The First Clash: The Miraculous Greek Victory at Marathon and Its Impact on Western Civilization - Softcover

Lacey, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553385755 ISBN 13: 9780553385755

Verlag: Random House Publishing Group, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“A compelling and provocative read . . . With a soldier’s eye, Jim Lacey re-creates the battle of Marathon in all its brutal simplicity.”—Barry Strauss, author of Masters of Command
 
Marathon—one of history’s most pivotal battles. Its name evokes images of almost superhuman courage, endurance, and fighting spirit. In this eye-opening book, military analyst James Lacey takes a fresh look at Marathon and reveals why the battle happened, how it was fought, and whether, in fact, it saved Western civilization. Lacey brilliantly reconstructs the world of the fifth century B.C. leading up to the astonishing military defeat of the Persian Empire by the vastly undermanned Greek defenders. With the kind of vivid detail that characterizes the best modern war reportage, he shows how the heavily armed Persian army was shocked and demoralized by the relentless assault of the Athenian phalanx. He reveals the fascinating aftermath of Marathon, how its fighters became the equivalent of our “Greatest Generation,” and challenges the legacy and lessons that have often been misunderstood—perhaps, now more than ever, at our own peril.
 
Immediate, visceral, and full of new analyses that defy decades of conventional wisdom, The First Clash is a superb interpretation of a conflict that indeed made the world safe for Aristotle, Plato, and our own modern democracy.
 
“With a fresh eye to tactics, strategy, and military organization, and with his text grounded in direct experience of the troops on the battlefield, James Lacey gives us not only new understanding of how the Athenians managed to win but also a greater appreciation of the beginning of a long tradition of Western military dynamism that we take for granted today.”—Victor Davis Hanson, author of Carnage and Culture
 
“Lacey’s swords-and-shields approach will absorb readers ever fascinated by the famous battles of antiquity.”—Booklist
 
“A lively and rewarding read.”—Charleston Post and Courier
 
“Exemplary . . . Lacey, a veteran of the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions and a professor at the Marine War College, brings to the tale of Marathon the practical experiences of the combat soldier and an intellectual sensibility.”—The New Criterion

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jim Lacey was an active-duty military officer for twelve years in the 82nd Airborne Division and the 101st Airborne Division. Lacey is currently a professor of strategy, war, and policy at the Marine War College, and an adjunct professor in the Johns Hopkins National Security Program. He also works as a consultant on a number of projects for the United States military. Lacey has written for several publications, including the New York Post and The New York Sun, appears regularly in Military History magazine, and was an embedded journalist for Time magazine during the invasion of Iraq.

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Chapter 1

An Empire Rises

In 547 BC, Croesus, the king of Lydia, had reason to feel satisfied. To his west, where the Greek cities of Ionia dotted the Aegean coastline, a long, costly war had finally ended. These often troublesome Greeks were presently awed by Lydian power and were now paying him annual tribute. To the north, from which the terrifying Scythian horsemen in previous generations had swept down in devastating raids, it had been quiet since his father, Alyattes II, broke the back of Cimmerian power decades before.1 To the south, Babylonia remained a strong and dependable ally, a state of affairs that was unlikely to change as long as mighty Babylon felt threatened by the power of the Medes, who occupied the lands east of both Lydia and Babylon.

Since the crushing of the Cimmerians and the demise of the dreaded Assyrian Empire in 613 BC, the Medes had been Lydia’s most serious threat. For five bloody years, during the reign of Alyattes II, Lydia fought an exhausting war to halt Median expansion. Herodotus reports that the war ended only when in the midst of a great battle both sides withdrew in terror as a solar eclipse darkened the field.2 Whatever the influence of the eclipse, the truth is that the war so exhausted both sides, they willingly allowed Babylon to arbitrate an end to the fighting.

The “Peace of the Eclipse” lasted a generation. In that time, Lydia, the first state to create a standardized coinage, grew rich. So rich, in fact, that even today Croesus’s name is synonymous with vast wealth and riches. However, the Medes, while not as rich as Lydia, had also grown powerful and ever more threatening. So it was with a certain amount of contentment that Croesus had watched the Medes spend the recent years engaged in a bloody civil war with their cousins the Persians. But by 547, that war had ended and a new Persian-Median king, Cyrus, was solidifying his hold on power. For Croesus this was a troubling development, as the combined power of the Medes and Persians was a dire threat and the youthful Cyrus appeared restless. To forestall a Persian invasion of Lydia, Croesus determined to wage a preemptive war before Cyrus could complete his consolidation of power. But first he had to determine if the gods would bless his enterprise.

According to Herodotus, prior to starting his war with the Persians, Croesus sent envoys to determine the accuracy of each of the major oracles used by the Greeks to foretell the future. After putting each to the test, Croesus decided that the oracle of Delphi was the most accurate. He sent envoys bearing rich gifts to inquire as to the outcome of a war between the Lydians and the Persians. He was much cheered by the Delphic oracle’s promise that if the Lydian army marched against the Persians, a great empire would be destroyed. Unfortunately for Croesus, it did not occur to him to ask another important question: Which great empire would be destroyed? He interpreted the oracle’s words as it best suited his desires and forwarded immense gifts to Delphi, and to several other temples, to secure the full support of the gods.

When the threat Cyrus presented first arose, Croesus also began a period of active diplomacy in an attempt to assemble allies for the coming fight. This resulted in promises of support from Babylonia, Egypt, and even Sparta. If only he had waited for these forces to gather at his capital, the Persian state might well have died in infancy. But believing immediate action was necessary and buoyed by Delphi’s promise of success, Croesus determined to strike out with only his own forces on hand. Beyond the promises of Delphi, Croesus’s confidence rested on the fact that Lydia possessed what was probably the most formidable army in the Near East. It consisted of heavy armored infantry (much of it from the Greek cities along the Aegean) and a formidable host of local levies. However, the mainstay of the Lydian army was its elite heavy cavalry, universally feared for its expert use of lances from horseback.

With the gods propitiated by numerous gifts of gold, the Lydian army launched itself against King Cyrus. In 547 BC, the Lydians marched into Cappadocia, which had been under Median lordship since Assyria’s collapse. After crossing the Halys River, which had been set as the Median-Lydian boundary by the Peace of the Eclipse, Croesus captured the supposedly strongly fortified city of Pteria and devastated the surrounding country, while waiting to see how Cyrus would react to the provocation. He did not have long to wait. Cyrus, apparently forewarned of the attack, was ready to move immediately after receiving information as to the direction of the Lydian offensive. Moving rapidly from his new capital at Ecbatana, Cyrus gathered further recruits along his line of march, and in what must have been a matter of a couple of weeks, the Persians pitched their camp within striking distance of the Lydian army. Herodotus indicates that the battle that took place was fierce and that many fell on both sides. However, when the fighting ended, at the onset of darkness, there was still no victor. Croesus, who must have been shocked by the speed and strength of Cyrus’s response, blamed his lack of success on the Persians’ greater numbers and determined to fall back on his capital, Sardis, and await the arrival of his allies.

If his army was still in good condition and he had the city of Pteria as a base, and presumably had access to Sinope on the Black Sea, then there was no reason Croesus could not have wintered his army in Cappadocia and awaited his allies. Therefore it is likely that his army, though not vanquished, received a severe battering. Furthermore, his previous policy of ruining the surrounding country had probably left the countryside denuded of supplies. Croesus was now paying for his policy of systematic devastation, which had greatly shortened the time he could linger in Cappadocia; even under the best of circumstances, an army could remain stationary only a short time before it consumed all of the area’s available resources. After failing to win a decisive victory against the Persians, he did not have the choice of staying. Circumstances compelled him to retreat or starve. Still worse lay ahead of him, for Croesus had neglected to stock his capital at Sardis with sufficient provisions to sustain his army through the winter. So upon his arrival at the capital, he was forced to disband all of his army, except for his elite cavalry, and ordered it to reassemble in the spring. At the same time, he sent envoys to Egypt, Babylonia, and Sparta and requested them to bring their armies to Sardis in three months, whereupon their combined might would see Cyrus off.

Cyrus was now left in an unenviable position. The same reason that had compelled Croesus to abandon Cappadocia was now acting on him: A devastated country would not supply his army through the winter. In such circumstances, all precedent called for Cyrus to fall back to Ecbatana, where he could refurbish his army for the next season’s campaign. Realizing that his enemies would gather in vast numbers against him in the spring, Cyrus knew that the prudent course only delayed his doom. Therefore he launched his army into an unheard-of winner-take-all winter campaign and followed Croesus’s retreating army into Lydia.

Surprised at his foe’s audacity, Croesus weighed his options. Most of his army had left for their homes, and it would be months before any of his allies would appear to assist him. Still, the walls of Sardis were considered impregnable, and most leaders would have considered holing up inside of them until the winter frost decimated the Persian army or until his allies would eventually come to the rescue. Instead, Croesus opted to give battle with the much-reduced forces...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Random House Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0553385755
• ISBN 13: 9780553385755
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 272
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: GPSR Kontakt; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland