Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power (68 page)

We should remember also that our present argument for military dynamism based on technological preeminence is not always shared by Spanish accounts of the times, which quite wrongly emphasize the conquistadors’ moral “superiority,” innate intelligence, and Christian virtue.

There are a number of justifiably renowned narratives of the Spanish conquest. Perhaps unrivaled in its sheer power of description is still W. H. Prescott, History of
the Conquest of Mexico
(New York, 1843). For modern English readers, H. Thomas,
Conquest: Montezuma, Cortés, and the Fall of Old Mexico
(New York, 1993) is invaluable. See also R. C. Padden, The Hummingbird and the Hawk: Conquest and
Sovereignty in the Valley of Mexico, 1503–1541
(Columbus, Ohio, 1967). For some good comparative discussion, see also A. B. Bosworth,
Alexander and the East
(Oxford, 1996).

A plethora of contemporary and near contemporary accounts surrounds the conquest. Begin with the masterful narrative of Bernal Díaz del Castillo,
The
Discovery and Conquest of Mexico, 1517–1521, trans. A. P. Maudslay, (New York, 1956); the letters of Hernán Cortés, whose reliability has often been questioned (Letters from Mexico, trans. A. Pagden [New York, 1971]); and P. de Fuentes, The
Conquistadors: First-Person Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico
(New York, 1963).

For Aztec narratives and harsh criticism of the Spanish conquest, see Bernardino de Sahagún,
General History of the Things of New Spain: Florentine Codex, Book 12—
The Conquest of Mexico,
trans. H. Cline (Salt Lake City, Utah, 1975), and the anthology edited by Miguel Leon-Portilla,
The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the
Conquest of Mexico,
2nd ed. (Boston, 1992). Cf. also Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl,
Ally of Cortés
(El Paso, Tex., 1969).

Biographies of Cortés are innumerable; the most accessible are S. Madariaga, Hernán Cortés: Conqueror of Mexico (Garden City, N.Y., 1969), and J. M. White, Cortés
and the Downfall of the Aztec Empire: A Study in a Conflict of Cultures
(New York, 1971). The near contemporary hagiography by Francisco López de Gómara,
Cortés:
The Life of the Conqueror by His Secretary
(Berkeley, Calif., 1964), contains much information not found elsewhere.

A specialized study of Spanish military practice of the sixteenth century can be found in G. Parker,
The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1567–1659: The
Logistics of Spanish Victory and Defeat in the Low Countries’ Wars
(Cambridge, 1972), and R. Martínez and T. Barker, eds.,
Armed Forces in Spain Past and Present
(Boulder, Colo., 1988). On the general status of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European warfare, see C. M. Cipolla, Guns, Sails, and Empires: Technological Innovation and the
Early Phases of European Expansion 1400–1700
(New York, 1965); J. Black,
European
Warfare 1160–1815
(New Haven, Conn., 1994); and F. Tallett,
War and Society in
Early-Modern Europe, 1495–1715
(London and New York, 1992). For the political and military position of Spain in the sixteenth century and the effect of its empire on its influence in Europe, see J. H. Elliott,
Spain and Its World, 1500–1700: Selected Essays
(New Haven, Conn., 1989), and R. Kagan and G. Parker, eds.,
Spain, Europe and the
Atlantic World: Essays in Honour of John H. Elliot
(Cambridge, 1995).

Ross Hassig has written a series of seminal books on Aztec warfare that seeks to explain the conquest from a Native American perspective:
Mexico and the Spanish
Conquest
(London and New York, 1994);
Aztec Warfare: Political Expansion and
Imperial Control
(Norman, Okla., 1988); and
War and Society in Ancient Mesoamerica
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1992). For larger questions of Aztec culture and society, consult P. Carasco, The Tenocha Empire of Ancient Mexico: The Triple Alliance of
Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan
(Norman, Okla., 1999), and G. Collier, R. Rosaldo, and J. Wirth,
The Inca and Aztec States, 1400–1800: Anthropology and History
(New York, 1982).

The key role of the Spanish brigantines on Lake Texcoco is covered in C. H. Gardiner,
Naval Power in the Conquest of Mexico
(Austin, Tex., 1956), and his
Martín
López: Conquistador Citizen of Mexico
(Lexington, Ky., 1958).

For cultural explanations that downplay the role of European tactics and technology in the conquest, see the article by G. Raudzens, “So Why Were the Aztecs Conquered, and What Were the Wider Implications? Testing Military Superiority as a Cause of Europe’s Preindustrial Colonial Conquests,”
War in History
2.1 (1995), 87–104. Also see T. Todorov,
The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other
(New York, 1984); I. Clendinnen,
Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan,
1517–1570
(Cambridge, 1987); and I. Clendinnen,
Aztecs: An Interpretation
(Cambridge, 1991). And for a critique of all such approaches, see K. Windschuttle,
The Killing of History: How Literary Critics and Social Theorists Are Murdering Our
Past
(New York, 1997).

Chapter Seven: The Market—or Capitalism Kills
Lepanto,
October
7,
1571

For centuries, accounts of Lepanto were cloaked in Christian triumphalism that emphasized the great relief in the West that the Turk was finally checked in his expansion across the Mediterranean. More recent study of the battle has been remarkably free of ideological bias. There still is absent, however, a single up-to-date scholarly monograph in English devoted entirely to the engagement itself. As a consequence, we often forget that aside from Salamis and Cannae, Lepanto may have been the single deadliest one-day slaughter in European history. Surely, in no other conflict have Westerners butchered more prisoners than did the Spanish and Italians in the aftermath of the battle, when most of the thousands of Turkish seamen lost their lives. The battle of Lepanto takes its place alongside the Somme and Cannae as a testament to man’s ability to overcome the constraints of time and space in killing literally thousands of human beings in a few hours.

For complete accounts of the battle that discuss primary sources in Italian, Spanish, and Turkish, see G. Parker,
Spain and the Netherlands, 1559–1659
(Short Hills, N.J., 1979); D. Cantemir,
The History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman
Empire,
trans. N. Tinda (London, 1734); A. Wiel,
The Navy of Venice
(London, 1910); and especially K. M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204–1571), vol. 4, The Sixteenth Century from Julius III to Pius V (Philadelphia, 1984). W. H. Prescott, History
of the Reign of Philip the Second,
vol. 4 (Philadelphia, 1904), has an engaging narrative of the battle. Other than disagreements over casualty numbers, the actual position of a few ships in the vicinity of the Greek coast, and the long-term strategic consequences of the victory, there is little major scholarly controversy concerning the actual events of the battle.

For more specialized assessments see A. C. Hess, “The Battle of Lepanto and Its Place in Mediterranean History,”
Past and Present 57
(1972), 53–73, and especially M. Lesure,
Lépante: La crise de l’empire Ottomane
(Paris, 1971). There are also invaluable discussions of the strategy and tactics of Lepanto in the surveys of C. Oman, A History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century (New York, 1937); J. F. C. Fuller, A
Military History of the Western World, vol. 1, From the Earliest Times to the Battle of
Lepanto (London, 1954); and R. C. Anderson, Naval Wars in the Levant, 1559–1853 (Princeton, N. J., 1952).

Lepanto and the primary sources for the battle are also the subjects of chapters in scholarly accounts of sixteenth-century warfare; see, for example, G. Hanlon,
The
Twilight of a Military Tradition: Italian Aristocrats and European Conflicts, 1560–1800
(New York, 1998); J. F. Guilmartin, Jr.,
Gunpowder and Galleys: Changing Technology
and Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the Sixteenth Century
(Cambridge, 1974); and W. L. Rodgers, Naval Warfare Under Oars, 4th to 16th Centuries (Annapolis, Md., 1967). There are good illustrations in R. Gardiner and J. Morrison, eds.,
The Age of the
Galley: Mediterranean Oared Vessels Since Pre-Classical Times
(Annapolis, Md., 1995). See also F. C. Lane, Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the Renaissance (Westport, Conn., 1975).

A number of accessible narratives of the battle exists for the general reader, with good contemporary illustrations. See, for example, R. Marx,
The Battle of Lepanto,
1571
(Cleveland, Ohio, 1966), and J. Beeching,
The Galleys of Lepanto
(London, 1982). Valuable information about Lepanto can be found in biographies of Don Juan of Austria, especially the classic by W. Stirling-Maxwell, Don John of Austria (London, 1883), with its collation of contemporary sources; and see, too, the moving narrative of C. Petrie, Don John of Austria (New York, 1967). For the spectacular commemoration of the Christian victory in art and literature, see L. von Pastor, The History of the
Popes, from the Close of the Middle Ages
(London, 1923). An anthology, G. Benzoni, ed.,
Il Mediterraneo nella Seconda Metà del ’500 alla Luce di Lepanto
(Florence, 1974), has a perceptive article in English for the general reader on Ottoman sources of the conflict: H. Inalcik, “Lepanto in Ottoman Sources,” 185–92.

For conditions of the Mediterranean economy and society in the sixteenth century, see D. Vaughan, Europe and the Turk: A Pattern of Alliances (New York, 1976); K. Karpat, ed.,
The Ottoman State and Its Place in World History
(Leiden, 1974); and H. Koenigsberger and G. Mosse,
Europe in the Sixteenth Century
(New York, 1968). On questions of geography and capitalism, see especially the works of F. Braudel,
Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century: The Perspective of the World
(New York, 1979), and
The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip
II, vol. 1 (New York, 1972). Cf., too, E. L. Jones, The European Miracle: Environments,
Economies, and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia
(Cambridge, 1987).

For earlier Western military practice, see J. France,
Western Warfare in the Age of
the Crusades, 1000–1300 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1999). More detailed accounts of the Turkish army and navy are found in R. Murphey,
Ottoman Warfare, 1500–1700
(New Brunswick, N.J., 1999). On the economy of Venice, see W. H. McNeill, Venice: The
Hinge of Europe, 1081–1797
(Chicago, 1974), and A. Tenenti,
Piracy and the Decline of
Venice 1580–1615
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967).

Ottoman military, social, and economic life is a vast field, but good introductions to the structure of the empire and its approach to finance and military expenditure are found in the sympathetic studies of H. Inalcik,
The Ottoman Empire: The Classical
Age 1300–1600 (London, 1973); W. E. D. Allen, Problems of Turkish Power in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1963); S. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and
Modern Turkey, vol. 1, Empire of the Gazas: The Rise and Decline of the Ottoman
Empire, 1280–1808
(Cambridge, 1976). More recent general surveys are A. Wheatcroft,
The Ottomans
(New York, 1993), and J. McCarthy,
The Ottoman Turks:
An Introductory History to 1923
(London, 1997).

The relationship between Islam and capitalism is a minefield of controversy, as Western critics on occasion emphasize the inherent restrictions on the market found under Muslim rule, even as Muslim scholars themselves often argue that there is nothing incompatible with free markets in the Islamic faith. For a review of the problems, see H. Islamoglu-Inan, ed.,
The Ottoman Empire and the World-Economy
(Cambridge, 1987); M. Choudhury,
Contributions to Islamic Economic Theory
(London, 1986); and M. Abdul-Rauf,
A Muslim’s Reflections on Democratic Capitalism
(Washington, D.C., 1984). David Landes has written two excellent appraisals on the role of capitalism in East-West relations:
The Rise of Capitalism
(New York, 1966), and
The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in
Western Europe from 1750 to the Present
(Cambridge, 1969).

Chapter Eight: Discipline—or Warriors Are Not Always Soldiers
Rorke’s
Drift,
January
22–23,
1879

There is a heavily footnoted official British history of the war that is a model of nineteenth-century scholarship:
Narrative of Field Operations Connected with the Zulu
War of 1879
(London, 1881). A number of fascinating memoirs were also published in connection with the war. The Zulu-speaking Henry Harford was attached to the Natal Native Contingent and was involved in the thick of the fighting of the center column; see D. Child, ed., The Zulu War Journal of Colonel Henry Harford, C.B., (Hamden, Conn., 1980). A defense of Colonel Durnford, whose misguided deployments may have lost Isandhlwana, together with a contemporary sympathetic account of the Zulus, is found in F. E. Colenso (daughter of the bishop of Natal),
History
of the Zulu War and Its Origin
(Westport, Conn., 1970). For an account written shortly after Isandhlwana and Rorke’s Drift by a veteran of tribal wars in South Africa, see also T. Lucas,
The Zulus and the British Frontiers
(London, 1879). There is a small amount of information about the end of the Zulu War in the diaries of Sir Garnet Wolseley: A. Preston, ed.,
The South African Journal of Sir Garnet Wolseley, 1879–1880
(Cape Town, 1973). More valuable is a memoir of a Boer translator employed by the Zulus, Cornelius Vign, whose diary was translated from the Dutch by Bishop J. W. Colenso: C. Vign, Cetshwayo’s Dutchman: Being the Private Journal of a White Trader
in Zululand During the British Invasion
(New York, 1969).