Mark G on January 26, 2017, 08:29:37 PM
Could any of those be describing the bodies after the battle when they had been collectd from the field for disposal?
Yes that could certainly be a possible origin for stories of man high, spear high piles, with chroniclers confused by two pieces of evidence (bodies piled up in the battle; the pile of bodies was spear high; conclusion, the two piles are the same - not necessarily so). Other alternatives - chroniclers (or their informants) exaggerated; or the piles really were that high.
This puzzles me: given a) the general difficulty of piling up dead even during a battle, b) the preference for getting them (stripped and) straightened out for burial before
rigor mortis sets in, c) the effort involved in shifting corpses and d) the religious (and sanitary) need to put them in the ground or burn them, what purpose could be served by piling them in great heaps
after the battle?
How do we avoid excessive literalism, in instances when we know authors will be most tempted by colourful imagery?
The comparison of Diodorus and Xenophon's description of Leuctra seems to be revealing in this regard.
...Just so that we understand what is being claimed, a US Army study from 1979 estimated average chest depth to be 21cm for male soldiers who also averaged 174cm in height. My manual of human design from university says that the average depth of a human body is about 14cm.
So ignoring any post-mortem balancing problems (Jenga anyone?), and ignoring how the last causality managed to trip over such that he rose 6 foot into the air, the claim is equivalent to 9 to 13 soldiers lying precisely on top of each other.
If we'd like to entertain a "wall of death" literally, then average shoulder width is about 45cm, and so again without considering buttressing or stacking issues, a head-high 50m "wall of death" would contain approx. 1000 to 1500 bodies in it.
Opinions will vary.
Quote from: Dangun on January 27, 2017, 12:49:13 AM
So ignoring any post-mortem balancing problems (Jenga anyone?), and ignoring how the last causality managed to trip over such that he rose 6 foot into the air, the claim is equivalent to 9 to 13 soldiers lying precisely on top of each other.
This presumably refers to Keegan's approach to the piles of dead at Agincourt. However what stacked up consisted not of naked bodies but occupied suits of armour, whose external dimensions are the operative parameters, so we need to slim down the body count a bit. Furthermore, a casualty-to-be can find himself boosted to the top of a (say) 5-foot mound by the pressure of several hundred tight-packed men around and behind him without conscious effort on his part. He can, once atop the mound, with equal lack of required effort stumble or trip and fall forwards, offering his head to the opposition at a level convenient for helmet-sundering. This process will continue until the pressure from behind eases, and the physics of gravity are left to themselves without input from the physics of crowd pressure.
Just stop and think a minute at what's behind it
Even in the ancient and medieval period we're talking about people who would see human death, but it would be individuals, dying of disease, old age or accident.
Even in skirmishes and brawls you might go through a dozen of them before you saw two or three dead together.
In battles there would be dead but normally spread thin
Then in very rare occasions you got death concentrated. Think of Cannae where an extraordinary number of men died in a small area. We are looking at situations that were hardly a daily occurrence on the Western Front in the first world war.
The survivors on both sides are going to be traumatised, with 'survivor guilt' and all sorts of emotional problems.
Let's not expect them to too particular with the phrases they used and passed down to the historians
Try this mental experiment. Envisage a busy London Tube station. Let us assume that there is a bomb blast, a gas release or whatever.
You're the first responder who arrives to find bodies intermingled, some on top of others, some lying separately with space around them.
On your radio, as you try and convey the reality of the situation to the control room, would you use the word 'heaped'
dont forget ditches....if fighting across a ditch (man made most likely but not exclusively) up an opposite bank (of earth etc), then dead and dying will 'fill' said ditch until potentially level with the ground before the ditch or even possibly level with the top of the bank
And the same can apply to, e.g. a narrow valley, such as at Dupplin Moor.
During the final stages of the battle, when the English were standing on the mound of bodies and spearing any that still moved, one is inclined to wonder how they got there. Scrambling up a 15-foot pile of potentially hostile corpses* after a hard afternoon's fighting appears an unlikely course of action, but stepping down onto it from the upper slopes of the valley would seem quite possible.
*
Or rather bodies, some of which still need help to achieve corpse status.Quote from: Jim Webster on January 27, 2017, 10:13:21 AM
The survivors on both sides are going to be traumatised, with 'survivor guilt' and all sorts of emotional problems.
It is interesting to see how they cope. The winners have something really special to tell their grandchildren about what we did to the evil barbarians from the north/south/east/west, while the losers have a burning desire for revenge and/or liberal apportionment of blame, while their 'media' wraps the whole thing into grand tragedy and generally copes with it emotionally by turning it into an acceptably told part of their heritage (especially one whereby it is 'not our fault'). Each is a way of 'positivising' what happened and hence driving out or at least minimising negative associations and aftereffects. Hence the Scots have ballads about Dupplin Moor and the Romans have different versions of Cannae. But we get our key information about these battles from someone other than the loser.
Interesting angle and certainly the poetic nature of heroic songs by bards (especially in the early Dark Ages) does spring to mind. Y Gododdin is a classic case.
So as we have quite a few examples, time for a little analysis (apologies in advance for chuntering on here).
First of all the Ancient (Greece and Rome) ones. There are fewer of these than I expected so maybe there are more examples out there? But proceeding tentatively with what we've got.
For starters, bodies undoubtedly could become piled up on top of each other in the right circumstances, up to a depth of x bodies or y feet, but x and y can easily by very low numbers (x < 3) while still producing the tactical and visual effects described. None of the ancient examples give a value for x or y at any battle (except possibly Herodian, below).
I'll assume also we can disregard the crossing of ravines, rivers, lakes etc on bridges of bodies, as out of scope for this discussion if for no other reason.
Next we can discount the Diodorus examples (Leuctra, Issus) - in both cases we have better accounts which are heapless, and Diodorus is notoriously prone to generic, cliched battle accounts. Anyway it's not clear that either example speaks of real piles, as opposed to just large numbers, of dead.
The Dionysius example (Cremera) is also of little value - Dionysius gives two versions of the fighting of which he considers this just more plausible (for other reasons). No corroboration in other sources. And no values for x or y anyway.
OK, on to the actual historical examples:
Zama - the tactical effect of the corpses (and arms) is clearly attested. But again, no values for x or y. So there is no doubt there were piles and heaps of dead, but no reason to suppose the piles reached any particular height. Values of x as low as 1 or 2 would still produce a difficult obstacle to close order infantry.
Sambre - this is the most interesting one in many ways, since it's an eye witness account and provides a mechanism for 'pile building'. Front man falls, next stands on him, he falls, survivors stand on the heap. But no value for x here beyond 2 - Caesar doesn't say that this process continued until the last man standing in each rank was teetering on a pile of 6 or 7 of his colleagues, and I don't think any rational person would imagine this is what happened either.
Nisibis - this has been done to death in the camel thread. It is the only ancient example with a value for y ("they could not see each other for the high and impassable wall of bodies between them" which would give a value for y of around 5-6 feet, assuming you were disposed to envisage a complete continuous wall of bodies covering some considerable width of the armies). This is therefore a unique example in ancient warfare (among those we've found). Of course, camels are considerably deeper than men.
Then, a hiatus of 1000 years in which no heaps of dead are recorded (or at least, have been found by us yet).
Followed by - the 14th-15th C, the Golden Age of the Body Pile, in which we suddenly find not just several piles, but several with values for y.
Corcomroe: too high (or wide?) to reach one another
Dupplin Moor: 'greater in height from the earth toward the sky than one whole spear length', following a crowd crush
Roosebeke: 'long and high', also following a crowd crush
Agincourt: 'higher than a man'
Then nothing (except for normal piles of dead around defensive positions etc) on through the following centuries until the combination of close order infantry, intense firepower and extreme courage and determination produce a late Renaissance of the Body Pile, with a value for x of up to 4, at Spotsylvania.
It's not much really - body piles are, outside of the 14th C, pretty rare things. I expect there are more examples out there, though.
I'll split here. Part 2 to come - hold your breath.
Continuing...
In antiquity there is no reason to give a value for x of higher than 2 or 3 (which would give a value for y of very roughly 2 feet) unless you want to take the camel wall at Nisibis literally (which I don't). For the Medieval examples, if we took 'higher than a man' to be about 6 feet, and spear length to be about the same (which would make a very short spear, but we may as well try to keep our guesses within some sort of bounds of plausibility), then we have y = 6, x = some value around 8-12? Body width varies, as does angle of repose, and armour must make a big difference, so no firm figures are possible.
So for Agincourt and Dupplin Moor we would need piles of bodies about 6 feet high, about 10 deep. How could such piles form? These 14th-15th C piles all form to some extent from a crush - rear formations pushing up to the front, after the front has been halted, or else surrounded by enemies, in combination (Agincourt and Dupplin Moor at least) with archery from the flanks.
A lot of academic work has been done on crowd crushes of course - it's a big subject for architects (stadiums and other public spaces) and a lot of work has been done on the several Hajj crushes. These sorts of crushes generally occur when the configuration of solid walls blocks forward progress at the head of a crowd, while pressure from the rear from those joining the crowd or continuing to move forward continues to build. People at the front are crushed in a standing position, either up against the walls or in the densest parts of the crowd. Any that fall will likely be trampled and asphyxiated, but by definition there is little opportunity to fall (because of the crush). Some may also be able to escape upwards, climbing the blocking walls.
These circumstances don't really apply to open battles - neither an enemy line, nor an existing pile of bodies, provide the same sort of impenetrable obstacle as a wall. What would be more likely is that once the front ranks have fallen, those behind, propelled forward by those still arriving from the rear, might stumble over the bodies and fall also (rather than being crushed - if armoured they might be immobilised by the fall). I can see this producing a spreading pile, but it's hard to envisage a pile growing considerably in height, since this would require new arrivals on the pile to climb all the way to the top before falling over, which seems implausible at best.
To take another approach, I do not know the critical angle of repose (that is, the maximum angle at which a material can be piled without slumping) of human bodies, but imagine it isn't great (that is Keegan's argument, in essence). A pile would need to be at least as wide across the base as it is high (and probably a lot more so). A narrow pile, if physically possible (sides of 45 degrees say) would be impossible to climb (even if there were any desire), and easy to push over (so not a barrier). With vaguely climbable sides a 6 foot pile would likely need to be at least 12 feet across the base or much more. We would then need to provide increasingly large numbers of bodies to form such a pile - no point doing calculations since there are too many variables, but a base layer 12 feet wide would need to contain at least 12 bodies, I would think. Very, very roughly about 32 men in cross section to form a pile 6 deep.
All of this leads me to the same conclusion - 6 foot high piles of bodies are impossible and absurd. By far the better, simpler explanation is that the sources are being imprecise (after all, nobody will have measured these piles) or exaggerating. The dead may well have piled several deep (as at Spotsylvania), with the actual depth naturally varying greatly in different places (we shouldn't envision continuous, even-height walls). Four men deep, say, would still look impressive, preserve the phenomenon of ransomable living being buried in the pile, fit with some illustrations of piles of bodies (e.g. the one reproduced in Keegan), take up a plausible number of men, and provide a real battlefield obstacle. All it requires is that we accept that our sources were human, which is not too great a stretch.
Ah, we seem to be in the interpretative phase!
As stated in our earlier camel related discussion, we do need to keep a sense of perspective. We need to think about the formation of these heaps and what might be possible. Is Patrick's 15ft deep* heap plausible? Would people really climb a pile of dead people the height of a double decker bus just to keep fighting? Anywhere beyond a couple of feet deep and the pile is getting beyond weapon reach (because it isn't a wall, its a broad heap). So both sides have to climb it and fight at the top. This is mentioned in a couple of accounts (Agincourt and one of Caesar's battles IIRC) but not in all. It isn't mentioned for Dupplin, for example, where the dead are largely caused by people falling on each other in the crush.
On whether these heaps are post battle, the accounts do seem to place them during the fighting. The Agincourt heaps are pulled apart during the battle to extract living prisoners. At Dupplin, as the Scots rout, the English concentrate on the heap, pulling out the living and murdering them (chivalry? Pah!).
* Incidentally, I haven't found the 15ft reference yet in the sources. They mainly talk about a spear's depth. They would be thinking cavalry spear - what we would call a lance - which grows from 10ft in the early 14th century to 14ft in the mid 15th. Doesn't mean it is literally true of course.
Quote
On whether these heaps are post battle, the accounts do seem to place them during the fighting.
Sure, but allow me to spin a little story.
John Chronicler [sitting down to interview a grizzled veteran]: "So I understand you were at Dupplin Moor? What happened?"
Grizzled Veteran: "The Scots came on to our lines where we halted them. But they pushed on from behind, and our archers shot into their flanks, until they fell over each other until the dead lay in heaps"
JC: "How many fell, would you say?"
GV: "Loads. We buried them in a deep ditch after the battle."
JC: "Deep?"
GV: "Yes - the height of a spear, at least".
[Some months or years pass, then JC digs out his notes to write up his account of the battle]
JC: "Let's see, Dupplin Moor... Scots fell in heaps... Height of a spear. Wow! That's unusual"
[Writes]: "One most marvellous thing happened that day, such as was never seen or heard of in any previous battle, to wit, that the pile of dead was greater in height from the earth toward the sky than one whole spear length."
[For the benefit of the obtuse, this story is meant allegorically, not literally.]
Quote from: RichT on January 27, 2017, 12:21:28 PM
All of this leads me to the same conclusion - 6 foot high piles of bodies are impossible and absurd.
I agree, but the quotes are awesome. Very interesting, and its inspired me to keep looking.
I imagine we might be able to find some examples or siege situations, where the bodies either fill a moat/ditch, or pile up against a defensive wall which helps solve the Jenga problem. Some examples from cavalry action, might also help, given their depth?
Quote from: RichT on January 27, 2017, 01:41:41 PM
Quote
On whether these heaps are post battle, the accounts do seem to place them during the fighting.
Sure, but allow me to spin a little story.
John Chronicler [sitting down to interview a grizzled veteran]: "So I understand you were at Dupplin Moor? What happened?"
Grizzled Veteran: "The Scots came on to our lines where we halted them. But they pushed on from behind, and our archers shot into their flanks, until they fell over each other until the dead lay in heaps"
JC: "How many fell, would you say?"
GV: "Loads. We buried them in a deep ditch after the battle."
JC: "Deep?"
GV: "Yes - the height of a spear, at least".
[Some months or years pass, then JC digs out his notes to write up his account of the battle]
JC: "Let's see, Dupplin Moor... Scots fell in heaps... Height of a spear. Wow! That's unusual"
[Writes]: "One most marvellous thing happened that day, such as was never seen or heard of in any previous battle, to wit, that the pile of dead was greater in height from the earth toward the sky than one whole spear length."
[For the benefit of the obtuse, this story is meant allegorically, not literally.]
nope sounds perfectly logical and fine to me either allegorically
or literally! :)
Or we have the curious monkish scholar, come to check reports of the incident.
CMS: "So you say the dead were a spear's length deep?"
Man-at-Arms: "No."
CMS: "What?"
MAA: "I mean they were at least that deep. Measured it with my own spear: stuck the butt in the ground and held it up; it was not quite as high as the pile. About half the army was watching when I measured. Made bets and all."
CMS: "Just to check something, did you bury the bodies afterwards?"
MAA: "No."
CMS: "Who did?"
MAA: "Local peasants."
CMS: How deep was the trench in which they were buried?"
MAA: "How should I know? It was done by peasants after we left. We had a king to crown, remember?"
We would do well to recall that we don't know how details of battles reached "monkish Chroniclers". Not everyone had access to eyewitnesses. Surviving examples suggests newsletters were a basic source. Travellers were another source, bringing news they had heard. And, of course, the Abbot would bring back news from meetings with senior church figures and nobles with whom he mixed more or less regularly. The danger of exaggeration is present through out.
The biggest argument against the spear depth heap is that it would be impossible to achieve without a deliberate stacking operation. There is no reason at all to see why anyone would stack bodies that high. Burial parties are going to lay them by the hole they've dug one or two high and either roll them in or pass them down to other members of the party in the hole to lay them out in layers (mass graves are often stacked properly to get the most out of a hole). And I think we can discount a burial pit a spear length in depth. The same effort could go into making several smaller pits without the need for stepping the edges or shoring and would be much more accessible for the burial party.
The Agincourt example might bear further study because it comes from an eyewitness account. The writer saw the remains of these heaps after the battle. However, he will not necessarily have seen people climbing on them and they would be rather spread about by the pulling apart process also described. His idea how high they reached might be a tall tale from the frontline or his own guesstimate.
The problem with massed graves dug a spear depth down is that you're getting well and truly into the subsoil and digging is no longer easy. Especially for most of our period we've got peasants with wooden spades with a metal strip as a cutting edge.
I would guess that it's easier to go 'broader' than 'deeper'. With modern churchyard regulations you need 3ft of earth on top of the coffin, but can get away with less, especially if you put a concrete paving slab down just under the surface to deter animals digging. When it's just for disposal of bodies I'd guess you'd get a trench perhaps four foot deep, stack the bodies in that, then throw soil back on top, so you're left with a mound.
Remember the ones in the massed grave are those nobody particularly cares about, otherwise the body would have been taken away. So I wouldn't expect a particularly brilliant job
Jim
Quote from: Jim Webster on January 28, 2017, 02:56:22 PM
The problem with massed graves dug a spear depth down is that you're getting well and truly into the subsoil and digging is no longer easy. Especially for most of our period we've got peasants with wooden spades with a metal strip as a cutting edge.
In other places the watertable would be a problem after a few feet e.g. on a moor. I'm not sure if we have figures for depth of excavated pits, though they could be more than one layer deep. It is tempting to believe those doing the burying were more concerned with getting the corpses in the ground quickly than detailed burial rituals. They would extract any of their own for proper burial and everyone else would get a basic service after anything of value had been removed.
yes, water table, subsoil, running sand, rock all militate against going too far down.
Even if it's peasants doing it they're still not going to waste too much time
I must admit Jim, I had a sudden image of a technical discussion about the disposal of battlefield dead among some of the characters in one of your fantasy books. A bit of dark humour, perhaps :)
Quote from: Erpingham on January 28, 2017, 04:19:59 PM
I must admit Jim, I had a sudden image of a technical discussion about the disposal of battlefield dead among some of the characters in one of your fantasy books. A bit of dark humour, perhaps :)
I only had one battle which needed bodies disposed of and 'ours' were collected later, because it was below freezing they would keep. 'Theirs' couldn't be buried because of the freezing conditions so were eventually burned (I didn't go into technical details but envisaged problems with fuel etc as it was on the outskirts of a city that had burned as well
But on a serious note, it would make for a bit of good dark humour. It is one of the touches that makes a point without getting all didactic about it :)
Well the Battlefields Trust article on Dupplin Moor (http://www.battlefieldstrust.com/media/646%2Epdf) says "One contemporary source says that the dead were buried in a large deep ditch." Of course, the depth of a deep ditch, the height of a spear, and the length of a piece of string have much in common.
Three further topics suggest themselves:
- the disposal of battlefield dead
- the sources of chroniclers (and of ancient and medieval historians generally)
- the reliability of eyewitnesses (there's a lot of work in legal circles on this - false memories, psychology of recall etc - much of which would apply also to eyewitnesses of historical events).
Sadly, not enough hours in the day.
Quote from: RichT on January 28, 2017, 05:42:31 PM
Well the Battlefields Trust article on Dupplin Moor (http://www.battlefieldstrust.com/media/646%2Epdf) says "One contemporary source says that the dead were buried in a large deep ditch." Of course, the depth of a deep ditch, the height of a spear, and the length of a piece of string have much in common.
Following the references, this was Walsingham. Scarcely contemporary as he lived at the end of the 14th century but he did have earlier material to draw on. Frustratingly, I can't find an online translation of this passage (it references Riley's latin edition vol I, 194). Using natural holes in the ground would be a sensible labour saving device, though there would still be be a lot of deturfing and top soil shifting to back fill a hole you hadn't dug the muck out of.
QuoteThree further topics suggest themselves:
- the disposal of battlefield dead
- the sources of chroniclers (and of ancient and medieval historians generally)
- the reliability of eyewitnesses (there's a lot of work in legal circles on this - false memories, psychology of recall etc - much of which would apply also to eyewitnesses of historical events).
Sadly, not enough hours in the day.
Well I'm up for the archaeology side of battlefield dead, if anyone wants to start that one.
All of which indicates we probably do not have to worry about the depth of burial trenches being confused with heaps of dead on the battlefield. This leaves us with the said heaps, or more accurately the accounts thereof, and what to make of Dupplin Moor in particular.
Dupplin Moor is unique in the sheer height of its deadpile whether this is ten feet, fifteen or somewhere in between. Under normal circumstances it is hard to see how this could happen.
The circumstances at Dupplin Moor were, however, not normal. The Scots were advancing up a shallow, narrow valley against a defender in better armour on higher ground. Along the tops of the valley slopes were archers, who on the one hand poured in missiles and on the other made it impossible for the Scots to climb out of the valley. To begin with, we just get a slightly squeezed schiltrom shuffling its way up the valley, clashing with the defenders, driving them back a little and being driven back in turn.
Then, with the first Scottish attack stalled, two things happen. The attackers, under continual archery from above, start to waver and fall back and the next division of Scots heads full tilt up the valley, crashing into the rear of those doing the attacking, believing they are acting as reinforcements. What they are in fact doing is trapping their already-under-pressure comrades in a situation from which there is no escape. The dead begin to pile up as Scots in the rear push forwards and trapped Scots at the front try to push and struggle back. Meanwhile bodies start to pile up and the archers pour it on.
Then the Scots in the lead break: they have had enough. Ahead of them are friendly bodies and hostile spears. Behind them are friendly bodies and a crush of oncoming reinforcements. They start to scramble up the sides of the valley to try and get around the obstruction to their rear. The English (or rather predominantly Welsh) archers shoot them down as they climb. Bodies roll down onto a crush of bodies and living men. As the attack directly up the valley loses impetus, it frees men-at-arms to move along the tops of the valley if need be, aiding the archers to slay any Scot climbing the valley sides. These bodies, too, roll down onto a developing deadpile. After a while, there is a huge mass of dead, held up by the walls of the valley at the sides and up and down the valley by a tapering ramp of bodies. English men-at-arms are gingerly making their way down the valley slopes to stand on the heap and finish off anyone still moving - perhaps as much a mercy gesture as a gruesome slaughter of the helpless, considering that anyone moving is probably being smothered and cannot escape or be retrieved.
That is how I see it, based on what we have.
I think we have to avoid the danger of creating an interpretation to explain a single dramatic incident in a battle. Although the deep pile of dead is pretty universal in English accounts, we do have to apply rationality to it. Exaggeration remains the best explanation we have, produced by the transmission process.
I have however done a bit more digging I can now identify the "15ft deep" quote. It's in the Bridlington Chronicle. Much, no doubt, to Patrick's delight, the Meaux Chronicle gives the height as 20ft. However, more interesting is the Robert of Avesbury says the pile was 6 cubits high in places and 200 yards long, which gives us another dimension. 200 yds would be equivalent to the frontage of the English men-at-arms standing three deep. Scots casualties are very variable in the sources but the Scots are consistent that they lost 2-3000 and this fits with the lower English estimates, allowing for untallied individuals and groups killed in the rout. This gives us some idea of the scale of these clearly exceptional piles of dead.
Looking at the effect of the piles on the fighting, it isn't clear what these were. The essential issue for the Scots performance was their first division was crushed between the English and their second division. It was this that caused the piles to form and rendered the Scots unable to ultimately to utilise their numerical advantage. The accounts do suggest contact between the English and the Scots second division before the latter routed, so the mound didn't prevent all fighting. The English were also able to pursue past the pile.
Also worth remembering that Dupplin Moor (at least in its traditional site, and nobody knows different) was not fought in a slot canyon, but in a rather gentle Scottish valley:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@56.3533841,-3.5283676,3a,75y,241.54h,80.78t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1szAqhwbNJI4ZLADaaX8vK5A!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DzAqhwbNJI4ZLADaaX8vK5A%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D242.22444%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656
The slopes of which don't look remarkable enough to contribute to any particular mound building.
I remember at infant school we were set the task of estimating the height of various things, including the teacher. I clearly remember my answer - "I estimate Mr Ratnett is 20 feet tall". I couldn't understand why he thought that was so funny. No particular relevance to this discussion, it just popped into my head.
Quote from: Erpingham on January 29, 2017, 12:54:41 PM
I think we have to avoid the danger of creating an interpretation to explain a single dramatic incident in a battle. Although the deep pile of dead is pretty universal in English accounts, we do have to apply rationality to it. Exaggeration remains the best explanation we have, produced by the transmission process.
Does not that statement in itself also illustrate the danger of 'creating an interpretation to explain a single dramatic incident in a battle', in this case 'exaggeration'?
Quote
I have however done a bit more digging I can now identify the "15ft deep" quote. It's in the Bridlington Chronicle. Much, no doubt, to Patrick's delight, the Meaux Chronicle gives the height as 20ft. However, more interesting is the Robert of Avesbury says the pile was 6 cubits high in places and 200 yards long, which gives us another dimension. 200 yds would be equivalent to the frontage of the English men-at-arms standing three deep. Scots casualties are very variable in the sources but the Scots are consistent that they lost 2-3000 and this fits with the lower English estimates, allowing for untallied individuals and groups killed in the rout. This gives us some idea of the scale of these clearly exceptional piles of dead.
Assuming the Scots are right. Would they really make such a fuss over the loss of a mere 2-3,000 men?. Dupplin Moor is more or less woe incarnate for Scots balladeers (and some more recent novelists). This amount of national and cultural angst suggests a loss figure closer to an order of magnitude higher.
However the inconsistency in heights does mean someone among our sources has to be wrong. The question is whom. Perhaps the Meaux chronicler had very small feet? ;)
Quote
Looking at the effect of the piles on the fighting, it isn't clear what these were. The essential issue for the Scots performance was their first division was crushed between the English and their second division. It was this that caused the piles to form and rendered the Scots unable to ultimately to utilise their numerical advantage. The accounts do suggest contact between the English and the Scots second division before the latter routed, so the mound didn't prevent all fighting. The English were also able to pursue past the pile.
The English were also able to stand on top of the pile and skewer still-moving Scotsmen. The English pursuit past the pile was presumably past and not over. The question naturally arises: if there was room for the English to pursue past, why did the Scots feel compelled to climb over? Peer pressure again ...
Quote from: RichT on January 29, 2017, 04:21:19 PM
Also worth remembering that Dupplin Moor (at least in its traditional site, and nobody knows different) was not fought in a slot canyon, but in a rather gentle Scottish valley:
Not quite so gentle, more like a 1 in 3 slope; see also this Battlefields Trust map (http://www.battlefieldstrust.com/media/651%2Epdf) and this (https://seanmunger.com/2014/08/11/earth-dupplin-moor-scotland-site-of-a-great-medieval-battle/#prettyPhoto). Richard is however right that it is not in a 'slot canyon'.
QuoteDoes not that statement in itself also illustrate the danger of 'creating an interpretation to explain a single dramatic incident in a battle', in this case 'exaggeration'?
No. No one is interpreting the battle around the pile of dead being an exaggeration. It is just the explanation of a recorded statement. The interesting thing about the pile of dead isn't fantasising around its height but that it was unusual and the consideration whether it had an impact. The accounts referred to so far mainly suggest it is a consequence rather than a cause of the Scots problems.
QuoteAssuming the Scots are right. Would they really make such a fuss over the loss of a mere 2-3,000 men?. Dupplin Moor is more or less woe incarnate for Scots balladeers (and some more recent novelists). This amount of national and cultural angst suggests a loss figure closer to an order of magnitude higher.
How big is this Scots army supposed to be, if it can lose 20-30,000 men and still have plenty left over? The odds are amazing enough if we put the Scots at a more plausible 15,000, of whom probably only about 5,000 were of much worth. As to why it was a disaster, I would put that down to the fact the Scots were used to beating the English. Given the numbers of men available and the small English force, the result was shocking. The casualties were also a disaster not by simple numbers but because a high proportion of the better sort fell. 3 earls, perhaps 160 knights and 800 esquires.
It is a truth of the scots, that when they win at something they believe they should be good at, they feel themselves to have always been unbeatable, the subsequent five losses come as a shock before they revert to their normal position if expecting to lose again... Until that next win.
Where does 1 in 3 come from? I can't find any such gradient in the Battlefields Trust article. From the map, the distance form the cross to the river is around 500 metres (probably a bit more but let's round down). The cross is on the 90 metre contour, and the river at 9 metres (see spot height at Forteviot Bridge). Slope therefore around 16% or a little less than 1 in 6.
OK, we shall say 1 in 6. It just struck me that, curiously enough, all the figures for the size of the heap might actually be correct. :)
Permit me to explain.
We have a heap stretched across a slope. I am not sure what angle the bodies would settle at, but let us take 30 degrees from the horizontal as the likely angle for the slope of the deadpile. Call the point at the lower end of the deadpile A, the peak or top of the deadpile B and the upper end of the deadpile C. Because of the 1 in 6 gradient, there is a sixteen-degree angle cutting across the horizontal, which has the effect of protracting the length of AB and shortening AC compared to the effect of a horizontal base.
In other words, the effect of the slope is to give one long side and one short side to the heap. Hence, depending upon whether the heap is viewed from upslope (Robert of Avesbury?), downslope (Meaux Chronicle?) or sideways on (Lanercost and Bridlington chronicles?) one might get a quite different estimate or even measurement made in absolutely good faith. And they all might be correct - from a particular standpoint.
Considering casualties, funnily enough the highest estimates (c.20,000 from a force of perhaps 40,000) seem to be accepted, even urged, by Ecossophile author Nigel Tranter in his Bruce series - or rather post-Bruce series, in this particular instance. It is English academics who seem to want to pare down the losses.
QuoteConsidering casualties, funnily enough the highest estimates (c.20,000 from a force of perhaps 40,000) seem to be accepted, even urged, by Ecossophile author Nigel Tranter in his Bruce series - or rather post-Bruce series, in this particular instance. It is English academics who seem to want to pare down the losses.
Much as I liked Nigel Tranter's books, his opinions were formed a long time ago. There has been a lot of work around the 1st War of Independence since he wrote, a lot of it since his death.
Quote from: Erpingham on January 30, 2017, 10:29:16 AM
Much as I liked Nigel Tranter's books, his opinions were formed a long time ago. There has been a lot of work around the 1st War of Independence since he wrote, a lot of it since his death.
I do not doubt it. It is just that army and casualty size estimates tend to come and go with the centuries, and I would have thought Mr Tranter would have leant towards the least painful option available at the time he was writing - even if it were his own - rather than what appears to be the high point of Scottish casualty estimation.
Moving away from Dupplin Moor for a moment and returning to our theme, might we look at the circumstances of battles with body heaps to draw thoughts as to why they appear rare in the literature (assuming it is not that they occured everywhere but were seldom mentioned)?
going back to some of the previous comments, heaps of bodies created during a battle seem pretty few and far between unless in canalised terrain such as a ditch and then there would be special circumstances to result in this (ie repeated/fanatical attacks and/or continued pressure from rear ranks).
In terms of bodies after a battle being placed in a heap....thats more likely but again probably (?) facilitated by some form of hole/ditch
Quote from: Erpingham on January 30, 2017, 10:33:16 PM
Moving away from Dupplin Moor for a moment and returning to our theme, might we look at the circumstances of battles with body heaps to draw thoughts as to why they appear rare in the literature (assuming it is not that they occured everywhere but were seldom mentioned)?
Trouble is, aside from Dupplin Moor and Agincourt there really aren't any battles with body heaps, at least none that have been offered here so far (except the camel wall of Nisibis but we are all (-1) in agreement about that one I take it).
Main reason being no doubt that people run away before they get killed in heaps. So to get any sort of pile up of bodies (of whatever depth - whether several bodies, or double decker bus height) you need people to be unable to run away, and seemingly also it helps to have missile weapons hitting static defenders in the same place.
So:
- Zama - Carthaginian line trapped between Romans and their own second line
- Sambre - Nervii surounded, resolved to fight to the death, and shot at
- Dupplin Moor - front lines pressed by reserves from rear, and shot at
- Agincourt - front lines pressed by reserves from rear, and shot at
- Spotsylvania - same point contested over long (multiple hours) period, and shot at
I still hope the classicists among us my address some of the other battles mentioned but they may be sparse on details.
I've been thinking on this and I think it might relate to another controversy (aka debate with Patrick) about inability to follow the natural pattern of ebb and flow. It seems to happen when troops are trapped in some way. There is also a degree of fighting in the same place for some time, though this isn't critical. No heaps of dead seem to be reported at Hastings, for example, where the Normans could fall back (though we do get the "dead held up by the living" quotes about the English).
I've also been wondering why the phenomenon is not mentioned at Adrianople, a classic example of a "crush" battle.
Quote from: Erpingham on January 31, 2017, 09:29:36 AM
I've been thinking on this and I think it might relate to another controversy (aka debate with Patrick) about inability to follow the natural pattern of ebb and flow. It seems to happen when troops are trapped in some way. There is also a degree of fighting in the same place for some time, though this isn't critical. No heaps of dead seem to be reported at Hastings, for example, where the Normans could fall back (though we do get the "dead held up by the living" quotes about the English).
although we have the (or several) 'Malfosse' incident at Hastings. There is a ditch and possibly ramparts and a headlong rush by cavalry. I am not sure of the exact details but didnt Orderic Vitalis or maybe it was William of
Jumieges say that the nighttime pursuit by the Normans of the A-S infantry come to grief up against a concealed a rampart thus causing the Norman horsemen to fall one upon the other so that they were crushed?
The Malfosse incident probably belongs in a sub-category of terrain-induced piles. There are probably even more incidents of people crossing streams/rivers dryshod over the dead than battlefield piles.
Quote from: Erpingham on January 31, 2017, 10:33:24 AM
The Malfosse incident probably belongs in a sub-category of terrain-induced piles. There are probably even more incidents of people crossing streams/rivers dryshod over the dead than battlefield piles.
After Issos:
Quote from: Arrian II.11So great was the slaughter that Ptolemy son of Lagus, who then accompanied Alexander, says that the men who were with them pursuing Darius, coming in the pursuit to a ravine, filled it up with corpses and then passed over it.
Osaka, 1615 (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jZqNl1GnkoYC&pg=PT192&lpg=PT192&dq=corpses+that+they+crossed+dryshod&source=bl&ots=FNePwlENTA&sig=P-58ZrXzaf-lXCBlzDQKaKb-5ao&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7lp69m-zRAhWhK8AKHRZXAcMQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=corpses%20that%20they%20crossed%20dryshod&f=false):
QuoteMore than 100,000 corpses lay on the field of battle and were so heaped up in the river that they formed a dyke that could be crossed dryshod.
Quote from: Erpingham on January 31, 2017, 09:29:36 AM
I've also been wondering why the phenomenon is not mentioned at Adrianople, a classic example of a "crush" battle.
Actually it is, twice, but the 'heaps' are not presented as interfering with the action, at least not directly.
"In this great tumult and confusion the infantry, exhausted by their efforts and the danger, when in turn strength and mind for planning anything were lacking, their lances for the most part broken by constant clashing, content to fight with drawn swords, plunged into the dense masses of the foe, regardless of their lives, seeing all around that every loophole of escape was lost. [6] The ground covered with streams of blood whirled their slippery foothold from under them, so they could only strain every nerve to sell their lives dearly; and they opposed the onrushing foe with such great resolution that some fell by the weapons of their own comrades. Finally, when the whole scene was discoloured with the hue of dark blood, and
wherever men turned their eyes heaps of slain met them, they trod upon the bodies of the dead without mercy." - Ammianus XXXI.13.5-6
and
"While all scattered in flight over unknown paths, the emperor, hedged about by dire terrors, and
slowly treading over heaps of corpses, took refuge with the lancers and the
mattiarii, who, so long as the vast numbers of the enemy could be sustained, had stood unshaken with bodies firmly planted." -
idem 13.8
The Latin for 'heap' in Ammianus is
acervus. This is also used for a heap of corpses in XVI.12.53 (Allemannic rout at the end of the battle of Argentoratum, probably where the routers meet the river), XIX.1.9 (a heap of bodies around Grumbates' son following an intense missile exchange at the opening of the siege of Amida) and XIX.11.14 (Constantius II surrounding and defeating the Limigantes). Other uses vary from a heap of troubles to a large stack of fodder and need not concern us, so Ammianus has four battles resulting in heaps of corpses within the span and confines of his surviving history, plus a number of engagements without such phenomena.
As far as I can tell, none of the examples in Ammianus were terrain-induced, with the probable exception of Argentoratum, where the Allemanni could have been heaped once caught against the river.
Thanks Patrick. Not so much unmentioned as not picked up when we were in the info collection phase.
Because the whole point of the initial question was tactically significant heaps or piles, not just bodies on the ground. If we want to make a list of every battle where there were bodies on the ground, we are going to have a rather long list. In many (most) cases we can no more tell how many layers 'heaps' indicates in Latin or Greek than we can in English - less than one deep still constitutes dead laying in heaps (in English).
Another interesting omission is Cannae - lots of dead, few escaping, constrained space.
Quote from: RichT on January 31, 2017, 02:36:20 PM
Because the whole point of the initial question was tactically significant heaps or piles, not just bodies on the ground. If we want to make a list of every battle where there were bodies on the ground, we are going to have a rather long list. In many (most) cases we can no more tell how many layers 'heaps' indicates in Latin or Greek than we can in English - less than one deep still constitutes dead laying in heaps (in English).
Another interesting omission is Cannae - lots of dead, few escaping, constrained space.
true Rich, going back to the Malfosse incident(s) I cannot find reference to the 'descriptor' of the pile of bodies but I am reasonably certain there was mention of the ditch being
filled with horses and men so assume this would be a heap/pile of significant proportions?
Quote from: RichT on January 31, 2017, 02:36:20 PM
Because the whole point of the initial question was tactically significant heaps or piles, not just bodies on the ground. If we want to make a list of every battle where there were bodies on the ground, we are going to have a rather long list.
Another interesting omission is Cannae - lots of dead, few escaping, constrained space.
But, as I said earlier, we have a difficulty with many of these battles around cause and effect. Are the piles a result of tactical significant factors (especially the "trapping" of part of an army in place by foes, friends or terrain) or do they cause tactical effects e.g. the Irish example where combatants had to change the axis of their fight.
It is interesting that both Cannae and Adrianople should feature mounds of dead if the parallel with some of the medieval examples are anything to go by. Clearly, they did not excite the chroniclers in the same way.
Quote from: Erpingham on January 31, 2017, 05:41:43 PM
It is interesting that both Cannae and Adrianople should feature mounds of dead if the parallel with some of the medieval examples are anything to go by. Clearly, they did not excite the chroniclers in the same way.
Perhaps because ancient historians were used large battles where you got a lot of dead and if the dead fell where two battle lines clashed then you expected to have an area carpeted with them?
Medieval Battles were often little more than brawls and the numbers involved didn't lead to the same sort of effects
Quote from: Erpingham on January 31, 2017, 05:41:43 PM
But, as I said earlier, we have a difficulty with many of these battles around cause and effect. Are the piles a result of tactical significant factors (especially the "trapping" of part of an army in place by foes, friends or terrain) or do they cause tactical effects e.g. the Irish example where combatants had to change the axis of their fight.
This, I think, is the nub of the matter: 'heaps' of bodies - as opposed to what we might term 'standard corpse coverage' - seem to be the result of a feedback situation in which the bodies start to pile up, which influences or constrains the action, which in turn piles up the bodies.
Quote from: RichT on January 31, 2017, 02:36:20 PM
Another interesting omission is Cannae - lots of dead, few escaping, constrained space.
"As long as the Romans could keep an unbroken front, to turn first in one direction and then in another to meet the assaults of the enemy, they held out; but the outer files of the circle continually falling, and the circle becoming more and more contracted, they at last were all killed on the field." - Polybius III.116.10-11
It looks as if the majority 'died in place' at Cannae, leaving an even carpet of dead, as opposed to stepping - or being pushed - forward to take the place of the fallen. At the Trebia Hannibal had learned that pushing Romans forward (with Mago's rear attack) gave them the impetus to burst through his forward line. He did not repeat that mistake at Cannae, or rather he built in a shock absorber to ensure the Romans gained no impetus when he surrounded and squeezed.
Bearing in mind we still really only have two or three examples (Agincourt, Dupplin Moor, Roosebeke, maybe Corcomroe - though as Mick observes this is on a very different scale). It's a good point that Ancient battles were generally on a much larger scale, and with much higher losses (I think it's fair to say?) than Medieval - chroniclers of which (and participants in which) may therefore be more easily impressed by such heaps as there were, hence a bias (which might be the cause of the 14th C pile peak).
As to the heaping phenomenon itself, it seems to be restating the obvious, but the usual options for heavy losses are:
- losers are running away, so bodies are spread widely and thinly
- losers are cut down in their ranks (perhaps unable to run eg Cannae) so bodies are dense but thinly spread
- losers are in place but with no particular time pressures so able to clear their lines (Hastings?)
In order to have heaps you need:
- a ditch or similar feature to fall into (which seems to apply to pursuits)
- (the thing we are really talking about here) men climbing up onto and standing on top of those who have already fallen - and their opponents either doing the same (so subsequent layers are killed hand to hand, fighting on the top of the pile - this may never have happened) or using missile weapons to shoot them. Without this climbing of the heap, there may be some overlap of bodies (since ranks are tightly packed), and this may cause some tactical inconvenience (Corcomroe?, Zama), but there would be no real heaping (the two, three or four deep that we see, assuming we are all (-1) discounting the double decker bus high piles). It's obvious then why it's a rare phenomenon, since climbing on top of a pile of your own dead comrades is not something that would done lightly, willingly or easily (and missiles must then be present to add to the heap). Hence such cases as we have have crowd crushes with pressure from front and rear, and (two cases) intense missile storms (from longbows).