Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power by Victor Davis Hanson
Authors: Victor Davis Hanson
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Greeks marshaled for one last general assembly in the minutes before rowing out. Greek triremes singly and in groups joined at the last moment from the nearby islands and defected from the Persian armada itself. The Athenian conservative Aristides on his own initiative landed on the island of Psyttaleia to expel the Persian garrison. All were individual and free acts done by those who themselves were used “to do as they pleased.” Freedom of speech draws on collective wisdom and is thus critical among high command. In the heated debate over the defense of Salamis, Plutarch relates that Themistocles snarled to his rival Eurybiades, who was in charge of the Peloponnesian fleet and had expressed little inclination to fight for the Athenians at Salamis, “Strike me, but at least hear me out!” (
Themistocles
11.3). And he did— and the Greeks won.
Freedom in Battle
Western ideas of freedom, originating from the early Hellenic concept of politics as consensual government
(politeia)
and from an open economy that gave the individual opportunity to profit
(kerdos),
protected his land
(klēros),
and offered some independence
(autonomia)
and escape from coercion and drudgery, were to play a role at nearly every engagement in which Western soldiers fought. Freedom, along with other elements of the Western paradigm, would help to nullify customary European weakness in manpower, immobility, and vulnerable supply lines.
It is easy to identify the role of freedom among the ranks of Europeans at Salamis, less so at Mexico City, Lepanto—or among the intramural Western fights such as Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme. Yet whatever differences there were between the French and English of the Middle Ages, the French and English at the beginning of the nineteenth century, or Germans and the Allies in World War I, their shared measure of freedom on both sides of the battle line was not even remotely present in armies outside of Europe.
Even when constitutional government was retarded and lost, and the classical legacy almost forgotten, the Western tradition of economic and cultural liberality nevertheless survived enough to lend a European king’s subjects more freedom than a conscript in an imperial Chinese army, a Janissary of the sultan, or one of Montezuma’s flower warriors, who were subject to a degree of social, economic, and thought control unknown in most of Europe. What frightened Cortés’s men about Aztecs, aside from the continual sacrificial slaughter on the Great Pyramid, is what frightened the Greeks about Xerxes, the Venetians about the Ottomans, the British about the Zulus, and the Americans about the Japanese: the subservience of the individual to the state, or the notion that a subject, without rights, might be summarily executed for speaking or even keeping silent in a way that displeased a monarch, emperor, or priest.
While strict obedience fueled by unquestioned devotion brings strengths to the battlefield, nevertheless when the central nerve center of such a regimented society is severed—a Montezuma kidnapped, a Xerxes or Darius III riding away from battle in open flight, a Zulu Cetshwayo hunted down, a Japanese admiral committing suicide—the will of the coerced serf or imperial subject often vanishes with him, leaving either fatalism or panic in its wake. Japan surrendered only when its emperor conceded; America fought when President Roosevelt’s declaration of war was passed by an elective legislature, and ceased when the same body ratified the peace proposals of President Truman.
Freedom turns out to be a military asset. It enhances the morale of the army as a whole; it gives confidence to even the lowliest of soldiers; and it draws on the consensus of officers rather than a single commander. Freedom is more than mere autonomy, or the idea that men always fight well on their home soil to repel the invader. The Persians who were defeated at Mycale (479 B.C.), and those years later who were
Themistocles
11.3). And he did— and the Greeks won.
Freedom in Battle
Western ideas of freedom, originating from the early Hellenic concept of politics as consensual government
(politeia)
and from an open economy that gave the individual opportunity to profit
(kerdos),
protected his land
(klēros),
and offered some independence
(autonomia)
and escape from coercion and drudgery, were to play a role at nearly every engagement in which Western soldiers fought. Freedom, along with other elements of the Western paradigm, would help to nullify customary European weakness in manpower, immobility, and vulnerable supply lines.
It is easy to identify the role of freedom among the ranks of Europeans at Salamis, less so at Mexico City, Lepanto—or among the intramural Western fights such as Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme. Yet whatever differences there were between the French and English of the Middle Ages, the French and English at the beginning of the nineteenth century, or Germans and the Allies in World War I, their shared measure of freedom on both sides of the battle line was not even remotely present in armies outside of Europe.
Even when constitutional government was retarded and lost, and the classical legacy almost forgotten, the Western tradition of economic and cultural liberality nevertheless survived enough to lend a European king’s subjects more freedom than a conscript in an imperial Chinese army, a Janissary of the sultan, or one of Montezuma’s flower warriors, who were subject to a degree of social, economic, and thought control unknown in most of Europe. What frightened Cortés’s men about Aztecs, aside from the continual sacrificial slaughter on the Great Pyramid, is what frightened the Greeks about Xerxes, the Venetians about the Ottomans, the British about the Zulus, and the Americans about the Japanese: the subservience of the individual to the state, or the notion that a subject, without rights, might be summarily executed for speaking or even keeping silent in a way that displeased a monarch, emperor, or priest.
While strict obedience fueled by unquestioned devotion brings strengths to the battlefield, nevertheless when the central nerve center of such a regimented society is severed—a Montezuma kidnapped, a Xerxes or Darius III riding away from battle in open flight, a Zulu Cetshwayo hunted down, a Japanese admiral committing suicide—the will of the coerced serf or imperial subject often vanishes with him, leaving either fatalism or panic in its wake. Japan surrendered only when its emperor conceded; America fought when President Roosevelt’s declaration of war was passed by an elective legislature, and ceased when the same body ratified the peace proposals of President Truman.
Freedom turns out to be a military asset. It enhances the morale of the army as a whole; it gives confidence to even the lowliest of soldiers; and it draws on the consensus of officers rather than a single commander. Freedom is more than mere autonomy, or the idea that men always fight well on their home soil to repel the invader. The Persians who were defeated at Mycale (479 B.C.), and those years later who were
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