Matthew Burkett
Dr. Holt
Senior Seminar: Bard
24 April 2020
War Never Changes
In 1997 Interplay Productions, a game studio based in Los Angeles, released the game “Fallout”, a post apocalyptic roleplaying game set in the near future. The game itself was quite revolutionary, however perhaps one of the most fascinating elements of the game is in the very first moments, during the opening cinematic. In this intro scene, to a background of carnage and nuclear war, narrator Ron Perlman utters the words “War… war never changes”. The line quickly became one of the most recognized in gaming, and is indisputably associated with the Fallout franchise, but is it true? Is it true that throughout the some 5-6 thousand years since humans have invented warfare that, despite the drastic shifts in technology weapons and ideology, that at its core war just doesn’t change? That will be the topic of this capstone project, to analyze warfare from the ancient to the now and see if an answer can be reached on whether or not “war never changes”. Starting from the ancient era, moving through the medieval, and concluding in the modern the changes and shifts in warfare will be explained, followed by an examination of any themes or consequences that follow through the ages, then a final determination of whether or not the true realities of war ever do change.
The first major era to consider in warfare is the ancient one. For the purposes of this essay the Ancient Era will be defined as anything occurring before 476 AD, or the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The ancient era was dominated by hand to hand combat. From the legions of Rome to the Phalanxes of Greece ancient soldiers did most of their fighting right in each other's faces. Iron and steel dominated the ancient battlefield. Armor tended to be on the more primitive side. Things such as chain or plate armor weren’t invented yet, rather soldiers wore sheets of metal or forged hunks of metal shaped into armor pieces. The bow was the primary ranged weapon here, though some armies, namely Rome, chose to rely on javelins and slings. The Ancient Era set in motion many of the technological trends that would later lead to the Medieval, better metals and heavy armor, increasing damage of projectile weapons, and even some early experimentation with the usefulness of a cavalry charge, however the primary weapon was heavy infantry lines clashing with each other until one side eventually broke. This can be seen from the battles of the Three Kingdoms to the conquests of Caesar. As for the cost, citizens were often shown no mercy when caught by a raiding or conquering army. Those that didn’t live in the well defended and walled cities were subject to any number of horrific massacres or atrocities, and during battle it was only worse. A famous example of this is the battle of Alysia, when thousands of the old, sick, women, and children were expelled from the city in order to save food for the soldiers during the siege. Thousands of people starved to death in sight of their own families, and the battle pressed on as if nothing had happened. Another useful metric is how high casualty rates could be. The most costly war of this era is the Three Kingdoms period in China. During this period an estimated 38 million people died over a roughly 100 year period. This gives us a glimpse into the Ancient Era. War was a brutal, close ranged struggle and civilians were more often the primary victims, their lives thrown away in the name of victory or plunder.
Next up is the Medieval Era, which will be defined here as 476 AD - 1453 AD, where many of the trends of the Ancient Era continue to their next stage. First off is the advancement in armor, as chainmail and plate armor were invented, making close combat somewhat ineffective as heavy infantry became almost entirely removed from danger. This naturally drove the next major innovation, projectile weapons. The medieval battlefield was dominated by the crossbow. Easier to both use and be trained in than the bow, the crossbow became the favorite of medieval armies, and crossbow volleys became a standard of this era. Cavalry was also vastly improved. The stirrups, something considered so trivial today, was a brand new technology of the medieval world and for the first time finally allowed a rider to charge at full speed in heavy army straight into his opponent. Cavalry charges were the trump card of the medieval army, as they crushed an opposing force under the sheer weight of their charge. Of course there is one major invention that stands above any other during this period, that being gunpowder. First discovered in China and brought to Europe by the Mongol Conquests, gunpower forever changed the path of war, and forever increased its destruction. The proud walls of medieval cities became useless as cannon balls brought them crumbling down. Heavy infantry charges were nullified by barrages of arquebusiers tearing them apart, and the amount of power a single man could wield was forever increased. As for cost, the most brutal wars of this time were without a doubt the Mongol Conquests and the An Lushan Rebellion. 34 million people were killed during the some 140 year conquest of the Great Khans, and another 20 million died in only a decade fighting in Tang China during the An Lushan Rebellion. These were hardly the only wars either, but here a clear trend emerges, while the same sort of casualties still happened from these massive conflicts, they were now capable of happening much faster.
The final era to examine is the Modern Era, which will be defined as 1453 to modern day. This era sees the themes of increasing destruction and violence from the previous two eras and kicks it to a level far beyond that. First off, gunpowder weapons rapidly increase in both proficiency and lethality, rapidly becoming the dominant weapon of war, causing melee combat or even the cavalry charge to fall away completely. The great bastion of the medieval world, Constantinople, fell to a barrage of cannon fire, and a new world emerged from that rubble. The number of significant changes is too long to list, planes, bombs, breech loaded artillery, nuclear weapons, the jet engine, the radio, oil based machinery, tanks, motorized warfare, the list goes on and on. Never before in human history did things change so rapidly. One thing that didn’t change however was the brutality. The Spanish Expeditions into the New World frequently had casualty rates as high as 95% for the populations they came across, the religious wars between the Catholic church and the Protestants, fighting to sway the peoples of Europe one way or the other, and the Napoleonic wars that rocked Europe to its core. Of course, none of these come even close to the most costly war in human history, World War 2. Over the span of 6 years from 1939 to 1945 an estimated 60 million people would die from the fields of France to the waters off Japan. This war cost what at the time was 2% of the human population, and caused so much destruction that many places around the world still haven’t recovered. World War 2 was the culmination of 4 and a half thousand years of advancement and innovation in new ways to slaughter fellow humans. Without question the modern era of warfare has cost more lives than any other era in human history and brought the destructive capabilities of humanity to an entirely new level.
When examined side by side the three eras examined here have clear differences, technology being the most obvious. New weapons and other inventions gradually increased the ability of mankind to destroy and slaughter. However, one thing seems to stay the same, the fact that the human cost remains far higher than just the soldiers fighting in it. From the ancient conquests of the Romans to the invasion of France in 1940 civilians and innocents caught in the middle frequently paid the price for the ambition and gain of others, and they frequently experienced first hand the power and violence that the ever changing weapons of war were capable of. So, looking back to the central question of this capstone, does war change? The answer is clear. The intricacies of warfare may change, the weapons may improve and become more accurate or deadly, the tactics may shift to adapt to the changing battlefields, but the cost, the cost never changes. The cost of countless lives lost forever, the cost of damages and pain that takes generations to fix, that never changes. And until the day comes that this truth is realized and accepted, until the day comes that we as people can truly understand how terrible and often pointless all of these wars are, this cost isn’t going anywhere, in fact its only going to get higher and higher.
Dr. Holt
Senior Seminar: Bard
24 April 2020
War Never Changes
In 1997 Interplay Productions, a game studio based in Los Angeles, released the game “Fallout”, a post apocalyptic roleplaying game set in the near future. The game itself was quite revolutionary, however perhaps one of the most fascinating elements of the game is in the very first moments, during the opening cinematic. In this intro scene, to a background of carnage and nuclear war, narrator Ron Perlman utters the words “War… war never changes”. The line quickly became one of the most recognized in gaming, and is indisputably associated with the Fallout franchise, but is it true? Is it true that throughout the some 5-6 thousand years since humans have invented warfare that, despite the drastic shifts in technology weapons and ideology, that at its core war just doesn’t change? That will be the topic of this capstone project, to analyze warfare from the ancient to the now and see if an answer can be reached on whether or not “war never changes”. Starting from the ancient era, moving through the medieval, and concluding in the modern the changes and shifts in warfare will be explained, followed by an examination of any themes or consequences that follow through the ages, then a final determination of whether or not the true realities of war ever do change.
The first major era to consider in warfare is the ancient one. For the purposes of this essay the Ancient Era will be defined as anything occurring before 476 AD, or the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The ancient era was dominated by hand to hand combat. From the legions of Rome to the Phalanxes of Greece ancient soldiers did most of their fighting right in each other's faces. Iron and steel dominated the ancient battlefield. Armor tended to be on the more primitive side. Things such as chain or plate armor weren’t invented yet, rather soldiers wore sheets of metal or forged hunks of metal shaped into armor pieces. The bow was the primary ranged weapon here, though some armies, namely Rome, chose to rely on javelins and slings. The Ancient Era set in motion many of the technological trends that would later lead to the Medieval, better metals and heavy armor, increasing damage of projectile weapons, and even some early experimentation with the usefulness of a cavalry charge, however the primary weapon was heavy infantry lines clashing with each other until one side eventually broke. This can be seen from the battles of the Three Kingdoms to the conquests of Caesar. As for the cost, citizens were often shown no mercy when caught by a raiding or conquering army. Those that didn’t live in the well defended and walled cities were subject to any number of horrific massacres or atrocities, and during battle it was only worse. A famous example of this is the battle of Alysia, when thousands of the old, sick, women, and children were expelled from the city in order to save food for the soldiers during the siege. Thousands of people starved to death in sight of their own families, and the battle pressed on as if nothing had happened. Another useful metric is how high casualty rates could be. The most costly war of this era is the Three Kingdoms period in China. During this period an estimated 38 million people died over a roughly 100 year period. This gives us a glimpse into the Ancient Era. War was a brutal, close ranged struggle and civilians were more often the primary victims, their lives thrown away in the name of victory or plunder.
Next up is the Medieval Era, which will be defined here as 476 AD - 1453 AD, where many of the trends of the Ancient Era continue to their next stage. First off is the advancement in armor, as chainmail and plate armor were invented, making close combat somewhat ineffective as heavy infantry became almost entirely removed from danger. This naturally drove the next major innovation, projectile weapons. The medieval battlefield was dominated by the crossbow. Easier to both use and be trained in than the bow, the crossbow became the favorite of medieval armies, and crossbow volleys became a standard of this era. Cavalry was also vastly improved. The stirrups, something considered so trivial today, was a brand new technology of the medieval world and for the first time finally allowed a rider to charge at full speed in heavy army straight into his opponent. Cavalry charges were the trump card of the medieval army, as they crushed an opposing force under the sheer weight of their charge. Of course there is one major invention that stands above any other during this period, that being gunpowder. First discovered in China and brought to Europe by the Mongol Conquests, gunpower forever changed the path of war, and forever increased its destruction. The proud walls of medieval cities became useless as cannon balls brought them crumbling down. Heavy infantry charges were nullified by barrages of arquebusiers tearing them apart, and the amount of power a single man could wield was forever increased. As for cost, the most brutal wars of this time were without a doubt the Mongol Conquests and the An Lushan Rebellion. 34 million people were killed during the some 140 year conquest of the Great Khans, and another 20 million died in only a decade fighting in Tang China during the An Lushan Rebellion. These were hardly the only wars either, but here a clear trend emerges, while the same sort of casualties still happened from these massive conflicts, they were now capable of happening much faster.
The final era to examine is the Modern Era, which will be defined as 1453 to modern day. This era sees the themes of increasing destruction and violence from the previous two eras and kicks it to a level far beyond that. First off, gunpowder weapons rapidly increase in both proficiency and lethality, rapidly becoming the dominant weapon of war, causing melee combat or even the cavalry charge to fall away completely. The great bastion of the medieval world, Constantinople, fell to a barrage of cannon fire, and a new world emerged from that rubble. The number of significant changes is too long to list, planes, bombs, breech loaded artillery, nuclear weapons, the jet engine, the radio, oil based machinery, tanks, motorized warfare, the list goes on and on. Never before in human history did things change so rapidly. One thing that didn’t change however was the brutality. The Spanish Expeditions into the New World frequently had casualty rates as high as 95% for the populations they came across, the religious wars between the Catholic church and the Protestants, fighting to sway the peoples of Europe one way or the other, and the Napoleonic wars that rocked Europe to its core. Of course, none of these come even close to the most costly war in human history, World War 2. Over the span of 6 years from 1939 to 1945 an estimated 60 million people would die from the fields of France to the waters off Japan. This war cost what at the time was 2% of the human population, and caused so much destruction that many places around the world still haven’t recovered. World War 2 was the culmination of 4 and a half thousand years of advancement and innovation in new ways to slaughter fellow humans. Without question the modern era of warfare has cost more lives than any other era in human history and brought the destructive capabilities of humanity to an entirely new level.
When examined side by side the three eras examined here have clear differences, technology being the most obvious. New weapons and other inventions gradually increased the ability of mankind to destroy and slaughter. However, one thing seems to stay the same, the fact that the human cost remains far higher than just the soldiers fighting in it. From the ancient conquests of the Romans to the invasion of France in 1940 civilians and innocents caught in the middle frequently paid the price for the ambition and gain of others, and they frequently experienced first hand the power and violence that the ever changing weapons of war were capable of. So, looking back to the central question of this capstone, does war change? The answer is clear. The intricacies of warfare may change, the weapons may improve and become more accurate or deadly, the tactics may shift to adapt to the changing battlefields, but the cost, the cost never changes. The cost of countless lives lost forever, the cost of damages and pain that takes generations to fix, that never changes. And until the day comes that this truth is realized and accepted, until the day comes that we as people can truly understand how terrible and often pointless all of these wars are, this cost isn’t going anywhere, in fact its only going to get higher and higher.