I want to bring to everyone's attention an important post today by Brian Tamanaha of Balkinization on how rulers of old conducted wars versus how modern leaders do it.
Tamanaha quotes from Martin van Creveld (in The Rise and Decline of the State), and it is such an illuminating passage that I repeat it below:
"Having defeated their rivals by one method or another, the monarchs soon began to change the way they did business and presented themselves to the world. One of the earliest, and most important, changes took place in the military field. Owing partly to the personal nature of politics, partly to the knightly ethos, medieval rulers had normally commanded their armies in person and often fought hand to hand in the front ranks. Consequently casualties among them were by no means rare: some died; others were taken prisoner and had to be ransomed. For example, both the king of France and his heir were captured at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. James IV of Scotland was killed at Flodden in 1513; as already noted, the Battle of Pavia in 1525 ended with the capture of King Francis I of France. Not to be outdone, Francis' rival Charles V fought hand to hand in front of the walls of Tunis and had several horses killed under him....
"By contrast Charles' prudent son Philip II preferred to direct the far-flung campaigns by bureaucratic methods, relying on field commanders whom he selected from the highest nobility and surrounded with closely worded letters of instruction. By the time of the Thirty Years War his approach had come to be shared by most of the principal monarchs....During the eighteenth century, the decline of the number of royal field commanders continued....
"To compensate themselves for the lost joys of battle, some eighteenth-century monarchs, especially Louis XIV, would present themselves at the end of a siege, assume formal command, and put on heroic airs."
Tamanaha then goes on to compare the bravado of the Sun King, Louis XIV, with that of George W. Bush in proclaiming mission accomplished after landing all decked up in a military flight suit.
"That last bit sounds like President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" moment on the aircraft carrier. There is something to be said for the long lost "knightly ethos." Wars are easier to start and continue when one's own life is not on the line."
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