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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dr. Strangemonkey" data-source="post: 1530484" data-attributes="member: 6533">Ok, now I'm totally giving in.Adrianople is a perfect example of the weaknesses of an infantry cored free army.  First of all, the very fact that the Legions were in decline was a result of their system not a symptom of the time.  The Legions were impossibly hard to reform once they started being succesful, directly as a result of their freedom and prestige, and that's even granting they were in such a terrible state as is claimed, something I'm more than a little leery of stating.The Roman empire in its later days certainly came up with a variety of structural military improvements, not least of which was coming up with a nice unifying religion.  The Byzantine armies singing the Kyrie as they charged into battle is about the best image of Espirit de Corps I can think of.That granted, however, Adrianople and the Fall of Crassus both illustrate the fundamental problem with the free infantry core.  It's entirely unwilling to adapt and very inflexible in its application.In both cases the legion could not accomodate, in one to new technology in the other to the terrain, and in both cases their lack of mobility won them total defeat in the battle and the triumph of the enemies political ends.The Goths moved right on in at Adrianople and the Parthians, who had been invaded recall, kept their borders sound until the reign of Trajan.Look, it may be that democracy has won out now, but if it has that's only because of very specific circumstances.  And I'm certainly not comfortable calling it.  Let's see where our taxes go first.Throughout the rest of history, however, democracy has been just as alternately successful and weak as anything else.  As for free infantry cores.  Hmmm, it's certainly a good idea.  But there are a lot of good ideas, and I'm pretty convinced that the Mongol model is the superior idea.Certainly, the best current doctrines seem to focus on mobility and material.On the other hand, infantry based insurgencies seemed to do pretty well in the last century.</blockquote>

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