Insights from the Demise of Ancient Civilizations

  

I thoroughly enjoyed Victor Davis Hanson’s The End of Everything:  How Wars Descend into Annihilation. 

 

It gave me a thumbnail description of parts of history I had read about in the past but most of which I had not penetrated in detail:  classical Thebes, which saw the Macedonians eliminate the independent Greek city-state; Carthage, with the Romans obliterating the city at the end of the Third Punic War; Constantinople, with Mahmet II finally destroying a much depleted Byzantine culture; and, finally, Aztec Tenochtitlan, where Cortez, with less than 1,000 conquistadors, obliterated the Aztec civilization and its warriors numbering (and death of) over 100,000.

 

In four fascinating chapters, he examines each of these in some detail.  His thesis is that there are lessons of which we should be aware of how things came to pass, usually through naiveté, hubris and misunderstanding, as well as a deliberate dependence on real or presumed allies exacerbated by a willful refusal to recognize the power and intent of their enemies.  They underestimated both the capabilities and the intent of their enemies. 

 

I found the story of the motivation of Romans to obliterate the Carthaginians as eerily similar to what is motivating some Israelis now to obliterate Palestine and Hamas and which motivated America and the Allies to obliterate German cities and Japanese cities in World War II.  As Hanson writes, “Generations of Romans were convinced, rightly or wrongly, that the resources of their Carthaginian enemy were timeless and endless.  So there could be no such thing as a sufficiently diminished and quiescent Carthage.”  They had to go. 

 

Similarly, while Cortez did not start out with the conviction that he has to wipe out the entire culture of the people (Aztecs) he was righting, he came to the realization that, in order to rebuild what became Mexico City, he had to obliterate the Aztecs.  He was led to this importantly because of the diametrically opposed culture of the Aztecs, highlighted by their incredible practice of human sacrifice and cannibalism. 

 

Similarly, I don’t believe the Ottomans intended to destroy all of the citizens of Constantinople but the conflict developed with such intensity that that became the result.  I’ll return to this point later.

 

Hansen draws the excellent point that the accusation of war guilt and harsh reparations accompanied by feeble enforcement as occurred at the end of World War I can ensure another war with an insulted but newly resurgent enemy.  In contrast, Hanson writes, “Quiet magnanimity backed by unyielding force and confidence in enforcing it does bode for a settlement, as occurred after World War II, and can guarantee lasting peace.”

 

This lesson is applied to Romans’ lack of strong enforcement of holding back a resurging Carthage after the Second Punic War.  So, the Third Punic War arose.  Now, Rome was in a state of mind that there will not be any more wars.  We will obliterate Carthage and the civilization which supports it.  This is the attitude of Israelis toward Hamas.  It was the intention of the U.S. as we tackled Al Qaeda.  The problem is that these movements cannot be totally obliterated. 

 

A very interesting insight I gained in Cortez’s success is the degree to which he was able to draft into his army tens of thousands of fierce neighboring warriors who were opposed to the Aztecs.  The Aztecs had treated them cruelly.  I believe the Nazis’ treatment of the people in the countries in which they invaded accounts for not only their failure of the citizens to join the Nazi cause, but to the strength of the resistance which developed. 

 

I’m also struck by how a combination of religion and greed motivated Cortez, just as it motivated so many other movements during the course of history.  As Cortez himself wrote:  “The principal reason for our coming to these parts (of the world) is to glorify and preach the faith of Jesus Christ, even though at the same time it brings us honor and profit, which infrequently come in the same package.”

 

One of the most memorable insights I took from the book is how the intent and effort to destroy rather than merely defeat a trapped enemy ensures unprecedented savagery and, as Hanson writes, “The zeal necessary to resist overwhelming odds (by those being attacked) eventually ensures a level of counter-violence that seals the fate of the defeated.  Surely this is what accounts for and drove the blitz bombing of civilian populations by the Allies in both Japan and Germany during World War II.  It is driving the motivation and actions of the Israelis as they pummel Gaza and its citizens with bombs.  Hanson recites the learning during the course of World War II by General Lemay that there was no recourse but to blanket-bombing to win the war. 

 

Looking back, Hanson notes that, “Once the victors are unleashed—and they always are—their commanders post-facto expressed regret over their nihilistic cruelty, without any sense that they would do anything differently in the future.”  This, of course, is what happened following the use of the atomic bomb.  Retrospective debate as to whether it should have been used.  Retrospective debate today about blanket-bombing and, yet in hindsight, would one have done anything differently at the time?  Almost certainly not.  The forces and pressure of the situation led to this outcome almost inevitably.