Union soldiers destroying telegraph poles and railroads in Georgia, 1864 – art by F.O.C. Darley and engraved by Alexander Hay Ritchie, restoration by Adam Cuerden and available from the US Library of Congress’ Prints and Photographs Division (public domain image – Wikipedia “Economic Warfare”)

(11) ECONOMIC WARFARE

“War is a racket.”

Booty, loot, spoils, plunder, pillaging and sacking – not to mention piracy and slavery. And for when you can’t take it with you or just want to weaken your enemy, there’s laying waste, salting the earth or scorched earth, ravaging, razing, and general devastation or destruction. While vandalism has come to mean the latter, its historical origin in the name of the Vandals was more the despoilation of the former.

All warfare is economic warfare.

Well, not quite but close. Warfare consistently has had economic resources or targets as motive or means of waging war, albeit not universally.

That goes all the way back to its origins in prehistoric warfare, where the economic resources as motive for war were as rudimentary as hunting grounds or foraging territory.

From agriculture onwards, the economic motives of war became more concrete and durable for occupation, storage or transit – from grain to gold and everything in between, as well as the land from which economic resources were grown or mined. Humans themselves became economic resources through slavery of captives (although if more contemporary tribal warfare is any guide, prehistoric warfare often involved women as captives).

Logistics and supply lead naturally to the subject of economic warfare, which in pre-modern history was predominantly looting or sacking. Indeed, prior to the rapid growth of productivity in modern history, most windfalls of economic growth in history seem to be from population growth, trade in luxuries – and above all, from military conquest and warfare.

In short, whether war has been a racket, it certainly has been robbery on a grand scale throughout history – or vandalism on an equally grand scale.

Or piracy if you prefer – while pirates are usually seen on the opposing side to states in history, there are states that have effectively been pirates or deployed piracy (or privateers) as a means of war. Perhaps the most famous example of the latter is the piracy of other European states, most notably the English, on Spanish shipping from the Americas – although attacks on shipping, most notably by submarines, has been a feature of modern warfare, albeit to sink rather than sack the ships and their cargoes.

Yes, we tend to think of economic warfare as the modern use of economic means of state power as a substitute for military force – soft power rather than hard power – but economic warfare has been used in tandem with military force to weaken enemy states for thousand years, even by such basic (and classic) means as “ravaging the crops of the enemy”.

However, the same modern developments in trade and industry that have seen wars become comparatively less lucrative as a means for economic motives – as well as more costly – have also lent themselves to greater sophistication and effect for economic policies or warfare separately from military force.

“Policies and measures in economic warfare may include blockade, blacklisting, preclusive purchasing, rewards and the capturing or the control of enemy assets or supply lines. Other policies may include tariff discrimination, sanctions, the suspension of aid, the freezing of capital assets, the prohibition of investment and other capital flows, expropriation, and debasing the target’s currency by counterfeiting”.

The euphemistically named Guests from Overseas, painting by Nicholas Roerich, depicting a Viking (or Varangian) raid, Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (public domain image – Wikipedia “Viking Expansion”)

(11) VIKING EXPANSION (793 – 1066)

A historical explosion like the Arab conquests, in far-flung scale if not territorial conquest – a longboat blitzkrieg across four continents, albeit if only on the peripheries of three of them.

Europe was the focus of Viking expansion, not surprisingly given its Scandinavian origin – Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. In turn, the Viking expansion might be classified broadly as westwards or eastwards, the former with a focus on the British Isles and France, the latter with a focus on Russia.

The British Isles set the archetype of Viking expansion – raids followed by conquest and settlement – as well as the timeline I’ve used in this entry.

That timeline – often dubbed the Viking Age – typically starts with the first Viking raids in England and ends with the Norman conquest of England in 1066. Ironically, the better event in 1066 for it is the failed invasion of England by the Norwegian king, defeated at the Battle of Samford Bridge by the Saxon king Harold Godwinson, who then went on to be defeated by the Normans in the more famous Battle of Hastings.

However, one might argue for a longer Viking Age extending to the fifteenth century, as the king of Norway retained fiefdoms in Scottish islands such as Shetland or Orkney until that century. However, the tendency among historians is to identify that the various Viking polities, particularly the Scandinavian monarchies, were no longer Vikings once they became Christian.

Probably the most famous part of the Viking expansion in the British Isles or at least England was the Danish conquest or settlement in England known as the Danelaw, particularly under King Canute or Cnut – you don’t want to mix up the letters in the latter.

In Ireland, the most famous part were the Viking kingdoms – strikingly including that in Dublin although many of Ireland’s first large towns were Viking conquests or settlements – and their defeat by the Irish High King Brian Boru, particularly in the Battle of Clontarf

Otherwise, the Vikings pretty much raided the entire Atlantic coastline of western Europe – with the most famous part here being the Viking settlement under their leader Rollo that became Normandy within the Frankish kingdom in France. The Normans went on to their own Norman Conquests that were almost as expansive as the Viking Expansion from which they originated – but is best considered as distinct from it since they rapidly became Christian as well as acculturated or intermixed with the French population.

The Vikings didn’t stop at the Atlantic coastline of Western Europe, raiding – and trading – in the Mediterranean as well, certainly in the Iberian peninsula but possibly also as far as Italy, north Africa, Egypt and the Byzantine Empire. There’s Africa as one of the four continents of Viking expansion by the way – I told you the other three continents were only on their periphery. However, the Norman conquests were to prove more notable in the Mediterranean – notably actually conquering territory in northern Africa.

So that’s the westward Viking expansion in Europe – the eastward expansion extended along the Baltic coastline and rivers in Russia, where they were known as Varangians. The focus and most famous part of this eastward expansion was their kingdom known as Kievan Rus’ and their contacts with the Byzantine Empire, which saw Viking expansion to the Black Sea and Caspian Sea. There’s Asia as another continent of Viking expansion, albeit again on the periphery.

The fourth continent was North America, albeit by exploration and settlement via Iceland and Greenland which extended at its very furthest fringe to Newfoundland, known as Vinland.

What is particularly intriguing are the various theories of what drove the Viking expansion. Some of the usual suspects have been proposed but not confirmed – demographic (population or youth bulge), economic (growing trade and urbanization for targets), ideological (paganism vs Christianity), political (the “pull” of weak, decentralized states in Europe against the “push” of stronger centralized states in Scandinavia), technological (Viking shipbuilding), and even climate (favorable conditions for sailing).

However, my personal favorite theory is that they were horny – and not on their helmets (which I understand may be something of a historical myth in any event). That is, the s€xual theory of Viking Expansion – it was to seek out or capture women due to a shortage of available women in Scandinavia for young men.

Go Greek fire you’re burning up the quarter mile
(Greek fire, go Greek fire)
Go Greek fire you’re coasting through the heat lap trials
(Greek fire, go Greek fire)
You are supreme, the chicks’ll cream for Greek fire – Greek fire in Byzantine manuscript

(10) ARAB CONQUESTS (622 – 751 AD)

The Arab conquests were a nigh-unstoppable historical explosion, once previously divided tribes in a historical backwater had been united under Mohammed – conquering one of history’s largest pre-modern empires (indeed the seventh or eighth largest in all history) on three continents in a little over a century, a blitzkrieg by horse, sail…and camel!

 “In speed and extent, the first Arab conquests were matched only by those of Alexander the Great, and they were more lasting.”

Mohammed had essentially conquered the Arabian peninsula, but his death left his successors – the three great Arab caliphates – only at the start of extending his empire to even wider conquests.

The Rashidun Caliphate, immediate successors to Mohammed, did most of the heavy lifting to break out of the Arabian peninsula. Two formidable empires blocked their path, the Persian Empire and the eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, but the Arabs conquered the former and routed the latter back to Anatolia.

However, it was under their successors, the Umayyad Caliphate, that Arab conquests reached their greatest extent, westwards from the north African shore to Europe itself – conquering Spain (well, not quite all, in a manner similar to the famous caveat to the Roman conquest of Gaul in Asterix comics) and famously invading France before being turned back at Tours by Charles Martel.

Eastwards, the Umayyads also extended beyond Persia through central Asia to the fringes of India and China – the latter of which presented even the Tang Empire some difficulty resisting their advance.

The Umayyads were overthrown by the Abbasids in 750 AD and the Abbasids then formed the third great Arab caliphate, the Abbasid Caliphate, who then presided over what is often regarded as the Golden Age of Islam from their capital in Baghdad. The surviving Umayyad dynasty fled into exile across the Mediterranean to Spain, continuing their Caliphate as the Emirate of Cordoba independent from the Abbasids, even with their own rival golden age of Islam in the fabled Al-Andalus of Spain.

Although the Abbasids made some more territorial gains – notably Sicily and Crete – their Caliphate saw an end to the rapid Arab conquests, albeit with victory against Tang China in the Battle of Talas in 751 AD as a postscript:

“Muslim armies had come against a combination of natural barriers and powerful states that impeded any further military progress. The wars produced diminishing returns … The priorities of the rulers also shifted from conquest of new lands to administration of the acquired empire … the period of rapid centralized expansion would now give way to an era when further spread of Islam would be slow and accomplished through the efforts of local dynasties, missionaries, and traders.”

One is spoilt for choice for wars in the century and more of Arab conquests, but if one were to choose the wars that best encapsulate them as a whole, it would be the Arab-Byzantine wars from 629 AD to 718 AD.

The Byzantine or eastern Roman empire was the first state of substance that the Arabs faced when breaking out from their peninsula. It seemed incredible that the Arabs could defeat such a firmly established state, even when that state was weakened from recent war with Persia, yet they did – routing it back to Anatolia as they conquered its other territory in Asia and Africa, which then became their springboard for further conquests.

Ironically, it then seemed incredible that the Byzantines could hold the line or withstand complete defeat or conquest by the Arabs as the latter went from one victory to another – yet they did, from Arab attacks by land and by sea, even as the Arabs besieged Constantinople twice, in 674-678 AD and in 717-718 AD. Among other things, the Byzantine superweapon Greek fire was instrumental in their success.

The frontiers of Arab conquest finally stabilized between them in Anatolia, as it did elsewhere under the Abbasid caliphate at about this time, until from about 863 AD when the Byzantines – incredibly again – were able to regain both the initiative and some of their former territory, in wars usually reversed in name to the Byzantine-Arab wars to signify Byzantine ascendance.

RATING: A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Rock face relief at Naqshe-Rostam, depicting the victories of the Sassanid Persian emperor Shapur I over the Roman Emperors Valerian and Philip the Arab. Do you want emperors captured by Persians? Because that’s how you get emperors captured by Persians…

(9) ROMAN-PERSIAN WARS

The first world war, fought intermittently on the frontier between successive Roman and Persian polities over almost seven centuries.

No, seriously. Well, half seriously.

The Roman-Persian Wars were a world war, or war between two different worlds – that might have been fought on the frontier between them, a little like the Western Front writ large (and long) but had ramifications or repercussions throughout both empires that extended across Eurasia from Britain to India.

And that comparison to the First World War’s Western Front writ large and long stands. Despite seven slugging centuries of grinding war, the Roman-Persian border remained remarkably stable.

“One has the impression that the blood spilled in the warfare between the two states brought as little real gain to one side or the other as the few meters of land gained at terrible cost in the trench warfare of the First World War.”

That is, until the last dramatic phase of the wars, the Byzantine-Sasanian War of 602-628 – which might be compared to the similarly abrupt and dramatic reversals of fortune in 1917-1918 that ultimately saw the end of the First World War. However, even that last war of the Roman-Persian Wars effectively ended with the restoration of the status quo (and border) between the two empires.

The Roman-Persian Wars are an interesting contrast to those other Persian Wars of antiquity, the Greek-Persian Wars, in lacking the same existential stakes or outcomes – with the Greek city-states desperately defending themselves from outright conquest by the Achaemenid Persian Empire in the classical Greek-Persian Wars, and Alexander the Great conquering that same empire outright in his Macedonian-Persian Wars.

The latter always struck me as incredible in contrast to the failure of the Romans, more powerful and commanding more resources than either Alexander or their own Persian adversaries, to achieve anything like Alexander’s decisive defeat and conquest of Persia. That is despite the Romans, at least emperors Caracalla and Julian, expressly seeking to emulate Alexander. The reality seems to have been that for the most part neither side did little more than essentially raid each other over the frontier, with the Romans famously sacking the Persian capital Ctesiphon numerous times.

The Roman-Persian Wars might be classified into four phases, corresponding to three successive Roman polities and two Persian ones – not to mention Armenia bouncing back and forth between the two empires as client state or protectorate.

First, there was Roman Republic against the Parthians – initiated by the invasion of Mesopotamia by Roman general Crassus, which saw one of the Republic’s most crushing defeats at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC. However, the Parthians did nothing to exploit this defeat or the subsequent civil wars of the Republic with one notable exception, as they generally sought to remain on peaceful terms with the Romans. That notable exception was their support of the so-called Liberators – the assassins of Julius Caesar – and invasion of the Roman eastern provinces after the Liberators’ defeat. The Romans defeated the Parthian invasion, but the Parthians then defeated the retributive campaign by Mark Antony against them.

Second, there was the Roman Empire against the Parthians, which saw five major wars between them, mostly to the defeat of the Parthians with their capital Ctesiphon sacked three times and four Roman emperors claiming the title of Persicus Maximus. Those wars were the Roman-Parthian War of 58-63 AD (with the Roman campaign led by the general Corbulo under emperor Nero), Trajan’s campaign into Parthia, the Roman-Parthian War of 161-166 AD under Roman emperor Lucius Verus (the co-emperor of Marcus Aurelius), the campaign of Roman emperor Septimius Severus in 195-197 AD, and finally the Parthian War of Caracalla in 216-217 AD.

Third, there was the Roman Empire against the Sassanids or Sasanians, successors to the Parthians. The Sassanids were very different to the Parthians in hostile character towards Rome – in the words of Youtuber Tominus Maximus, “Sassanid Persia was like Parthia…on cocaine and mixed with crystal meth”. Most famously, there were the Sassanid incursions deep into the Roman eastern provinces during the Crisis of the Third Century, after fighting between them during the reign of Roman emperor Severus Alexander.

However, the Romans subsequently defeated the Sassanids, sacking Ctesiphon a further two times in campaigns led by Roman emperors Carus in 283 AD and Galerius (with Diocletian holding his hand) in 298 AD. The latter was the most decisive Roman victory against the Sassanids, enduring for decades until hostilities resumed in the Perso-Roman Wars of 337-361 AD under Roman emperor Constantius III and the ill-fated expedition by Roman emperor Julian.

Surprisingly, the Sassanids mellowed in the fifth century, remaining mostly peaceful with the Roman Empire while the latter’s western half fell to barbarian invasions. In part that was due to the Sassanids facing off their own barbarian threats, but it was instrumental in the survival of the eastern Roman Empire. Which brings me to…

Fourth, there was the eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire against the Sassanids or Sasanians. While the Persians were only peer state the Romans had as adversary, the classical empire had the advantage in population and resources, albeit that advantage was diluted by more far-flung commitments. After the fall of the western empire, the eastern empire and the Sassanids were much more closely matched.

Not surprisingly then, this saw the most dramatic and mobile phase of the Roman-Persian Wars from the preceding centuries of effective stalemate – with the Byzantine-Sassanid War of 602-628. First the Sassanids almost decisively defeated and conquered the eastern empire, even besieging Constantinople, but were then decisively defeated in turn by a near miraculous eastern Roman recovery under emperor Heraclius – albeit the eastern Roman empire was too weakened to exploit its victory other than regaining its lost territory and effectively restoring the status quo between them.

The ultimate futility of the Roman-Persian Wars came in their aftermath with the event that decisively ended them altogether – the Arab conquests, achieved in large part from both empires being so weakened fighting each other that they were unable to resist their new adversary, with one being completely conquered and the other barely surviving defeat as well as the loss of much of its former territory.

RATING: A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Battle between Romans and Goths on the Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus dated to 250-260 AD

(8) CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY (235 – 284 AD)

Before the Fall came the Crisis…

With the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire deserving first special mention, is it any surprise that the Crisis of the Third Century, that dress rehearsal of the fall, is far behind?

The Crisis of the Third Century – also known as the Military Anarchy or Imperial Crisis – had much the same scope as the decline and fall. Indeed, the Crisis of the Third Century was part of the decline, even if the empire narrowly forestalled its fall for another two centuries. Many of the fundamental problems of the empire from the Crisis endured to the fall, even when in muted form.

Narrowly forestalled its fall, that is, as in the empire “nearly collapsed under the combined pressure of repeated foreign invasions, civil wars, and economic disintegration” – “at the height of the crisis, the Roman state had split into three distinct and competing polities”, the so-called Gallic Empire and Palmyrene Empire vying with the central Roman Empire in its western and eastern provinces respectively.

Indeed, had it collapsed – or fragmented – it is hard to imagine the eastern half of the empire enduring in quite the same durable form as it did two centuries later. For one thing, the empire was divided into thirds rather than halves – with what was to become the eastern empire, that is, apart from the Palmyrene Empire, more resembling a quarter than half, albeit not unlike the eastern empire after it had rebounded from Arab conquests. It also lacked the capital founded by Constantine – Constantinople, with its nigh impenetrable defenses against all but the most overwhelming siege – or indeed the seat of imperial government founded as its own distinctive new Roman empire.

Although mind you, the eastern empire pulled off its own near miraculous recovery from crises – note that plural, crises – to rival that of the third century, like it looked back at the classical empire’s direst crisis and said hold my beer.

Two things saved the classical empire in the Crisis of the Third Century, even if it went from classical to late empire.

The first was that, as fearsome as the foreign invasions were, they lacked the ability or even intent to conquer territory or form their own states within the empire, rather than raiding it for plunder albeit on a larger scale than ever before. Even the Sassanid Persian Empire – the closest adversary the Roman Empire had to a rival peer state – for all its successes only raided Roman provinces and moved its border slightly away from its capital.

The second was a series of soldier emperors or barracks emperors – mostly the so-called Illyrian emperors originating from that region as the then heartland of the Roman army – who managed to hold the line and turn the tide to restore the empire, “an accomplishment many historians regard as about as unlikely and impressive as any of Rome’s Golden Age achievements in building the empire in the first place”.

Foremost among them of course was Aurelian – Restitutor Orbis or Restorer of the World, who reunited the empire by defeating the rival Palmyrene and Gallic Empires – but he built on the achievements of the emperors who came before him, Claudius Gothicus and arguably also Gallienus, and had successors who consolidated his achievements, notably Probus and the emperor who is credited with finally ending the Crisis, Diocletian.

At the core of the Crisis was the political instability of imperial succession (and usurpation) suggested by the other names used for the Crisis (Military Anarchy and Imperial Crisis).

Tacitus had observed that the ‘secret of the empire’ had been exposed with the succession crisis after Nero in the first century – “that emperors could be made elsewhere than in Rome”, a secret that excited “all the legions and their generals”.

Despite this observation, those legions and their generals had mostly followed the various imperial dynastic successions for the first two and a half centuries of empire – its founding Julio-Claudian dynasty, the Flavian dynasty, the adoptive succession of the Five Good Emperors, and the Severan dynasty.

In the Crisis, however, the legions and their generals had become very excited indeed – as one so-called barracks emperor succeeded another, usually by usurpation. And that’s just the line of imperial succession generally regarded as legitimate – beyond that there were literally countless usurpers, some of which we are still discovering through archaeology or coins.

Indeed, it often seems from the Crisis that where even the most minor commanders of a legion or legions had even the barest degree of military success (or were just left outside or stranded by the ebbing tide of imperial authority), they would proclaim themselves as emperor – or their legions would.

Not surprisingly, with Roman commanders and their legions marching either to advance their own imperial claims or against those of others, that saw them abandon the defense of the empire’s borders.

That was compounded by drain on population by the Cyprian Plague that raged through the empire, and which struck military barracks or manpower particularly hard – indeed the capture of Emperor Valerian by the Persians, the first time an emperor was captured by foreign forces, was attributed to his army being laid waste by plague.

The population decline of the empire also compounded its economic instability, characterized by the collapse of its currency and trade.

Through the gaping holes left in the imperial borders poured the empire’s recurring foreign enemies to raid it – further compounding the empire’s economic decline as the empire’s problems became an intense feedback loop as each problem cranked up the others.

Foremost in notoriety as the empire’s recurring enemies were the German barbarian tribes – who had grown in military capability (and relative population) through two centuries of contact with the empire, although they were not yet as capable as they were when they brought about the fall (and mostly replaced those Roman commanders and their legions vying within the empire).

The capabilities of the Germans were increased by forming new tribal coalitions or confederations – particularly the Franks, who raided across the Rhine through Gaul as far as Spain, and the Alemanni, who raided through the Alps into Italy, even threatening the city of Rome itself (the first external threat the city had faced for centuries) and giving Aurelian himself pause, inflicting his only defeat before he rallied to victory against them.

And across the Danube came the Germans who were ultimately to do more than anyone else to bring about the fall of the empire – the Goths, raiding as far as Greece and even Asia Minor because they managed to get themselves a fleet and there’s nothing worse than barbarians with boats.

All these German raiders paled in comparison to the Sassanid Persians – which as I noted was the only state on Rome’s borders that came close to being Rome’s peer – as they raided deep into Rome’s eastern provinces, particularly Syria.

As was typically the case, Rome’s worst enemy was itself as it fractured into three rival empires fighting among themselves. The core empire remained around Italy, fortunately including the Illyrian military heartland of the empire and its breadbasket in north Africa – but it lost its western provinces to the Gallic Empire led by usurpers, and its eastern provinces to the Palmyrene Empire, essentially a client state that had loyally led the defense against the Sassanid Persians but had gone rogue under its queen Zenobia.

Fortunately, along came Aurelian – breathing two centuries of life into the empire before the fall.

RATING: A-TIER (TOP TIER)