The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine EmpireIn this book, the distinguished writer Edward N. Luttwak presents the grand strategy of the eastern Roman empire we know as Byzantine, which lasted more than twice as long as the more familiar western Roman empire, eight hundred years by the shortest definition. This extraordinary endurance is all the more remarkable because the Byzantine empire was favored neither by geography nor by military preponderance. Yet it was the western empire that dissolved during the fifth century. |
From inside the book
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... , both the individual instruction of new recruits and the regular exercise of unit and formation tactics. That may seem no more than what any army must do as a matter of course—how The Invention of Byzantine Strategy • 9.
... formations to carry out maneuvers—if realistic, they would only expose everyone's lack of training, so paradeground ... formation to the inch; weeks of training had been wasted on the tactically worthless show). Over the centuries, the ...
... formations of unarmored men or horses; an accurate range of up to 75 meters, especially relevant in ambushes and sieges, when bowmen in the role of snipers had opportunities to aim carefully at single targets; a piercing range of up to ...
... formations (cuneatim) . . . . And as they are lightly equipped for swift motion, and unexpected in action, they purposely divide suddenly into scattered bands and attack, rushing about in disorder here and there, dealing terrific ...
... formations because there was no saying how deep they might be, concealing their true numbers. The operational method described by Ammianus Marcellinus amounted to a fluid sequence of unexpected actions, as groups of warriors moved in ...
Contents
1 | |
The Myth and the Methods
| 95 |
III The Byzantine Art of War
| 235 |
Grand Strategy and the Byzantine Operational Code
| 409 |
Was Strategy Feasible in Byzantine Times? | 421 |
Emperors from Constantine I to Constantine XI
| 423 |
Glossary
| 427 |
Notes
| 433 |
Works Cited
| 473 |
Index of Names
| 491 |
General Index
| 495 |