Wargaming is a man-made attempt to reconstruct and simulate, on a miniature scale, the conflicts between mankind that have formed an inevitable part of history since the very beginnings of time. Chosen because varied facets of type and period attract and interest him who is collecting the required armies, compiling the rules, and staging the battle or battles, the foundations of it all rest upon War and Warfare. And yet, we all go blithely ahead, often with but rudimentary knowledge of how it all began. War is a basic part of history, inseparable from man's general historic background, claimed by Clausewitz to be part of human intercourse and a prolonged conflict between rival groups where force of arms prevails.
Always, man has had to compete for minimum conditions of existence; in the beginning, the essentials of life such as food and a place to live, then came the more covetous aspects of power and prestige, and the wealth arising from them. War has never existed in a vacuum. Repeatedly it has been the deciding factor in historical change, the arbiter when other methods of reaching agreement have failed. Never the concern of soldiers only, war has materially affected civilian life. As civilization advanced and wars became more frequent, the impact of armed conflict basically affects man's progress for good or ill.
Primitive man had to organize himself for defense, building a dwelling that was refuge as well as shelter, using as weapons those same sticks and stones he used for domestic purposes and hunting. His conflicts probably arose from over-crowding due to rising birth rates with associated problems of food and water supplies - although, as ever, populations were controlled by both war and nature in the form of disease. Aggression, fear, and rage has always existed among peoples and communities in competitive social conditions, leading to danger or threat to their neighbors; force when persuasion was unavailing; or an enemy had to be driven out; or there was no room to flee from one.
The causes and types of wars have always been legion, varying throughout the world according to the people involved. In ancient times, it could be the movements of nomadic groups seeking better grazing grounds and the prospects of plunder; Greek fought Persian to save the country, and Europe, from Asiatic tyranny; the Roman Empire was bom in warfare, which also brought about its destruction. Religion has always been a great cause of strife, and remains so today, along with commercial rivalry and the possession of colonies or territory.
Persisting into today's world, endemic warfare was a feature of primitive tribal relations. Eventually man learned to employ against his fellows the tools and weapons of the chase to protect family, chattels, and dwelling from the envy and greed of his neighbors. History itself wrote the opening chapter revealing that the warrior is as old as time. While the soldier who fought for pay was a latecomer to the field of human conflict. Perhaps five thousand years ago uniformly armed bodies of men, united under common leadership, appeared on the battlefield, fighting in an organized and purposeful manner. This was no anachronism, occurring at a time when in largely fertile areas men were beginning to communicate by written symbols, and had progressed to fashioning tools and weapons from metal.
These early warriors were a motley crowd, clad in their national costumes and variously equipped. Their dress, weapons, and style of fighting improved in steady evolution, although for a thousand years until towards the end of the Seventeenth Century, armies differed only through pennons and badges adorning clothing and armor. It was a steady progression, from crudely made cuirasses of felt and hides to the protective bronze scale armor worn by Assyrian warriors, until the medieval knight and his horse were clad from head to foot in metal plate armor, which was astonishingly light in weight.
There was more to it than wearing a uniform and bearing weapons. It was the men themselves who were the raw material of war and it was in their hearts that the battles were basically won because an army is not merely a collection of armed men. It is not the sum total of them added together; its real strength is far greater than the sum of its parts. Throughout the ages, in most successful armies, there was a reserve of strength formed of certain discernible common qualities: loyalty, pride of regiment, fighting spirit, a bond of mutual confidence between the leaders and the led, a high standard of morale, and always that comradeship inseparable from service life, plus other intangible spiritual qualities.
A soldier of any race and age was a man involved in military service or warfare; who served for pay and was set apart by discipline and obedience; who served for the benefit and protection of the civilians at home. He had made a voluntary or compulsory contract under which he undertook to obey orders and, in return for being paid, clothed, fed, and housed, was aware that he bore the single common duty of standing and fighting to the death when necessary. No soldier provokes the circumstances that commit men to battle. He wages the wars others have caused, fighting their battles for them, perhaps from a sense of honor, but more likely because he has been trained for the purpose and does not want to fail his comrades. War is basically evil, although the cause may be worthwhile. Either way, it is noteworthy for examples of sublime courage and self-sacrifice. Simultaneously, it provides a background for brutality, cowardice, and every other vice know to mankind, without regard for historical setting.
The soldiers of the ancient and medieval periods displayed shortcomings that were reflections of the brutal times in which they lived when, expecting little mercy themselves, they often gave short shrift to a beaten enemy. Lacking the ransom value of the nobility and officers, if taken prisoner, the man-in-the-ranks knew he was likely to have his head split or throat cut. Falling into the hands of the local peasantry was even worse, invariably ending in a painful death. His long-term outlook was completely without promise. After the Roman Empire, no country had any system for the care of aged or disabled veterans. Perhaps he had amassed some loot. If so, few managed to retain it for later life. Therefore he had little alternative but to display wounds and scars in the hope of being thrown a few coins.
History tells us that tribes, states, and nations have constantly waged war on each other since the beginnings of time, providing a cornucopia of warfare from which it is difficult to extract outstanding armies. Yet, in every age, one predominates to fight better or more successfully than the others. More puzzling is - why are they better at one time than another? For example, the fellahin inhabiting the Nile Valley today in no way resemble the doughty warriors who fought for the early Egyptian pharaohs. Can one detect a Roman legionary in the soldiers who fought for Italy in World War II? Nor do today's highly civilized citizens of peaceful Switzerland bear any resemblance to the feared Swiss pikemen of the 15th and 16th centuries. So, it cannot be race - we now that the dreaded armies of one century become the rabble of the next. Nor is it due to hardened physiques. Otherwise, tough barbarians would invariable defeat civilized city-states, and that was not the case. Unless cancelled out by numbers, weapons do not always turn the battle. Discipline could be a tangible reason, but history shows numerous examples of poorly armed civilian armies routing regular forces. Dr. Johnson put a blight on patriotism, saying it was the refuge of the scoundrel. On occasions, religion had a marked effect, but blind dependence upon faith in the face of facts - or the forces of a better-armed evil enemy - will bring inevitable disillusionment. Undoubtedly the most substantial reason for military superiority lays in esprit-de-corps or pride of regiment, an inner fire fanned over centuries of campaigning by the innate confidence that all men in the regiment or army were brothers under the skin who would stick with each other to the death, thus welding a force into a close knit society assured of its own invincibility.
Perhaps the formula for the Ideal Soldier in any age was to find a mean with regimental pride and bestow upon him a physical and mental toughness burnished by discipline, arm and equip him with the best available weapons, and place him under capable and experienced officers. However, for centuries the British Other-rank made his name by pulling out of the fire the chestnuts of inadequate commanders!
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© Copyright 1999 Hal Thinglum
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