THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES 27
The Main Characteristic of Byzantine Tactics
3.12. The Main Characteristic of Byzantine Tactics
The main characteristic of the Byzantine system of tactics is the small size of the various units employed in the operations, a sure sign of the existence of a high degree of discipline and training. While a Western army went on its blundering way arranged in two or three enormous battles, each mustering many thousand men, a Byzantine army of equal strength would be divided into many scores of fractions. Leo does not seem to contemplate the existence of any column of greater strength than that of a single band.
The fact that order and cohesion could be found in a line composed of so many separate units, is the best testimony to the high average ability of the officers in subordinate commands. These counts and moirarchs were in the ninth and tenth centuries drawn for the most part from the ranks of the Byzantine aristocracy. ‘Nothing prevents us,’ says Leo, ‘from finding a sufficient supply of men of wealth, and also of courage and high birth, to officer our army. Their nobility makes them respected by the soldiers, while their wealth enables them to win the greatest popularity among their troops by the occasional and judicious gift of small creature-comforts.’
A true military spirit existed among the noble families of the Eastern Empire: houses like those of Skleros and Phocas, of Bryennius, Kerkuas, and Comnenus are found furnishing generation after generation of officers to the national army. The patrician left luxury and intrigue behind him when he passed through the gates of Constantinople, and became in the field a keen professional soldier.
Infantry plays in Leo’s work a very secondary part. So much is this the case, that in many of his tactical directions he gives a sketch of the order to be observed by the cavalry alone, without mentioning the foot. This results from the fact that when the conflict was one with a rapidly moving foe like the Saracen or Turk, the infantry would at the moment of battle be in all probability many marches in the rear. It is, therefore, with the design of showing the most typical development of Byzantine tactics that we have selected for description a turma of nine bands, or 4000 men, as placed in order, before engaging with an enemy whose force consists of horsemen.
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