III.2. RITUALIZED WAR, ANOTHER BARRIER TO GROWTH

3.2. Ritualized war: barrier to growth  

FIGHTING DRAWS OFF SURPLUS — IN WAYS THAT KEEP DESTRUCTION WITHIN BOUNDS

The Book of Tournaments of René d'Anjou, 15th century, zoom

Trappings force knights to divert income and lessen contests' deadliness by making horses stumble and riders fall.

• African slave raids, controlled violence

• French warfare has similar limits

• Valor: nobles answer nascent capitalists

• Did memory of feudal valor add to the carnage of World War I?

*     *     *

Next,

African slave raids, controlled violence

AFRICAN SLAVE RAIDS, CONTROLLED VIOLENCE

RAIDS DESTROY SOME PRODUCTION, SEIZE A LIMITED NUMBER OF CAPTIVES... AND MAINTAIN IMMUTABILITY

While putting on a tremendous show.

        Zoom

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

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, pp. 487-90.

Proof of limiting slave capture: The Bornu army (in Northern Nigeria) kills adult male prisoners by chopping off a leg.

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

Efficiency, and so the number of captures, is braked by...

• The crowds of civilians who accompany some of the armies. They make rapid movement and manoeuvers impossible, but reinforce the system:

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, p. 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. 

 -- De la Sénégambie français by F. Carrère et P. Jolle, 1855, p. 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, p. 325.  In Senegambia, adversaries advance "in a kind of parade," shoot and retire to reload, each in turn. -- Carrère and Jolle, p. 70.
Using 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) come to the battlefield riding asses, three fighters to an ass, dismount and win.

-- Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile by James Bruce, 1791, III, p. 233;

 Dakar archives, 1 p.892;

More examples in Aubin p. 486, n.197.

     -- Voyage au Soudan français, 1879-81 by the Commandant Galliéni, Paris, 1885, p. 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. 

-- Revue coloniale by H. Héquard, 1852, 2nd series, IX, p. 342.

• Who find using guns 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: H. 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 these appear for the whole savannah belt until the end of the 19th century:

Aubin pp. 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.

-- History of the Yoruba by Samuel Johnson, 1924, p. 24.

• The ineffective "trade guns" come from African demand.

They are manufactured in Birmingham, specifically for the North American Indian and African markets.  

-- The Fur Trade Role in Western Expansion: Indian Trade Guns by Ned Eddins, © 2025.

That choice comes from local demand, which evolves when savannah economies become more commercial and the purpose of slave raids changes (from about 1870, please read on).

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,

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

*     *     *

 Next,

French warfare has similar limits

FRENCH WARFARE HAS SIMILAR LIMITS

IN MEDIEVAL FRANCE WAR AND HUNTING — ACTIVITIES RESERVED TO NOBLES — DESTROY PEASANT SURPLUSES,

WHILE 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: 

• As in parts of Africa, a population follows an army. Wealthy townsmen are present, and the figure in black on the left may be a woman:

Tapestry (detail) Renaissance Museum / Claude Abron

• Louis XIV's army advances only a few kilometers a day because the court accompanies it:

            The Royal Entry of Louis XIV and Marie-Thérèse in Arras in 1667 by Adam van der Meulen, toward 1685 / zoom

 

• 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 cries 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). Attacking Paris on a saint's day is one of the reasons for condemning Joan of Arc.

# # #

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. Sixteenth-century weapons at the Louvre:

Shield of Charles IX (toward 1560)

Elsewhere...  

Marshal Bugeaud during the Conquest of Algeria by Horace Vernet, 1846 / zoom

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. The size of the tents ressembles the hierarchy of royal bivouacs in the African savannah. 

Chronicles, narratives and arts of the time
glorify violence. 
One can suppose that it was everywhere,
and informally muzzled in practice.

*      *      *

 Next,

Valor: Nobles answer nascent capitalists

VALOR: NOBLES ANSWER NASCENT CAPITALISTS

WARRIORS SPRING UP IN FRENCH ART WHEN CAPITALISM ACCELERATES AND AND POTENTIAL CHALLENGERS SPRING UP

(TOWARD 1500)

Society is legally separated into three estates. The first, the clergy, pray. The third, commoners, work. And the second, nobles to protect, that is, fight. So warfare and valor are glorified.*

*For other ways in which they dominate, please click.

• Roman attire idealizes even mercenaries: 

Soldiers' Pay (detail), tapestry, Château d'Ecouen (Renaissance Museum), museum publication 

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

Claude Abron

• The ideal this horseman expresses has no monetary goal:

Château d'Ecouen, museum publication

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

Maurice Leloir in Richelieu by Thédore Cahu, 1903

Valor affirms nobles' superiority
over the prosaic, penny-pinching... 
and ascendant middle class.

*     *     * 

Next,

 Did memory of feudal valor 

add to the carnage of World War I?

DID MEMORY OF FEUDAL VALOR ADD TO THE CARNAGE OF WORLD WAR 1?

THE IDEAL WAS TRANSMITTED, THE BRAKES WERE NOT

The cult of frontal mass attacks — "l'offensive à l'outrance" —  

dominated France's High Command from the start of the war in August 2014 to April 1917, though barbed wire and machine guns made significant success impossible. 

 A tattered poster found at a flea market. The battle of Verdun (February-December 1916) was the longest and one of the most murderous of World War I.

Most French army officers were nobles, and had grown up with the emphasis on valor.

  

  

The Splendors of Glory

The baron of Mortemart* Boisse, Captain of the 2nd Infanterie

"My friends, let us arm our comrades with the muskets of the enemy!" 

* Descendant of a ninth-century feudal lord.

Carrying the flag into battle recalled the Crusades.

Crusaders Conquering the City of Zadra in 1202 by Andrea Vincinto, toward 1600 / zoom

Uniforms were decorative and dangerous, like the accoutrements of knights.

Magazine cover, April 1915 (also found in a flea market)

• No helmets: caps only, for cheering.

• Red trousers, 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.

One-fourth of young French noblemen

 were killed in World War I.

# # #

Does feudal admiration for 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, p. 48.

The small farms that underlie France's relatively slow industrialisation help explain the 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);  Les fusillés by Yves Boissent (2015).

The plots of these movies take place

 before the mutinies of 1917:

A choice? 

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

*       *      * 

Next chapter,
IV.

Africa: Why choose a backwater?