I was glancing through the most edition of Military History Quarterly (the first of 1999, if memory serves me correctly) and the opening line of an article caught my eye. The writer stated that the problem with history is that it is written by historians. I considered this a rather interesting observation because it was written by a historian. He does go on to explain why he is critical of historians' work and suggests that one major problem is the filtering process that can distort the information.

I mention this because of the many debates in this hobby concerning the interpretation of history. While some issues may appear trivial to some wargamers, all of the many debates are based on information which has been passed along by historians, who often will change the material based on their own biases. While many historians will claim that they are objective in their analysis of history, there are always some factors, which may render their conclusions incorrect or in some cases unbelievable.

Most histories of our period are based on a limited selection of contemporary sources. One has only to look at the bibliographies of books from Gibbon's classic volumes to those of today to appreciate this fact. Countless other sources are no longer available and some of those we can use are incomplete. Our studies may be based on flimsy evidence of events or based on totally unreliable information.

Even if there were lots of books to read, our understanding of history may not improve. There have been over 200 books written about the assassination of President J.F. Kennedy. This is probably the only fact that can be proved without debate as most of the books are based on many differing views of the actual event.

We are fortunate in many respects today that there are an increasing number of historians and researchers, who have gone beyond reading existing historical accounts and tried to appreciate what it was like to be part of the ancient military forces in which we are interested. I applaud these efforts because we have too long relied on a limited number of ancient texts, which have been subject to a wide range of interpretations.

1:1 Scale

One academic, who has exemplified this approach, is the German, Dr Junkelman. He has personally formed Roman infantry and cavalry units and written of these experiences. In this regard, he has furthered the practical experiments of Hans Delbruck of the last century. Delbruck used some of his students and colleagues to determine what a pike phalanx and other military units could do.

Another example is the Trireme project, which built a ship and then tested thoroughly its capabilities. The results were compared to written accounts of ancient naval operations. One problem experienced by the ship's crew was trying to increase the speed of the vessel to equal the best pace achieved by an ancient crew. The reasons given include lack of long term experience in both building and crewing such a ship.

This formal academic work is augmented by the results of several re-enactment groups, which have provided some very good information about the manufacturing and wearing armour and ancient clothing, and use of weapons. One recent example is the work done testing modern versions of the Roman plumbata or martiobarbuli (weighted throwing darts). The re-enactors found that the dart could be thrown either over- or under-arm, although the latter method usually resulted in greater range. This type of information may be significant in explaining why the Roman infantry switched from pila/spicula (heavy throwing weapons) to lighter shafted weapons. The longer range would be advantageous against both enemy foot and horse, which also relied on long range weapons.

The introduction of these research techniques is valuable in understanding the nature of ancient and medieval warfare. Whereas the traditional historian was one who had been educated to read Greek, Latin and other languages so that he/she could read the original sources, the modern researcher may now have to rely more on first hand experience. Being well read does not necessarily mean that a historian understands the subject, particularly if the sources are biased or based on erroneous information.

One modern historian (Rudi Paul Lindner) wrote an essay stating that the Huns under Attila were mainly infantry. He based his argument on the fact that the Hungarian plains could only support so many thousands of horses. Since each Hun had many horses, their numbers would be smaller than those quoted in contemporary accounts of Hunnic armies. His conclusions prompted many articles in this and other journals, and influenced the composition of Hunnic army lists (increased infantry and reduced cavalry).

While I encourage readers to draw their own conclusions from Lindner's essay, I would ask all to consider one question. How many horses did a Hun need/use while on campaign with Attila? Unless this question is answered (unlikely unless we are made aware of a previously unknown source), it is difficult to make assumptions about how many Huns fought mounted.

I did not raise this particular subject to present my own biased view of this essay, but rather to further illustrate the impact of historical interpretation on our hobby.

Consider

I would suggest that readers need to be disciplined when using history. Before drawing any conclusion after reading a book, essay or article, I recommend that gamers consider the following:

Is the material based on eyewitness accounts?

Is the information believable? (a Roman army of 13,000 defeated 35,000 barbarians and lost only 600)

Did the writer have military experience or draw upon the experience of soldiers?

Why was the writer motivated to produce this material? (the source might be a panegyric, politically motivated or criticizing the central character(s))

Is the writer attempting to rationalize why the defeat occurred or glorify the winners? (Varus was defeated by Herman (Arminius) because Varus thought that Herman was an ally, and besides legionaries can not fight well in woods)

Is the writer a supporter or opponent of the person(s) central to the work? (a pagan historian writing about a Christian Roman emperor or vice versa)

What constraints were enforced by the editor/publisher? (such as those imposed by Osprey)

Did the writer translate the material correctly? (many authors will use terms more commonly known to the reader such as regiment instead of legion or battalion instead of syntagma)

Did you check the bibliography and footnotes to see what sources the writer used?

Did you check those sources to see what was said before the later author interpreted it?

How many books did you read before reaching a conclusion on the event?

One only has to look at some of the best known contemporary material to appreciate the pitfalls in accepting the material as factual without reservations.

The best accounts of the Byzantine campaigns in Africa and Italy were written by Procopius. He was an employee of Belisarius, who fought most of these campaigns. While Procopius was able to interview participants in the many battles and experienced life on campaign, he is guilty on many occasions of embellishing the role of his benefactor. Procopius also confuses the modern reader by using terms interchangeably and misrepresenting the forces involved.

Procopius' books were used as primary sources for developing the wargamers view of several armies. Initially, most Byzantine armies contained a greater proportion of dual armed (bow and lance) armoured cavalry supported by inferior and limited numbers of infantry. The typical Frankish army had only a few cavalry and lots of infantry welding angons and franciscas (heavy throwing weapons). The Ostrogoths were usually a mix of heavy cavalry and infantry archers. More recently, these views has been modified based on other sources and more analysis of Procopius' books. Now the armies have more diverse composition and options to cover several interpretations of this source material.

Procopius is joined by other writers who have confused modern understanding of history. Ammianus Marcellinus must take some of the blame for our recurring debate on cataphracts and clibanarii. Vegetius mixes old and contemporary Roman practices such that later Imperial Roman armies can now field triarii (best recorded during the pre-Marian period prior to 100 BC) and 25-33 per cent archers in legionary and auxiliary units. The Strategicon refers to three organizations, which are possibly examples of past, present and proposed practices for Byzantine armies.

Much of our knowledge of Greek and Hellenistic armies is derived from books written by philosophers. They were the most prolific writers on a wide range of subjects that today would not be considered part of philosophical studies. Their material was used by other writers including those with known military experience (the Strategicon credited to the Emperor Maurice in the 6th Century AD), which has been interpreted by some later historians as meaning that the philosophers were reliable sources (instead of being the only sources). Who would think to go looking in the philosophy section of the library to research the army of Alexander the Great?

Problems with Bibliographies

Recently, I was reminded about the problems with bibliographies. I have often wondered how historians can read so many sources and be awed by their in-depth research. A friend related the story about a historian who admitted that he had not read all of his sources, but included them because they related to the subject. I found this disturbing because I began to question the dedication of historians to thoroughly research before publishing. Unfortunately, many academic institutions encourage this approach by their "publish or perish" philosophy.

I have been assured by one professor that historical articles are scrutinized carefully before they are published to ensure the information is acceptable. I do not agree that this is foolproof as many books and articles are published with errors.

Most of my points are those raised by academics before writing or when briefing students to write. That in itself means that history has been restated yet again. Sometimes it is useful to have the obvious highlighted before embarking on a project. One of the often quoted military statements that I hear is "time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted".

In the future, I think that we shall see an increased emphasis on re-engineering, re-enactment, experimentation and personal experience to support the more traditional academic approaches to the study of history (mainly reading what someone else though happened).

A final point, if you had the choice between Bob Villa building your ideal wargames environment or someone who read his books (such as Tim Taylor of Tool Time), who would you pick?