By Charles Anderson
In the long history of mankind’s battles and wars (estimates of deaths vary widely from 50 million to 630 million) attempting to enforce some particular kind of belief, competing claim to land ownership or out of just plain nuttiness or evil there are innumerable examples of battles labeled as “decisive.” These are battles where if the loser instead had been the victor, the result would have altered future history. Indeed, the idea of a particular battle or war that could change the future is one type of the “alternative” history genre. There are series of books based on the premise that the South won the Civil War or that Germany won World War II.
VFW post newsletters at times carry short synopses of specific engagements, particularly in wars involving members of the VFW. Rather than looking at contemporary wars, this article describes an important engagement that preceded two battles so decisive they could have changed our present. This happened nearly two and a half millennia ago at the Pass of Thermopylae and was followed by the major battles of Salamis, 480 B.C. and Plataea, 479 B.C. These struggles between Greece and the Persian Empire impacted the entire future course of Western history. Had the Persians won at Salamis and Plataea, there might never have arisen and flourished a great Hellenic civilization that contributed so much to the ideals and beliefs such as democracy that still exist—at least in some places in the Western world. Had these wars ended with the Persians winning, Europe possibly might be an Islamic nation today, although Mohammed arrived long after these wars.
We may be approaching a similar crux in the future history of the West. At the very least, by remembering history, we can see how a few defiant men made a difference in this early battle and for the future that led to our still relatively free United States of America.
For centuries before these two battles took place there was a struggle between Greece and Persia. It was the first major conflict in written history between East and West. During those long years there were multiple attempts by the Persians to invade Greek territory. They usually ended somewhat disastrously for the Persians. Then, around 485 B.C., the Persian king Xerxes, having reestablished order in the Persian Empire, began preparing for another invasion of Greece. Each individual settlement in the Persian Empire was required to provide fighting men for the Persian army. Estimates range from 150,000 to 180,000 soldiers. To move this many men into Grecian territories required considerable preparations including bridging a milelong section of sea between Asia and Europe at the Dardanelles.
When Xerxes was ready, he sent emissaries to all of the Greek states asking for “earth and water,” at the time the symbolic way of saying “Give up.” The Greeks did not. They settled on a strategy of defense with the primary aim of blocking Persian advance at selected locations. The two areas most amenable for stopping the enemy were the Vale of Tempe and the pass of Thermopylae. Because of the land configuration here small armies could hold the land invasion of the Persians up long enough to convince them to try to outflank the Greeks using their naval fleet. Even though the Persians had a numerical superiority in naval vessels the Greeks felt they had a good chance of winning a battle at sea because of the configuration of the surrounding land.
Greece sent two divisions consisting of 10,000 soldiers to the Vale of Tempe, one a Spartan division under Evaenetus and the second commanded by Themistocles. In one of those typical leadership fumbles which still happen today, the overall commander-in-chief of this army, Evaenetus, decided there were more passes to hold than he had men. He gave up and went back home. Although considerably discouraged, the Greek leadership knew they had to continue to defend their land. The decision was made to hold firm at the main land invasion route, the pass at Thermopylae and try to engage the Persian Navy in the channel.
Leonidas prepared to defend Thermopylae with about 7,000 men against at least 100,000 Persian and their allies. The pass was ideal for a small number of individuals in a defensive position. It was a narrow area only about 47 feet wide, with mountains on one side and the sea on the other.
Xerxes arrived and set up camp but sat there for four days. The historian Herodotus says it was because he expected the huge size of his army to scare the Greeks away as in “Give up your weapons and surrender.” Eventually this event gave rise to the saying Molon labe—Come and Take Them. No one ever said Xerxes was stupid so it is more likely he was waiting in hopes his fleet would win a naval battle allowing him to bypass the Greeks on land.
On the fifth day Xerxes attacked and learned as many commanders have learned in the succeeding 2,500 years that armor and a good defensive position beat unarmored troops, no matter how many. In this case, armor meant personal armor on the Spartan soldiers, not mechanized forces. Xertes tried again the next day and again had to fall back. As commanders also have learned, if you extend your supply line beyond your reach eventually you get in trouble. Xerxes was getting desperate because he was facing the possibility of retreat as his supplies ran out.
Then, a Greek traitor told him of a possible way through the forests to cross the mountains and surprise the Spartans from the rear. When Leonidas heard what was happening he split his army into two divisions, keeping approximately 1,500 at the pass and dismissing the rest. An attempt to close down the forest path with some Greek forces was a case of too little/too late and failed. The Persians came on; Leonidas was attacked both from the front and rear. In the end, he and most of his men, refusing to surrender, were killed.
Even so, Leonidas and his men did some heavy damage to the Persian forces and delayed them long enough to allow the Athenian forces to retreat from Athens to the island of Salamis. Thermopylae was a tactical loss, but it gave the Greeks a moral victory, an upsurge in hope and defiance which helped in their next battles at Salamis later that year and the following year’s battle at Plataea.
[Note: The primary information source for this article as well as the map was J.F.C. Fuller’s three volume The Decisive Battles of the Western World and Their Influence Upon History, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London: 1957, along with some additional Web material].