The close formation of men armed with pikes was irresistible so long as it was maintained. A forest of pikes fifteen to eighteen feet long kept you at a distance. [25] On the other hand it was easy to kill off the cavalry and light infantry about the phalanx, which was an unwieldy mass marching with a measured step, and which a mobile body of troops could always avoid. Openings in the phalanx might be occasioned by marching, by the terrain, by the thousand accidents of struggle, by the individual assault of brave men, by the wounded on the ground creeping under the high held pikes and cutting at the legs of the front rank. Men in the phalanx could scarcely see and even the first two lines hardly had a free position for striking. The men were armed with long lances, useless at close quarters, good only for combat at shaft's length (Polybius). They were struck with impunity by the groups [26] which threw themselves into the intervals. And then, once the enemy was in the body of the phalanx, morale disappeared and it became a mass without order, a flock of panic-stricken sheep falling over each other.
In a mob hard-pressed men prick with their knives those who press them. The contagion of fear changes the direction of the human wave; it bends back upon itself and breaks to escape danger. If, then, the enemy fled before the phalanx there was no mêlée. If he gave way tactically before it and availing himself of gaps penetrated it by groups, still there was no mêlée or mixture of ranks. The wedge entering into a mass does not become intermingled with it.
With a phalanx armed with long pikes against a similar phalanx there was still less confusion. They were able to stand for a long time, if the one did not take the other in flank or in rear by a detached body of troops. In all ancient combat, even in victory achieved by methods which affected the morale, such methods are always effective, for man does not change.
It is unnecessary to repeat that in ancient conflicts, demoralization and flight began in the rear ranks.
We have tried to analyze the fight of infantry of the line because its action alone was decisive in ancient combat. The light infantry of both sides took to flight, as Thucydides states. They returned later to pursue and massacre the vanquished. [27]
In cavalry against cavalry, the moral effect of a mass charging in good order was of the greatest influence. We rarely see two cavalry organizations, neither of which breaks before such reciprocal action. Such action was seen on the Tecinus and at Cannae, engagements cited merely because they are very rare exceptions. And even in these cases there was no shock at full speed, but a halt face to face and then an engagement.
The hurricanes of cavalry of those days were poetic figures. They had no reality. In an encounter at full speed, men and horses would be crushed, and neither men nor horses wished such an encounter. The hands of the cavalrymen reined back, the instinct of men and horses was to slacken, to stop, if the enemy himself did not stop, and to make an about if he continued to advance. And if ever they met, the encounter was so weakened by the hands of the men, the rearing of the horses, the swinging of heads, that it was a face to face stop. Some blows were exchanged with the sword or the lance, but the equilibrium was too unstable, mutual support too uncertain for real sword play. Man felt himself too isolated. The moral pressure was too strong. Although not deadly, the combat lasted but a second, precisely because man felt himself, saw himself, alone and surrounded. The first men, who believed themselves no longer supported, could no longer endure uneasiness: they wheeled about and the rest followed. Unless the enemy had also turned, he then pursued at his pleasure until checked by other cavalry, which pursued him in turn.
There never was an encounter between cavalry and infantry. The cavalry harassed with its arrows, with the lance perhaps, while passing rapidly, but it never attacked.
Close conflict on horseback did not exist. And to be sure, if the horse by adding so much to the mobility of man gave him the means of menacing and charging with swiftness, it permitted him to escape with like rapidity when his menace did not shake the enemy. Man by using the horse, pursuant to his natural inclination and sane reasoning, could do as much damage as possible while risking the least possible. To riders without stirrups or saddle, for whom the throwing of the javelin was a difficult matter (Xenophon), combat was but a succession of reciprocal harassings, demonstrations, menaces, skirmishes with arrows. Each cavalry sought an opportunity to surprise, to intimidate, to avail itself of disorder, and to pursue either the cavalry or the infantry. Then "vae victis;" the sword worked.
Man always has had the greatest fear of being trampled upon by horses. That fear has certainly routed a hundred thousand times more men than the real encounter. This was always more or less avoided by the horse, and no one was knocked down. When two ancient cavalry forces wanted really to fight, were forced to it, they fought on foot (Note the Tecinus, Cannae, examples of Livy). I find but little real fighting on horseback in all antiquity like that of Alexander the Great at the passage of the Granicus. Was even that fighting? His cavalry which traversed a river with steep banks defended by the enemy, lost eighty-five men; the Persian cavalry one thousand; and both were equally well armed!