Was There Friendly Fire in Ancient Battles?

From the creator

In this history documentary we explore the types and severity of friendly fire which occurred in ancient battles. Check out Ancient Warfare Magazine with the 25% off code INVICTA23_0819: https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/landing/ancient_warfare_invicta Was there friendly fire in ancient battles? This history documentary begins by explaining the three types of friendly fire in ancient battles: Collateral damage, panicked flight, and misidentification. We begin by discussion cases of collateral damage. This involves the accidental harming of friendly troops in close and ranged combat that occurred whilst attempting to target the enemy. As historical references we mention how the roman legion would often maintain proper spacing to avoid such issues. Overall though this sort of friendly fire was more of a rare, freak accident. The next type of friendly fire from ancient battles is a result from panicked flight when soldiers flee and in the process will attack anything between themselves and freedom. We discuss how this was actually quite common and dangerous. In fact Julius Caesar was almost killed trying to hold back a routing legion. The Roman army of the republic employed forces like the Triarii to secure the backlines whilst Germanic armies were known to bring their women and children to battle to slay any cowardly men who attempted to flee. Lastly we cover friendly fire resulting from misidentification. We provide examples of this happening with Greek army battles and

Published 2019-10-12 · Watch on YouTube ↗
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