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Knights & Legionaries - Condor - 06-23-2007
Here’s a question I’ve been pondering for a while.
Who would win in a battle fought between a Roman legion from around 95 A.D. and a Western European army from around the time of the First Crusade, 1095 A.D., if both sides enjoyed equal numbers and if the terrain favored no one?
Would the professionalism and discipline of the Roman legionaries see them through to victory, or had military technology and tactics advanced sufficiently in a thousand years to allow the Western knights and their men to carry the day?
Legion v Crusaders - C.Armiger - 06-23-2007
One would like to say that Christian virtue would triumph over paganism. Most of the pointers are however the other way. Crusaders were notoriously indisciplined and their infantry was mostly third-rate. In 1095 they didn't have the advantage of the long-bow, which would have been able to decimate the legion at long-range.
A lot would depend on the terrain - which not being sentient is of course neutral; it is we who adapt to it, master it, or die . Set the typical legion (without local mounted auxiliaries) down in the Sinai desert out of reach of an oasis and the Crusaders (who of course had built up an extensive knowledge of the Holy Land) might have a fair chance of wearing the legion down (after all the Parthians managed it).
Re: Knights & Legionaries - Robert Vermaat - 06-23-2007
Without the terrain favouring anybody (hence no Sinai), I'd say the Crusader would have more cavalry and probably more armour, but they would be hampered by the structure on a Medieval army of that period. This was, to all effects and purposes, much more tribal than a 1st Roman army, looking like a group of small elite forces, being noblemen supported by their individual dependents. The Romans would have therefore the benefit of better training and a more unified command. The Crusaders could have the advantage of mobility, but if one of their nobles would see more glory in (either) attacking on his own, leaving the battle field or going after the Roman camp, the crusaders would not stand a chance.
Re: Legion v Crusaders - Thiudareiks Flavius - 06-23-2007
Quote:One would like to say that Christian virtue would triumph over paganism. Most of the pointers are however the other way. Crusaders were notoriously indisciplined and their infantry was mostly third-rate. In 1095 they didn't have the advantage of the long-bow, which would have been able to decimate the legion at long-range.
The problem with these discussions, which seem to pop up on boards devoted to Roman military history regularly, is that they are a bit like kids discussing if Batman could beat up Spiderman. And, since people interested in Roman military history often only have the most cursory knowledge of medieval warfare (most of it outdated Nineteenth Century assumptions, errors and cliches), the conversation rarely goes anywhere useful.
Those "notoriously ill-disciplined" Eleventh Century knights and their "third rate" infantry still managed to inflict a string of defeats on Byzantine forces in Italy (which were neither ill-disciplined nor third rate) and win a series of victories against all odds against Muslim forces, ending in the victory of the First Crusade. Not bad for "ill-disciplined" and "third rate" armies.
Research over the last 50 years has totally revolutionised modern military historians' understanding of medieval warfare and found that units of knights were not anywhere near as "ill-disciplined" as the way many medieval chroniclers would lead us to believe at first sight. They fought in trained units, drilled and executed sophisticated tactics and won battles not by brute force and ignorance but by training and experience. The general IQ of Europe didn't sudden drop to cretin levels after 476 AD and people who spent as much time in warfare as medieval lords did had well and truly worked out that these things win battles.
Medieval infantry tends to be overlooked by most of our sources (written, generally, by members of the noble classes for other members of the noble classes), but modern assessments of them now rate them far higher than "third rate". Far from being rabbles of levied peasants with pitchforks, they were mainly professional mercenary companies (even as early as the Eleventh Century - you don't march/sail across the known world to go to war with peasant levies, since it's a bit hard for them to get back to their fields and sow their crops when they are laying siege to Antioch or Jerusalem).
For more up-to-date analysis of medieval warfare in the Eleventh Century I'd recommend:
J.F. Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare in Western Europe during the Middle Ages from the Eighth Century
John France, Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 1000-1300 and Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade
R.C. Smail, Crusading Warfare
Michael Prestwich, Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: The English Experience
Phillipe Contamine, War in the Middle Ages
and
Christopher Marshall, Warfare in the Latin East
As for which army would win - I have no idea. I also have no idea if Batman could beat up Spiderman. :wink:
Re: Knights & Legionaries - Matthew Amt - 06-23-2007
Yeah, this is one of those unanswerable questions that will nevertheless be argued vociferously for about 5 pages! One point, though is that a Roman ARMY included auxiliaries as well as legionaries, so it would have a very good percentage of cavalry--perhaps even more than the medieval army of the same overall size. So it's not really fair to send just legionaries out against a balanced medieval army. Of course, who says war has to be fair?
Matthew
PS: One of my favorite You-tube films is Terminator versus Robocop! Too much fun!
Re: Knights & Legionaries - Magnus - 06-24-2007
Quote:PS: One of my favorite You-tube films is Terminator versus Robocop! Too much fun!
That was awesome!
Re: Legion v Crusaders - D B Campbell - 06-24-2007
Quote:I also have no idea if Batman could beat up Spiderman. :wink:Apparently, it's a close-run thing: Spiderman vs Batman poll
Re: Knights & Legionaries - Sean Manning - 06-24-2007
The other point is that armies of the First Crusade had special problems: they were a massive army fighting a thousand miles from home. Large medieval armies were often indisciplined because each was raised afresh from a mix of allies, mercenaries, and levies. Verbruggen et al. don't like to talk about it, but there are plenty of cases of part of a medieval army attacking when it shouldn't have out of pride or desire for glory and because the overall commander had little authority to punish them for it. Small or mid-sized medieval armies, fighting close to home, tended to cope with logistics, discipline, etc. much better.
We would have to know something about terrain, the goals of the battle, and army composition to make the question in the OP very interesting.
Re: Knights & Legionaries - Tarbicus - 06-24-2007
Quote:Verbruggen et al. don't like to talk about it, but there are plenty of cases of part of a medieval army attacking when it shouldn't have out of pride or desire for glory and because the overall commander had little authority to punish them for it.Sounds just like a Roman army.
Re: Knights & Legionaries - Thiudareiks Flavius - 06-25-2007
Quote:Sounds just like a Roman army.
Er, exactly. And "Verbruggen et al" do discuss the shortcomings of medieval military systems, just not to the point where that's all that gets highlighted.
Re: Knights & Legionaries - Jeroen Pelgrom - 06-25-2007
if you would take a late-roman army, the romans would have had their equivalent of the medieval knights!
Re: Knights & Legionaries - Marcus Hortensius Castus - 06-25-2007
I think, from my humble experience, it's beyond comparison for several reasons; first, the fall of Rome led, albiet indirectly, to the rise of the knight. In their "full" form, "knights" came to be under Charlemane and continued to evolve from there. The legion type in use in 95 AD was reformed, also, to abide with the times, and indeed the Romans had their own form of "Knights" in more than one way;
The equestrian class noble was in status a Roman "Knight," although not to par with later Norman-esque knights in the way of good, heavy cavalry.
Later units such as cataphracts were, indeed, armored from head to toe, some even armoring their horses, much as a later knight. I think a main (if somewhat arguable) advantage the Norman knight would have over a Auxiliary heavy cavalryman in battle would be, indeed, stirups. I think the main advantage Roman infantry would have over a Medieval infantry force would be superior logistics, training, etc; there are cases when whole crusading armies starved themselves into automatic loss because they didn't plan on food and other provisions, whilst the Roman Army of 100AD would have probably had that well taken care of.
Also, you are talking about a pre-longbow army in 1095 (that has been mentioned a few posts up, sorry to repeat) so the Testudo would have been able to (imho) to advance on the enemy, the infantry safe from Medieval missles (though the power of the crossbow at close range may have nullified the front ranks' protection) while auxiliary archers peppered the enemy and artillery battled it out.
My general theory (maybe we can prove it one day if we get a good reenacting legion and a good reenacting crusading unit together??) is that Rome's infantry would have won the main battle in the center, but the heavy Norman cavalry would have beat the Gaul or other auxiliary cavalry of 95 AD, which could lead to an essential withdrawl on the part of the Romans. I also think the Roman Pilum would have been enough to deter both the infantry and, if deployed correctly, any cavalry units that got to close to the legions.
Re: Knights & Legionaries - Sean Manning - 06-26-2007
Quote:Sounds just like a Roman army.Do you have any examples as bad as Crecy or Nicopolis?
The new medieval military history is unquestionably a good thing, but I think many of its practicioners get too enthusiastic about reacting against the perceived errors of their predecessors.
Quote:I think the main advantage Roman infantry would have over a Medieval infantry force would be superior logistics, training, etc; there are cases when whole crusading armies starved themselves into automatic loss because they didn't plan on food and other provisions, whilst the Roman Army of 100AD would have probably had that well taken care of.Europeans have been using the longbow since prehistory, as far as we can tell. Its ability to penetrate armour and shields or kill large numbers of troops is often exaggerated, although it was a fearsome weapon.
Also, you are talking about a pre-longbow army in 1095 (that has been mentioned a few posts up, sorry to repeat) so the Testudo would have been able to (imho) to advance on the enemy, the infantry safe from Medieval missles (though the power of the crossbow at close range may have nullified the front ranks' protection) while auxiliary archers peppered the enemy and artillery battled it out.
Medieval Catholic armies could often handle logistics quite well (although camp sanitation and medicine were primitive). Again, the biggest problem for crusading armies was that they were large armies fighting in a strange climate 1000 miles from home. This would have challenged any army’s logistics.
Edited.
Re: Knights & Legionaries - Matthew - 06-26-2007
Indeed. The differences between Ancient and Medieval Armies are often exaggerated, but there were more than cosmetic differences. However, I would still be willing to bet that most were more similar than dissimilar. It's all a matter of degree.
Matthew James Stanham
Re: Knights & Legionaries - Felix - 06-26-2007
Doctrinal differences may matter more than the cosmetic ones.
Roman infantry may have been much better than some medieval infantry, and maybe only a little better or on par with better medieval infantry; but the organization of the legion was standardized into controllable subunits and allowed a measure of control which few medieval armies could match (if any).
On the other hand, medieval knights of this period were trained to charge home in cohesive units referred to as conrois; and their abilities seriously outclassed Byzantine cataphracts of the day and the heavy cavalry of Islam (see Anna Comnena's comment and the results of the battles of the First Crusade against the Egyptians). Egotistical nobles may have led their units into disaster, but this was a commander's fault, not generally a breakdown in the unit. Roman cavalry could be quite good, but do not seem to have been trained to the same exacting standard.
Generally, Roman commanders seem to have expected their infantry to win battles, and generally, medieval commanders (around 1100) expected their horsemen to be decisive.