III.2. RITUALIZED WARFARE, A BARRIER TO GROWTH

3.2. RITUALIZED WAR BRAKES GRWTH   

FIGHTING DRAWS OFF PEASANT SURPLUS AND THE WEALTH OF NOBLES AND KINGS 

That explains pre-capitalist societies' martial emphasis, but how it worked limited destruction in practice.

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

Trappings divert income.

• African slave raids, controlled violence

• European warfare had comparable limits

• Valor: nobles react to nascent capitalists

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

*     *     *

Next,

3.2.1.

 African slave raids, controlled violence

3.2.1. TRADITIONAL SLAVE RAIDS LIMIT VIOLENCE

Full account, Aubin, pp. 487-90

THE ANNUAL DRY-SEASON RAIDS SOUGHT ONLY THE NUMBER OF CAPTIVES THAT ELITES COULD USE, SINCE A SURPLUS WOULD HAVE TO BE MAINTAINED OR SOLD

If the latter independent producers would buy them, and increase their labor force, production, sales and threat.

• Captives were mainly women and children:

In what is now Mali, 1892 / zoom

Drawings of captives show mainly women, this one with a child in the background.

• The army of Bornu (in northeastern Nigeria) killed male prisoners by cutting off a leg. 

The explorer Heinrich Barth, who accompanied the expedition and is detailed and reliable, mentions that killing without comment.

-- .Narrative of a voyage in North and Central Africa, 1855, II, pp. 324-86.

*    *

Captures were braked by..

• The crowds that accompanied armies between the Niger and Ethiopia. They made rapid movement impossible but reinforced the system: Bivouacs represented palace, capital and kingdom, or the head, hands and feet of the king.

  -- Aubin, p. 487; references, n.198.

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

The tents in the background recall the hierarchy of royal camps in the African savannah (I did not find  illustrations of sub-Saharan camps).

• Attacking villages from one side only (in Cayor, Senegal) allowed flight and spared harvests. 

 -- De la Sénégambie français by F. Carrère et P. Jolle, 1855, p. 70.

	Ritual that slowed things down.  The Ashanti (in Ghana) considered only one day in three propitious for war. They halted an advance that threatened the English to avoid fighting 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 advanced "in a kind of parade," shooting and retiring to reload, each in turn.-                                                                                                                               -- Carrère and Jolle (above), p. 70.
Horses were used for prestige and show, for individual exploits, to tower over foot soldiers — or to flee. Instagram, Presenta Barman Should victory matter, warriors might fight on foot —  Galla (in Ethiopia) dismounted, "fought desperately for their lives" and won ; Mossi (in Burkina Faso) came to the battlefield riding asses, three fighters to an ass, dismounted and won. -- Galla, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile by James Bruce, 1791, III, p. 233  Mossi, Dakar archives, 1 p.89  More examples in Aubin p. 486, n.197 Bullets from "trade guns," which were made in Birmingham on African demand, did not pierce wooden shields, or even a European officer's uniform when shot from 20 yards. Throwing stones worked better. -- Wooden shields, uniform: Voyage en Afrique occidentale by A. Raffenel, 1846, I, 28 -- Stones: Travels and Discoveries in North Central Africa by H. Barth, 1865 ed., II, 393 Comments similar to these appear for the whole savannah belt until the end of the 19th century: Aubin pp. 487-9, n. 195-199

• Those guns were accessories: a dandy and a man who works in the fields

   

Voyage au Soudan français (Haut-Niger et pays de Ségou en 1879-81) by Commander Gallieni

• Like horses, muskets could be cast aside when victory counted: In Nigeria, Oyo troops overcame those of Ibadan by throwing away their guns and charging with sabres.

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

• Efficiency used traditional ways: A hunter shot five arrows in succession with such speed and precision that several seemed to strike the target at the same time.

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

*    *

Martial show reinforced the ruler and guns smoke and fracas fit right in:

Mossi king (in Burkino Fasso) with his cavalry, 1892.

Sallah festival in Bauchi, 1973 / zoom

End of Ramadan: same idea.

 

     Second Visit to Discover the Sources of the Nile by John Speke,1864

Gallieni account (above)

*   *

But the raids themselves were not supposed

to succeed too well —

"We only want to keep you in your 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,

3.2.2. 

European warfare had comparable limits

3.2.2. EUROPEAN WARFARE HAD COMPARABLE LIMITS

THERE TOO VIOLENCE DESTROYS PEASANTS' SALEABLE SURPLUS AND STRENGTHENS HIERARCHY

Hunting, reserved to nobles, limits saleable peasant production by trampling fields. It is a prelude to fighting, where after wasting their own revenues on horses and show, the former high-born opponents feast and intermarry.

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

 -- 1950's schoolbook

 "The great occupation of Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, is war. He often fights neighboring lords."

Controlled violence helps things stay as they are.

*    *

As in Africa crowds hamper army movement while emphasizing the king: 

•  Here wealthy townsmen are present and the figure in black on the left is a woman:

Tapestry (detail) Renaissance Museum / Claude Abron

• The court of Louis XIV does not accompany campaigns, which are real fights. But it does accompany his  visit to conquered towns in (in 1667 and 1672). 

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

The population comes to watch (notice also the king's white horses).

• Corteges are arranged with the same insistence on hierarchy as those of Africa, plus waste (which the brief accounts on Africa do not mention):

The king, who had traveled for war on horseback, now for the first time went by coach  

 [...]. The queen, Madame his sister-in-law, the marquise de Montespan, splendidly surrounded, was followed by many others; [...] The dauphin came next with his court, Mademoiselle with her own [...]. The crown's most sumptuous furniture was carried to the towns where one slept.  

One found in each town a masked ball or fireworks. All the king's wartime household accompanied him and all his servants preceded or followed. Meals were like those at  Toute la maison de guerre accompagnait le roi et toute la maison de service précédait ou Saint-Germain [a palace]. The court visited all the conquered towns with that pomp. The main ladies of Brussels, of Ghent, came to see that magnificence; the king invited them to his table; he gave them presents of great gallantry. All officers of garrisoned troops received gratifications. It cost several times fifteen hundred gold louis by day in liberalities. 

-- The Century of Louis XIV by Voltaire, ed. 2015, p. 436..

• More on hierarchy: when Louise de la Vallière, the favorite whom the king was abandoning, joined him uninvited and rushed down the hill to meet him, he furiously cried, "What! You ride before the queen!" 

*     *

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 as in Africa. They add show, allow exploits and let nobles tower over the commoners who are much more likely to be wounded or killed:

Battle of Montecatini, Tuscany, 1315 /zoom

There too they are used for flight and there too, horsemen dismount 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 (toward 1560)

Sixteenth-century weapons at the Louvre

*     *

In the same spirit as martial dances in Africa,

chronicles, narratives and arts of the time
glorify a violence that
— except for the religious wars of the 16th century

and the Thirty Years' War of the 17th — 

was usually muzzled in practice.

*      *      *

 Next,

3.2.3.

Valor: Nobles react to nascent capitalists

3.2.3. VALOR: NOBLES REACT TO NASCENT CAPITALISTS

WHEN EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES LED TO A CAPITALISM THAT WAS MUCH MORE DYNAMIC, NOBLES FOUND NEW WAYS TO SHOW THEMSELVES SUPERIOR  

(FROM ABOUT 1500)

One was to associate themselves with heroes of mythology and antiquity. Another stressed their martial valor.*

*Fighting was their God-given function in a society where the population into three legal categories: the clergy to pray, commoners to work and nobles to fight.

They alone had the means to own horses and their battlefield exploits alone were considered heroic...

 A battle of the Spanish Reconquista, 1405 (painting a decade later) / zoom

The heroes are a king and a Crusader, backed by horsemen, who are nobles by definition. Helmets identify a line of foot soldiers, whose faces are not shown (as was the case for humble combattants generally. The faces of ordinary fighters do not appear until those at top of the Arc de Triomphe, which are deliberately hard-to-see).

They often wear armor for their portraits:

Portrait of a Young General by Anthony van Dyck, 1624

The Count of Vaudreuil by François-Hubert Drouais, 1758 / zoom (the map is of Saint-Domingue, where he was a plantation owner and governor).

A shield-wielding combattant hovers over a château chimney, the most prestigious spot in a glacial salon:

Claude Abron

An ideal without monetary goal:

Château d'Ecouen, museum publication

*    *

Dueling appears at the same time as emphasis on antiquity and valor. One throws away one's life as one does one's wealth, with panache: 

Maurice Leloir in Richelieu by Thédore Cahu, 1903

*     *

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

*     *     * 

Next,

3.2.4. 

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