Walter Emil Kaegi, Jr.

Some Thoughts on Byzantine Military Strategy

© Hellenic College Press, Brookline, Massachusetts, 1983

 

Page 7

The unknown is always a part of warfare and in the usually slow-paced and poorly informed world of the sixth century, it exercised a strong influence on the course of warfare. The Vandals' absolute lack of information about the dispatch and arrival of warships of a Byzantine expeditionary force under the Byzantine general Belisarios contributed heavily to the victorious Byzantine campaign in Africa in 533-534. Such total surprise is rare in warfare, and it was not repeated on such a scale in the reign of Justinian. But the unknown, or unexpected, sometimes fortified by false information, remained. The masking of intentions, the employment of ruses and deceptions attained a level of perfection under Belisarios that later Byzantine captains never equalled.

Long distances and slow communications combined to affect the armies of Justinian. It was difficult to make intelligent decisions which had been filtered through many persons. The absence of Justinian from the field -- following the precedent of eastern emperors ever since the death of Theodosios I in 395 -- required him to entrust the decision making to generals who sometimes even acted as diplomats plenipotentiary. Distances and slow communications contributed to organizational problems, some of which were not unique to the reign of Justinian: procurement, distribution and maintenance of arms and equipment, provisions, delegation of author ity and the deployment of soldiers and horses.

It was difficult to enforce commands. Generals did not always recognize each other's competence and authority. They sometimes even refused to cooperate in the execution of military operations. Most commanders confronted this problem, even Belisarios, Dissension between commanders existed throughout Late Roman and Byzantine history, but it reached one of its peaks in the reign of Justinian. The surprise attack by Justinian on the Vandal kingdom in 533 was an exceptional campaign which resulted in a swift and decisive mil itary victory. Most wars in the reign of Justinian, however, were protracted and characterized by frequent avoidance of decisive and potentially bloody battles. The reasons for the dominance of this protracted mode of warfare, even though many of its practitioners were mounted, were complex, but among them was the finite amount of available resources, that is, men and material.

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