JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES

October-December 2009 JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES Volume I., Issue 4.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Herodotus’ description of the Scythians’ fighting against Persia gives a hint of some military
organisation among them, but only mentions commanders, not an officer corps. 13 However, some
centuries later, Chinese histories mention the Xiongnu or Asian Huns using a decimal system. 14 Thus
there were commanders of 10, 100, 1000 and 10,000.
Here is a clear case of “an army with officers”. In modern terms, a commander of 10 men would likely
be a corporal, that is, a non commissioned officer (NCO), whose task it is to interpret the orders of the
officers toward the rank and file. Commanding about 10 men would be the rough equivalent of a
modern infantry section, the smallest tactical unit.
A commander of about 100 men today would be, depending on the military in question and arm of
service, likely a captain, that is, a company commander in the infantry. A captain is certainly reckoned to
be an officer. The officer in charge of 1,000 or so soldiers would more or less be a regimental commander,
that is, a senior officer and likely to be a lieutenant colonel at least. And of course, anyone in command of
10,000 troops would have to be a general officer.
It is interesting to note how the main modern unit formations, section, platoon, company, battalion,
regiment, brigade and division are largely reflected in the Xiongnu ranks. Unfortunately, their battle
order is not well known. Perhaps further research will reveal it.
Other Eurasian nomads had officers, and some ranks of the original Türk are known, and of course,
better-documented armies like those of Sogdiana or the later Bulgars and Magyars most definitely had
officers mentioned in documents written by Greeks, Chinese and other sedentary authors.
It would seem, therefore, that the Eurasian nomads and nomad-city, or nomad-agricultural states had
organisations that approximated the Ancient Greek citizen armies, the early Roman citizen army as well
as medieval Swiss and early-modern citizen armies, where: “The fit and adult males of a horse people
were the army.”
Even this has to be looked at critically. For instance, among the Boers of the Transvaal Republic, many
“fit and adult males”, did not have to fight, because they were religious leaders (Dominees) or involved
in important duties (lawyers, administrators, specialist craftsmen and others).
In the same way, in a nomadic polity, there would be shamans, smiths of various kinds,
wheelwrights, wagon-makers, bowyers and other expert craftsmen who were not fighters. It is not
possible to make a composite recurve bow on the move, nor can wheels or wagons be made in an ad hoc
fashion. Finally, the sheer numbers involved make the idea that the pastoralist shepherd or cowboy
could quickly fashion a wagon, a bow or a sword and then go and fight, impossible. As Maenchen-
Helfen put it:
The idea that each Hunnic archer could make his own bow could have been conceived
only by cabinet scholars who never held a composite bow in their hands. 15
13 Herodutus. The Histories. Penguin Harmondworth, 1977. Pp. 310-14.
14 Barfield, T.J. The Perilous Frontier. Nomadic Empires and China, 221 B.C. to A. D. 1757. Blackwell, Cambridge, MA. 1989.
15 Maenchen-Helfen, O. The World Of The Huns. Studies in Their History And Culture. UCLA, Los Angeles, 1973.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
© Copyright Mikes International 2001-2009 66