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name="CHAPTER V" id="CHAPTER V">

CHAPTER V

MORALE IN ANCIENT BATTLE

We now know the morale and mechanism of ancient fighting; the word mêlée employed by the ancients was many times stronger than the idea to be expressed; it meant a crossing of arms, not a confusion of men.

The results of battles, such as losses, suffice to demonstrate this, and an instant of reflection makes us see the error of the word mêlée. In pursuit it was possible to plunge into the midst of the fugitives, but in combat every one had too much need for the next man, for his neighbor, who was guarding his flanks and his back, to let himself be killed out of sheer wantonness by a sure blow from within the ranks of the enemy. [22]

In the confusion of a real mêlée, Caesar at Pharsalus, and Hannibal at Cannae, would have been conquered. Their shallow ranks, penetrated by the enemy, would have had to fight two against one, they would even have been taken in rear in consequence of the breaking of their ranks.

Also has there not been seen, in troops equally reliable and desperate, that mutual weariness which brings about, with tacit accord, falling back for a breathing spell on both sides in order again to take up the battle?

How can this be possible with a mêlée?

With the confusion and medley of combatants, there might be a mutual extermination, but there would not be any victors. How would they recognize each other? Can you conceive two mixed masses of men or groups, where every one occupied in front can be struck with impunity from the side or from behind? That is mutual extermination, where victory belongs only to survivors; for in the mix-up and confusion, no one can flee, no one knows where to flee.

After all, are not the losses we have seen on both sides demonstration that there was no real mêlée?

The word is, therefore, too strong; the imagination of painters' and poets' has created the mêlé

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