History questions not worth their own thread V

[sophie]

Constantinople is much further away from Gaul than Rome was. And I thought Rome had a good defensible position? Or are saying that Rome was vulnerable in a general geostrategic sense (which wouldn't make sense either, given where it was in Italy)?

Strategically Rome was extremely difficult to defend. It's in a low-lying region without any natural defensive positions to work off of. Building a wall entails building an actual wall around the city, and on top of that the city was huge. The Aurelian walls were built at great expense, and even then, it's difficult to cover all the positions at once. This is leaving aside the further point that Rome by the 3rd century was pretty much entirely reliant on grain from Africa, meaning not only would a captain defending Rome have to worry about covering all points of the city simultaneously, he also had to worry about key trade up the Tiber getting cut off.

As Dachs notes in his post (he knows far more about this stuff than me; listen to him!), the later stages of the Roman empire revolved around the relationship between the Emperor (patron) and the nobility (client). The patron provided the client with patronage in the form of favorable governmental positions, authority, and prestige, and the clients in turn granted stability, legitimacy, and authority to the patron. By the later Empire the Gallic nobility had supplanted the Italian one as the most powerful (and therefore most important to maintaining this relationship) clients in the Empire. The capital was moved north (to Ravenna and later present-day Milan) because it enabled the Emperor to better carry out his responsibilities in the patron-client relationship, as the whole system was built on the physical presence of the Emperor for the thing to work. The Empire broke down, not because "rahr Barbarians", but because this patron-client system collapsed. The Western Empire destabalized (due to rancorous civil war and a not insignificant stretch of horrendous luck) to such an extent that the Emperor was no longer capable of adequately providing the Gallic nobility with patronage, and so, the Gallic nobility found new patrons who could.

In short, Rome ceased to be the Roman capital because it ceased to be the locus of Roman affairs. A bit tautological, sure, but there you have it. If you're really interested, as with illram, I can't recommend any book more highly than Halsall's. He covers the stuff I just said in far more detail than I could ever hope to match, and in a far more eloquent manner to boot. (What are you still doing here? Don't read this schlock! Go buy the book already! Leave!)

 

[Louis XXIV]

Lol. What was Ravenna before the Imperial court moved there? I wonder if there was any desire to use the place to establish it in their own image (as opposed to Rome, which already had significant public works already established).

 

[Azurian]

What is the difference between strategy and tactic?

 

[Lord Baal]

What is the difference between strategy and tactic?

Tactics is how to win a battle, strategy is how to win a campaign, grand strategy is how to win a war. That's simplified because the Grand Final is about to start, of course.

 

[Flying Pig]

Strategy is to do with the setting of goals, while tactics are to do with the accomplishment of those goals.

 

[Tahuti]

Tactics is how to win a battle, strategy is how to win a campaign, grand strategy is how to win a war. That's simplified because the Grand Final is about to start, of course.

Would you agree with that quote that is always falsely attributed to some Chinese guy?

 

[Lord Baal]

Would you agree with that quote that is always falsely attributed to some Chinese guy?

I am unsure of what you mean. There are literally thousands of quotes misattributed to "some Chinese guy."

 

[Tahuti]

I am unsure of what you mean. There are literally thousands of quotes misattributed to "some Chinese guy."

Strategy without tactics is the slowest way to victory, tactics without strategy the noise before defeat.

 

[Flying Pig]

To be honest, that makes very little sense, given that the two are essentially the same processes applied to different sizes of formation. The plan made by anything larger than a brigade to achieve a defined objective is called strategy, while the plan made by anything smaller is called tactics. The reason for this difference is that we like to think that planning a divisional-scale operation involves settling goals with a much greater freedom of choice than for a platoon or a company, but in reality the two are practically interchangeable.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Strategy without tactics is the slowest way to victory, tactics without strategy the noise before defeat.

I quoted this in the quotes thread. Sun Tzu. It's catchy but not always applicable.

 

[Lord Baal]

Strategy without tactics is the slowest way to victory, tactics without strategy the noise before defeat.

No, I would not agree with that. It's far too simplistic, like most of The Art of War.

 

[Antilogic]

Yay more Sun Tzu fortune cookie war wisdom!

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Yay more Sun Tzu fortune cookie war wisdom!

I like the quote, but as the Comedian Barry Crimmons pointed out about "Just say NO to drugs:"

"If it fits on a bumper sticker, it's probably not going to turn things around."

 

[privatehudson]

Kind of reminds me of the possibly apocryphal tale of the pencils that they handed out to schoolkids that said "don't do drugs" but when the kids sharpened the pencil, it became "do drugs" and then "drugs".

 

[cybrxkhan]

I really like Sun Tzu but his stuff is overused and dead-whipped into nonsensical stereotypical mystical Asian nonsense.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Sun Tzu probably worked best when everyone read and followed his rules of war.

Ditto Macchiavelli and politics.

 

[Lord Baal]

If rules only work when everyone follows them they aren't very good rules.

 

[Flying Pig]

Well, I do think that Sun Tzu's book would have served well as a basic field manual to totally untrained young officers. Of course, to today's professional soldiers it looks incredibly simplistic, but we all come from a background of extensive training and firm theoretical knowledge which simply didn't exist in ancient China.

 

[Tarquelne]

I'd agree that setting goals is the key err... "operational" distinction. Much of the time a tactic is what you do today and, when you do what you've been ordered to do next month, you're taking part in a strategy.

No, I would not agree with that. It's far too simplistic, like most of The Art of War.

I'd agree with it. You don't offer - or take - sayings like that as the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but as a guides or caution. It strikes me as more or less equivalent to "armchair generals think of strategy, whereas professionals study logistics." Each saying cautions against focusing too much on the more obvious, immediate, or just more glamorous facet of warfare.

And of course there *is* a distinction between tactics and strategy. It just isn't easy to pin point exactly where it is. Great tactics and bad strategy will have you pursuing, with great effectiveness, the wrong things.

So excellent tactics without a sound strategy will likely see your army putting up a good fight, but paying far too much for its gains, or being carried by its fine tactics into an untenable situation. (Hello, WWII Germany. Or: Can you say "What's your exit strategy?") And of course a good strategy means little without a solid grounding in logistics. (It's one thing to plan on being in the Ruhr in 2 weeks, its another thing to actually make it possible.)

Well, I do think that Sun Tzu's book would have served well as a basic field manual to totally untrained young officers. Of course, to today's professional soldiers it looks incredibly simplistic, but we all come from a background of extensive training and firm theoretical knowledge which simply didn't exist in ancient China.

I guess it is problematical if the AoW is held up as something other than a basic primer. (And, come to think of it, it sometimes is.) AoW is very sophisticated compared to bupkis, which is what most people bring to the table.

OTOH, stuff from the AoW is often phrased a wee-bit more memorably than the standard training text. I mean, c'mon, let me see some love for "the noise before defeat!"

 

[Lord Baal]

Well, I do think that Sun Tzu's book would have served well as a basic field manual to totally untrained young officers. Of course, to today's professional soldiers it looks incredibly simplistic, but we all come from a background of extensive training and firm theoretical knowledge which simply didn't exist in ancient China.

I tend to agree with you. I think Sunzi gets a bad name for reasons beyond his control. He was clearly a military officer - probably a staff officer rather than a front-line soldier, assuming the story of his life is true, which is by no means verifiable - who was offering extremely basic instruction to people with no military background.

See his comments on the use of banners to control troops, for example. It doesn't matter how many banners and trumpets you have on a battlefield, it is not as easy to control ten thousand soldiers as ten soldiers just because you have banners. But it's a lot easier than controlling them without any signalling at all. Sunzi's detractors seem to take his statements literally, which is obviously not how a Warring States philosopher's words should be taken.