War to these men was incessant labor, never leisure. It was only at rare intervals that they stopped even to gather breath; and this done, their work was again resumed with double vigor. Each sought to do that which his enemy least expected, and looked upon no obstacle as too great to be overcome. Each was careful in the matter of logistics, according to the existing conditions. Each was careful to husband his resources, and each had a far-reaching outlook on the future.
Their battle tactics were alike in suiting the means at disposal to the end to be accomplished, and in originating new methods of disturbing the equipoise of the enemy, and thus leading up to his defeat. Each of them used his victories to the utmost advantage. Even Hannibal, though after the first few years he was unable to reap any harvest from his wonderful work, continued his campaign by occasional minor victories, while awaiting recognition from home. Alexander’s and Cæsar’s victories were uniformly decisive; from the very nature of the case, Hannibal’s could not be so.
In field fortification, Cæsar was far in the lead. At a long interval followed Hannibal. Alexander made little or no use of this method of compelling victory. In regular sieges, both Alexander and Cæsar stand much higher than Hannibal, who disliked siege-work, and whose only brilliant example is the siege of Saguntum. Nor can this compare with Tyre or Alesia.
What has Cæsar done for the art of war? Nothing beyond what Alexander and Hannibal had done before him. But it has needed, in the history of war, that ever and anon there should come a master who could point the world to the right path of methodical war from which it is so easy to stray. Nothing shows this better than the fact that, for seventeen centuries succeeding Cæsar, there was no great captain. There were great warriors,—men who did great deeds, who saved Europe “from the civil and religious yoke of the Koran,” as Charles Martel did at Tours, or England from the craft of Rome and power of Philip, as Howard, Drake, and Hawkins did in destroying the Invincible Armada,—men who changed the course of the world’s events. But these were not great captains, in the sense that they taught us lessons in the art of war. The result of their victories was vast; but from their manner of conducting war we can learn nothing. Cæsar is of another stamp. In every campaign there are many lessons for the student of to-day. In his every soldierly attribute, intellectual and moral, we find something to invite imitation. It is because Cæsar waged war by the use of purely intellectual means, backed up by a character which overshadowed all men he ever met, that he is preëminent. Conquerors and warriors who win important battles, even battles decisive of the world’s history, are not, of necessity, great in this sense. All that Alexander, or Hannibal, or Cæsar would need in order to accomplish the same results in our day and generation which they accomplished before the Christian era, would be to adapt their work to the present means, material, and conditions. And it is the peculiar qualification of each that he was able, under any and all conditions, to fuse into success the elements as they existed, by the choice from the means at hand of those which were peculiarly suited to the bearings of the time.
Cæsar was tall and spare. His face was mobile and intellectual. He was abstinent in diet, and of sober habit. As a young man he had been athletic and noted as a rider. In the Gallic campaigns he rode a remarkable horse which no one else could mount. He affected the society of women. His social character was often a contrast to his public acts. He was a good friend, a stanch enemy, affable and high-bred. As a writer, he was simple, direct, convincing; as an orator, second to no one but Cicero. No doubt Cæsar’s life-work was as essential in the Roman economy as it was admirably rounded. But that he was without reproach, as he certainly was without fear, can scarcely be maintained.
In leaving Cæsar, we leave the last great captain of ancient times, and, perhaps, taking his life-work,—which it has been outside my province to dwell upon,—the greatest, though not the most admirable, man who ever lived.
LECTURE IV.
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.
The difference between ancient and modern war is marked, but each is consistent with its conditions. In ancient days the armies of the civilized nations were, as a rule, not large. They could generally find sustenance wherever they moved, and were obliged to carry but a few days’ victuals with them. Their arms were such as not only to remain long fit for service, but they were capable of repair upon the spot. Neither trains to carry provision and munitions of war were essential, nor were fortified magazines for storing such material indispensable. The communications of an army had not to be so zealously guarded, for it could live and fight even if cut off from its base. On the other hand, battle was of the utmost importance, and the average campaign was but a march toward the enemy, a fight in parallel order and a victory. A battle, owing to the short reach of missiles, was of necessity a more or less hand-to-hand affair. First, the light troops, archers and slingers, advanced like our skirmishers, and opened the fighting. They were then withdrawn and the lines of heavy foot advanced to within javelin-throwing distance. Here they stood and cast their weapons, with which the light troops kept them supplied. At intervals groups from the lines closed and the sword was used, or the heavy thrusting pike. Meanwhile the cavalry, always on the extreme wings, charged the enemy’s, and if it could defeat it, wheeled in on the flanks of the infantry, and this was apt to decide the day.
Once engaged, an army could not be withdrawn, as ours can be, under cover of artillery, whose effective use from a distance over the heads of the troops will retard or prevent the enemy’s pursuit. Battles joined had to be fought out to the end. Thus victory to one was wont to be annihilation to the other. From these simple conditions it resulted that the art of war among the ancients was confined to tactical values, or the evolutions of the battle-field, and to fortification and sieges. The ancient military writings cover no other ground. There was little conception of what we call strategy,—the art of so moving armies over the surface of a country, that as great damage may be done to the enemy as by battle, or at least that the enemy may be so compromised as that a victory over him shall be a decisive one. Strategy among the ancients was mere stratagem,—except in the case of the great captains, whose genius made them instinctively great strategists,—for strategy is the highest grade of intellectual common sense. But the reasons for their strategic movements were not understood by the rest of the world, as we to-day can understand them. Others could not make sound strategic manœuvres, and saw good in naught but battle.
From the time of Cæsar, there was a gradual decline in the conduct of war, which he had so highly illustrated, and there is little, from his age to the invention of gunpowder, which has any bearing of value on the art to-day. There were great generals, there were victories which changed the destinies of the world, but there was no method in war. For many centuries there was scarcely such a thing as an art of war. One might say that matters had reverted to the old lack of system antedating Alexander.