Warfare in Ancient Europe

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South and East Europe
Achaea/Hellas

Infantry did almost all of the fighting in Greek battles. The Greeks did not have any notable cavalry tradition except the Thessalians. Hoplites, Greek infantry, fought with a long spear and a large shield, the hoplon also called aspis. Light infantry (psiloi) peltasts, served as skirmishers.

Despite the fact that most Greek cities were well fortified (with the notable exception of the kingdom of Sparta) and Greek siege technology was not up to the task of breaching these fortifications by force, most land battles were pitched ones fought on flat-open ground. This was because of the limited period of service Greek soldiers could offer before they needed to return to their farms; hence, a decisive battle was needed to settle matters at hand. To draw out a city's defenders, its fields would be threatened with destruction, threatening the defenders with starvation in the winter if they did not surrender or accept battle.

This pattern of warfare was broken during the Peloponnesian War, when the republic of Athens' command of the sea allowed the city to ignore the destruction of the Athenian crops by Sparta and her allies by shipping grain into the city from the Crimea. This led to a warfare style in which both sides were forced to engage in repeated raids over several years without reaching a settlement. It also made sea battle a vital part of warfare. Greek naval battles were fought between triremes—long  and speedy rowing ships which engaged the enemy by ramming and boarding actions.

Hellenistic Era
During the time of Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great, the Macedonians were regarded as the most complete well co-ordinated military force in the known world. Although they are best known for the achievements of Alexander the Great, his father Philip II of Macedon created and designed the fighting force Alexander used in his conquests.Before this time and for centuries their military prowess was nowhere near that the sarissa phalanx offered.

However prior to the improvements made by Philip II of Macedon army fought in the traditional manner of the Greeks that of the hoplite phalanx.

Philip provided his Macedonian soldiers in the phalanx with sarissa, a spear which was 4–6 meters in length. The sarissa, when held upright by the rear ranks of the phalanx (there were usually eight ranks), helped hide maneuvers behind the phalanx from the view of the enemy. When held horizontal by the front ranks of the phalanx, enemies could be run through from far away.The hoplite type troops were not abandoned, but were no longer the core of the army.

In 358 BC he met the Illyrians in battle with his reorganized Macedonian phalanx, and utterly defeated them. The Illyrians fled in panic, leaving the majority of their 9,000-strong army dead. The Macedonian army invaded Illyria and conquered the southern Illyrian tribes.

After the defeat of the Illyrians, Macedon's policy became increasingly aggressive. Paeonia was already forcefully integrated into Macedon under Philip's rule. In 357 BC Philip broke the treaty with Athens and attacked Amphipolis which promised to surrender to the Athenians in exchange for the fortified town of Pydna, a promise he didn't keep. The city fell back in the hands of Macedonia after an intense siege. Then he secured possession over the gold mines of nearby Mount Pangaeus, which would enable him to finance his future wars.

In 356 the Macedonian army advanced further eastward and captured the town of Crenides (near modern Drama) which was in the hands of the Thracians, and which Philip renamed after himself to Philippi. The Macedonian eastern border with Thrace was now secured at the river Nestus (Mesta).

Philip next marched against his southern enemies. In Thessaly he defeated his enemies and by 352, he was firmly in control of this region. The Macedonian army advanced as far as the pass of Thermopylae which divides Greece in two parts, but it did not attempt to take it because it was strongly guarded by a joint force of Athenians, Spartans, and Achaeans.

Having secured the bordering regions of Macedon, Philip assembled a large Macedonian army and marched deep into Thrace for a long conquering campaign. By 339 after defeating the Thracians in series of battles, most of Thrace was firmly in Macedonian hands save the most eastern Greek coastal cities of Byzantium and Perinthus who successfully withstood the long and difficult sieges. But both Byzantium and Perinthus would have surely fell had it not been for the help they received from the various Greek city-states, and the Persian king himself, who now viewed the rise of Macedonia and its eastern expansion with concern. Ironically, the Greeks invited and sided with the Persians against the Macedonians, although Persia had been the nation hated the most by Greece for more than a century. The memory of the Persian invasion of Greece some 150 years ago was still alive, but the current politics for the Macedonians had put it aside.

Much greater would be the conquests of his son, Alexander the Great, who would add to the phalanx a powerful cavalry,  led by his elite Companions, and flexible, innovative formations and tactics. He advanced Greek style of combat, and was able to muster large bodies of men for long periods of time for his campaigns against Persia.

ItaliaEdit
TheRoman army was the world's first professional army. It had its origins in the citizen army of the Roman Republic, which was staffed by citizens serving mandatory duty for Rome. The reforms of Marius around 100 BC turned the army into a professional structure, still largely filled by citizens, but citizens who served continuously for 20 years before being discharged.

The Romans were also noted for making use of auxiliary troops, non-Romans who served with the legions and filled roles that the traditional Roman military could not fill effectively, such as light skirmish troops and heavy cavalry. Later in the Empire, these auxiliary troops, along with foreign mercenaries, became the core of the Roman military. By the late Empire, tribes such as the Visigoths were bribed to serve as mercenaries.

The Roman navy was traditionally considered less important, although it remained vital for the transportation of supplies and troops, also during the great purge of pirates from the Mediterranean sea by Pompey the Great in the 1st century BC. Most of Rome's battles occurred on land, especially when the Empire was at its height and all the land around the Mediterranean was controlled by Rome.

But there were notable exceptions. The First Punic War, a pivotal war between Rome and Carthage in the 3rd century BC, was largely a naval conflict. And the naval Battle of Actium established the Roman empire under Augustus.

The Balkans
The Illyrian king Bardyllis turned part of south Illyria into a formidable local power in the 4th century BC. He managed to become king of the Dardanians. Amyntas had barely seized the throne in 394/3 when he found his kingdom under attack by a powerful Illyrian force, probably led by Bardylis, king of the Dardanii and include other tribes under his rule. However their power was weakened by bitter rivalries and jealousy.The army was composed by peltasts with a variety of weapons.

Dacia
Article: Thracian warfare

The Dacian tribes, located on modern-day Romania and Moldova were part of the greater Thracian family of peoples. They established a highly militarized society and, during the periods when the tribes were united under one king (82-44 BC, 86-106) posed a major threat to the Roman provinces of Lower Danube. Dacia was conquered and transformed into a Roman province in 106 after a long, hard war.

Thrace
Article: Thracian warfare

The Thracians located in modern day Bulgaria fought as peltasts using javelins and crescent or round wicker shields.Missile weapons were favored but close combat weaponry was carried by the Thracians as well.These close combat weapons varied from the dreaded Rhomphaia & Falx to spears and swords.Thracians shunned armor and greaves and fought as light as possible favoring mobility above all other traits and had excellent horsemen. "Very different from the Phoenicians were the Scythians and the Thracians who had no interest or skill in seafaring but excelled in raiding and horsemanship"

Celts
Main articles: Celtic warfare Gaelic warfare

Tribal warfare appears to have been a regular feature of Celtic tribes. While epic literature depicts this as more of a sport focused on raids and hunting rather than organised territorial conquest, the historical record is more of tribes using warfare to exert political control and harass rivals, for economic advantage, and in some instances to conquer territory.

The Celts were described by classical writers such as  Strabo, Livy, Pausanias, and Florus as fighting like "wild beasts", and as hordes. Dionysius said that their "manner of fighting, being in large measure that of wild beasts and frenzied, was an erratic procedure, quite lacking in military science. Thus, at one moment they would raise their swords aloft and smite after the manner of wild boars, throwing the whole weight of their bodies into the blow like hewers of wood or men digging with mattocks, and again they would deliver crosswise blows aimed at

Germanic

Celtiberian

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