The Western Way of War

Classicist Victor Davis Hanson’s The Western Way of War explores what the Greek hoplite experienced before, during, and after battle, the origins of phalanx war, and whether Greek precedents created a distinct western way of war. Hanson uses archaeological sources, visual culture, the Homeric epics, ancient poetry and drama, the writings of the three ancient historians Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon, early Roman sources, and tactical manuals to describe what the hoplite experienced in battle. While exposing the experiential elements of combat, Hanson persuasively argues that Greeks practiced decisive battle between opposing phalanxes precisely because it minimized causalities, protected the civilian population, left cities and property unmolested, and quickly returned hoplites to their farms.
Five parts guide the reader through the current scholarly understanding of classical infantry battle and the stages of Greek phalanx war: preparation, battle and its aftermath. Hanson focuses on tactics and combat while bearing in mind the hoplite’s experience and this allows Hanson to treat topics including the causes of war, hoplite demographics, morale, combat motivation, leadership, uses of alcohol, the Greek panoply, the charge, push and rout of phalanxes, collection of the dead, and treatment for wounded soldiers.
Hanson demonstrates that Greek city-states warred primarily because they feared agricultural destruction and not because an enemy could actually destroy olive trees or vineyards. Honor also spurned armed conflict because hoplites—who were mostly farmers by trade—could not stomach enemy contingents molesting their lands. Hanson demonstrates that the quick, pitched battles between opposing phalanxes decided most intra-Greek disputes. Leaders used the system to prevent “constant and inevitable struggles” from affecting civilians and shaping city-state culture (222). Greeks viewed war as normative, but battle was an exceptional experience that even for participants constituted at most six hundred minutes of a man’s life (220). The Greek intelligentsia and those with no first-hand combat experience obsessed and wrote frequently of battle. Hanson argues that the rarity and misery of battle discouraged any widespread militarism among the Greek populations.
Hanson contends that the taxing, miserable nature of hoplite warfare promoted swift, decisive battles rather than protracted campaigns. The hoplite panoply—helmet, breastplate, greaves, spear, short sword, and shield—taxed human endurance and servants who transported equipment allowed hoplites to arm seconds before the charge and clash of spears. The helmet constricted vision, muffled sound, and, along with the bronze breastplate, heated up to unbearable temperatures in the summer. Even without the cumbersome panoply the average phalanx relied on older men whose limited stamina, Hanson suggests, shaped phalanx war into quick battles that conserved energy. Older soldiers brought the necessary combat experience, cool-headedness and courage that anchored the front ranks. Throughout, Hanson interprets classical sources with modern psychology to describe how fear induced silence, shaking, uncontrollable urination and defecation, or the fatal decision to flee.
Hanson questions why soldiers who narrowly avoided a complete nervous breakdown before combat nevertheless fought. He offers several reasons. Greek hoplites fought because they knew their generals would brave enemy spears with them. Hanson finds that both victorious and defeated generals ranked among the first killed in the initial clash. Besides leadership, Greeks marshaled kin and ethnic groups into regiments that created tight group cohesion and the use of alcohol before the battle dulled pain and the senses to ease the psychological demands of the first charge. Finally the “prebattle environment” and the charge produced an irresistible momentum toward attack rather than defense (139). The front ranks were literally pushed into battle by those behind until the charge ended with the crash and storm of spears and opposing phalanxes pressed chest-to-chest for an advantage to rout the enemy.
If Hanson’s singular purpose were reconstructing the hoplite experience this book would be an unqualified success. However, Hanson advances a flawed argument that the Greeks introduced the “Western way of war”—decisive battle, conventional war, and a “repugnance” for the hit-and-run guerilla tactics used by non-western enemies (13). His claim rests on a problematic supposed dichotomy between Western armies that engage in conventional warfare and Eastern armies that prefer deception and evasion. This claim ignores contrary evidence such as American hit-and-run tactics during the Revolutionary War or Sun-Tzu’s equal emphasis on the “direct and indirect” in The Art of War. Because Hanson’s specific focus on Greek infantry battle cannot address the broader, global evolution of conventional and partisan warfare most scholars will not find Hanson’s West/East dichotomy and the attendant “Western way of war” thesis convincing. Still, Hanson provides an unparalleled treatment of hoplite warfare rooted in the psychological and physical realm of combat.