Ancient D-Day - What Were Amphibious Assaults Like? DOCUMENTARY

we are all quite familiar with the idea of more modern amphibious assaults this was made most famous in pop culture by the events of d-day as depicted in the opening of the movie saving private ryan its cinematic style was so genre defining that virtually all other gritty war films after it have followed in its footsteps this applies not just a film set in the second world war but has extended all the way into movies set in the distant past films like troy robin hood and vikings are all prime examples of this i get why it's been done from hollywood's perspective but how much does it actually track to history did amphibious assaults even happen in the past and if they did should we imagine a d-day-like scene with troops pouring out of triremes like their higgins boats splashing their way through the surf and navigating their way through defensive fortifications all while under murderous fire from arrows and catapults let's find out this video was sponsored by magellan tv they're an 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below or go to try.magellantv.com invicta enjoy to kick off this whole conversation i wanted to start off by looking at the sorts of military capabilities we could expect on the side of someone attacking a coastline and someone defending it on the assault side of things we are necessarily talking about ancient warships it's a subject which i absolutely adore and which i've previously discussed in a three-part series which you can check out if you're interested to summarize what we should expect from this period are ord galleys on the small end of things would be lembos hemiola and liberian style ships with just a few dozen oars laid out in one or two rows and capable of transporting a handful of soldiers a tier above this would be the famous trireme the workhorse of mediterranean naval warfare it was about 35 meters long with around 170 ores divided into three banks per side for its crew it carried anywhere from a dozen marines to over 100 in some cases as the centuries rolled on though higher intensity conflicts at sea led to the development of increasingly large ships like the quinquiriums and hexariums which boasted yet more rowers and complements of over 100 soldiers as well as artillery at the highest end would be the polyrhyme monstrosities like the tessera conterrys of ptolemy iv barely able to make it beyond the shores but capable of transporting an estimated 2 800 marines and numerous artillery batteries in addition to all of these combat vessels would be fast scout ships and lumbering troop transports in theory if you were to have them all converged upon a beach at one time it very well might look like an ancient d-day from afar in fact quite a striking comparison can actually be found in the historical record over two thousand years before the landings at normandy the romans mobilized roughly the same size force deployed by the allies on d-day to invade africa during the first punic war now in terms of naval defenses these things were not as impressive there was really no concept of heavily fortified stretches of coastline as was conducted by the nazis in anticipation of the allied invasion the closest you might get would be some walls or strings of forts along strategic inland areas like the roman frontier of the rhine repeating the same sort of defenses along a vast shoreline would have been madness in an age where you really didn't expect much in the way of naval invasions perhaps the most you'd see over long distances would be a line of watchtowers to keep an eye out for incoming raiders so really in most places that a fleet would land we should not expect a d-day-style reception on the part of the defenders however there was of course the exception when it came to cities and forts which lay along the shore in this case its inhabitants would often seek to reinforce their water-facing flanks even if they didn't necessarily expect an amphibious assault by ships it was nonetheless prudent to ward off land-based forces that might otherwise wade through the water or attack at low tide as such many settlements and ports would have a perimeter wall and some towers that face the sea in a pinch these could be reinforced with ditches and stakes as needed for the larger ports there might have even been efforts made to close off naval access entirely using breakers or great chains not quite up to par with germany's atlantic wall fortifications but enough to ward off all but the most dedicated of attackers from antiquity with this theoretical understanding in place let's now go ahead and take a look at some real historical examples of what happened when attacker and defender clashed in an amphibious setting the first prime example will be the battle of marathon it took place in 490 bc during the first greco-persian war the context is that a persian army of some twenty to sixty thousand soldiers aboard several hundred ships had been dispatched to exact retribution against the eritreans and athenians who had supported the ionian revolt the fleet island hopped across the aegean crushing all resistance along the way as they accepted the surrender of or otherwise stormed small communities they landed in ubia unopposed ravaged the land and sacked eritrea the persian force then re-embarked and made their way down towards athens but rather than sail their full force into the teeth of port pareas they instead chose to land a large contingent of their troops at the nearby bay of marathon from which they could then march on athens while the remainder of the fleet rounded the peninsula for a pincer attack by sea the initial objective was achieved and the persians made their amphibious landing unopposed setting up camp on the wide undefended coastal plain however the athenians and some platons had managed to advance upon the surrounding high ground and were setting up to bottle up the enemy at their beachhead the standoff went on for several days until some unknown inciting incident perhaps the partial re-embarking of some persian forces seems to have caused the greeks to attack i'll now quote herodotus the armies at this point were about a mile apart when the persians saw them come running they prepared to receive them seeing the charging athenians as virtually suicidal after all their ranks were far thinner and they lacked any cavalry or archers such was the imagination of the persian army but the athenians closing with the persians fought in admirable fashion the battle at marathon lasted for most of the day the foreigners overcame the middle part of the line against which the strongest of the persian army was arrayed here the foreigners prevailed and broke the greeks pursuing them inland but the athenians and platons were victorious on both flanks they allowed the routed foes to flee and drew their wings together to fight against those that had broken the middle of their line here the athenians were again victorious and followed after the persians in their flight cutting them down until they came to the sea there they called for fire and seizing the ships kalamakis the polar mark died while fighting for the ships there too died steselea son of thracilias another one of the athenian generals moreover knights son of euphorion fell there his hands smitten off by an axe as he laid hold of the ship's deck and many other famous athenians seven ships the athenians thus won with the rest the persians pushed off from shore from there they would sail around the shore to capture athens while the greeks raced back on foot ultimately the athenians made it home first and succeeded in warding off an attack this battle is a great example of a conflict fought on the beaches however it's not really the sort of d-day-style amphibious assault we're looking for as the landing itself was achieved uncontested on a wide open shore it's really only after the fighting had already turned that both sides fought in the waves amongst the ships this would really be emblematic of the rest of the greco-persian wars where there was certainly a lot of forces moving around and attacking by boat but never really into the jaws of a prepared defense let's therefore jump ahead to a later example which will be more relevant to our studies our next pair of examples occurred during the peloponnesian war when athens sparta and their respective allies clashed generally speaking the athenians had the stronger navy while the spartans had the stronger army this asymmetry resulted in a protracted war where neither could totally dominate the other and where both sides were constantly looking for ways to undermine each other's advantageous position for example in 425 bc the spartan army marched off to invade and ravaged the lands of attica while an athenian fleet sailed around the peloponnese to conduct operations along the enemy's rear this meant opportunistically establishing a fortified garrison on the tiny promontory of pilos before continuing on to corkira from here the outpost would be a thorn in the enemy's side raiding the surrounding region and fomenting revolt among the neighboring missenians this development so alarmed the spartans that they recalled their whole invasion force an army and fleet were then immediately dispatched to uproot the athenian position on the defense would be demosthenes and his meager five triremes which translated to just about 50 hoplites a handful of archers and a few hundred rowers who could be slightly armed luckily a ship of missenians arrived boosting his troop numbers by 40 hoplites for a total of 90. against him though was an approaching spartan army of several hundred and a fleet of 60 ships and all their marines luckily he had the advantage of the terrain and the luxury of several days spent fortifying the position as the spartans approached they landed forces on the neighboring island of factaria hoping to establish a chokehold on the bay before launching a pincer attack from both land and sea demosthenes for his part had split up his men the bulk of them took up positions along the fortified route while just 60 hoplites and a few archers were posted to guard their weaker position along the shore as the enemy closed in demosthenes is said to have made a speech to these men reminding them that though they were few in number they held the advantage should they meet the enemy's assault right at the beach i'll now quote the text recording this incident soldiers and comrades in this adventure i hope that none of you in our present straight will think to show his wit by exactly calculating all the perils that encompass us but that you will rather hasten to close with the enemy without staying to count the odds seeing in this your best chance of safety as to the numbers of the enemy these shouldn't worry you much large as they may be he can only engage in small detachments it's impossible to bring more besides the numerical superiority that we have to meet is not that of an army on land with everything else equal but of troops on board ship upon an element where many favorable accidents are required to act with effect i therefore consider that his difficulties may be fairly set against our numerical deficiencies and at the same time i charge you as athenians who know by experience what landing from ships on a hostile territory means and how impossible it is to drive back an enemy determined enough to stand his ground and not to be frightened away by the surf and the terrors of the ship sailing in to stand fast in this present emergency beat back the enemies at the water's edge and save yourselves in this place in this democenies proved correct as the amphibious assault of the spartans had great difficulty in bringing their full force to bear against the beachhead captains were reluctant to run their ships upon the rocks and thus were left to cheer on the men ahead and wait their turn to take a crack at the small beachhead this incensed the spartan captain bresitas who quote shouted out to them that they must never allow the enemy to fortify himself in their country for the sake of saving timber but must break their vessels and force a landing and bait the allies instead of hesitating in such a moment to sacrifice their ships for sparta in return for her many benefits to run them boldly aground land in one way or another and make themselves master of the place and its garrison not content with this exhortation he forced his own steersman to run his ship ashore and stepping onto the gangway was endeavoring to land when he was cut down by the athenians and after receiving many wounds fainted away falling into the boughs his shield slipped off his arm and into the sea and being thrown ashore was picked up by the athenians and afterwards used for the trophy which they set up after this attack the rest also did their best but were not able to land owing to the difficulty of the ground and the unflinching tenacity of the athenians for the remainder of the day wave upon wave of spartans crashed upon the fortifications but to no success the attackers thus resolved on establishing a proper siege of the position unfortunately for them the athenian fleet in the region now arrived to save their comrades turning the tide on the peloponnesians they defeated the spartan fleet and trapped some 400 enemy soldiers on the island of spectaria 120 of these were full spartiates which represented an estimated 10 percent of their overall citizen body at the time this caused a panic in sparta and sent off a flurry of diplomatic negotiations between the two enemies however when peace talks failed the athenians tightened their stranglehold on the island expecting its trapped inhabitants to starve out within a few days however the spartans put out rewards for any volunteers who could sneak supplies onto the island thus at night there were to be many small vessels swimmers and divers who infiltrated the blockade to keep the garrison alive ultimately this led the athenians to commit to an all-out assault with 3 thousand soldiers and many more lightly armed rowers the amphibious assault began just before dawn as a pick group of 800 heavy infantry led by demosthenes hit the beaches on both sides of the island they quickly disembarked splashing down and running up the sand to silence a few dozen spartans just barely waking up in their outposts right at dawn came the remainder of the athenians who disgorged hundreds of more hoplites and thousands of light infantry including archers and slingers our sources describe the scene as follows quote the tactics of domostanis had divided them into companies of 200 more or less and made them occupy the highest points in order to paralyze the enemy by surrounding him on every side and thus leaving him without any tangible adversary exposed to the crossfire of their host plied by those in the rear if he attacked in front and if by those on one flank he moved against those on the other in short wherever he went he would have the assailants behind him and these light-armed assailants the most awkward of all arrows darts stones and slings making them formidable at a distance and there being no means of getting at them at close quarters as they could conquer flying and the moment their pursuers turned they were upon him such was the idea that inspired domostanis in his conception of the descent and presided over its execution the amphibious assault carried out in this surprisingly modern sounding manner proved absolutely devastating the spartan force was cut to pieces and ultimately surrendered in mass when terms were offered this shocked the greek world and changed the nature of the war moving forwards in the years ahead there would be many more clashes between forces along the shores of the aegean and the mediterranean but none quite as captivating as the ones we've just discussed still it'll be worth mentioning a few the siege of tyre by alexander the great in 332 bc is one such example where amphibious assaults involving siege equipment were used to storm the walls of the island city i'll now quote a bit from aryan to give you a taste of the action when alexander's ships approached the city and the gangways were thrown onto the wall from their decks the shield bearers used them to climb boldly onto the wall admetos proved a brave man on that occasion and alexander 2 went in with them taking an energetic part in the action and bearing witness to any glorious exploits undertaken in the heat of the action admittos mounted the wall first and as he cheered his men onward he was struck with a spear and died on the spot coming up after him alexander and the companions took the wall when some of the towers and their curtain walls were under his control alexander proceeded across the battlements to the palace the slaughter was great it's quite the heavy action but admittedly this final amphibious assault ends up playing out more like a traditional siege than what we had seen previously at marathon pilos and zfacteria looking through the rest of alexander's campaigns one will find him engaged in yet more sieges of this sort across the lands while we do often see men trudging across the waters into the teeth of the enemy these instances are all cases of contested river crossings so not really in the vein of the dja style assaults we're looking to explore for this sort of engagement we'll have to skip ahead once more several hundred years to the campaigns of julius caesar in 55 bc we will find the general leading an expedition across the english channel to britain it's pretty much as close to d-day geographically as one can hope to get he advanced with at least 100 ships carrying two legions and made way for the natural harbor of dover however when caesar beheld the steep heights along the shore and the large host of the enemy atop the surrounding cliffs he chose instead to move up the coast and land at another spot unfortunately the enemy was able to shadow his moves and contested this landing i'll now read directly from the commentaries quote this was for many reasons an operation of much difficulty the ships on account of their size could not be run ashore except in deep water the troops though they did not know the ground had their arms free and were loaded with the great and grievous weight of their arms had nevertheless at one and the same time to leap down from the vessels to stand firm in the waves and to fight the enemy the enemy on the other hand had all their limbs free and knew the ground exceedingly well and either standing on dry land or advancing a little way into the water they boldly hurled their missiles or spurred on their horses which were trained to it frightened by all this and wholly inexperienced in this sort of fighting our troops did not press on with the same fire and force as they were accustomed to show in land engagements when caesar remarked this he commanded the ships of war to remove themselves a little from the transports to row at speed and to bring up on the exposed flank of the enemy and thence to drive and clear them off with slings arrows and artillery this movement proved of great service to our troops for the natives frightened by the shape of the ships the motion of the oars and the unfamiliar type of artillery came to a halt and retired but only for a little space and then while our troops still hung back chiefly on account of the depth of the sea the eagle bearer of the tenth legion after prayer to heaven to bless the legion by his act cried out quote leap down soldiers unless you wish to betray your eagle to the enemy it shall be told that i at any rate did my duty to my country and my general when he had said this with a loud voice he cast himself forth from the ship and began to bear the eagle against the enemy then our troops exhorted one another not to allow so dire a disgrace and leap down from the ship with one accord and when the troops on the nearest ship saw them they likewise followed on and drew near to the enemy the fighting was fierce on both sides our troops however because they could not keep rank nor stand firm nor follow their proper standards for any man from any ship attached himself to whatever standard he chanced upon were in considerable disorder but the enemy knew all the shallows and as soon as they had observed from the shore a party of soldiers disembarking one by one from a ship they spurred on their horses and attacked them while they were in difficulties many surrounding the few while others hurled missiles into a whole party from the exposed flank caesar noticed this and causing the boats of the warships and likewise the scout vessels to be manned with soldiers he sent them to support any parties whom he had observed to be in distress the moment our men stood firm on dry land they charged with all the comrades close behind and put the enemy to route but they could not pursue very far because the cavalry had not been able to hold on their course and make the island in this single respect caesar's proverbial good fortune had failed him soon after this clash the britons pulled back inland leaving the romans to establish a camp by their beachhead there would be fighting and negotiations in the days ahead but caesar would leave the island shortly thereafter to win earn gaul the following year though he would return in force with another invasion fleet this one featured hundreds of ships and a full five legions seeing this the britons abandoned any defense of the coast choosing instead to find better positions in the interior the landing was therefore concluded unopposed later we get another taste of caesar's naval assaults when he launched an attack on pharos island during the alexandrian war in 47 bc his own men had been bottled up in a portion of the city for several months clashing with egyptian forces along the city streets and its harbors the island was seen as a key area of strategic control caesar therefore endeavored to take it boarding roughly 5 000 legionaries and several hundred light troops onto a ragtag fleet of boats and skiffs these concentrated their assault on the north side of the island i'll now quote the commentaries again at first the enemy held out against our attack and were a match for us as they were able to fight from the roofs of buildings and defend the shores in full armor at the same time while our men had difficulty in gaining access to the coast because of the rough terrain in addition the enemy protected the narrow channels with adept and clever maneuvers and skiffs and five warships but when the layout of the shore became clear and our men tried out the shallows a few of them took a chance on the shore and others followed them they then kept making charges against the enemy who were arrayed against them on the flat part of the beach and now the whole force from pharaohs turned and ran at this point roman vessels armed with yet more men and artillery now forced the issue on the causeway linking the island to alexandria the enemy responded in kind with their own shifts and both sides now poured out forces onto the narrow battlefield the reign of missiles though and the tenacious charge of the attackers began to overwhelm the romans who panicked and attempted to abandon the position in the chaos many of their boats were swarmed by men and sank hundreds of legionaries were killed and caesar only managed to escape by diving out into the waters of the harbor looking at the rest of antiquity there's certainly more naval action to be had events of the sicilian expedition regulus invasion of africa and the siege of carthage let alone the countless other attacks on ports and seaside communities could occupy us for days should we decide to review them all for the purposes of this video though we'll stop here as i think we've given you a sufficient introduction into the world of ancient amphibious assaults as you can see they were fairly common and could be quite cinematic however just as today not every assault by sea was a d-day style affair on omaha beach and in fact we have many more examples of unopposed landings than we do of heavily contested ones i hope you guys enjoyed this episode on an often overlooked subject i also wanted to thank our patrons for continuously funding the channel and to the researchers writers and artists who made this episode possible be sure to like and subscribe for more content and check out these related videos see you in the next one

Channel: Invicta

Views: 335,724

Rating: 4.951848 out of 5

Keywords: naval warfare, naval history, ancient d day, ancient warfare d day, battle of marathon, greco persian wars, battle of pylos, battle of sphacteria, Peloponnesian war, siege of tyre, invasion of britain romans, alexandrine war, sparta, athens, trireme, roman naval warfare, history documentary, documentary, military history

Id: AgYpLV9q8fQ

Length: 24min 9sec (1449 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 30 2021