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We promised to cover various tactics and strategies used by the generals throughout history in
our Armies and Tactics series.
In this video we will talk about the Oblique Order.
As many other stories, this one starts in the Ancient Greece.
Between 431 and 404 BC Sparta and its allies in the Peloponnesian league against Athens
and its allies in the Delian league in the conflict that would be later known as the
Second Peloponnesian war.
Sparta had won and became the hegemonic power in Greece.
Eventually Sparta’s growing appetite backfired and led to the war against Thebes.
At that point in time, the Greek armies moved away from the rigid military structure of
the period before the Persian Invasions.
The hoplite phalanx remained the main battle unit, but the city-states started adding skirmishers
and cavalry to the mix.
However, in this period, before Philip of Macedon revolutionized the Greek warfare,
both the missile units and the horsemen were mainly used against the counterparts.
We will talk about Philip’s army in our future videos in this series, but suffice
to say that the combined arms approach was not used, so the Greek armies of the period
lacked mobility and most battles came down to the numbers, quality and discipline of
the hoplites.
In the early days of the hoplite warfare, two phalanxes fought head on, but the Peloponnesian
wars changed that, as they were conflicts between alliances, so often more than one
phalanx participated in the battle on each of the sides.
This created a unique problem: the hoplites held their shield in the right hand, so their
left side was left undefended, so even the most disciplined of the phalanx drifted to
the right, as each of the hoplites tried to get a better protection behind the shield
of the hoplite next to him.
The Greeks found two solutions to this problem: some generals placed the phalanx of the city-state,
which was defending the territory in question or the best, most disciplined phalanx on the
right flank to prevent this drift.
Other commanders often embraced the drift, and this almost exclusively resulted in the
right flanks winning against the enemy’s left flank.
In this variant the right flanks then would eventually meet the right flank of the enemy
and that engagement would decide the fate of the battle.
It would all change at the battle of Leuctra of 371 BC between the forces of Sparta and
its allies led by the Spartan king Cleombrotus I against the Theban-led Boeotian League led
by general Epaminondas.
Cleombrotus had 10 thousand hoplites, alongside a thousand skirmishers and a thousand horsemen.
His forces were divided into 4 phalanxes, each of them formed into 12 lines with cavalry
in front of the infantry and the skirmishers as the vanguard.
The Spartans themselves manned the extreme right flank. 8 thousand hoplites of Epaminondas
were divided into 4 phalanxes with 1500 cavalry in front of them.
Most of the Theban infantry was on the extreme left, where they formed up into 50 ranks,
while the other 3 phalanxes were weakened and had less than 8 ranks.
That was a big change from the usual battle formation.
Not only Epaminondas placed his best troops, among them the famous Sacred Band of Thebes
on the left, he also decidedly weakened his center and his left.
This would be later called Oblique Order, as the formation had one strong flank with
the concentrated forces.
The battle started with Spartan skirmishers attacking Theban camp and forcing the camp
followers to join the hoplites.
No other information is given on these skirmishers, so it is assumed that they eventually moved
to the rear of the Spartan army.
Then, the cavalry forces engaged each other and although the Thebans easily shattered
the formation of their counterparts, their subsequent attack on the enemy right flank
failed, as the Spartans managed to shift to the right and dispersed these unit.
Now that the cavalry lost its ability to affect the fate of the battle, it was time for infantry.
All of the Spartan phalanxes moved forward.
Epaminondas sent his strongest left phalanx forward, while his weaker central and right
phalanxes slowly shifted to the right.
Thebans charged into the Spartan hoplites and soon the legendary Lacedaemonians were
pushed back, their leader wounded and their formation scattered.
Seeing the Spartans retreating, allied phalanxes left the field.
Epaminondas won the battle using new Oblique Order tactic and the Theban hegemony over
Greece began.
It is important to explain why the Oblique Order was so effective.
The phalanx lacked maneuverability, so the allied phalanx couldn’t support the Spartans.
At the same time, the army had no reserve force that could have supported the Spartan
phalanx and alleviated the pressure.
The lack of cavalry protecting infantry from the flank was another problem for the Spartans.
At the same time, Oblique Order is all about balance.
The general using this tactic needed to have a strong enough force at the point of attack
to break the enemy, but also keep the other parts of his formation at least capable enough
of stopping the enemy attack against them.
It should also be mentioned that Philip of Macedon who lived as a hostage in Thebes growing
up most certainly learned about this tactic and later used the variants of it in his battles,
but his strategies will be covered in a later video.
As the armies started keeping forces in reserve and using cavalry predominantly on the flanks,
this tactic was used less sparingly in the next 2 millennia.
Using a tactic like that against a knightly army or a steppe force would have been disastrous.
It is not a surprise that this tactic was revived in the era of the line infantry, when
the formations became rigid once again.
This time Frederick the Great of Prussia would use it during the Silesian and Seven Years’
War.
Previously we covered the battle of Hohenfriedberg fought in 1745 between Austria and Prussia,
so you can watch how this battle unfolded by clicking the card over here.
In short, Frederick strengthened his right flank and sent it against the Austrian left.
As this position was overrun by the Prussians, more and more of their troops arrived and
joined the right flank in their attack.
Despite having fewer troops, Frederick managed to gain numerical superiority in every location
and won the battle decisively using the Oblique Order.
His enemies had mobile cavalry and reserve behind their main line, but the line infantry
had a big problem – it was very slow to turn and enter a new formation, almost as
a phalanx.
So, the line formation wasn’t able to respond properly to any attack but a frontal one.
The Prussian king managed to win more battles in this vein and we are planning to cover
them in future, but eventually his main rivals - the Austrians managed to find counter-measures.
They started employing more light cavalry to screen the flanks and support them.
At the same time, according to new Austrian doctrines, the flanks were often positioned
with a natural obstacles protecting them from being outflanked.
The French Emperor Napoleon managed to make his armies even more mobile, with infusion
of the light cavalry.
At the same time, his infantry was taught to fight both in the line and column formation,
so it had easier time turning to face the foe.
Other European armies slowly evolved under his influence which made the Oblique Order
more difficult to use.
However, Napoleon still managed to employ a variant of this tactic.
In one of our Napoleonic War videos we covered the battle of Friedland of 1807.
In this battle Napoleon had a decided advantage in numbers, but he still strengthened his
right flank under Ney and sent it against the Russian left.
Ney slowly mopped up the enemy forces crushing the left and then the center and the right.
As Napoleon had numerical superiority in other areas, Russian general Bennigsen wasn’t
able to send any reinforcements to support his units.
Napoleon would have won this battle even without using oblique order, but this tactic allowed
him to win decisively.
The defeat forced his enemies to sign the treaty of Tilsit that made France the hegemon
of Europe.
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