Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 172, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1917 — Battles Which Made the World [ARTICLE]

Battles Which Made the World

MARATHON - C * The Fiarht at Tea to Oae Which Kept Europe a Earopeaa Coaatry unit Broke the Power of an Ancient War Bord,

By CAPT. ROLAND F. ANDREWS

(Copyright, 1917, by MoQnm Mewtpapnr Syntnea—)

•' Two thousand four hundred and seven years ago the greatest military power of the time menaced the existence of human liberty as does the greatest military power of today. The great power was overwhelmed, its forces shattered and Europe preserved in a single battle, that of Marathon, fought 490 B. C. Had the Athenians failed In this great fight Europe would have been overrun by the Medes and the Persians. The course of the world would have been turned into the hands of the Asiatics. Called upon suddenly to fight for their national existence, the men of Athens found themselves in a position singularly like that of Americans today. They had only a tiny army and they had a host of lawmakers to debate the manner in which that army should be organized and directed. While every free Greek was compulsorily trained in military duty, the muster roll of Athenian citizens fit for military duty never exceeded 30,000. It is estimated that at Marathon the Greek forces numbered not more than 11,000. Against this the great king, Darius, sent a host of 110,000. The odds seemed homeless. Yet the 11,000 warriors of an aroused and desperate nation drove t-m times their number literally into the sea. Darius, not unlike the Wilhelm of today, had sent heralds to Greece, declaring that he, “the lord of all men from the rising to the setting sun,” required earth and water to be delivered to the heralds as symbol that he was head and master of the countryin large part Greece submitted. Ath- , enr and Sparta hurled back defiance ami stoned the heralds in the market place. Then they prepared to fight. The great Asiatic army, voyaging In more than 1,500 vessels, was commanded by Datis, ohe of the ablest J generals of antiquity. Fighting and winning easily one or two smaller engagements, this savage leader; making announcement that the entire population of Greece would be led into Asia to hear its doom from the lips of the great king, himself, finally landed-on the eastern coast at Marathon. Behind him were Islands already conquered. His galleys covered the beach and the neighboring seas. On the mountain before him were the 11,000 Greeks, theif ten- generals and one war ruler, attempting to decide in council whether it were better to attack, to retreat or to wait for re-enforcements from Sparta. Sparta had promised assistance, but the Persians had landed on the sixth day of the moon, and religious scruples prevented the march of the Spartan troops until the moon should have reached its full. There were pacifists, actuated by religious scruples, even In ancient Greece. The ten generals,’ elected, after the Greek custom, for one year each, divided equally. Five were for fight and five were for delay. Upon the vote of the polemarch, or war ruler, one Callimachus, hinged the decision. He hesitated even as the "presidents and congresses of modern times sometimes hesitate. But among the five generals eager for fight was Miltiades, a man of record none too savory and afterward to meet with more than a little of execration, but a military genius, a man of fiery if unscrupulous energy and a fighter from his sandals to his crown. Said this Miltiades (Herodotus sets down his words): “It now rests with you, Callimachus, either to enslave Athens or, by assuring her freedom, to win youraclf n n immortality o f fame. — Never since he Athenians were a people were they in such danger. If they bow the knee to these Medes they are to be given up to Hlppias, and you know what that means. If we do not bring on a battle presently some factious intrigue will disunite the Athenians and the’city will be betrayed to the Medes. But if we fight before there is anything rotten in the state of Athens. I believe that, provided the gods will give fair plav and no favor, we ate able to get the best of it In an engagement.” Said Callimachus, slowly: “We fight” It was the law that the Greek generals should take turns at army command day by day. Miltiades waited for the day. It was also the custom for the warriors of each Greek tribe to fight In a body under their own general. Their line consisted wholly of heavy armed spearmen bearing spear, shield and short sword, for the Greeks of that period set little store by lightarmed troops save for skirmishing. -Ttrey-usually advanced slowly and steadily into action In a uniform phalanx about eight spears deep. For Marathon, however, Miltiades, who hgd no idea of permitting to Woutflanked, Von Kluck fashion, and cut up by the Persian horse, weakened his center to protect his wings and take advantage of the, inequalities in the ground. Thus stood the Greek force, chanting hoarsely its war song, “Oh, Sons of the Greek, Strike for Freedom.” The Greeks were a nation of athletes. Miltiades, therefore was deterred through no fear of arriving breathless from advancing them at the

run. Down the mountainside they swept and the Persian horse, scrambling Into the saddle while the archers let fly their showers of arrows, thought the little army—again on the word of Herodotus —a “band of madmen.” Hastily the Persian force, spearmen from the Indus, wild riders from the steppes of the Khorassan, black bowmen from Ethiopia, the fighting men of a dozen other races, formed to meet them. Only the Infantry had time to gain position in line. Against them thundered the leveled line of Athenian spears. Creasy, the historian, believed the entire front rank of the Asiatics went down at the first shock. In the “tenter the native Persians and Sacae fought like fiends. They even broke the weakened Athenian line. But the wings, where Miltiades had concentrated his strength, routed, all before them, then turned and with Miltiades at their head charged the Persian center. The Persians had wicker shields. The heavy Greek spears and short swords plunged through them. The Persians had no body armor. The Greeks hacked them in halves. With their, archers in their rear doing their best to protect them by arrow flights, exactly as does artillery on the Flanders line today, the Persians hurled themselves against the compact Greek phalanx only to meet death. Ten to one though they were they could not stand the punishment. Marathon was their Marne. They broke and ran. And the Greeks cut them down as they scrambled aboard their galleys. In this historic battle which kept Europe white, the Persian invaders lost 6,400 men. The Athenian dead numbered 192.' Callimachus, whose vote had made the victory possible, was among the slain. The day of Marathon is a critical epoch in the history of nations. It broke forever the spell of Persian invincibility. It secured to mankind the enlightenment of the western world.