Outcome of the Battle of Moscow Despite the failure of the general offensive, the victory won by Zhukov near Moscow secured him a very special status, a special place in history. In the thirty-two months that World War II was going on, he became the first general to defeat Hitler's armies. AND

Continuation of the diffusion battle On January 6, 1948, the Special Committee considered the "Report of the head of laboratory No. 4 of the Research Institute-9 of the First Main Directorate under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, prof. Lange on the implementation of the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of December 17. brya 1945 ". Fritz Fritsevich Lange reported that

10. Battles for the Caucasus and Stalingrad Despite the powerful preparations, starting from May 1942, there was a whole series of catastrophic defeats of the Red Army, caused by the desire of our commanders to attack everywhere and at once, which led to an unjustified dispersal of forces and

The problem of assessing losses is, first of all, the problem of assessing sources, especially since the chronicles were almost the only sources until the XIV century. Only for the late Middle Ages more objective clerical reports and, occasionally, archaeological data become available (for example, information about the Danish-Swedish battle of 1361 near Visby was confirmed by the discovery of 1185 skeletons during excavations of 3 of 5 ditches in which the dead were buried).

Chronicles, in turn, cannot be interpreted correctly without understanding the psychology of that time.

The European Middle Ages professed two concepts of war. In the era of "developed feudalism" (XI-XIII centuries), they existed de facto, in the late Middle Ages, military treatises appeared that directly and explicitly expounded and studied them (for example, the work of Philippe de Mezieres, 1395).

The first was the "mortelle", "deadly" war, the "fire and blood" war, in which all "cruelty, murder, inhumanity" were tolerated and even systematically prescribed. In such a war, it was necessary to use all forces and techniques against the enemy, in battle it was necessary not to take prisoners, to finish off the wounded, to catch up and beat the fleeing. It was possible to torture high-ranking prisoners in order to obtain information, kill enemy messengers and heralds, violate agreements when it was beneficial, etc. Similar behavior was tolerated in relation to the civilian population. In other words, the greatest possible extermination of the "trash" was proclaimed as the main valor. Naturally, these are primarily wars against "infidels", pagans and heretics, but also wars against violators of the "established by God" social order. In practice, wars against formally Christians, but sharply different in terms of national, cultural or social characteristics, also approached this type.

The second concept was "guerroyable" war. "chivalrous", "guerre loyale" ("fair war"), waged between "good warriors", which was to be waged in accordance with the "droituriere justice d" armes "(" direct right of arms ") and" discipline de chevalerie ", ( In such a war, the knights measured strength among themselves, without interference from the "auxiliary personnel", observing all the rules and conventions. The purpose of the battle was not to physically destroy the enemy, but to find out the strength of the parties. Capture or put a knight to flight. the opposite side was considered more honorable and "noble" than to kill him.

We add on our own that capturing a knight was economically much more profitable than killing him - you could get a large ransom.

In essence, the "knightly war" was a direct descendant of the ancient German concept of war as a "divine judgment", but humanized and ritualized under the influence of the Christian church and the general growth of civilization.

Some digression will be appropriate here. As you know, the Germans viewed the battle as a kind of judicial process (judicium belli), revealing the "truth" and "right" of each of the parties. Characteristic is the speech put by Gregory of Tours in the mouth of a certain Frank Gondovald: "God will judge when we come together on the battlefield, whether I am a son or not a son of Clotar." From today's point of view, this method of "establishing paternity" seems anecdotal, but for the Germans it was quite rational. Indeed, in fact, Gondovald claimed not to establish the "biological fact" of paternity (which at that time was simply impossible), but to material and legal rights arising from this fact. And the battle was to determine whether he possesses the necessary strength and ability to retain and exercise these rights.

On a more private level, the same approach manifested itself in the custom of a "judicial duel," whereby a healthy man was obliged to defend himself, and a woman or an old man could appoint a substitute. It is noteworthy that the replacement of a duel with a wergeld was perceived by early medieval public opinion not as a sign of the "humanization" of society, but as a sign of "corruption of morals" worthy of all condemnation. Indeed, in the course of a judicial duel, a stronger and more skilled warrior prevailed, therefore, a more valuable member of the tribe, already by virtue of this more deserving, from the point of view of public benefit, to possess the disputed property or rights. The "monetary" solution of the dispute could give an advantage to a less valuable and necessary tribe person, albeit one who possesses great wealth due to some accident or low character of his character (inclination to hoarding, cunning, bargaining, etc.), that is, it did not stimulate "valor" and "vice". It is not surprising that with such views, a judicial duel in various forms (including martial arts) was able to survive among the Germanic peoples until the end of the Middle Ages and even survive them, turning into a duel.

Finally, the Germanic origin of the concept of "knightly" war can be seen at the linguistic level. In the Middle Ages, the Latin designation for war, bellum, and the Germanic one, werra (which became the French guerre) were not synonyms, but designations for two different types of war. Bellum was applied to the official, “total” interstate war declared by the king. Werra originally defined war as the realization of "faida," family blood feud, and "divine judgment" under customary law.

Let's return now to the chronicles, the main source of information about losses in medieval battles. It hardly needs to be proved that in the overwhelming majority of cases the chronicle is not an objective "clerical" document, but rather a semi-artistic "panegyric-didactic" work. But you can glorify and teach on the basis of different, even opposite preconditions: in one case, these goals serve to emphasize ruthlessness towards the "enemies of faith and order", in the other - "chivalry" in relations with "noble" opponents.

In the first case, it is important to emphasize that the "hero" beat the "infidels" and "villains" as best he could, and achieved significant success in this; hence tens of thousands of murdered Saracens or commoners appear in the chronicles of "deadly" wars. The record holder for this part is considered to be the description of the battle on the Salado River in 1341 (the last major attempt of the African Moors to invade Spain): 20 knights killed by Christians and 400,000 killed by Muslims.

Modern researchers emphasize that although it is impossible to understand literally exaggerated figures "20,000", "100,000", "400,000" "crusader" chronicles (killed "pagans" were rarely counted), they have a certain semantic load, since they convey the scale and significance of the battle in understanding of the chronicler and, most importantly, serve as psychologically accurate evidence that this is precisely a "mortal" battle.

On the contrary, in relation to the "knightly" war, that is, the ritualized "divine judgment" within the knightly estate, a large number of killed "brothers" of the victor can in no way put him in a favorable light, testify to his generosity and "correctness". According to the concepts of that time, the military leader who put to flight or captured the noble adversaries, and did not arrange their extermination, looked more "chivalrous". Moreover, taking into account the tactics of that time, the large losses of the enemy imply that the knights knocked out of the saddle or wounded, instead of being captured, sought commoner bollards walking behind - a shameful behavior according to the concepts of that time. That is, here a good chronicler had to strive rather to underestimate the losses among the knights, including the enemy.

Unfortunately, historians-"minimalists", while rightly criticizing the clearly inflated figures, did not take into account the other side of the coin - that in a different psychological situation the "poets" -chroniclers could be just as inclined to underestimate losses (since "objectivity" in the modern sense they were all the same alien). After all, if you think about it, 3 killed French knights out of one and a half thousand after three hours of close hand-to-hand combat at Bouvin (1214) are no more plausible than 100 thousand killed Muslims at Las Navas de Tolos.

As a standard of "bloodless battles" of the XII-XIII centuries, such as those at Tanshbre (1106), when only one knight was allegedly killed from the French side, at Bremuel (1119), when out of 900 knights who participated in the battle were killed only 3 with 140 prisoners, or under Lincoln (1217), when only 1 knight died among the victors (out of 400), among the defeated - 2 with 400 prisoners (out of 611). A characteristic statement by the chronicler Orderic Vitalis about the Battle of Bremuelle: “I found that only three were killed there, because they were covered with iron and mutually spared each other, both out of fear of God and because of brotherhood in arms (notitia contubernii); they tried not to kill the fugitives, but to take them prisoner. Truly, as Christians, these knights did not thirst for the blood of their brothers and rejoiced in an honest victory provided by God himself ... ". It can be believed that in these cases the losses were small. But are such battles the most typical of the Middle Ages? In fact, this is only one category of them, significant, but not predominant. They were attended by knights of the same class, religion and nationality, who, by and large, did not really care who would become their supreme overlord - one contender or another, Capetian or Plantagenet.

However, in battles of this type, such low losses are possible only if the opponents deliberately spared each other, avoiding fatal blows and finishing off, and in a difficult situation (being wounded or knocked out of the saddle) they easily surrendered, instead of fighting to the end ... The knightly method of individual close-to-hand combat allows for a "dosage of damaging action". However, the same method can be extremely bloody - if the opponents intend to act not only in full force, but also merciless to each other. It is extremely difficult to break away from an aggressive enemy and escape in a close combat situation.

Confirmation of the latter is the mutually destructive Muslim crusading battles in the Middle East and Spain - they took place at the same time and with the participation of the same knights that fought at Bremuel and Lincoln, but here the chroniclers count losses in thousands, tens and even hundreds of thousands (for example, 4 thousand crusaders and obviously exaggerated 30 thousand Turks under Doriley in 1097, 700 crusaders and 7 thousand Saracens under Arzuf in 1191, etc.). Often they ended with the total extermination of the defeated army, regardless of class rank.

Finally, many European battles of the XII-XIII centuries are, as it were, an intermediate character between "knightly" and "mortal" ones, adjoining now the first, now the second type. Obviously, these are battles, to which a strong national feeling was mixed and in which foot militias of commoners (usually townspeople) actively participated. There are few such battles, but they are usually the largest battles.

The battle of 1214 at Bouvin, which was mentioned above, adjoins the "knightly" type. She is known from three sources - a detailed rhymed chronicle of Guillaume le Breton "Philippida", a similar poetic chronicle of Philippe Musquet, as well as an anonymous chronicle from Bethune. It is noteworthy that all three sources are French, and their preferences are visible to the naked eye. This is especially true of the most detailed chronicles of le Breton and Musquet - it seems that the authors competed in writing laudatory odes to their king Philip Augustus (the first of them was Philip's personal chaplain).

It is from the poems of le Breton and Musquet that we learn that 3 French and 70 German knights (with a minimum of 131 prisoners) perished for 1200-1500 participants on each side at Bouvin. Delbrück and his followers take these loss figures as axioms. Later Verbruggen suggests that about 170 knights were killed by the allies (since the memorial inscription in the church of St. Nicholas in Arras says about 300 killed or captured enemy knights, 300-131 \u003d 169). However, the French losses of 3 killed knights they all leave without discussion, although the texts of the same chronicles in no way combine with such a ridiculously low figure:

1) Two-hour hand-to-hand combat of French and Flemish knights on the southern flank - were all of these traditional rivals inclined to spare each other? By the way, after Bouvin, Flanders submitted to the French king, and his court chroniclers had every political reason not to offend the new subjects and emphasize the "knightly" nature of the trial.

2) Before the Duke of Flanders Ferdinand was captured, after a fierce battle, all 100 of his bodyguard sergeants were killed. Did these probably good warriors allow themselves to be killed like sheep without inflicting any losses on the French?

3) The French king himself barely escaped death (it is noteworthy that the German or Flemish infantrymen who knocked him down from his horse tried to kill him, and not take him prisoner). Didn't his entourage suffer in any way?

4) Chronicles speak about the valiant behavior of the German emperor Otto, who fought for a long time with an ax, and his Saxon entourage. When a horse was killed near Otto, he narrowly escaped captivity and was hardly recaptured by bodyguards. The battle was already lost by the Allies and the Germans had no reason to hope to save the prisoners, i.e. they had to beat to death in order to be saved themselves. And as a result of all these feats, 1-2 Frenchmen killed?

5) On the northern flank, 700 Brabancon spearmen, lined up in a circle, fought off the attacks of the French knights for a long time. From this circle, the Count of Boulogne Renault Dammartin made sorties with his vassals. The count was an experienced warrior and, as a traitor, he had nothing to lose. Could he and his men have been able to kill 1-2 French knights at best?

6) Finally, almost all the burden of the French in this long and important battle fell on the knights, since the French foot communal militia almost immediately fled. These fifteen hundred French knights coped with both the German-Flemish knights and the many times more numerous, aggressive, albeit poorly organized, German-Dutch infantry. At the cost of only 3 dead?

In general, the claims of le Breton and Musquet could be believed only if they were confirmed by the same data from the German and Flemish sides. But German and Flemish descriptions of this major battle of that time have not survived - apparently, the chroniclers of these countries were not inspired by it. In the meantime, we have to admit that the chronicles of le Breton and Musquet are a biased propaganda panegyric and the numbers of losses in them are not credible.

Another example of this kind is the Battle of Mure on September 12, 1213, the only major battle of the Albigensian Wars. In it, 900 northern French horsemen with an unknown number of foot sergeants under the command of Simon de Montfort defeated 2,000 Aragonese and South French ("Occitan") horsemen and 40 thousand infantry (Toulouse militia and Routiers) in parts. The Aragonese king Pedro II (an active participant in the Reconquista and the battle at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212), being in the vanguard, faced the French vanguard and was killed, after a fierce battle, all of his maynade, i.e. several dozen knights and sergeants from the inner circle. Then the French with a blow to the flank overturned the Aragonese knights, demoralized by the death of the king, they carried away the Occitan knights in their flight, then the French dismembered and drove the Toulouse foot militia into Garonne, and allegedly 15 or 20 thousand people were hacked or drowned (too outstanding achievement for 900 horse soldiers ).

At the same time, according to the "History of the Albigensian Crusade" by the monk Pierre de Vaux-de-Cerny (aka Peter of Serneis, an ardent eulogy of Simon de Montfort), only 1 knight and several sergeants were killed by the French.

You can still believe that the French cavalry slaughtered the Toulouse foot militia like a herd of sheep. The figure of 15-20 thousand deaths is clearly exaggerated, but on the other hand, the death of a significant part of the male population of Toulouse in the battle of Mur is an objective and subsequently manifested many times. However, it is impossible to believe that King Pedro II and his court knights allowed themselves to be interrupted so cheaply.

In conclusion, a little about another well-studied battle of the same era, at Worringen (1288). According to Jan van Heel's rhymed chronicle, the Brabant victors lost only 40 men, and the losing German-Dutch coalition - 1100. Again, these figures do not correspond to the course of the battle described in the same chronicle, long and stubborn, and even "minimalist" Verbruggen considers the figure of Brabant losses incongruously underestimated. The reason is obvious - van Heelu was the same eulogy of the Brabant duke as Peter of Serneus was of Montfort, and le Breton and Musquet was Philippe-Augustus. Apparently, it was good form for them to underestimate the losses of their victorious patrons to the point of improbability.

For all the above battles, the same features are characteristic: their detailed descriptions have survived only from the side of the victors, and each time there is a huge gap in combat losses between the winners and the defeated, in no way combined with a detailed description of a long and stubborn struggle. This is all the more strange because all these battles were no less significant for the defeated, who had their own continuous chronicle tradition. Obviously, the losing side, not experiencing any poetic delight, preferred to limit itself to a few lines in the general chronicles. We also add that the restraint of the chroniclers immediately disappears when it comes to commoner soldiers - here thousands of numbers are commonplace.

This is what concerns the battles of the XII-XIII centuries. Their sad feature is the impossibility, in the overwhelming majority of cases, to check the numbers of the chronicles describing them, no matter how incredible they are.

The picture changes dramatically at the turn of the XIII-XIV centuries, after the battles of Falkirk in 1298 and Courtras in 1302. "Small-blooded" battles practically disappear, no matter what series of battles of the late Middle Ages you take - some bloody massacres with the death of 20 to 50% of active participants the losing side. Indeed:

A) Hundred Years War - the "miserable" 15% of those killed by the French in the Battle of Crecy (1346) are explained only by the passive-defensive tactics of the British and the coming night, which allowed most of the wounded to escape; but in the battles of Poitiers (1356) and Agincourt (1415), which took place during the day and ended with a successful counterattack by the British, up to 40% of the French knights were killed; on the other hand, at the end of the war, the French, who had gained a tactical advantage, killed up to half of the English soldiers in the battles of Path (1429), Formigny (1450) and Castiglion (1453);

B) on the Iberian Peninsula - in the largest battles at Najera (1367) and Aljubarrota (1385), English archers made exactly the same blockage of the corpses of Castilian and French knights as at Poitiers and Agincourt;

C) the Anglo-Scottish wars - more than 5 thousand Scots killed (probably about 40%) in the Battle of Falkirk (1298), 55% of the Scottish cavalry were killed at Halidon Hill (1333), more than half (possibly 2/3, including prisoners) Scots who participated in the Battle of Neville's Cross (1346); on the other hand, at least 25% of the English army (versus about 10% of the Scots) was killed in the Battle of Bannockburn (1314), more than 2 thousand British killed (20-25%) in the Battle of Otterburn (1388);

D) Franco-Flemish wars - 40% of French knights and mounted sergeants were killed in the battle of Courtras (1302), 6 thousand Flemish killed (i.e. 40%, according to the French, possibly overstated data) and 1500 killed French at the battle of Mont-en-Pevel (1304), more than half of the Flemish army was exterminated in the battles of Kassel (1328) and Rosebek (1382);

E) wars with the participation of the Swiss - more than half of the Austrian knights were killed in the battles of Morgarten (1315) and Sempach (1386), in the battle of Saint-Jacob-en-Beers the Berne-Basel detachment of 1500 people was destroyed to the last man ., an unknown number of Baselites who tried to save him died, French mercenaries allegedly killed 4 thousand people, in the battle of Murten (1476) more than half of the Burgundian army was killed, 12 thousand people;

F) wars in the North - at Visby (1361) more than 1500 people were killed, the Danes completely destroyed the Swedish detachment defending the city, at Hemmingstedt (1500) the peasants of Dietmarschen, having lost 300 killed, destroyed 3600 soldiers of the Danish king Johann I (30 % of the entire army);

G) battles of the Hussite wars of 1419-1434. and the wars of the Teutonic Order with the Poles and Lithuanians, including Grunwald (1410) - are also known for the merciless extermination of the losing side.

A kind of island of "knightly" war (albeit already in a perverted form) was previously presented only to the wars of the Condottieri in Italy. The opinion about the habit of the leaders of the Condottieri to conspire among themselves and arrange almost bloodless imitations of battles, thereby deceiving employers, is mainly based on the works of the Italian politician and writer Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527). His "History of Florence" (1520), written under the obvious influence of antique samples and its concreteness comparing favorably with the medieval chronicles, until recently was unconditionally accepted as the most important source on the late medieval history of Italy. For example, about the battle between the Florentine-papal and Milanese troops at Anghiari (1440), he writes: “Never before has any other war in foreign territory been less dangerous for the attackers: with such a complete defeat, despite the fact that the battle lasted four hours , only one person died, and not even from a wound or any masterful blow, but from the fact that he fell off his horse and gave up his ghost under the feet of the fighting. " But about the battle between the Florentines and the Venetians at Molinella (1467): "However, not a single person fell in this battle - only a few horses were wounded and, in addition, several prisoners were taken from both sides" ... However, when the archives of Italian cities were carefully studied in recent decades, it turned out that in reality 900 people died in the first battle, and 600 in the second. Maybe this is not so much for armies of thousands of 5 people, but the contrast with Machiavelli's claims is striking ...

Thus, it became obvious that the "History of Florence", contrary to the external impression, is not an accurate account of the events of that time, but rather a tendentious political pamphlet, in which the author, defending certain ideas (the need to replace mercenary condottieri with regular national armies), quite freely handles facts.

The case with the "History of Florence" is indicative in the sense that even the most convincing and plausible, at first glance, medieval descriptions can be very far from the true state of affairs. "The history of Florence" modern researchers managed to "bring to clean water", for the chronicles of the XII century this, alas, is impossible.

However, certain patterns can be found. Two types of wars were already mentioned at the beginning of the article. It is even more significant that the degree of "bloodiness" of medieval wars is inseparable from the general social and cultural development of medieval society. The early period (up to the 11th century) was characterized by "feudal anarchy", instability of social institutions and morality. The morals at that time were barbaric, the battles, although small in scale, were bloody. Then came the "golden age" of chivalry, when its hierarchy and morality had already been formed and had not yet been too spoiled by commodity-money relations. At this time, the dominant military-political role of the knights was not questioned by anyone, which allowed them to play power and property according to their own, sparing rules. Most of the Western European "battle-tournaments" belong to this not so long period (XII-XIII centuries). However, on the periphery of the Catholic world, the same rules were in effect at that time - there was a life-and-death struggle against the Gentiles and heretics.

However, the "golden age", if you look closely, was internally heterogeneous. The most "feudal" was the XII century, the time of the highest religiosity and the power of the papacy in Europe. This leading role of the church had a profound influence on military morality, gradually modifying the original German-pagan chivalry mentality. It is in the XII century that the intra-European (that is, inter-knightly) wars and the most bloody external "crusading" aggression are most anemic. In the 13th century, the church began to be pushed into the background by the royal power, and religiosity - by "state interests", "brotherhood in Christ" began to give way to nationalism again. Little by little, intra-European wars are escalating, aided by the widespread use of commoner townspeople by the kings. The real turning point comes around 1300, when the "war of chivalry" and within Europe finally yields to the "deadly war". The bloody battles of the XIV-XV centuries can be explained by several factors:

1) The forms of hostilities are becoming more and more complicated, replacing one main type of troops and the method of hostilities (head-on collision of knightly cavalry in an open field) are replaced by several types of troops and many tactics with sharply differing sets of advantages and disadvantages. Using them in different, not yet fully studied conditions can lead to both complete victory and catastrophic defeat. A vivid example is the English archers: in some battles they exterminated the French heavy cavalry almost without losses, in others the same cavalry exterminated them almost without losses.

2) The same complication of the forms of hostilities leads to the regular participation in battles of mercenary formations of infantrymen-commoners, whose uncontrollability is sharply different from the previous bollards - knightly servants. Together with them, inter-class hatred returns to the fields of regular battles.

3) New technical means and tactical methods, such as the massive shooting of archers across the squares, turn out to be fundamentally incompatible with the "consciously sparing" method of conducting combat operations.

4) The conquering "state interest" and the specifics of more and more regular and disciplined armies turn out to be incompatible with the international knightly "brotherhood in arms". A good example is the order of Edward III during the Battle of Crécy in 1346 not to take prisoners until the end of the battle.

5) The morality of the chivalry itself, which no longer has sole control over the course of battles, is also decaying. "Christian generosity" and "knightly solidarity" are increasingly yielding to rational interest - if in the given specific conditions it is not possible to receive personal ransom from a captured "noble" enemy, it turns out to be natural to kill him.

However, even the "anemic" battles of the 12th century were not harmless for the losers - there is nothing good in a ruinous ransom. Recall that under Bremule (1119), a third of the knights of the defeated side were captured, and under Lincoln (1217) - even two-thirds.

In other words, throughout the Middle Ages, a general battle in an open field was an extremely risky business that threatened with irreparable losses.

From here distinctive feature medieval military affairs in the period under review (from 1100 to 1500) - the emphasis on the defense / siege of fortresses and "small war" (ambushes and raids) while avoiding large battles in the open field. Moreover, general battles were most often associated with unblocking actions, that is, they were forced. A typical example is the Albigensian Wars (1209-1255): over 46 years in dozens of sieges and thousands of minor skirmishes, many tens of thousands of soldiers from each side were killed, and the knights were killed in the same measure as the sergeants-commoners, but a major battle was only one - under Muir in 1213. Thus, a medieval knight could have a huge, regularly updated combat experience, and at the same time participate in only 1-2 large battles in his entire life.

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