THE FORUM
I'm writing this letter in response to several
articles in "The Art of Making War" section of
issue #154. The articles I wish to comment on
are those by Dan Salas entitled "For King and
Country," and by Thomas M. Kane entitled "How
to Win Wars and Influence People."

Mr. Salas claimed to base his article on the
Roman Army, but I am sure that no Roman
would have recognized it as such. For example,
he says: ?Marching troops travel in defensive
formations, usually in a column no more than
20 men wide . . .? Twenty men wide? Such a
column would need a roadway 20 yards wide at
the minimum, and any attempt to make a turn
would be very difficult. If anyone has ever
marched in a company front formation used by
modern armies for formal parades or has
watched marching bands will know just how
hard it is to turn a wide column. Given the
condition of roads in a medieval society, a
column front of two or three men is all that was
possible. The entire military art of moving
troops up until the invention of breach-loading
firearms consisted of deploying from such a
column to a line of battle as quickly as possible.
Usually this was done by having the column do
a right or left turn into line. Marching in step
makes this much easier, of course, which is why
the Greeks learned to do this back before the
battle of Marathon (490 B.C.). No, Mr. Kane,
Frederick the Great did not develop cadence
step. The Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, the
Medieval Swiss, the Swedes, and the English
(just to name a few) were all using cadence step
before Frederick the Great was born.

Another flaw in both articles is each author?s
attempt to fix certain attitudes or formations
without understanding the historical base. For
example, Mr. Salas sets (using some Roman
terms) the size of a squad at 10 men, a halfcentury
at 50, and a century at 100. Now it is
true that the Latin word centuria, from which
?century? comes, means 100; but in my dictionary
it is defined, in its military usage, only as a
subdivision of a legion. By the late republican
period of Rome, the century had become a
subdivision of a maniple, which consisted of 120
men. Given the way in which infantry armies
had to form for battle and the problems of
controlling troops on the march, a formation of
60 men in a century makes more sense than one
of 50, because you can divide 60 by 4, 3, or 2,
and still get an even number. This makes it easy
to set up a march column with a front of either
two or three men and keep the entire unit
together either in column or line. I should note
that the Romans used an infantry block with a
front of 10 men in six ranks. I should not be too
hard on Mr. Salas in this respect. Almost every
article I have seen in DRAGON Magazine on
military organization overlooks the battle formations
used by the troops and the reasons why
those formations were used, and thus misses
the reasons behind the formation of units above
squad size. In armies fighting with hand-held
weapons, corporals commanded squads and
were part of the rank and file; their number
should, when divided by four, come out with an
even number. This arrangement simplifies the
deployment from column into line as an army
moves into battle. Any other system of formation
leaves the commander with the problem of
what to do with unit remainders while maintaining
tactical cohesion.

There are also attitudes in the articles by Mr.
Salas and Mr. Kane I have to comment on. I
think Mr. Salas should have read Julius Caesar?s
Gallic War before he said that ?the recruits are
put through several weeks of basic training.? In
his book, Caesar at one point remarks of certain
soldiers, while discussing a battle, ?they being
recruits of less than five years? training, I left
them to guard the baggage.? It takes a long, long
time to train soldiers. When I was in the U.S.
service, basic infantry training took 16 weeks
and was followed by some sort of advanced
training lasting from 8 to 24 weeks more before
the soldier was considered ready for duty in a
tactical unit. As recently as the start of this
century, the U.S. Army figured it took about 9
months to train a soldier. In the Civil War it took
two years to train men without prior experience
in horsemanship for cavalry service. This figure
did, however, include unit training.

I would also like to know where Mr. Salas got
his ideas about punishments and rewards. At
one point he talks about dragging as inflicting
1-4 hp damage per hour. As for rewards, medals
were not given to officers until the 19th century,
and enlisted men didn?t start getting them
until the 20th century. With respect to looting, it
was the prerogative of the soldier in European
armies, and was often considered a basic part of
his pay until after the time of Gustavus II (1594-
1632); it continued in the form of prize money
in the U.S. Naval services until 1898.

Mr. Kane is long on theory but in error on
some facts. He says: ?a king?s noble vassals
would never . . . dishonor themselves by fighting
on foot.? I suggest that Mr. Kane needs to
add Henry Dwight Sedgwick?s The Black Prince,
a biography of Edward, Prince of Wales, to his
bibliography. The French knights had trouble
fighting on foot at times, but this certainly did
not apply to the English. Also, in speaking about
infantry, he overlooked the talents in this kind
of warfare displayed by the Swiss, the Scots, the
Welsh, the Germans, and the Spanish during the
medieval period. Another book to read is B. H.
Liddell Hart?s Strategy.

James S. Watson
Madison WI
(Dragon #154)