Charge of the French 4th Hussars at the battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807 – painting by Edouard Detaille in 1891 (public domain image)

(3) CAVALRY WAR

“Cavalryman, horseman, trooper, cataphract, knight, drabant, hussar, uhlan, mamluk, curaisser, lancer, dragoon, samurai or horse archer”.

Where infantry was the fundamental unit of war in history, cavalry was the fundamental means of mobile war – “providing armies with superior speed, mobility, and shock impact” as well as things for which mobility is used such as “scouting, screening, flanking and pursuing enemies” or “breaking enemy lines”.

Cavalry warfare involved soldiers or warriors fighting mounted on horseback – ranging from ancient horse archers to armored knights and modern light cavalry”. Obviously, the fundamental ingredient for cavalry is the domestication of the horse, or more precisely the domestication of the horse followed by breeding horses of sufficient size for warriors mounted on them.

Prior to being of sufficient size to be used for cavalry proper, the smaller domesticated horses were able to be used to draw chariots as the first mobile forces in about 2000 BC. Chariots played much the same role as cavalry but were obsolescent by cavalry once horses were of sufficient size. Hence the designation of cavalry is not usually given to “any military forces that used other animals or platforms for mounts, such as chariots” – or those occasional other animals used in war, camels or elephants. Interestingly, the last use of chariots was by the Britons at the time of the Roman conquest of Britain.

Also interestingly, that won’t be the last we see of obsolescence when it comes to cavalry war, but from its origin through to the twentieth century, cavalry has tended to eclipse infantry for decisive importance or impact – as the dominant force for winning battles rather than waging wars.

Of course, that is an oversimplification of the strategic balance between infantry and cavalry in war, as it has seesawed between them, complicated by the usual numeric predominance of infantry in armies and the higher cost of cavalry.

Certainly, the dominance of cavalry is reflected in the recurring military proficiency or superiority of the mounted nomadic warriors of the Eurasian steppes – as observed by military historians such as Azar Gat and John Keegan, as well as the colorful phrases of the “steppe effect” by Walter Scheidel and the “Golden Age of the Barbarians” by James C. Scott.

There was also the medieval dominance of cavalry, originating in the late Roman period, where “mounted forces became the dominant, often aristocratic, arm of European armies throughout the age of feudalism”.

“Cavalry had the advantage of improved mobility, and a soldier fighting from horseback also had the advantages of greater height, speed, and inertial mass over an opponent on foot. Another element of horse mounted warfare is the psychological impact a mounted soldier can inflict on an opponent.”

However, it is weird to think of cavalry forces originating without the subsequent aids to riding – spurs, saddles, and above all stirrups, which facilitated heavy cavalry and the use of lances.

One might also add a certain romanticism that has attached to cavalry throughout history, albeit not necessarily as a matter of strategic or tactical advantage.

Sadly for such romanticism, infantry has had the last laugh, as unlike infantry but like chariots, cavalry has become obsolescent from the twentieth century to, well, another entry in this top ten – which has assumed the same role and often even the same title as cavalry with greater mobility and less vulnerability, as have airborne or air assault units such as in the famous fictional depiction of the helicopter air assault 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment in Apocalypse Now.

Whereas infantry could evolve, cavalry could not, at least on a large scale – the same deadly firepower of modern history that forced the evolution of infantry was fatal to cavalry

Awesome artwork “Roicroi, the last tercio” by Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau, portraying infantry of a Spanish tercio at the 1643 Battle of Rocroi, in Wikipedia “Infantry” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

(2) INFANTRY WAR

Where prehistoric war goes to the origin of war itself, infantry war goes to the fundamental nature of historic war, enduring as its foundation and the predominant means of waging it. Historic war commenced as infantry war and has largely endured as it.

That’s not to say that prehistoric war wasn’t also infantry war. In the broadest usage of infantry war as fighting on foot, all prehistoric war was infantry war (except to the extent of anyone ramming canoes or rafts into each other) – but for the most part, prehistoric war lacked the characteristic drill or regimen of infantry war, fighting as warriors rather than soldiers.

And that’s the essential nature of infantry war – fighting on foot and in formation, coordinated with each other rather solo-ing off into single combat, as soldiers with drill and regimen, typically with standardized weapons and equipment.

As such, the origins of infantry war are the origins of war itself in recorded history, since the first ancient empires fought with regular infantry, albeit often as an elite supplemented by conscript masses or militia as irregular infantry – something that has surprisingly endured as a practice since then to the modern period.

The ancient archetype of regular infantry remains the Greek phalanx, and even more so, the Roman legion.

While the archetypal infantry travels on foot – marches, that is, in a style and pace that has remained remarkably consistent throughout history – the defining trait of infantry is that they fight on foot, not necessarily that they get to the fight on foot.

Hence, there has been a variety of infantry distinguished by getting to the fight by other means than marching to it – most notably mechanized infantry or mobile infantry in the modern period but also mounted infantry, naval infantry, airborne infantry, and air assault infantry.

“Before the adoption of the chariot to create the first mobile fighting forces c. 2000 BC, all armies were pure infantry. Even after, with a few exceptions like the Mongol Empire, infantry has been the largest component of most armies in history.”

Infantry also remains the most basic or fundamental unit of war – the proverbial boots on the ground – for achieving strategic objectives, particularly when those objectives are measured in territory.

As such, infantry has not waned in war, albeit it has evolved with technology. Gunpowder saw infantry shift to line infantry tactics, shooting volleys at each other – until modern firepower overwhelmed even that, forcing infantry for its own survival to use “dispersed, maneuver-based, and heavily supported infantry units” as well as combined arms and the paramount importance of cover on the battlefield.

Cave painting of a battle between archers, Morella la Vella, Spain – public domain image used in Wikipedia “Prehistoric Warfare”

(1) PREHISTORIC & PRIMAL WAR

Wait, what? Prehistoric war?! I know my rankings are mostly in chronological order but does that really justify prehistoric or primal war in the top spot rather than, say, special mention?

To which I say yes – and not just as a matter of chronological order. Indeed, I rank prehistoric or primal war in top spot for three reasons apart from chronology, although its precedence in chronology does underlie those reason – hence why prehistoric war or the prehistory of war is the subject of such a substantial part of my favorite history of war, War and Human Civilization by Azar Gat.

The first reason is the sheer timescale of prehistoric war compared to historic war, corresponding to the scale of prehistory in general compared to history – 98% or so of the entire span of humanity on this planet so far, all but the last 5,000 years or so out of 300,000 years. And prehistory only gets longer if you throw in our hominin ancestor species as humanity, which potentially lengthens that span to 3,000,000 years.

The second reason is that prehistory didn’t just disappear with the advent of recorded history – or rather didn’t consistently disappear across time and place, instead enduring in places more remote from recorded history until the modern period. And prehistoric war hasn’t even ended now, hence the better description would be primal war – as a type of war, exemplified by ambush and raid, to which humanity regularly returns, atavistically time and time again.

Which brings me to the third and deepest reason – the philosophical significance of prehistoric war in understanding the origins of war itself.

Hobbes vs Rousseau – the Hobbesian state of nature or “the war of all against all” (bellum omnium contra omnes) as against Rousseau’s more noble savage state of nature.

Of course, the origins of war in prehistory is the subject of theory or outright speculation, as by its nature prehistory involves those human societies without recorded history – typically Neolithic or Paleolithic, but potentially also more recent societies without written historical records.

It’s where prehistory meets philosophy, hence the opening dialectic of Hobbes versus Rousseau – the ongoing debate over human nature and violence or war. “The existence — and even the definition — of war in humanity’s hypothetical state of nature has been a controversial topic in the history of ideas”.

Philosopher Thomas Hobbes famously proposed that the original “state of nature” of humanity (or human nature) was inherently violent – the war of all against all in which “the life of man” is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”. Against that, philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau also famously proposed a more idealistic and idyllic state of nature as more free and peaceful – subsequently styled as that of the “noble savage” – made unequal and violent by “civilized” society.

That debate over human nature continues, not least in speculation or theories of prehistoric war, “spanning contemporary anthropology, archaeology, ethnography, history, political science, psychology, primatology, and philosophy in such divergent books as Azar Gat’s War in Human Civilization and Raymond C. Kelly’s Warless Societies and the Origin of War.”

Essentially, it boils down to those who argue for prehistoric war and violence, potentially at even higher rates than those in recorded history, and those who argue for more peaceful prehistory.

To put it that simply, however, removes all context or nuance from a debate that is much more balanced or varied, reflecting a more complex situation – that prehistory was both more violent than asserted by proponents of prehistoric pacifism and also more pacific than asserted by prehistoric warmongers.

Most concede that violence or war in human prehistory was highly variable between different societies at different times in different places or circumstances. Some societies were notoriously warlike, such as the Maori of New Zealand, the Yanomami (dubbed “the Fierce People”) of the Amazon or the inter-tribal warfare in Papua New Guinea.

On the one hand, archaeological studies of human remains from prehistory have suggested a higher rate for violent injury and death substantially above those in recorded history. One interesting feature is that a recurring motive for inter-tribal warfare is raiding for nubile women – as with the Yanomami, suggesting that the legendary motive for the Trojan War may not be so far removed from the historic or prehistoric truth.

On the other hand, depictions of human violence or war is comparatively rare until relatively recently in prehistoric art. Proponents of prehistoric pacificism persuasively suggest that low population density among prehistoric tribal hunter-gatherers – and the potential costly nature of violence between them – both allowed for and pushed towards avoiding conflict, typically by migration.

Another issue is that even if or where Paleolithic societies were violent, the scale of that violence was necessarily limited or disorganized – in the nature of feuds and raids or ambushes and skirmishes. Some argue for what is termed endemic warfare – in which “war is often ritualized with a number of taboos and practices that limit the number of casualties and the duration of the conflict”. Of course, endemic warfare could readily escalate into actual warfare without such limits.

Others have also asserted various historic or prehistoric event horizons that saw the escalation of war. One such is the development of missile weapons such as bows or slings allowing for less risk than melee combat. Another more commonly argued one is the horizon between the Paleolithic and Neolithic – with the increased sedentism from agriculture in the Neolithic seeing a corresponding increase in the intensity of scale in war.

One obvious model for theories of prehistoric war is more recent or contemporary tribal warfare. And one could argue that tribal war remains the predominant model for war in general – that most wars in history are tribal wars at heart.