Gold, Blood and Power E-Book

James Lacey

• Herausgeber: Declassified Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 156

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

This monograph presents a survey of the crucial link between state (national) power and finance from the ancient era through the present day. Cicero once said that the true sinew of war was "endless streams of money." His observation remains as accurate today as it was when Rome first began constructing its Empire. Unfortunately, too many historical works leave this crucial underpinning link out of their narratives. Even those that do economic and financial concerns typically miss the fact that the size of a state's economy often has little to do with its capacity to wield influence on the global stage. Much more crucial in this regard is the possession of an administrative system capable of efficiently mobilizing a state's resources. It was such an administrative apparatus that allowed Britain to punch far above its weight in the international arena for centuries. As a survey, this work is far from comprehensive, but the author hopes it will provide a stepping stone for a much-needed in-depth examination of the topic.

Leseprobe

GOLD, BLOOD AND POWER

Finance and War Through the Ages

James Lacey

DECLASSIFIED PRESS

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Copyright © 2016 by James Lacey

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

GOLD, BLOOD, AND POWER: FINANCE AND WAR THROUGH THE AGES

ANCIENT WORLD

DARK AGES

THE MIDDLE AGES

EARLY MODERN ERA

WORLD WAR I

WORLD WAR II

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

ENDNOTES

GOLD, BLOOD, AND POWER: FINANCE AND WAR THROUGH THE AGES

Victory has always gone to the side with the more flourishing production base.

Paul Kennedy,

The Rise and Fall of Great Powers1

Professor Kennedy is wrong. Victory has not always gone to the side with the greatest materiel resources, although that often remains the best wager. Rather, it has gone to the side best able to mobilize its resources for the decisive effort of war. Persian production, for example, far exceeded anything available to Alexander, yet Persia’s mighty 200-year-old empire collapsed in an historical twinkle under the successive hammer blows of the formidable Macedonian army. Likewise, the barbarians who later brought Rome to its knees possessed almost no production base. Yet, these barbarians eventually massed sufficient force to collapse the greatest empire in history, which, for a variety of reasons, was no longer capable of mobilizing even a fraction of its latent power. In later periods, one need only look at tiny Britain, which for centuries punched far above its weight in the international arena as a result of its superior ability to mobilize its relatively meager national resources for war.

Since the start of organized warfare, the crucial sinew of war had been “endless streams of money.”2 For as long as the money held out, there was always a well-armed mercenary for hire. On the other hand, when the money was gone, the war ended as armies dissolved for lack of pay. By World War II, however, money was no longer a crucial concern of the major belligerents. In every World War II case,production capacity and manpower were exhausted long before the wherewithal to pay for them. Money concerns only came to the fore when one nation exhausted its production base and had to purchase munitions from other nations. The best example of this was Britain’s rapid depletion of its foreign reserves to purchase munitions from the United States in the early days of World War II, a looming financial disaster that was averted only by the institution of Lend Lease by President Franklin Roosevelt.

Throughout history, power has flowed not out of the barrel of a gun, as Mao famously claimed. Rather, it has derived from a nation’s ability to amass sufficient funds to prosecute a war. In other words, the ability to buy Mao’s guns and the ammunition that goes with them has been, and remains, the crucial element of any strategic policy.3 As Presidential advisor James Carville famously said, “It’s the economy, stupid,” and in war, this particularly means the financial aspects of the economy. Despite 3,000 years of experience, historians often ignore the financial aspects of warfare. To some degree, this is understandable; after all, it was barely more than a generation ago that most battle and campaign narratives neglected the effects of logistics. Despite general awareness of the old adage, “amateurs talk tactics, while experts talk logistics,” historians still largely ignored logistical concerns, except for the periodic mention of famine-induced disasters. One probable reason for this neglect is that logistical studies are boring, and recounting logistical matters invariably slows down the narrative pace of a campaign history. After all, who really wants to read about how many trains it took to move ammunition to the front in 1916 or the hay consumption rate of one of Marshal Joachim Murat’s cavalry divisions?

If military historians find logistics boring, they find economics and finance are positively “coma-inducing.” Despite their begrudging allowance of logistical concerns into the mainstream of military history, many historians (there are exceptions) are still barring the door to the inclusion of economic matters. Two factors likely explain this neglect: economics lacks drama, and it is difficult to understand. Historians who write of armies sweeping across continents and who paint verbal pictures of brutal battlefield carnage have little desire to delve into the economics that drive the character and form of war. Furthermore, the “dismal science” of economics is not a subject military historians typically have invested much time in learning.5 Unfortunately, this neglect will likely widen, as economics continues on its current path toward pure mathematics and model-based econometrics, while slipping further away from its original moorings within a larger topic of political economy.

ANCIENT WORLD

HERODOTUS, THE FATHER OF HISTORY, or if you believe Plutarch, “the father of lies,” lays out for us that history of the start of the great wars without ever really explaining how relatively insignificant Athens mustered sufficient military force to defeat the fully mobilized might of the Persian Empire. As such, a brief case study examining the relative wherewithal of the two contenders might illuminate why a thorough comprehension of the economic, and particularly financial, context of any conflict is crucial if one is to understand its outcome.

Persia vs. Athens.

The Limits of Power.

In the 5th century BC, Persia was the sole superpower.6 Its land mass covered 7.5 million square miles, reaching from the Aegean Sea to India, and its population was probably in excess of 40 million. Measured against that standard, Athens was feeble.7 All of Attica amounted to less than 4,000 square miles, and in 490 BC possessed probably 150,000 citizens.8 It is no wonder that many historians considered Athens’ stand at Marathon a forlorn hope, and its victory akin to a miracle. What is therefore no less remarkable is that Athens, with a full understanding of Persian wealth and power, still decided to stand against the titan. Or did Athens know something that has mostly been overlooked by later historians?

The first thing to understand about ancient empires is that the latent power that appears available from just a cursory look at the numbers is illusionary. Not discounting the organizational achievements of Darius, it is fair to say that the Roman Empire possessed a superior organization. Despite this, Rome, even at the height of its power, normally maintained less than 2 percent of the empire’s total population under arms, and found that it could only sustain 3 percent mobilization for a limited period of time.9 It is safe to assume that Persia, despite a slightly inferior administrative organization, could maintain an approximately equal percentage of it population under arms.10 It should also be remembered that throughout most of history, the bulk of the population survived at the barest subsistence level, and even the slightest change in conditions could bring on famine. In these societies, every hand was needed in the fields, and only a small proportion would be available for a professional military.11

Two percent of the population of Persia equates to 800,000 men. But remember, this is a high estimate of Persian capabilities, and there is reason to believe that the Persians failed to approach these levels.12 In this regard, another comparison with Rome may be beneficial. In the Roman Empire, approximately half of state revenues went to pay the army.13 However, after Darius’ early years of high expenditures, a large proportion of Persian revenues were simply hoarded. Moreover, Rome paid a high price in political stability, as such large forces concentrated at various points throughout the empire, which provided a constant temptation for their commanders to use them in a bid for ultimate power. Darius, who had come to power by way of a military coup, knew better than anyone the danger of maintaining large standing forces without an external enemy to hold their attention. Therefore, the Persian permanent military establishment was always small and counted on local levies in the event of war. In support of this claim, one only has to look at how long it took to mobilize sufficient forces to crush the relatively minor Ionian Revolt—5 years.

This is not the end of it, though. Persia’s frontiers were not secure. Thrace remained restive, and beyond the Danube, the Scythians were still awaiting any opportunity to damage the empire, while their kin on Persia’s northeastern borders were always ready to sweep down on the Empire’s fertile plains. Keeping these enemies in check required well-garrisoned fortresses, and one suspects a mobile field force sufficiently large to immediately counter any major incursion. Moreover, all the other frontiers ofthe empire also required permanently stationed troops. Further, the Ionian Revolt was a reminder, if any was needed, that there were a number of subject people within the polyglot empire who were looking for any sign of weakness to make their own bid for independence. To forestall this, Darius had to keep a large number of royal garrisons in large cities and at key geographical locations.

Finally, one must never lose sight of the cost and logistical difficulties of sending an expeditionary army far from the center of power. Again, the Roman example is instructive. When Caesar began the conquest of Gaul, he had only four legions, with probably an equal number of auxiliaries, for a total force of about 35,000 men. It is doubtful that he ever had over 50,000 legionaries during the entire war. As another example, when Crassus, set out to conquer the entire Parthian Empire, he led out only 45,000 legionnaires. Even the more resilient and aggressive early Republic had great difficulty sending substantial forces far from Italy. Although Republican Rome could maintain over 100,000 troops facing Hannibal in Italy for 16 years, it strained every resource to maintain a mere 30,000 in nearby Africa for the decisive Zama campaign. In summary, if the most efficient and warlike empire of the ancient world could sustain only 50,000 troops on distant campaigns, can we reasonably expect that the Persians could do much better? That they did manage to double this for Xerxes’ 480 BC campaign reflects that the Persians spent almost half a decade preparing, and that they expected this to be a lightning campaign, which would allow for the demobilization of most of the army in a very short time.14 More than any other factor, the inability of Persia to maintain a large expeditionary force for more than a single campaigning season accounts for Xerxes’ departure with probably half the army, before they had suffered any major setback on land.

When judging how much power Darius could throw against Greece, one must note the fact that the Persian Empire had just finished crushing the Ionians, at a cost that must be judged as catastrophic. Victory had taken over half a decade, and in the process Persia had lost two fleets, and probably had one extensively damaged at the Battle of Lade. Furthermore, the Carians had annihilated one field army, and thousands more Persians must have fallen in other operations. On top of all this, a substantial part of the empire— previously the richest portion—was left in ruins. As this was the region (Ionia) from which the Persians expected to draw the bulk of the support required for an invasion of Greece, its economic devastation was a severe drag on preparations.

On the other side of the equation, the Persians who were preparing for the Marathon expedition were probably able to forgo calling up new and untried levies. The veterans of the Ionian campaigns (probably with a number of defeated Ionians among them) and Mardonius’ earlier campaign in Thrace were still available, and Athens offered them rich booty. As very few of these men would have been survivors of the Carian disaster, this army would have never tasted defeat—an inestimable confidence booster. Inured to hard conditions and familiar with combat, these men would make formidable foes. They did, however, suffer from one serious weakness. They had never faced an army of veteran hoplites in a set-piece battle. That would make all the difference.

Given all of the aforementioned, and extrapolating from the best available estimates of the size of Persian armies during the campaigns in Thrace and Ionia, a supreme Persian effort could have fielded at best 40,000 troops, and possibly as many sailors for a campaign in 490 BC.15 It is almost inconceivable that the Athenians—living in the period, having experienced personally the difficulties of campaigning, and having a number of citizens (not the least of whom was Miltiades) with substantial experience with the Persian army—were not aware of these factors and limitations. Still, 40,000 troops and a similar number of sailors was a substantial force. In fact, it was several times larger than the entire hoplite class of Attica. What advantages did Athens have that convinced its citizens that making a stand would be more than a forlorn-hope?

The most important factor on the credit line was that Athens was going to fight this war on its home court and would therefore be able to mobilize a far higher percentage of its population than Persia. If we accept a total population of Attica of 150,000, that would mean there were about 30,000-35,000 men of combat age.16 Of these, the author estimates that Athens could afford to equip 14,000 of them as hoplites. As there were only 9,000 Athenian hoplites at Marathon, this total requires a defense. First, it is unlikely that the hoplites at Marathon represented all that was available to Athens, although it may have consisted of the best of them. For one thing, there were 4,000 colonists at Chalcis, whom Herodotus tells us were ordered to go to the aid of Eretria when the Persians attacked that city.17 They did not arrive in time, and that is the last Herodotus mentions of them. This represents several thousand hoplites who would not have mustered with any of the 10 tribal regiments at Marathon. In all probability, they were left on the northern frontier to keep watch on Thebes and to harass any Persian move or cavalry raid in that direction. Moreover, the road from Marathon, guarded by the bulk of the Athenian army, was indeed the easiest route to Athens, but not the only one. Other roads and even paths (the Persians proved at Thermopylae that access to a goat path was enough for them to inflict a nasty surprise on an enemy) would have to be strongly garrisoned. The same was true of key positions along the coast, in order to prevent the Persians from making an amphibious end-run around the encamped Athenian army.

However, could Athens afford 14,000 hoplites? The answer is probably yes. During this time, a hoplite was expected to supply his armor and weapons at his own expense. This cost was not insignificant, and was a strong limiting factor in the size of the armies of many Greek cities. However, there were a number of factors that would have made it easier for many of Athens’ citizens to afford the entire hoplite panoply. Foremost among these were the land reforms of Pisistratus. By breaking up numerous large noble estates, he had given thousands of the poor and landless enough property for them to produce a surplus of food for sale in the city. This surplus was sufficient to enable thousands of yeoman farmers to purchase armor and join the privileged ranks of hoplites.18 As Attica transitioned its primary cash crop from grain to olives, the surplus created by trading would have been even greater. Revenues from olive-based trade would also have paid for a number of city and costal dwellers to enter the hoplite class. Furthermore, although the richest veins in the Laurion silver mines were discovered a few years later, the mine was still producing enough silver to allow the government to subsidize some hoplites, if necessary. I have discovered no evidence that the state was giving or loaning cash to purchase armor. There is substantial evidence of numerous loans for farming and other business activities, which amounts to the same thing. It would be odd indeed if a city that had been almost constantly at war for the 2 previous decades (against other Greek city-states) did not do all within its power to increase the size of its main fighting force.

These constant wars had led to at least three battles that Athens won decisively. Although it is hard to guess at total numbers of enemy losses, we know that 700 Thebans were captured in one battle, and it might be assumed that twice that number was killed. Also, the army of Chalcis was beaten severely enough for that city to withdraw immediately, and as it was no longer rated a threat by Athens, it must have demobilized most of its military establishment, i.e., turned over its armor and weapons to Athens. Megara, a city about the same size as Chalcis, was able to field 3,000 hoplites in 480 BC, so that is probably a fair estimate of the size of Chalcis’ army. Finally, the Athenians killed 1,000 Argive hoplites and an unknown number of Aeginetans in battle the year before Marathon. A conservative guess is that, over the years, Athens easily collected enough armor from its enemies to outfit about 8,000 hoplites. From this, it would seem that the normally expensive hoplite panoply was probably available in Athens at drastically reduced prices.19

However, this is not the end of Athens’ mobilization. As the Battle of Marathon was fought after the harvest, the rest of the male population of Attica was also available for military duty. These were mostly the thetes class of poorer citizens, who were used as light troops.20 These light troops were not mentioned by Herodotus as being present at Marathon, but it is unlikely they would have been left behind, particularly as we know an even lower class—slaves—did fight in the battle. Like the contemporary accounts of medieval battles, which habitually left out the contributions of the peasants and foot-soldiers in favor of the daring deeds of the heavy cavalry (knights), Herodotus probably did not believe the participation of these citizens of any account. Although slaves were normally forbidden from participation in combat, they were present at every major battle, and in emergencies, they could be freed and permitted to fight in the ranks.21 Under any circumstances, slaves would have been present to prepare food, rescue wounded men, serve as attendants, and, most importantly, act as baggage carriers and caretakers for the hoplites’ armor.22