Alexander : a history of the origin and growth of the art of war from ...

ORIGIN OF STRATEGY. 11perfectly" natural sequence, and grew side by side with allother pursuits.Fortification originated in a similar manner.Tribes builttheir villages in inaccessible places, — on rocks or hills,and suiTOunded them with ditches, stockades orloosely-piledwalls. Such simple habitations gradually grew into fortifiedcities, and the walls and ditches increased in size and difficultyof approach. Inner citadels were built ; and towerscrowned the walls, to enable these to be swept by missiles ifreached by the besiegers. The art of sieges was of muchlater and more formal growth.For many generations fortifiedcities were deemed inexpugnable, and artifice or hungerwere resorted to for their capture. But gradually it wasfound that walls could be undermined or weakened orbreached, or that they could be mounted by various means,and the art of besieging cities began to take on form.As tribes grew into nations war assumed larger dimensions.As a rule, it was brute weight alone which accomplished results,but sometimes the weaker party would resortto stratagemsto defend itself, — such as declining battle, and makinginstead thereof night or partialattacks, defending riverfords or mountain passes, and falling on the enemy fromambush or from cities. Out of such small beginnings ofmoral opposition to physical preponderance has come intoexistence, by slow degrees and through many centuries, whatwe now know as the science of war.Except the Phoenicians and Jews, the Oriental nations ofremote antiquity were divided into castes, ofwhich the mostnoble or elevated were alone entitled to bear arms, and tothis profession they were trained with scrupulous care. Themilitary caste in some nations was wont to monopolize alloffices and political control ; in others it wielded a lesser sway.