JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES

October-December 2009 JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES Volume I., Issue 4.
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Does this statement, which sums up the Western perceptions of the Eurasian nomads’ behaviour in
war stand the test of historical fact? This is important. After all, there is indeed a difference between just
looting and between a military campaign, which also has a political objective.
That objective might be to conquer another empire, as in the case of Alexander the Great. Or the
objective might be to increase one’s power within the existing polity, such as the conquests of Julius
Caesar. After all, neither Transalpine Gaul nor Britain posed any threat to the Roman republic, but
Caesar’s campaigns are seen as above the ”military horizon” because they served a political purpose,
namely, to advance Caius Julius Caesar Dictator’s (to give his full name) position above that of his
fellows — within the framework of the Roman republic.
And yet, it cannot be denied that the Romans also systematically looted and plundered the territories
they conquered.
While this raises a number of moral issues, it does make sense within the limited ambit of military
history. Did the nomads, then, have any political objectives in their ”raids”? To continue Keegan’s
argument:
The horse and human ruthlessness together thus transformed war, making it for the
first lime 'a thing in itself'. We can thenceforth speak of 'militarism', an aspect of
societies in which the mere ability to make war, readily and profitably, becomes a
reason in itself for doing so.
Yet militarism is a concept that cannot be applied to any horse people, since it
presumes the existence of an army as an institution dominant over but separate from
other social institutions. There was no such separation among Attila's Huns, nor would
there be among any horse people until the Turks espoused Islam. The fit and adult
males of a horse people were the army, but not the sort of army by which Turney-High
measured a society's position above or below the 'military horizon'.
To this, two answers suggest themselves:
First, many modern and early modern peoples had and still have citizen militias. Two examples
would include the Independence War-era Americans, among whom all men (and many women) could
shoot and who organised themselves into militias to defend against Native American Indian attacks and
later, the British. Another example would be the 19 th century Boers, who also organised themselves,
under elected officers, into militias. The Boer word for a militia is “commando” and the word today
means “elite soldier” or “special forces soldier” around the world, which goes to show the impression
they made on their British opponents.
Second: To answer Turney-High’s “army with officers” requirement, even a cursory glance at nomad
military organisation will show that plentiful sources exist that they had officers.
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