War's Monstrous Presence

A distinguished professor of military history, emeritus, at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College rejects the dulcet middle register of professional historians to write his summa as stories, fictions. Why? Late-middle-age hubris? Not at all. The historical fictions in An Instinct for War are better written and more sophisticated in effect than the majority of the short fiction I have read. Spiller states his motive: "Before history there were stories, and after history has disappeared we will still tell stories if we are able…. It is through stories … that we have always created and advanced knowledge of ourselves and the world which encompasses us." This historian maintains that stories are more deeply woven into the human psyche. If you have read Thucydides, or browsed Jomini on Napoleon, or wondered what made Cortès tick, or speculated on why McClellan failed, your understanding of these historical figures will be both more certain and dynamic after reading Spiller.

Thirteen historically based fictions are set at crucial turning points in the history of warfare. We witness an ancient Chinese royal court as the emperor realizes that the gods are not the sole determinant of battles; his generals and their decisions also determine outcomes. We stand with young hard-charging Greek military officers listening to an address by Thucydides as they reluctantly realize that wartime reputations are usually determined more by politics than by personal courage. We meet an imprisoned and chained Machiavelli as he conducts, in 1513, a lesson for his jailer in the difference between an army at the call of the Medicis and an army serving a state that protects home and family. (The jailer, who becomes convinced that the latter is better, is put to death that night by the Medicis.) A century later in the early 1600s, we listen as the robust Albrecht von Wallenstein, "king of mercenaries," debates a quiet scholar, Justus Lipsius, who has studied the Roman Polybius on war. Lipsius states, "I taught my young scholars how [the Romans] shaped their armies to defend what they loved, not plunder and kill what profited them," to which Wallenstein blusters, "Don't you see Lipsius? Armies are like the whores who follow them with baggage trains. They will fight well or they will fight badly for any cause at all." Of course the use of mercenaries was in rapid decline, as Lipsius's view of civic armies was rapidly ascendant. There is much else.

My thumbnail sketches do poor justice to the art of Spiller's historical fictions. Characters are convincing; dramatic situations are defined precisely and in considerable depth; and plots unfold rapidly—all with historical accuracy by an eminent military historian. Epiphanies are sharp; denouements are sudden and thought-provoking. Throughout the book the use of irony is sophisticated and engaging.

It is just after the Battle of Bautzen (1813) in the Saxony region of Germany. Intending to crush his Prusso-Russian enemy, Napoleon has gained at best a Pyrrhic victory. His army of 115,000 new recruits (replacements for his catastrophic losses in the Russian campaign) has taken 20,000 casualties. Noting that many of the wounds to arms, hands, and shoulders are "severely scorched," the French officers accused three thousand of cowardice, "collective treason." As a lesson to the army Napoleon orders four from each of the twelve corps, a total of forty-eight, to be executed.

Here Jean Larrey, surgeon of the Imperial Guard, well-known for his respect for the individual soldier, intervenes. With the reluctant approval of Napoleon and at risk to his reputation in the army, Larrey undertakes an investigation to determine the truth of the charges against the three thousand. The wounds do appear to be self-inflicted, but the soldiers continue to deny that charge. Larrey closely examines the battlefield still strewn with corpses and horses, "putrescent heaps of flesh." Accompanying him is a Colonel Moreau, an experienced officer who has led one of the attacks. Moreau explains that...