While reading several books on the Later Roman army, I was struck by the differing views of historians concerning the Roman military strategy with regard to operations against Germans and other barbarians, particularly in Europe. There was also debate among historians about the political dealings between Roman governments and representatives of these various groups. Roman leaders employed varying methods in an effort to counter barbarian attacks. These included typical military operations and political accommodation by which the barbarians were allowed to enter the empire as soldiers and citizens.

Concurrently, I was studying modern unconventional warfare, which is a common form of conflict in our times. There were definitely some similarities between many conflicts involving Romans and barbarians, and some modern military operations. I considered it worthwhile to highlight some of these to illustrate the continuity in military operations. In addition, there is some good information applicable today, which can be used to better appreciate ancient military operations.

As a basis, I have used the Roman military doctrine as presented in "Warfare in Roman Europe 350-425 AD" by Hugh Elton. The author looks at German and Roman military forces, and how they interacted. Elton points out that there was little change in the period covered in his book. I would suggest that this is also true of the eras before and after his chosen time period.

Roman and Byzantine forces fought a variety of barbarian or irregular opponents from the early Celts or Gauls of northern Italy and France to the Avars and Bulgars of the Balkans in the 10th Century AD. Generally, the tactics and strategy employed against these foes was similar, although there were some differences in the opposing armies.

Elton states that there were three strategic choices for dealing with barbarian incursions: Roman forces could conduct harassing warfare (ambushing or engaging barbarian forces in running fights), fight a field battle or could blockade the barbarians(pg 216).

Roman doctrine favoured harassing warfare according to Elton (pg 216). If barbarian forces were operating in a dispersed fashion, it would be difficult to confront them quickly. The main problem was to locate the barbarians. Then Roman forces had to be concentrated in the general area to oppose the barbarians. This usually entailed elements of the field armies (comitatenses). Elton states that the border forces or limitanei had three distinct roles: policing the border, gathering intelligence and stopping raids (pg 204), so were not ideal for dealing with a major barbarian incursion.

Normally, a protracted campaign would be fought, which would be expensive in terms of consumption of government revenues and lost military manpower (and possibly civilians, who paid the taxes).

Destroying small detachments would not necessarily produce victory and often commanders had to settle for containment until the barbarians struck again or Roman forces could launch attacks on the barbarians' infrastructure (crops, livestock, villages, etc.), which would result in a more satisfactory conclusion.

Battle

A battle may have appealed to some commanders because it would allow the superior qualities of the Roman military to be exploited (training, weapons, armour, etc.)—usually, the regulars won and the campaign would end with some mopping up. The Battle of Strasbourg is a good example of a successful campaign concluded with a Roman victory. The defeated Alamanni remained pacified for many years after the battle.

A defeat could result in an expansion of the barbarian operations into new territory from which it would be difficult to eliminate them and there would be a need to repeat many of the operations to contain the barbarians. The Battle of Adrianople is a good example as it took another six years of conflict before the Goths agreed to a peace treaty with the Emperor Theodosius.

Roman forces had several problems to contend with before confronting a barbarian force. This required the Romans to have a numerical advantage or suitable alternatives (be better at irregular operations than the enemy forces). Current doctrine suggests that a ratio of 6:1 is required to assure a positive outcome. This may explain why the Roman army was significantly increased in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Centuries (at least on paper).

Manpower

In general, Roman forces would require manpower for the following:

• a. Defence of urban centres, installations and bases;
• b. Defence of lines of communication;
• c. Defence of mobile logistical support (convoys);
• d. Detachments to deny key terrain to barbarian forces;
• e. Detachments to shadow or target barbarian detachments; and Larger forces to deal with concentrations of barbarian forces.

Much of this doctrine is similar to more modern military theory concerning low intensity conflicts, unconventional warfare, counter-insurgency operations, guerrilla operations and related topics. I think that a look at some examples will provide a better understanding of the Roman approach to dealing with Germans and other barbarians. The similarities suggest to me that the Romans were applying what is now considered typical military strategy for such operations. Modern situations may also explain in part the Roman process of accepting former enemies into the empire and using them as soldiers in Roman forces (receptio).

This approach is expressed in this statement: "What is important is to understand the role of military force and the role of other responses and how these fit together" Caspar Weinberger (former US Secretary of Defense).

To help to understand better the American campaigns, some modern US military doctrine is provided. The modern US military definition of a low intensity conflict (LIC) is: "a political-military confrontation between contending states or groups below conventional war and above the routine, peaceful competition among states. It frequently involves protracted struggles of competing principles and ideologies. Low intensity conflict ranges from subversion to the use of armed force. It is waged by a combination of means, employing political, economic, informational, and military instruments. Low intensity conflicts are often localized, but contain regional and global security implications."

This definition certainly covers some of the aspects of Roman versus barbarian military operations. Barbarian forces engaged in raids for loot, food, slaves and cultural status (warriors had to prove themselves in battle and leaders had to prove their worth as military commanders). Romans engaged in punitive or pre-emptive raids and economic pressure (cutting off subsidies, trade and food supplies). Campaigns could last a short time or sporadically over a long period.

There are some key aspects to understand LIC.

Political Dominance

Political objectives drive military decisions at every level from the strategic to the tactical. Military leaders must understand these political objectives and the impact of military operations on them. They must adopt courses of action, which support those objectives even if the courses of action appear to be unorthodox or outside what traditional doctrine had contemplated.

While these are modern concepts, they can be applied to historical situations. The Romans certainly were aware of the political ramifications of military operations. In the Republican period, Roman generals were also Roman politicians (Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Marius and Sulla to name a few). They fought wars to increase their status within the government. To be successful meant being both a winning general and a successful politician. During the Imperial period, emperors were often expected to lead their armies, and success or failure often determined the length of their reign.)

Unity of Effort

Unity of effort calls for coordination to permit effective action within the framework of governmental system. Commanders may answer to civilian chiefs or may themselves employ the resources of civilian agencies. Military leaders must integrate their efforts to gain a mutual advantage in LIC. Military planners must consider how their actions contribute to initiatives, which are also political, economic, and psychological in nature.

(Roman forces had to coordinate their activities to achieve a successful conclusion of a campaign often supported by the resources of several provinces or the whole empire. Detachments from various legions and auxiliary units would be combined for a campaign or elements of local forces joined with field armies to conduct a campaign.)

Adaptability

Adaptability is the skill and willingness to change or modify structures or methods to accommodate different situations. It requires careful mission analysis, comprehensive intelligence, and regional expertise. Adaptability is more than just tailoring or flexibility, both of which imply the use of the same techniques or structures in many different situations. Successful military operations in LIC will require the armed forces to use adaptability not only to modify existing methods and structures, but to develop new ones appropriate to each situation. (Roman forces as stated above used a variety of operations against barbarians. Troops were trained to fight, to undertake basic engineering tasks, to operate in good and bad weather and for long periods of time.)

Perseverance

Low intensity conflicts rarely have a clear beginning or end marked by decisive actions culminating in victory. They are, by nature, protracted struggles. Even those short, sharp contingency encounters, which do occur are better assessed in the context of their contribution to long-term objectives. Perseverance is the patient, resolute, persistent pursuit of national goals and objectives for as long as necessary to achieve them. Perseverance does not preclude taking decisive action.

However, it does require careful informed analysis to select the right time and place for that action. While it is important to succeed, it is equally important to recognize that in the LIC environment success will generally not come easily or quickly. Developing an attitude of disciplined, focused perseverance will help commanders reject short-term successes in favor of actions, which are designed to accomplish long-term goals. (Roman historians record numerous limited campaigns against barbarians. These might have been separated by many years, but often the barbarians were rebuilding their strength or waiting for Roman military forces to diminish before striking again. This is particularly true once the empire stopped expanding and more defensive military operations took place.)

The two recent examples of LIC further illustrate the continuity in military doctrine as it applies to such operations. These are Indian and Filipino campaigns of the U.S. Army during the 19th and the early 20th Centuries. I chose these because the campaigns were fought by forces similar to those of the Romans and barbarians. More recent military operations of this century are harder to compare as the advent of technology has broadened the role of other factors (artillery, aircraft, electronics, satellites and computers).

Much of the material is based on the writings of John M. Gates and he begins his study with these observations. "The U. S. Army had considerable historical experience with irregular warfare in the 19th Century, fighting against Indians from Florida to the Pacific coast, confronting guerrillas associated in one way or another with more regular forces in Mexico and in the Civil War, and at the century's end fighting a frustrating colonial war against Filipino revolutionaries. "The American Indian wars of the 19th Century present the greatest problem for anyone seeking to generalize about the U. S. Army's experience fighting irregulars. Although the Indians used guerrilla tactics, they were not really engaged in a guerrilla war. Like the barbarian warriors, they were not part-time soldiers hidden by a friendly but sedentary population. Nor did they act in support of an existing regular army. Instead, they were a people under attack by forces, many of which they only partially understood, and they responded with violence in a sporadic fashion, with no strategic concept to guide their actions. Often they resisted because they saw no other acceptable choice, but they fought as nomads or from insecure bases.

In his survey of primitive war, anthropologist H. H. Turney-High listed five attributes of what he called "true war":

a. the presence of "tactical operations";
b. definite command and control;
c. the ability to conduct a campaign for the reduction of enemy resistance if the first battle fails;
d. a clear motive that is the motive of the group rather than that of an individual member; and
e. an adequate supply.

Applying his criteria to the Indians and barbarians, it clear that they rarely engaged in "true war." Although most groups possessed a rudimentary knowledge of tactics, they usually lacked discipline and commanders able to exert military control over warriors in the heat of battle. In most Indian and barbarian communities, participation in battle was usually voluntary, making either total mobilisation or total war impossible.

Similarly inhibiting were the lack of a clear objective, which distinguishes the "true war" from simply a successful battle, and the absence of the ability to sustain a campaign with adequate supplies. Although Indian scouting and intelligence gathering were often superb by U. S. Army standards, Indians also relied upon magic to divine enemy intentions or make plans, and the absence of methodical planning was yet another negative feature of the Indian approach to battle. Widely known for their stealth and ferocity, the Indians demonstrated those characteristics in a context that was significantly different from that of the other irregulars engaged by the U. S. Army in the 19th Century (such as Confederate and Mexican irregulars).

Tactically, the Indians fought as guerrillas, and they often displayed tremendous skill in the process, but strategically they were not really engaged in a guerrilla war. They were not attempting to wear down the enemy by harassment, nor were they in a position to create secure base areas or win over the civilian population living in the heartland of the army they confronted. They fought as they did because it was the only way they knew to fight, and their success in keeping in the field as long as they did resulted as much from the army's meager size as from the Indians' prowess as warriors.

Much of the U.S. Army's work on the frontier was that of a police force similar to a role given by Elton to the limitanei. Indian bands that raided white settlers, peaceful reservation Indians, or army posts engaged in criminal activity, in the eyes of the government at least; and the army's task was that of the police officer, to track down the guilty parties and bring them back for punishment. Because of the numbers involved those activities sometimes looked like war, and in a few instances, when entire tribes fought against the intrusion of the white, it was. Most of the time, however, it was routine though difficult police work.

As the U. S. Army's only military activity between the 19th Century's infrequent larger wars, the so-called Indian Wars have received far more attention than they merit in strictly military terms. At best, except for a few significant successes such as that against Custer at the Little Big Horn, the Indians were little more than a nuisance. The Indian Wars were the most extensive but the least relevant of the army's 19th Century experiences fighting against irregulars.

If one were to substitute barbarian for Indian and Roman for U.S. in the paragraphs above, it is possible to see the similarities. The Romans developed a federal constabulary, the limitanei, which was stationed along the frontiers in system of fortifications. Roman forces punished barbarians, who raided Roman territory, peaceful barbarian settlements (often allies or federates of the empire), or army posts.

Most barbarian attacks did not aim to conquer territory or subvert Roman citizens. Operations against barbarians receive a lot of attention from historians, particularly those who credit the "barbarian invasions" as a major factor in the fall of the western half of the empire. However, there are few cases of successful barbarian attacks and most could be deemed as nuisances compared to the "true wars" fought by Roman forces (civil wars and those with Parthia and Persia). There are some notable exceptions such as the wars fought with the Dacians in the 1st and 2nd Centuries and the campaigns of Marcus Aurelius against the Quadi and Marcomanni in the late 2nd Century.

Philippines

The Filipino irregulars behaved much the same as the Indians: fleeing from strength, attacking weakness, preying upon small isolated garrisons and poorly defended supply trains, killing the lone sentry or the unwary patrol, living off the land with the aid of their people, and terrorising those who refused to cooperate or joined with the enemy.

The U. S. Army responded eventually with many of the same general techniques of counter-guerrilla warfare. To protect supply lines, commanders increased the size of the guard assigned to supply trains and strengthened garrisons along their routes of march. To facilitate operations against marauding bands and to provide security to populated areas, commanders garrisoned towns and built forts. To hunt down enemy units and force them to disband or be destroyed, the army sent highly mobile, self-contained units into the field to pursue them relentlessly. Often at a disadvantage because of their unfamiliarity with the terrain or the local population, army officers enlisted the support of indigenous inhabitants whenever possible. (Of note, the Roman army did not make regular use of maps, which meant that knowledge of the area was provided by scouts, troops familiar with the area and the local population.)

The army was relatively successful in developing methods to deal with the problems presented by guerrilla bands. A more difficult set of problems emerged, however, regarding the treatment to be accorded guerrillas who had been captured, particularly part-time guerrillas, and the noncombatant population which sheltered and supported them.

Throughout the 19th Century tension existed between two general policies, one rooted in severity and the other more humane. The frustrations of guerrilla warfare, the ease with which guerrilla bands eluded regular troops when aided by a friendly population, the atrocities committed by irregulars, and a common assumption that irregulars were not legitimate combatants all worked to push commanders in the field toward a policy of reprisal. Army officers recognised the need to fight and terminate conflicts in a fashion that would bring a lasting peace, and the desire to keep one's humanity even in the midst of barbarous war all supported policies of conciliation aimed at winning over the opposition by good works rather than fear.

A special case, clearly different from the wars already described, the campaigns against the Indians displayed the same tension between severity and humanity, although in a different context. Officers were frequently appalled by Indian outrages such as those described by General Sheridan in an 1870 report to General Sherman: "Men, women and children . . . murdered . . . in the most fiendish manner; the men usually scalped and mutilated, their [ ] cut off and placed in their mouth [Sheridan's omission]; women ravished sometimes fifty and sixty times in succession, then killed and scalped, sticks stuck in their persons, before and after death."

At times, however, the officers bent on the destruction of a people they saw as brutal savages also expressed a degree of understanding and even admiration. Colonel Henry B. Carrington, who viewed the mutilated bodies of the soldiers killed in the 1866 Fetterman massacre, could still say that had he been an Indian he "should have fought as bitterly, if not as brutally." And General Nelson Miles praised the Indians' "courage, skill, sagacity, endurance, fortitude, and self sacrifice," as well as their "dignity, hospitality, and gentleness."

In the Philippines, many of the officers in the islands--including General Elwell S. Otis and General Arthur MacArthur, his successor--were convinced that the swiftest way to end the war and pacify the population was to demonstrate the benefits of American colonial government; and the army put considerable effort into establishing municipal governments, schools, and public works projects.

As the frustrations of the guerrilla war increased, however, officers began either to urge upon their superiors a policy of greater severity or to engage in harsh reprisals without waiting for official sanction. As Colonel Robert L. Bullard wrote, "It seems that ultimately we shall be driven to the Spanish method of dreadful general punishments on a whole community for the acts of its outlaws which the community systematically shields and hides." A few months later General Lloyd Wheaton urged "swift methods of destruction" to bring a "speedy termination to all resistance," claiming it was "no use going with a sword in one hand, a pacifist pamphlet in the other hand and trailing the model of a schoolhouse after."

Fortunately, General MacArthur recognized the value of the reform programs being implemented by the army as well as the efforts being made to prevent excesses in the campaign against the guerrillas. Even he was frustrated, however, and by the end of 1900, he sanctioned the enforcement of the most severe sections of U.S. policy. In areas where guerrillas and their supporters proved most intransigent, the army even resorted to population relocation and a scorched-earth. Often the line between retaliation and revenge became blurred beyond recognition for some soldiers.

The fighting in the Philippines highlight the two main responses employed by the Romans: severe and harsh responses (Roman versions including enslavement, destruction of urban centres and industries, and mass slaughter); and compassionate responses such as pacifying the population by allowing them to settle in the empire(receptio, which resulted in settlement on Roman territory with access to Roman civilisation), payment of subsidies, favourable trade relations and access to food and other supplies.

Roman relations with the barbarians swung between these two options. Some emperors like Constantine, who favoured the Franks, and Gratian, who had a preference for Alans, encouraged assimilation of barbarians.

A more negative reaction often followed defeats like Adrianople when Gothic members of the Roman military were killed to prevent their defection or rebellion. Some Romans may have changed their attitudes as did General MacArthur because of barbarian attacks on the empire. Roman laws reflect the various attitudes towards the barbarians with some being receptive to their incorporation and others limiting their inclusion.

Gates suggests that the U.S. Army did not develop a standard doctrine for LIC despite its many years of experience fighting in irregulars. Similarly, historians still debate whether the Roman military developed a standard doctrine for dealing with barbarians (and by extension, a recognisable frontier policy as suggested by E.N. Luttwak, who tried to demonstrate that there was in his book, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire.)

What is interesting is that both military organizations develop similar methods for dealing with their foes. This suggests that there are parallels, which indicate that the Roman-barbarian conflicts were very much like the modern forms of LIC.

The point of this article has been to show that there is considerable scope for unconventional operations, particularly with regard to Roman and barbarian military operations. This is timely given the increased interest in smaller actions such as those favoured by rules like Warhammer Ancient Battles and Legio/Comitatus by Simon MacDowall. These engagements are very suitable for introducing new gamers to our period and for "blooding" the cadre or core of a newly purchased tabletop force.

Elton, H., "Warfare in Roman Europe 350-425 AD" (Oxford 1996)
Gates, John M., "Indians and Insurrectos: The US Army's Experience with Insurgency," Parameters, 13 (1983), 59-68.
Turney-High, Harry H., Primitive War: Its Practice and Concepts (Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1949), 30.