Command and Control

[aligern]

As a generality I would suggest hat initiative was not encouraged by overall commanders and it is not today. What The general wants is for his sub generals to do their part well and to encourage their men to carry out appropriate drills.  My reading of pretty well all of ancient warfare is that initiatives are taken by the general and any reserve is taken by him.
At the Sambre it is Caesar who goes to the confused legions and sorts them out. When at another battle young  P Crassus exercises initiative Caeasr mentions it in a way that assumes that normally this would be bad, but the boy has done well. Poor young Publius got into the initiative thing, exercised it at Carrhae and OT himself and his cavalry killed by charging too far.
At Cynoscephalae it is a tribune? who takes the initiative. Do we even get to know his name?

Ancient society is very hierarchical,  I don't believe that you get anywhere by showing yourself to be a clever clogs. You do get on by carrying out the boss's ideas brilliantly. Similarly when generals make their pre-battle speeches they ask for the traditional style of fighting to be carried out well.

Roy

[dwkay57]

Following on from Roy's comments, I contacted a former classmate who is just completing 30 years' service as a senior officer in the British Army. His response was quite interesting and I'll try to summarise it below.

The discussion between Mission Command and Directive Control continues with the former being preferred in the British Army. In Mission Command, subordinates can be allowed flexibility within parameters providing they fully understand their commander's intent and avoid limiting his freedom of manoeuvre.  This not only gives officers the opportunity to react to unforeseen situations or to problems, but also offers opportunities for the intent to misunderstood.

By contrast the old Soviet armies relied entirely on Directive Control. This tended to reflect that they were a conscript army, with the training focus on obeying instructions and following drills. This required less investment with command exercised at a higher level. Most junior officers weren't even issued with maps which would certainly limit initiative.

Applying these ideas to Ancients might suggest that:
- For conscript armies with larger units then maybe the focus is to get them moving in the right direction and leave it at that.
- For smaller more professional units there might be more flexibility.
- Officers commanding something in the region of 1,000 to 3,000 men might be used to some degree of initiative given detached or garrison duties.
- And in line with Sun Tsu's teachings we might expect elite units deployed to outflank and outwit the enemy to have a higher level of freedom.

This leads me to still consider that there is a role to be played by a senior officer's characteristics, especially in poor circumstances where some may flee whilst others might stand fast. And also that the structure and culture of the army (how much does the general place under his direct control?) also plays a part and may require different control mechanics.

[Patrick Waterson]

Applying these ideas to Ancients might suggest that:
- For conscript armies with larger units then maybe the focus is to get them moving in the right direction and leave it at that.
- For smaller more professional units there might be more flexibility.
- Officers commanding something in the region of 1,000 to 3,000 men might be used to some degree of initiative given detached or garrison duties.
- And in line with Sun Tsu's teachings we might expect elite units deployed to outflank and outwit the enemy to have a higher level of freedom.

This leads me to still consider that there is a role to be played by a senior officer's characteristics, especially in poor circumstances where some may flee whilst others might stand fast. And also that the structure and culture of the army (how much does the general place under his direct control?) also plays a part and may require different control mechanics.

This looks good to me.  One of the striking features about Gaugamela is Alexander's cavalry boxing in and sorting out the 20,000-man Persian cavalry left using just three 300-man squadrons.  Command superiority or what?

For senior officer characteristics, a good illustration is the campaign of AD62 (Romans against Parthians) in Tacitus, Annals XV.6-16.  Each Roman commander has three legions and the same opponent (Parthians), but the different commander personalities result in very different outcomes!

Paetus, full of bluster (and himself), swaggers out against the Parthians, deploys a detachment and fails to support it, then, when it is wiped out, runs back to camp and sits there demoralised until the Parthians cajole him into abandoning the camp (and Armenia).  Corbulo displays a master hand, thwarts the Parthian attempts to attack Syria, chivvies them out of Armenia and more or less restores the status quo.

I would suggest that Corbulo would have a high point value and allow a player to do more or less whatever his forces were capable of.  Paetus would have a low point value and could only order an advance by no more than 3,000 troops or 20% of his force, whichever is less, with the rest of his army sitting tight until the 3,000 win or are routed/lost, at which point the entire army may advance if the detachment won or must withdraw if they lost.  Or something like that.

[aligern]

In both the cases that Patrick cites it is the personality of the commander that matters. I am not quite sure whether this is because that is  the didactic point that Taciitus is making or that his is a real story about command. One commander does it the proper Roman way and succeeds, whilst the other dithers and fails. Is that because the Roman army has a system of command that is totally dependent upon the general? I think it likely because that is essentially how command works until armies become too big for one man to control
Mission command looks a good definition but it is crucially dependent upon the subordinate having time and space without close supervision. Mostly this does not happen on an Ancient battlefield.
Caesar gives Labienus an ambush force to command and it fails, Sabin's and Cotta have independent command and that fails too, though not all generals fail in such circumstances. At Gaugamela Alexander most definitely does not give subordinates  independent authority to take decisions as they have to pursue him around the field with messengers to access a reserve.
In modern warfare there are different conditions because a general officer might find that he is suddenly able to destroy a major part of the opposing army. However, when these situations occurred in the desert battles in 1941, the British commanders fail to grasp these opportunities and the Germans only do so because Rommel intervenes directly, flying around in his Feisler Storch to pitch in at the crucial point.
A prime example of Mission Command is Davout at Jena Auerstadt. He single handedly defeated most of the Prussian army with a corps and Napoleon distrusted him for ever after .
In Ancient warfare the C&C system means that there can only be one winner and leader. All look to the one general, only he can properly command and only he can ride alonein the triumphal chariot.

Roy

[Erpingham]

The Mission and Directive models are interesting but we have to use them carefully back in time.  Both, for example, require a clearly understood hierarchy and chain of command, which may have been hazier at other times and places. 

One thing we might consider is the importance of standard battle drills (what WRG used to call standing orders  ).  Familiarity with these and the limits of flexibility inherent in them will have helped armies to operate effectively with minimal micro management from commanders.  Only where some tricksy ploy is being used do the troops have to be told what to do, or when the enemy does something surprising.  How much do Roman commanders, for example, leave their legions to do their thing and only intervene at key points, perhaps with just a small command?

[Patrick Waterson]

Most of the time, it would seem.  Flaminius at Cynoscephalae finds out that Macedonian troops are pushing his skirmishers off the hills, so he draws up the army and sends it forward.  He is with the left wing, which meets Philip and the right-wing phalanx coming downhill at full steam and quickly starts to collapse.  Flaminius gives up on them and moves over to the right, where in his absence things have gone swimmingly, the Macedonians being a) unable to deploy and b) caught by the elephants (very nasty!) and hence routed before Flaminius even arrives.  Just as he is patting himself on the back for this, a tribune with a superb view of the action downhill and over to the Macedonian right sees that the principes and triarii of his legion could do something much more constructive than just cheer on their pursuing hastati, and in an extremely rare exercise of Roman subordinate initiative does so.  Flaminius gets the credit and we do not even know the tribune's name.

Caesar and Scipio are unusual in that they do things with their army the way wargamers would expect to be able to on the tabletop.  Scipio at Ilipa and subsequently at Zama throws away the drill-book and deploys his principes and triarii on the wings of his hastati, just the way wargamers like to do but other Roman generals never did.  Caesar at Bibracte (fighting the Helvetii) orders his third line to move as an entity against the suddenly-appearing Boii and Tulingi, and although at the Sambre (against the Nervii et al) he is pretty much limited to encouraging the troops and sorting out a bit of a mess on the right, at Pharsalus he devises a cunning plan with a cohort plucked from each legion and formed into a special anti-cavalry force which he keeps under his own hand and commits at the decisive moment.  The rest of the battle he leaves to his subordinates.

One might venture that the legion had a default battle procedure which against most run-of-the-mill opponents was good enough in itself to win without the commander lifting a finger (just as well when one looks at the level of command occasionally thrown up by the senate).  A good commander could improve upon this and a bad commander dishearten the men sufficiently to impair its functioning, but the main effect of the commander was to deliver the army in place, on time and in the right formation to do its stuff.

Regarding Paetus and Corbulo, one can see Paetus wearing away the fabric that held his legions together (indiscriminate leave grants, slack discipline, bombastic speeches but indecisive action, poor planning, hasty and ill-advised measures, and panic spreading from the top) while Corbulo builds up this fabric (wintering his men in tents, exercising them, devising and constructing effective fortifications and signal towers to bar the Euphrates, picking a fast-moving crack force to rescue Paetus) and then makes good and effective use of his troops.  I am not sure if Tacitus intended the episode as an object lesson in command, but the different personalities, approaches and results with very similar forces did not escape him.

[dwkay57]

It would be interesting to know why Labienus fails to spring the trap. Was it:
a) He was more cautious than J Caesar and felt the circumstances weren't quite right
b) He lacked J Caesar's strength of leadership and couldn't get his troops to attack
c) He wasn't too loyal to J Caesar and didn't mind seeing him become a cropper
d) Something else?

[aligern]

Chapter 22  Caesar Gallic War 1

At day-break, when the summit of the mountain was in the possession of Titus Labienus, and he himself was not further off than a mile and half from the enemy's camp, nor, as he afterward ascertained from the captives, had either his arrival or that of Labienus been discovered; Considius, with his horse at full gallop, comes up to him says that the mountain which he [Caesar] wished should be seized by Labienus, is in possession of the enemy; that he has discovered this by the Gallic arms and ensigns. Caesar leads off his forces to the next hill: [and] draws them up in battle-order. Labienus, as he had been ordered by Caesar not to come to an engagement unless [Caesar's] own forces were seen near the enemy's camp, that the attack upon the enemy might be made on every side at the same time, was, after having taken possession of the mountain, waiting for our men, and refraining from battle. When, at length, the day was far advanced, Caesar learned through spies, that the mountain was in possession of his own men, and that the Helvetii had moved their camp, and that Considius, struck with fear, had reported to him, as seen, that which he had not seen. On that day he follows the enemy at his usual distance, and pitches his camp three miles from theirs.
So Caesar does not get to the Helvetian camp because his liaison officer Considius reports that the hill is in the posssesion of the Gauls, rather than Labienus.
Clearly one of the problems of delegating a force is co-ordination.

[Patrick Waterson]

Not to mention identification, as at Gergovia.

One of the unanswered questions about Caesar's Gallic campaigns is the extent to which he used Gallic auxiliaries: we do know they made up the bulk of this cavalry, but how many Gallic infantry did he customarily employ?  If Gauls were attached to Labienus then Considius might have jumped to conclusions if they were the first troops he could distinguish.  That said, Caesar considers Considius to have 'reported what he had not seen'.

By Gergovia, Caesar is making explicit reference to Gauls (Aedui) as part of his army.  The fact that a bare right shoulder was the recognition token for the Gauls on his side shows how far their combat costume had changed since the old birthday suit days.

[Prufrock]

One of the unanswered questions about Caesar's Gallic campaigns is the extent to which he used Gallic auxiliaries: we do know they made up the bulk of this cavalry, but how many Gallic infantry did he customarily employ?  If Gauls were attached to Labienus then Considius might have jumped to conclusions if they were the first troops he could distinguish.

Very good point, Patrick.  I don't believe there are many (if any) overt references to auxiliaries, but reading between the lines we might suspect that some were employed.  Those poor messengers that Q. Cicero sent out cannot have been the only people with a vested interest in Roman success.

Regarding the episode under discussion, Caesar makes Considius out to be a regular Thersites in the aftermath, which reinforces the essential responsibility of the comander, who it seems must be prepared to delegate blame as assiduously as he cultivates praise.

[Patrick Waterson]

Regarding the episode under discussion, Caesar makes Considius out to be a regular Thersites in the aftermath, which reinforces the essential responsibility of the comander, who it seems must be prepared to delegate blame as assiduously as he cultivates praise.

Beautifully put, Aaron.  I am reminded of the judgement of Hugh Bichenoe on the Penobscot expedition of 1779 (a bit outside our period), commenting to the effect that for the rebel politicians involved in the affair (which included most of the commanders involved on the rebel side):

"It mattered not who won or lost, but how they placed the blame!"

[aligern]

The Aedui are serving as allies and would appear to be wearing trousers, no shirt and a cloak. The rather crude identification method implies that it is an unusual situation.
If Caesar did have Gallic foot auxiliaries then we would expect them to be mentioned. In Civil War he hires archers from the Gallic  Ruteni...who get mentioned. Similarly other auxiliaries are named. Caesar does give an army list for each battle, probably because that would be poor style, but mentioning the auxiliaries in passing or when recruited serves the purpose of glorifying Rome by noting which people's followed its standards.
So Gallic infantry auxilia units... Unlikely.
Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

Caesar does state that in his campaign against the Belgae:

"... a great many of the surrounding Belgae and other Gauls, following Caesar, marched with him ... " (Gallic War II.17.1)

Some of them 'went by night to the Nervii' (nocte ad Nervios pervenerunt) and told them Caesar's marching arrangements, implying they had an eye for military matters.

Would these people all be camp followers and noncombatants?  Caesar does not mention them directly taking part in the subsequent battle, but we do have here a significant number of Gauls with Caesar's army as of 57 BC.  Might this have something to do with Caesar's tendency to write 'ten cohorts' rather than, say, 'a legion' on certain occasions - because several of those cohorts were composed of Gauls and Julius did not want the Senate to realise quite how much force he was amassing under his own banner? 

Sabinus' legion in V.24.4 consists of 'a legion ... 'and five cohorts' [et cohortes V] - five cohorts from where?  Caesar does not say. 

All of this suggests low-profile Gallic auxiliaries to me.

The reason I wonder about this is because everywhere else the Romans appear to have made as much use of allies and auxiliaries as possible, and it would be unusual for Gaul to be the exception.

[aligern]

Good point about the Belgae! However, they might well be cavalry. I am just surprised that, if Caesar had cohorts of spear armed foot auxiliaries that they are not mentioned as doing something, being left back at camp or given a task. Spanish auxiliaries are mentioned in Civil War.
Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

In Book III.20&ff, Crassus takes a single legion off to subdue the whole of Aquitania:

"Wherefore, having provided corn, procured auxiliaries and cavalry [auxiliis equitatuque comparato], and having summoned by name many valiant men from Tolosa, Carcaso, and Narbo, which are the states of the province of Gaul, that border on these regions, he led his army into the territories of the Sotiates."  (Gallic War III.20.2)

Here 'auxiliaries and cavalry' are explicitly recruited, and in III.24 he deploys in two lines 'with the auxiliaries in the centre', and in III.25 the auxiliaries keep the legionaries supplied with stones and missiles as they shoot up Gallic camp defences.

Did Caesar overlook a resource that was apparent and available to Crassus?