by Xenophon
(translated by Rex Warner, with introduction and notes by George Cawkwell)
Penguin Books, 1950.
To encourage fidgety school boys to pay attention to their Greek lessons, English and American headmasters would frequently assign Xenophon’s Anabasis (“The March Up-Country”), usually titled The Persian Expedition. Xenophon told the thrilling story of what became known as the Ten Thousand, a Greek mercenary contingent engaged during the summer of 401 B.C. by a Persian prince, Cyrus the Younger, to support his campaign to claim the throne from his brother, Artaxerxes II. These events took place shortly after the Spartan-led coalition, with aid from Persia, had defeated Athens and its allies in the decades-long Peloponnesian War. Sparta now quietly supported Cyrus’s ambitions. According to the Anabasis, Cyrus concealed his intentions to attack Artaxerxes; but he eventually persuaded the Greeks, led by the Spartan exile Clearchus, with promises of higher pay. After a march of hundreds of miles from Sardis, the two sides met at Cunaxa, north of Babylon. The Greeks dominated their portion of the battlefield–supposedly only a single Greek hoplite was wounded by an arrow–but Cyrus was killed and his troops routed. Clearchus and four senior commanders of the expedition were lured into negotiations with the Persians, and were then captured and executed. The Greeks elected new generals, including a young Athenian, Xenophon, an acolyte of Socrates, who throughout his life was at odds with his city’s democratic leadership. Xenophon played a key role in persuading the Greeks to stay together and march to safety, despite the apparently desperate situation, rather than surrendering to the Persians.
Xenophon detailed the fighting retreat of the Ten Thousand through northern Mesopotamia and the independent or autonomous lands of the Kurds, Armenians and other peoples. (The original size of the Greek expedition was slightly larger than ten thousand, and that number did not include camp followers and slaves.) The Greeks must overcome the lack of supplies, brutal weather, difficult terrain, sickness, limited and misleading tactical and strategic intelligence, treacherous allies, and resourceful enemies who possessed knowledge of the ground and were highly motivated to fight off the invaders. After weeks on the move Xenophon, in command of the rearguard, heard great shouting from the troops on the high ground ahead of him. Alarmed, he assumed that the Greek vanguard must be under attack. But as the sound made its way through the ranks, he finally distinguished the words: “thalatta, thalatta!” “The sea!” The sea!” The troops on the heights had spotted the Black Sea and the relatively safety of the coast, which was dotted by Greek settlements. Five out of six men have survived the march. Their adventures were not yet over, however. Not all their local Greeks are friendly. The Ten Thousand divided into several distinct contingents. Unable to obtain ships to sail back to Greece, they marched along the shore to reach the Bosporus. Some of the troops, including Xenophon, crossed into Europe and fought with Suethes, a Thracian warlord, to obtain the kingship of Thrace, before being incorporated into the army of the Spartan general Thibron for further battles in Asia against the Persians.
The Persian Expedition is one of the classic adventure stories and military chronicles of the ancient world. Xenophon’s Greeks walked in the shoes of Herodotus and foreshadowed the battles of Alexander the Great. (Some contemporary analysts have read Xenophon for lessons on how a Western empire might extract its forces from a difficult situation in the Middle East.) The literal accuracy of Xenophon’s account–told in the third person–and his role and importance during the campaign were challenged by his contemporaries and by later scholars. But many in Greece, recalling also their triumphs in the Persian Wars, took the lesson from Xenophon that the Greeks were so superior to the decadent “East” that its conquest was possible and desirable.
Greek chauvinism aside, serious scholars have noted the differences between the Greek and Persian worlds and have explored the reasons for the apparent advantages enjoyed by the Greek expedition. Historian Victor Davis Hanson describes the Ten Thousand as “a marching democracy”–a polis in motion. “The soldiers routinely held assemblies in which they voted on the proposals of their elected leaders. In times of crises, they formed ad hoc boards to ensure that there were sufficient archers, cavalry, and medical corpsmen. When faced with a variety of unexpected challenges both natural and human … councils were held to debate and discuss new tactics, craft new weapons, and adopt modifications in organization. The elected generals marched and fought alongside their men–and were careful to provide a fiscal account of their expenditures.” Greek successes on the battlefield, according to Hanson, had less to do with superiority in technology or tactics and more to do with their way of life. “The peculiar way Greeks killed grew out of consensual government, equality among the middling classes, civilian audit of military affairs, and politics apart from religion, freedom and individualism, and rationalism. The ordeal of the Ten Thousand, when stranded and near extinction, brought out the polis that was innate in all Greek soldiers, who then conducted themselves on campaign precisely as civilians in their respective city-states.”
As we delve into the details, however, we see that Xenophon relates a complicated story, not merely one of Greek superiority and unchallenged success. The Ten Thousand was indeed a polis in motion, one plagued by factionalism as well as civic virtue, divided by allegiances to their respective native Greek cities and roiled by personal ambitions. They were not, or were not simply, a happy band of brothers. They were often their own worst enemies. Troops struck out on their own and disobeyed orders, frequently to plunder, which endangered the expedition as a whole. The unexpected arrival of thousands of armed men was viewed suspiciously by many of the Greek communities along the Black Sea; these cities warned that they would ally with the local non-Greek peoples to oppose the expedition if it plundered them or otherwise threatened their security and interests. Xenophon often must persuade the troops under his command and the army in general to follow what he regarded as the sensible course, especially the need for discipline and unity. (This included strict observance of religious ceremonies and paying heed to omens, even when military factors indicated otherwise.) But Xenophon must overcome suspicions that he was hardly a disinterested party himself, especially given his expressed desire to found a city as a way out of the dilemma of the expedition–which was not precisely what his mercenary colleagues had in mind–and his argument that it was necessary to defer to Spartan concerns because of Sparta’s established position of leadership among the Greek-speaking world.
The military success of the Ten Thousand had less to do with the famous hoplite tactics than with the ability to adapt on the fly to widely different fighting conditions, especially marching while under pursuit (Xenophon, for instance, urged that they deploy in towns and villages when threatened in the rear by an attacking force, rather than engage in a fighting retreat). The Greeks jury-rigged a cavalry force and slingers to replace the capabilities lost with the destruction of Cyrus’s army. They reduced their baggage and animals, and recently-acquired slaves, to the bare minimum to ease logistical demands. Diplomacy proved to be essential to the success of the expedition. After the capture of Clearchus and the other senior Greek leaders, Xenophon and his colleagues refused further talks with the Persians, so as not to undermine the morale of their forces. But as they moved into the territories outside Persian control, they must find ways to address the “security dilemma” to avoid unnecessary battles without undue risk of being lured into a trap. They struck agreements with cities and tribes to fight their local enemies in return for safe passage, guides, and supplies. They told their prospective allies that they would never again have at their disposal such a force with which to obtain their objectives. The leaders of the expedition negotiated truces to retrieve and bury bodies, in exchange for promises not to burn villages. One of Xenophon’s fellow commanders offered this message to the Persians and other potential opponents: “we shall go through the country doing as little damage as possible, but if anyone tries to stop us on our way, we shall fight our way out as hard as we can.”
Xenophon’s overriding operational plea to his colleagues and troops was that of unity, even when they reached the relative safety of the Black Sea coast: “So long as you keep together in your present great force, you are sure both of respect and finding supplies. One of the results of power is the ability to take what belongs to the weaker. But if you became dispersed, and this force of ours was broken up into small detachments, then you would not be able to secure your food, and it would be a sad business getting away from here. … if anyone is discovered leaving us before the whole army is safe, I think he should be put on trial for misconduct.” Unity was necessary to obtain decisive victory. Unless the Greeks were seen as being absolutely superior on the battlefield, they would lose their ability to deter and coerce the local peoples, who would soon learn to play upon the factionalism among the expedition.
Throughout the Anabasis, Xenophon offers his reflections on the nature of military command. He told his newly-elected fellow commanders that they could not display any discouragement or indecision before their soldiers. “In peacetime you got more pay and respect than they did. Now, in war time, you ought to hold yourselves to be braver than the general mass of men, and to take decisions for the rest, and, if necessary, to be the first to do the hard work.” Leadership consisted in creating a sense of direction and purpose: “there will be a great rise in their spirits if one can change the way they think, so that instead of having in their heads the one idea of ‘what is going to happen to me?’ they may think ‘what action am I going to take?’” The commanders of the expedition must especially overcome despair because the quantitative advantages that the Persians possess: “You are well aware that it is not numbers or strength that brings victory in war. No, it is when one side goes against the enemy with the gods’ gift of stronger morale that their adversaries, as a rule, cannot withstand them.”
— Patrick Garrity, March 6, 2009
An American Classic
William H. Stiles
London: Sampson, Low, 1852.
When the European revolutions of 1848 spread to Austria and the Habsburg lands, William H. Stiles, the American chargé d'affaires in Vienna, became both a participant and a chronicler of these watershed events. Stiles, an attorney from Savannah, Georgia, had been a one-term Democratic Congressman before being appointed to his diplomatic position in April 1845 by newly-elected President James K. Polk. Stiles held the post until October 1849, when he returned to the United States and resumed his law practice and activities in the Democratic Party. He would later serve as a colonel in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. For our purposes, his most notable achievement was the publication of a history of the Revolutions of 1848, which remains an important and balanced source of information for contemporary scholars. Stiles, in his own words, "embraced the means which his official residence in Vienna afforded to collect materials from all sources to illustrate the general history of the times. By constant reference to official documents, some of which were only to be found in the imperial archives, as well as to more public authorities, and by means of his own personal observation, he has endeavored to present a faithful picture of the eventful struggles in Vienna, in Milan, in Venice, and in Prague, as well as full details of the campaigns in Lombardy, in Piedmont, and in Hungary."
Stiles' Austria in 1848-49 constitutes an American classic because of the light it sheds on the principles and practice of the United States towards foreign revolutions, national self-determination, and the European balance of power, at a time when Americans were fighting a controversial war with Mexico and nearing a showdown over slavery. In this summary of Stiles' Austria in 1848-49, I do not intend to provide a full digest of the history or assess the accuracy of his account but to give the reader a sense of his perspective and line of argument. For more detail on the U.S. response to the Revolutions of 1848, see this.
Stiles divided the protagonists into three distinct groups: the government party, or Monarchists; the Radicals, or reckless agitators; and the intelligent or moderate reformers. Stiles identified with the third group, although he insisted that he treated the views and actions of all three camps fairly. He was initially optimistic that the Austrian monarchy might be substantially liberalized as a result of the revolution. He believed, however, that a republican government was beyond the capabilities of the mass of the peoples of the empire and the leadership, typically radical, of those who promoted republicanism.
The European revolutions of 1848 failed across the board in Stiles opinion, because the movement for change, moderate and radical, was barren of great men. "Individuals of talent, of courage, and of enthusiasm it undoubtedly produced; but no great social convulsion has ever before failed to evoke one or more master spirits, who to talent, courage, and enthusiasm have added the keen perception of character and resolute purpose which are indispensable to the character of a great leader." This included the man who was best positioned to make a difference, Louis (Lajos) Kossuth, the leader of the Hungarian (Magyar) cause for autonomy and later independence from the Austrian Empire.
In Stiles' view, Kossuth's critical mistake, and that of his fellow revolutionaries in the Hungarian lands, was the failure to declare independence in the summer of 1848 and to come to the aid of the moderate reformers in Austria, who were caught between the reactionaries and the radicals. As Stiles reported, the conflict over the future of the Hapsburg Empire was many-sided: it included the Croatian, Serbian, and Romanian ethnic groups. These groups, particularly the Croatians, resisted what they regarded as threats to their cultural and linguistic identity by the Magyars. According to Stiles, the government in Vienna had revoked the concessions that it had granted to the Hungarians in April 1848 and "instead of assuming, as was her duty, the province of mediator between Hungary and Croatia, she publicly announced her determination to become a partisan, and to enter the lists against the former and in favor of the latter."
That action, in Stiles' view, was amply sufficient to justify Hungary in throwing off her allegiance. The government of Austria had "become destructive of those ends for which it had been instituted," viz.," their safety and happiness," and "it was the right of the people" of Hungary" to alter or to abolish it." Besides, "when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it was their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."
Had the Hungarians declared their independence in the summer or fall of 1848, they would not, a few weeks later, when on the frontiers of Austria, have been deterred by any scruples of duty, or fears of the traitor's doom, from obeying the call of the Viennese, and marching upon the capital to their relief.
Had the Hungarian army of twenty-two thousand men, as soon as they appeared on the frontiers of Austria, instead of delaying there, marched immediately on Vienna, Prince Windischgrätz, with his immense army, not having yet appeared, there was no force to obstruct their passage. The hundred and forty thousand fighting men in Vienna, properly organized and officered by Hungarians, with the Magyar army as a nucleus, would have been invincible before any force which Windischgrätz and [Croatian leader] Jela?i? combined could have brought against them, and the emperor would gladly have relieved his capital at so slight a cost as the acknowledgment of Hungarian independence.
Even if the Hungarians had not marched on Vienna then, they later had a second chance when they defeated the Imperial Army in Hungary proper, and once again faced no organized resistance between themselves and the capital.
Had she but declared her independence previously, the noble manner in which she subsequently achieved it with the sword was all that would have been requisite for the full accomplishment of her wishes. The moral force which such a course would inevitably have brought to her cause would have been more effectual than all the bayonets which could be enlisted in her behalf. In that event, the Austrians would never have ventured to seek or Russia to yield the assistance of her myrmidons against a nation which had so gallantly, both by word and deed, established her claims to freedom. There is not a civilized government that would not have cheerfully volunteered to recognize her independence, and even Ferdinand of Austria might have imitated the magnanimity of George the Third of England, and been, as the latter was in the case of the United States, the first to acknowledge an independence which he had found himself unable to prevent.
Why did Kossuth hesitate and thus "spare a dynasty whose cruelty and perjury, as he states, were of centuries' duration? Was it humanity, was it fear of consequences, or was it want of nerve that impeded the exercise of his power? In the spring of 1848 he might have thought the public mind unprepared for extreme measures; but if so, why did he lend his sanction to the use of Hungarian troops in Italy, and why, above all, did he, in the fall of that eventful year, permit Windischgrätz, unopposed, to subdue Vienna, and at a blow to place the house of Habsburg in a position of impregnable authority?" Stiles concluded either that Kossuth lacked "that resolute and unflinching purpose so indispensable to revolutionary leaders" or, perhaps better put, that he was a reluctant and tardy revolutionary, who too late recognized that parliamentary and constitutional opposition would prove to be insufficient.
He had used every effort to conciliate the cabinet of Vienna; he had forborne to use the power of injury he possessed; he had permitted the Hungarian arms to be employed for the subjugation of Italy; he had looked on while the watch-fires of Windischgrätz and Jela?i? encircled Vienna with the girdle of destruction; he had reached the utmost limit of forbearance, and perhaps, indeed, hesitated too long, before he threw down the gauntlet and defied the imperial power.
Stiles, inter alia, rejects another argument made against Kossuth by his conservative opponents – that he was a mere demagogue driven by unscrupulous ambition. "His voice, his pen, his indefatigable industry, his mastership of detail, his vivid imagination, his lofty aspirations, all were employed. A highly sensitive and poetic temperament, a peculiarly active and laborious mind, exhibited themselves in his efforts in rare and striking union; he aroused and armed the people, and, thus aroused and armed, his spirit led them into conflict. It is absurd to deny, as it is impossible to underrate, his efforts during this period; and those who criticize and decry him, would find it difficult to show higher instances of genius, enthusiasm, and devotion to the cause of liberty." Once Hungary finally declared its independence in April 1849, Kossuth, in Stiles view, justifiably assumed emergency powers and sought major social as well as political changes – despite the criticism that Kossuth was violating his own stated republican ideals, and that he was suppressing the culture of the non-Magyar ethnic minorities.
But after that decisive act [independence], all the others became a necessary consequence. It was the dictate of the clearest policy and of inevitable necessity to abolish the distinctions of rank and race, and to give to the movement a direction absolutely popular. It was natural that the supreme power should be vested in the hands of the most able and active of the revolutionary leaders; and, if he looked forward to the chief magistracy of the state by the universal suffrage of free and independent Hungary, it was the dream of an honorable and laudable ambition – and, alas! it was but a dream.… These efforts were vain: the struggles of the leader and his brave followers were fruitless; and, after proving what heroism, constancy, and skill could effect, after defeating the power of Austria, they were destined to fall before the overwhelming legions of Russia.
Stiles conclude that the failure of the Hungarian component of the European-wide revolutions of 1848 was a historical watershed.
…the die was cast, and the struggle – more pregnant in consequences to Europe than any that has taken place since the fall of the Roman empire – commenced. Had Hungary established her independence, Austria must inevitably have sunk into a third or fourth rate power. Had she been able to establish a free Constitution, and, absorbing Croatia, opened to herself the ports of the Mediterranean, the future consequences to the freedom of Europe can not be overrated. The struggle, when once commenced, was one worthy of the utmost effort; and this was not wanting. The labors of Kossuth were Herculean; and, assisted by the most gallant people of Europe, no contest more worthy of the poet and the historian has ever been waged between the opposing spirits of freedom and tyranny, of good and evil, that have immemorially divided the world.
Stiles, along with the other American diplomats in Europe, had to walk a fine line between his sympathies and official duties, as he records in the text and appendices of Austria in 1848-49. He was forced to counter the claims of a delegation that purported to bear official American promises of financial and military aid to the Viennese revolutionaries. In December 1848, when a friend of Kossuth, approached Stiles and asked him to intervene diplomatically "for the settlement of the differences now existing between the imperial government and the Kingdom of Hungary," Stiles demurred. "I frankly stated, on that occasion, the difficulties which such a step suggested to my mind, arising from the fact that it was a domestic quarrel between the government of the Austrian empire and one of its dependencies, and with which no foreign power could properly have any concern."
Stiles (as he reported to Secretary of State Buchanan) told the Hungarian intermediary "that it was a subject which the United States had ever regarded with peculiar jealousy, and that I could not, therefore, reconcile it to myself to be in any manner instrumental in committing her; that, besides, so extensive, as I understood, had been the preparations made by the imperial government for the subjugation of Hungary, that it was scarcely to be expected that it would, at this eleventh hour, listen to any proposals of settlement short of the unconditional submission to imperial authority."
Stiles' interlocutor responded that Kossuth and the Hungarian government had been unable to communicate its desire for a settlement and reconciliation to the imperial authorizes in Vienna. He pleaded for the United States to serve as a conduit of such a communication to avoid the immense bloodshed that would be result if the conflict escalated.
I then inquired whether the object for which the interposition was sought was the separation of Hungary from Austria; or, if not, whether it was to gain time in order to make a more successful resistance; that if either of these objects were in contemplation, I could not listen for one moment to the application. On being solemnly assured to the contrary, and that no other end was in view but an amicable adjustment of the impending difficulties, I stated that the only ground upon which I could consent to interfere was that of humanity, and to save the useless effusion of blood; that such an appeal I should not consider myself justified in resisting; but that even in that event, my interference, if approved by the imperial government, would simply go to the extent of opening the door of reconciliation between the opposing parties, and by which the unhappy differences which distract the two countries might be, between themselves and through the instrumentality of their respective authorities, peaceably and satisfactorily arranged.
Stiles immediately contacted Prince Schwartzenberg, the Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs, stressing that "I had no disposition to interfere between the Austrian government and one of its provinces, and that I would only take such action or pursue such a course in the matter as might be agreeable to the imperial government." Schwartzenberg responded that "matters had progressed too far – that they could enter into no negotiation with rebels, and that nothing short of unconditional surrender could now be submitted to by the government."
A week later, Stiles received an official written plea from Kossuth himself, asking the United States to initiate a negotiation with the imperial government for a military armistice during the winter. Stiles decided again to approach the Austrian authorities, including Field Marshal Windischgrätz, while warning Kossuth:
… in the mean time, as the matter is attended with great difficulties arising from the facts, first, that the controversy is a domestic one, and Austria may, consequently, be unwilling to permit of any foreign interference; and, second, that as the preparations for the attack of Hungary on the part of the imperial government are said to be very extensive, and any delay in their operations they may conceive detrimental to their interests, I can hold out to you but little hopes of success in obtaining the desired armistice. For the cause of humanity, however, and to prevent the useless effusion of blood, the only ground upon which I can consent to take any step toward opening the door of reconciliation between Austria and Hungary, and by which the difficulties which now unhappily distract the two countries may be adjusted between themselves, you may rest assured that no exertion on my part shall be spared which may be calculated to effect so desirable an object.
Windischgrätz, as Stiles predicted, would have none of it. "I can do nothing in the matter." "I must obey the orders of the emperor." "Hungary must submit." "I will occupy Pesth with my troops, and then the emperor will decide what is to be done." "I have received orders to occupy Hungary, and I hope to accomplish this end – I cannot, therefore, enter into any negotiations." "I can not consent to treat with those who are in a state of rebellion."
Stiles was naturally concerned that his diplomatic activism, however limited, might meet with the disapproval of his superiors in the Polk administration. "Before closing this communication, I have only to add, sir, that as in this (to me) entirely novel situation, I have endeavored to act with all the circumspection which the delicate nature of the subject so imperiously required; as I have studiously avoided the least step which I thought could in any manner compromise my country," he wrote to the Secretary of State, "and as, if any error has been committed, it has been done for the sake and in the cause of humanity, I trust that the course which, without time for special instruction, I have thought proper to pursue in this matter, will not meet the disapprobation of my government."
As Stiles documents in Austria in 1848-49, Secretary of State Buchanan approved Stiles' actions but offered no encouragement for taking any more ambitious steps in the future.
…I am gratified that your prudence and ability were equal to the occasion. In our foreign policy, we must ever be governed by the wise maxim not to interfere with the domestic concerns of foreign nations; and from this you have not departed. You have done no more, in your own language, than to attempt to open the door of reconciliation between the opposing parties, leaving them to adjust their differences without your intervention. Considering there was reason to believe that the previous offers of the Hungarian government for a reconciliation had never reached the imperial government, and that no other practicable mode of communicating these offers existed, except through your agency, you acted wisely in becoming an intermediary for this purpose alone. Had you refused thus to act upon the request of Mr. Kossuth, you might have been charged with a want of humanity, and been held, in some degree, responsible for the blood which has since been so profusely shed in the war. The president entirely approves your conduct.
For a summary of Abraham Lincoln's classic formulation of the proper American position on Kossuth and foreign revolutions, see this.
— Patrick J. Garrity, June 9, 2010
