3. 2. RITUALIZED WARFARE, ANOTHER BARRIER TO GROWTH

3.2. Ritualized war and status quo

FIGHTING DRAWS OFF PEASANT SURPLUS 
AND KINGS' AND NOBLES' WEALTH  

That explains why primitive societies' emphasis on fighting -- 
but warfare works in a way that
keeps destruction within bounds 

The book of tournaments of René d'Anjou, 15th century

The trappings force knights to divert income. They also lessen the contests' deadliness by making horses stumble and riders fall.

• African slave raids, controlled violence

• In France, warfare with comparable limits

• Valor, nobles' reply to nascent capitalists?

• Feudal valor, a reason for the carnage of World War I?

*     *     *

Next,

African slave raids, controlled violence

AFRICAN SLAVE RAIDS, CONTROLLED VIOLENCE

THEY DESTROY SOME PRODUCTION,

SEIZE A LIMITED NUMBER OF CAPTIVES...

AND STRENGTHEN THE STATUS QUO

Capturing too many slaves would lower their price. 

Then local producers would acquire them,

and increase their labor force, revenues and menace  

This page summarizes the description of warfare in Aubin,
Wars of  lineage and  and wars of state in Africa ,1982, 487-90, in French

Awful proof of the limit placed on slave capture:
The Bornu army (in Northern Nigeria) 

kills adult male prisoners by chopping off a leg 

-- In the description Heinrich Barth,
an explorer who accompanies the expedition:
Narrative of a voyage in North and Central Africa, 1855, II, 324-86

Northern Nigeria, Internet

The king's horsemen emphasize his glory -- and disperse his revenues.

• Efficiency
-- and so the number of captures --

is braked by...

° Crowds of civilians accompanying armies,
who make rapid movement and manoeuvers impossible 

In parts of Mali, Northern Nigeria, Chad, Darfur and Ethiopia, much of the capitals' population join the campaigns.

Bivouacs are organized to represent palace, capital and kingdom, or the head, hands and feet of the king.

  -- Aubin, 487; references, n.198

° Attacking villages from one side only

In Cayor (Senegal) that practice keeps most of the victims' harvest from being trampled, and lets villagers flee. 

 -- F. Carrère et P. Jolle, De la Senégambie française, 1855, 70

	° Using ritual to slow things down  The Ashanti consider only one day in three propitious for war. They halt an advance that threatens the English, so as not to fight on an unfavorable day.  -- Emmanuel Terray, "La captivité dans le royaume abron du Gyaman" in L'esclavage en Afrique précoloniale, ed. Claude Meillassoux, 1975, 325  In Senegambia, adversaries advance "in a kind of parade," shoot and retire to reload, each in turn. -- Carrère and Jolle, 70
° Employing horses for prestige, show --  and flight

They let nobles exhibit sumptuous accoutrements, perform individual exploits and tower over commoners. But they are not used for rapid advance or to surround and annihilate the enemy.  

If the leader is captured or killed, riders bolt.

Should victory matter, horsemen may fight on foot -- when Galla (in Ethiopia) are ordered to dismount, "they fought desperately for their lives" and win; Mossi (in Burkina Faso) they come to the battlefield riding asses, three fighters to an ass, dismount and win.

-- James Bruce, Travels to discover the source of the Nile, 1791, III, 233;

 Dakar archives, 1892;

More examples in Aubin 486, n. 197

Voyage au Soudan français, 1879-81 by the Commandant Galliéni, Paris, 1885: 127

The fete contrasts the wild cavalry charge with foot soldiers' discipline.

° Using firearms to limit success

* The efficiency of traditional weapons

 amazes Europeans...

A hunter shoots five arrows in succession with such speed and precision that several appear to strike the target at the same time. 

-- H. Héquard in the Revue coloniale, 1852, 2nd series, IX, 342.

* ...who consider gun use absurd

Throwing stones would be more effective than shooting, and bullets do not pierce wooden shields or even European uniforms -- an officer is merely knocked down by a bullet shot at 20 meters.

-- Stones: Heinrich Barth, Travels and discoveries in North Central Africa, 1865 ed. II, 393;

-- Uniform: A. Raffenel, Voyage en Afrique occidentale, 1846, I, 28
Comments similar to this and to that above appear for the whole savannah belt
 until the end of the 19th century.

Aubin 487-9, n. 195-199

Like horses, firearms can be cast aside when victory counts -- in Nigeria, Oyo troops overcome those of Ibadan by throwing away their guns and charging with sabres.

-- Samuel Johnson, History of the Yoruba, 1924, 241

* The ineffective "trade guns" 
come from African demand

They are manufactured in Birmingham, specifically for the North American Indian and African markets. That choice does not come from Europeans but from local demand, which evolves when savannah economies become more commercial and the purpose of slave raids changes (from about 1870, please read on).  

The article mentions Indians' similar choice, without comment. 

* Muskets' smoke and fracas  

contribute to war as a ritual,

whose purpose is to keep things as they are

Raids must not succeed too well --

"We only want to keep you in your little corner."

-- Noble raiders to producers of crops for market in Mauretania toward 1790

in M. Lamiral, L'Afrique et le peuple africain, 1789, 85

*     *     *

 Next,

In France, warfare with comparable curbs

IN FRANCE, WARFARE WITH COMPARABLE CURBS

IN MEDIEVAL FRANCE WAR AND HUNTING
-- SPORTS RESERVED TO NOBLES --  
DESTROY PEASANT SURPLUSES
AND THE COST OF ARMOR, HORSES AND TRAPPINGS DISPERSES THEIR OWN WEALTH

But as in Africa,
fighting takes place in a way that limits destruction  

War and hunting
The great occupation of Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, is war.

 He often fights neighboring lords. 

Count Geoffrey's great pleasure is hunting.
In chasing his prey, he tramples peasants' harvests.

 -- 1950's schoolbook

•   Crowds hamper army movement

while emphasizing the king

° The tent in the background 

shows that the parade is part of a campaign.

 Wealthy townsmen are present, 

and the figure in black on the left may be a woman

Sixteenth-century tapestry, Renaissance Museum, museum publication

° The Sun King's army 

advances only a few kilometers a day 

because the court accompanies it

The royal entry Louis XIV and Marie-Thérèse in Arras in 1667 by Adam Frans van der Meulen, chateau of Versailles

* Bring women:
The queen, his official favorite (Louise de Vallière) and her rival (Madame de Montespan) ride in his coach: the population thinks he has three wives. 

* A march based on rank:
On another occasion, Louis does not invite Louise. She comes regardless and charges down the hill on horseback to him. "What! You ride before the queen!" he says furiously.  

* Social events:
The Duchess of Montpensier's love story begins on one of those campaigns.

 • Medieval fighting stops on holidays,

which take up one day in three

(for the Ashanti, two days in three)

Among the reasons for condemning Joan of Arc is her attacking Paris on a saint's day. 

• Horses are used for flight,

dismounting for victory...

In that way 12th-century English knights defeat their astounded opponents.

 -- The pillars of the earth,
historical novel by Ken Follett, 1989

• Arms can be for show,

not combat

Shield of Charles IX (c.1560), Louvre; other photos, also Louvre, same epoch

• Elsewhere...  

Marshal Bugeaud during the conquest of Algeria by Horace Vernet, 1846, chateau of Versailles

Abd-el-Kader, the leader of Arab opposition to the French, moves about with several thousand people, including families, as do royal African campaigns. 

His camp appears in the background, mirroring the hierarchy of bivouacs in the African savannah.

Chronicles, narratives and works of art
glorify violence. 
One can suppose that it was everywhere
(informally) muzzled in practice.

*      *      *

 Next,

Valor, nobles' reply to nascent capitalists?

VALOR, NOBLES' REPLY TO NASCENT CAPITALISTS?

WARRIORS SPRING UP IN FRENCH ART
WHEN CAPITALISM ACCELERATES
(Toward 1500)

Nobles' function is to fight --

as commoners' is to work and the clergy's to pray:

So warfare and valor are glorified

• Roman attire idealizes even mercenaries 

Soldiers' pay (detail), tapestry, Renaissance Museum, museum publication 

• The shield-wielding combattant 
hovers over the chimney,
the dominant spot 
in a salon that was impossible to heat

Jacob and Esau, Chateau d'Écouen (Renaissance Museum) / Claude Abron

• The ideal this horseman expresses

is not concerned with concrete goals

Renaissance Museum, museum publication

• Duelling, 
another sport reserved for nobles,

appears at the same time:
One throws away one's life
as one does one's wealth,
with panache 

Maurice Leloir

Valor lets aristocrats affirm their superiority
over the prosaic, penny-pinching... 
and ascendant middle class.

*     *     * 

Next,

Feudal valor, a reason for the carnage of World War I?

FEUDAL VALOR, A REASON FOR THE CARNAGE OF WORLD WAR 1?

THE IDEAL OF VALOR WAS TRANSMITTED.
THE BRAKES ON IT WERE NOT

The cult of frontal mass attacks

 -- "l'offensive à l'outrance" --

dominated France's High Command through April 1917,

though barbed wire and machine guns

made significant success impossible

Poster of the time

• Nobles dominated the army and... 

° Carrying the flag into battle recalls the Crusades

Medieval manuscript

° Emphasis on glory is aristocratic
  

Title: "The splendors of glory" Hero: "The baron..."

° Uniforms are decorative and dangerous,
as were the accoutrements of knights

Magazine cover, April 1915

* No helmets (caps only, for cheering).

* Red trouser, ideal targets.

* The uniform was adopted in 1830, when shots that covered only 200 meters made concealment pointless. But when a change to grey-green was proposed in 1912, the  Minister of War bellowed, "the red trousers are France!"

-- The guns of August by Barbara Tuchman, 1979

* In August 1915 the color did change -- to light blue.

• Does the feudal tradition of reckless courage
explain four years of hopeless attacks

by the European armies,
and their initial rejection of tanks? 

Americans, on the other hand, changed strategy after a single blood bath (the battle of Belleau Wood, in July 1918): but they had no nobles or feudal past.

The least sensible uniforms and most lyrical declarations were French. An attempt to make the absurd doctrine rational: emphasis on élan, the wish to win, and cran, courage, as replies to Germany's greater population and more advanced industry. 

-- Tuchman, 48

The small farms that underlie France's relatively slow industrialisation are a better explanation of an ancestral mentality's persistence.  

 The offensives stop only when mutinies
 affect half the French army

Paths of glory

Three films deal with shootings "as examples:" Paths of glory by Stanley Kubrick (1957, forbidden in France until 1975),  Pantalon (1997, French video) and Les fusillés by Yves Boissent (2015).

The plots of these movies take place before 1917:
The mutinies have still not been brought up directly. 

End of this chapter.
The next chapters apply the economic and anthropological approach
to transformations in Africa and France.

*       *      * 

Next chapter,
V, 3. 
Growth and African cycles of stability and war