Easier to defend? Left flank or right flank

[Larus Thorhallsson]

I am speaking about infantry, especially hoplites.
Now since most soldiers were right handed then they carried their weapon in the right and shield in their left hand.
The left flank had an open space to the left of them, while the right flank had it to their right.
This means that the left flank had their shields next to that direction, while the rigth flank had their weapon.

Was it thereby not easier to defend at the left flank, while it was harder to do at the right flank?
I am asking this because I have both crossed statements that claim it, and the opposite.

I would tend to favour the left flank, because they could only be on the defensive with their shields.
But the right flank would need to use their weapons against the enemy left flank (turning shields to them).

Is there another factor in which I am forgetting? Could anyone elaborate.

And armies tended to have the strongest troops at the right flank, in being on the offensive.
Would they be at more disadvantage than by doing so from the left?

[Bryan]

Its tricky I think. By design of the shield, the right half of the body is a bit less protected than the left, but not by much, unless you look at a battle line of interlocking shields, which will have the farthest man on the right exposed fully on the right side.

At the same time though, as you say, the best forces are stationed at the right and almost always faced off against the worst troops of the enemy position. So I'd say probably the left flank was the side most often flanked, which is why battles turned into wagon wheels, with the left flank forces usually the first to break and run.

I don't think a true flanking attack against a hoplite force, as in a detached force designed solely to conduct the attack, would even be that effective, because it would require the other hoplite side to break their phalanx to conduct the flanking maneuver. For most battles, either terrain limited the maximum width of a phalanx battle line or the similarities of overall numbers meant that the two phalanxes would match each other in width, by adjusting depth. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any hoplite vs. hoplite battles where an aspis armed infantry force purposely outflanked the other side. It just wasn't really done. Not until Philip II of Macedon really, I think.

Against other types of forces, like Persians or even light infantry, it seems like that was a different story. With missiles, the right flank would definitely be at a disadvantage, as facing right to put the shield toward the incoming threat would throw off the entire phalanx's ability to move forward as well.

[Urselius]

Byzantine military manuals saw the left flank as defensive and the right flank as offensive. For archers, the vast majority being right-handed, firing to the left whilst keeping ranks is much easier than firing to the right - try it.

[Scipio Second]

Just a brief comment on left or right handed infantry. Both the Greek and the Roman infantry fought in formation. It is my understanding that in both, infantry were trained to carry their primary weapon on the right with shields on the left. It would have been difficult at best to have left-handed soldiers use their dominant hand to carry a weapon as that would throw the formation off-balance or cause it to be awkward in maneuvering.

[Old Husker]

:dizzy: It's an interesting conundrum here that while carrying an aspis shield on one's left arm made the physical act of defense by an individual easier on that side, the fact that hoplite phalanxes tended to 'drift' right-ward during advance (see Thucydides 5.71.1-2 detailing this common phenomenon at Mantinea in 418) made the left wing subject to out-flanking and envelopment and thus tactically harder to defend overall. In consequence, most phalanxes that met defeat (or exchanged victories on opposite wings) suffered failure on their left sides. This usually led to a either one army abandoning the field or triggered a re-engagement that then yielded a final 'winner' (though often no more than nominal in the case of abandonment by a force that had actually succeeded on its own right wing), which made formally recognized draws a real rarity. Such vulnerability of the left to envelopment led to that flank being universally recognized as 'defensive' and encouraged reliance on the right as the 'offensive' wing.

The Spartans developed a practical approach using this battlefield reality in their tactic of cyclosis, which deliberately sought to extend their right wing (where their best troops were posted) to achieve victory before their left could collapse. They (and most others) also tended to post the 'second best' men on the far left toward helping it to hold out until their right could carry the day. Philip II of Macedonia would go this method one better by placing a strong cavalry guard on his left flank while filling that wing with pike-armed troops specifically designed to stalemate opposing hoplite spearmen. These precautions were meant to buy sufficient time for the elite hoplites (hypaspists) and cavalry (Companion lancers) on his right wing to then carry out an offensive envelopment. Though a definite upgrade in employing specialized arms, this does not seem to really be all that different in general concept from what the Spartans had pursued with picked hoplites alone.

Anyway, it would thus appear that the left flank was generally harder to defend; this wasn't a function of which arm carried the shield, but rather of how phalanxes tended to move across a battlefield. :grin: