EUBanana wrote:
Greek warfare was very ritualised, I believe, until around the midpoint of the Peloponnesian War. Epaminondas was just after, at that point I guess it was less about proving your manliness and more about winning battles.
Most warfare ever isn't about cutting down 80% of the opposing formation.
Most warfare ever is about trying to deter enemy charges and committing to your charges in a way that hopefully routes the enemy before casualties mount too high.
Actual high intensity charge to charge kind of warfare was called by medieval Italians "bad war"

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The push of pike would continue until one of the opposing formations routed or fled, which would generally lead to massive casualties. Each man pressed on the one in front, and so sometimes the formations would crush against each other and many pikemen would have to fight in closer melee combat.[1][2] The Italians referred to this as 'Bad War' after seeing Swiss pikemen become locked in thick combat, where because both formations refused to back down both sides lost huge numbers of men in the bloody melee. Rodeleros along with the Doppelsöldner were used in order to break push of pike engagements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_of_pikeThis is related to how perhaps most historical charges weren't running charges. A good charge could simply mean unwavering advance in good formation though due to terrain and incoming fire and skirmishers the formation could often break apart. In some cases it also made sense to commit to a final sprint to minimize the most lethal point blank fire but this starts to be a bigger issue when firearms become common.
There is certain imposing factor about a tight organized formation of thousands of enemy soldiers marching at you without wavering, disregarding their losses. It's a game of "chicken" - the defenders hope that the charge will lose momentum and they want the charging party to waver and turn back, hence they try to deter them. Failing to do so often causes a rout in the defenders, the front rows become demoralized in the face of such a foe that disregards casualties.
Being charged by heavy cavalry simply multiplies the morale impact as when the cavalry has sufficient mass the earth itself will tremble beneath their hooves.
So, indeed, morale is what makes or breaks a formation and once a formation routs it easily throws in a chain reaction: "the left flank has fallen, the enemy is moving to block our escape". Few things are as demoralizing to a soldier than seeing your escape route cut by the enemy. Soldiers could find courage from the knowledge that there was a hill or woods behind them into which they could flee - perhaps orderly fighting withdrawal - in case things went south.
If I remember my ancient Greek warfare reading properly, Spartans always placed themselves in the right wing of battle. It was customary in Greek warfare that the strongest units were on right wing and weakest on left wing. Hence Spartans would position themselves to face the weakest wing of the enemy and many times their enemy would be demoralized simply from hearing that their wing was facing Spartans. The relentless charge of Spartans would then finish the job and they
did fight hard and were really difficult to rout so they could call the bluff too, it wasn't just rumors.
And this was one of the weak points of their society. Because they'd refuse to be routed they would often fight in tactically difficult position suffering heavy casualties which their society could not easily replace. As wars were fought both their training rites and the battles they fought reduced their population significantly.
Eventually Spartans faced the Thebans at Battle of Leuctra, the Thebans positioned themselves to face the Spartans, "tough against tough" so to speak.
Ultimately the Spartans show us what we can see from other militaristic martial cultures. If your culture revolves around war and military, you will not be the worst of armies out there. In fact your troops will in general have higher morale than most anyone else. Your culture will also produce a larger than usual number of elite troops.
However, warriors exist in most cultures. Just because someone is a farmer by trade doesn't mean that he cannot be tough as nails or train to use his weapons well.
We see this with various cultures: Prussians, Samurai, Vikings etc., these cultures will generate a high military reputation that is actually based on real merits but since most people don't understand warfare the myths are eventually blown out of proportion.
And eventually a similarly sized army of dedicated conscripts can face a 'warrior culture' army and defeat it. Once you command large forces the individual heroes are lost in the masses and no society can command such overwhelming genetic superiority over another that the latter cannot roughly match their military prowess with sufficient training and equipment. Ultimately battles are won through leadership, communications and logistics.
Otherwise one of these martial cultures would rule the entire world by now. But they don't, because no matter how martial your culture is, you cannot underestimate a fully equipped farmer defending his family. 5 years more of martial training count very little when the other guy doesn't flinch, when he stands his ground and you find yourself in tactically inferior position.