Fascinating read. Thanks for posting this.
Yeah, we’ve been making a little bit of fun of the way it was stated, but the conclusions can’t really be gainsaid. And, understanding of the importance of ground in a battle — plus an ability to deal with “impassable” geography, such as swamps, sheer cliffs, raging deep rivers — help distinguish the good or great officers (and troops) from the not-so-good. Earlier in the year I got a special issue of some ancient history mag, devoted entirely to ancient battles and warfare. One article discussed the changes of approach and the development of strategic thinking during the Peloponnesian War, a struggle which was restructured three or four times, culminating (sez the article) with the final transformation of Sparta’s approach, leading to the strategic defeat of Athens.
IMO, the PW wasn’t yet over — the final chapter of a two generation war was when Sparta, in decline for a long while before the war had started, and chewed up pretty badly by the time it defeated Athens, wound up taking on one of its former allies, Thebes, which had remained outside of most of the previous fighting and grown large and prosperous. Thebes destroyed most of the remaining Spartan army at Leuctra, and then insisted on collecting its dead before Sparta did. Seeing the sheer number of dead Spartans devastated the survivors. The Theban general then marched all around Sparta’s occupied territories, freeing the thousands and thousands of slaves, including those of Messene, building walled towns for them to live in, and destroying Sparta’s slavery-based economy.