Hans Delbruk - Medieval Warfare

[JeanryChandler]

I just wanted to reccomend to everyone the military history trilogy Hans Delbruk (sp?) I've only read the 2nd one, on Medieval warfare, but it was fantastic (pt 1 is on classical warfare and pt 2 is 16th -19th century). I've probably read 100 books on medieval military history at least, and this was in a whole different category. It was for me to medieval (and well into the renaissance) military history what Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe was to individual medieval weapon combat, or what Oakeshott was to sword analysis: it cleared up what has too often been muddled and misunderstood. I know a lot of the fechtbuchs focus primarily on judicial combat, duels, and personal fights, but the military environment in which all this takes place is very relevant to our study, especially regarding of the development of armor and weapons we learn to use.

Delbruks book clarifies the often muddled and confusing details of medieval warfare and brings it to light. He wrote in the 1920's, and was understandably very popular with many men who ended up becomming the best Generals of Germany in WW II. He does have a touch of German nationalism and a vague pro-aristocratic bias, but in the pages of this book at least, first and foremost this guy is a clear thinker and an insightful historian. His analysis of the Swiss Militia wars and the Mongol invasions in particular were fascinating. I put it right up there with primary sources like Ceasar, Tacitus, Josephus and Bernal Diaz.

JR

[Chris Jarko]

I have this series as well. I haven't made it to the second book yet; I found the first one to be somewhat dry at points. (For example, when the author goes into great detail about how Herodotus couldn't have possibly been accurate in his assessment of the strength of Xerxes' army.) I also concur with Jeanry's assessment of Delbrück's writing.

That being said, I did find it very educational. When I get back to the states, I will read the second volume.

[Guest]

Well...it his volumes are good books, some great stuff in it, but a lot of modern medieval military historians disgareed with some major aspects of Delbrück's contentions, which are a bit dated now. Read Contamine's work, I think he was one who disagreed.

JC

[JeanryChandler]

Yeah, the issue of army size is one of Delbruks, shall we say, themes. He is constantly going on about it. Fortunately most of this takes place in the footnotes, which you can gloss over if you aren't really picking apart a particular chapter. He does have a point about how many period witnesses exxagerated the numbers of the enemy troops, say, in a given battle, though I don't always agree with his specific conclusions. I also agree that some of the specific factual claims he makes with great certainty are probably a lot more open to interpretation, but he does seem to debunk a lot of the fluff which tends to obscure the true nature of many of these battles (another of his bugbears are tales where a tratior caused a battle to be won or lost, kind of the 'lone gunman' theory of military disasters, which he generally chalks up to the actual dyanmics of the battle being to complex to explain in a short gossippy tale...)

But the thing I really like about him is the clarity with which he puts together the picture of the battle, without over reliance on technical military terms or jargon. In some cases it was really the first time I understood, or at least had some idea of the true dynamics of some major and famous battles.

There is also a great extended section in Medeival warfare where he quotes from a first hand descritiption of a major battle between the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France which felt just like being there...

JR

[Craig Peters]

What other books are out there that are recommended reads on the topic of large scale medieval and renaissance warfare?

Craig

[Guest]

See our online reading list suggestions here.

JC

[JeanryChandler]

There is a book called "Conquest of new-spain" or sometimes (depending on the translation) "Conquest of Mexico" written in the 16th century by a common soldier named Bernal Diaz, who was one of the soldiers of Cortez original force.

It's not on the ARMA reading list, probably because it's more military history than about personal combat, but it's a very good insight into the nitty gritty of the combat experience of soldiers in this era, albiet against a non - european opponent
Among the fascinating revelations, to me, were that among Cortez orginal group of 500 men, there were only 13 muskets and 12 heavy crossbows, a handful of very small cannon (1"-3" bore) and maybe 2 dozen horses. Not only that, but most of his soldiers apparently did not have metal armor, but were wearing little more than padded gambesons, helmets and bucklers. When cortez was later reinforced by 1500 more troops (who he basically captured from a rival officer) they had a similar breakdown of weapons. There were other greusome details such as them using salt and human fat to dress their wounds.

I should also point out that found this book to be of eerie similarity to Ceasars Conquest of Gaul, the trickery, control of battlefield intelligence, and sheer ruthlessness of Cortez is very similar.

Anyway, my boss is bugging me to get back to work. I reccomend this book.

JR