Victory Inevitable?
Superior Forces Don’t Always Win
By D.W.
 

"In all truthfulness, European victory over the Mayans was never inevitable since no victory can be predictable.” That argument is very weak at best. The Mayans did not stand a chance against the Spanish. Please be honest. A reader’s comment on my Apocalypto article

Now I just love it when people foolishly make absolute claims about things for which they only have superficial knowledge; and subsequently fail to support the claim. This reader is probably assuming that because the Aztecs and Mayans were so thoroughly conquered by the Europeans, that no alternative outcome was possible.

Now I could break this down into a thorough staff analysis using the nine principles of war, METTT-C mission analysis, and OCKOCA terrain analysis. Employing these tools I could outline the numerous courses of action that the Mayans could have reasonably taken to defeat the Europeans. However, that would bore many of you to death, so I will sketch out some key factors. A disclaimer here, I don’t actually know if the Mayans or Aztecs ever employed any of the strategies I discuss here. However, they could very well have done so given their technology at the time.

First of all the indigenous people of the Americas had absolute terrain advantage over the Europeans. Now this is an often abused term since hiking a trail and knowing that it has pretty flowers doesn’t mean that one knows the terrain. One must know it intimately enough to apply their knowledge of it effectively in a decision making process.
 

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The first waves of European’s were blindly stumbling through the Central and South American jungles as they had no real knowledge of where anything was or exactly what they would encounter. They had some native guides who could have just as easily led them into an ambush. The Mayans could certainly have planned out such an audacious move and the Europeans would have been none the wiser.

Knowing your terrain means first of all knowing where you are. The Mayans should have known and mapped out where all of their towns and villages were located as best they could. Generals in the capital then would have decent estimates of the current populations, especially available warriors. They could have known which towns were defensible and which weren’t and which towns were of particular value to an invader and for what reasons. This knowledge would have enabled them to effectively plan and coordinate mobilization of warriors to mass them where they needed them.

Knowing your terrain also means knowing all maneuver corridors or avenues of approach. Small jungle trails will facilitate only a handful of men without a major construction effort. The Europeans would have used the most likely avenues of approach since they were the best way of moving quickly and avoid getting lost and ambushed. The Mayans could have mapped out all of the maneuver corridors in their territory in advance; to defend against any threat not just the Spanish.

And knowing the maneuver corridors also means that you not only know where they go, but the details of the routes. Along any particular route they should have known where the best ambush spots were and where it was best to defend and where it was best to conduct an attack. They would be able to estimate how long it would take a certain size group to move through a certain area. They would have known which parts of a river were fordable and which were impassable. And they would have known which locations an enemy would have to forage for food.

What does all of this mean?

Well the Mayans should have been able to assess from the European’s location and activities where they were going and which routes they could have taken and roughly how fast they could move. They could have effectively mobilized warriors rapidly onto these routes in sufficient numbers. They could have created a battle plan to fight the Spanish anywhere they chose to go on favorable terms and avoided battle in unfavorable places. They could have used terrain to deceive their enemy by getting them lost or moved them into kill sacks where terrain would nullify the advantage provided by horses and guns.

Now the Europeans had advanced weaponry, but all weaponry has its limitations. European firearms at the time and until the 1800’s were woefully inaccurate and had only an effective range of 100 yards or less. They were difficult to load and had a low rate of fire even with experienced troops. The only advantage firearms gave is when riflemen were massed into block formations where they could volley fire against an enemy charging at close range. The larger the formation the more effective it was and smaller formations were far less formidable and could be easily overwhelmed by disciplined attackers.

Horses only provided an advantage if cavalry units were grouped together in large number and could attack a formation at high speeds altogether. This creates an effect known as shock action, but when denied speed and the ability to mass they were far less effective in a direct attack. Cannons for that matter were only effective against large formations and fortifications. But a dispersed and more maneuverable attacker was far less vulnerable to these cumbersome and inaccurate weapons.

Thus, the key to European power was their ability to mass firepower. This required them to fight in large tight knit formations due to the limits of their technology. These formations required a lot of room to move, well suited to wide open areas. The Mayans best tactic would have been to avoid attacking these large formations unless they had overwhelming superiority. The Mayans could have used the following dictums with great success as they would work to negate the effects of European weapons.

1. Attack European formations in piecemeal, focus on the attrition of their combat power by isolating and wiping out small detachments. It was not always possible for the Europeans to remain in big groups all of the time. Some would have to forage and gather supplies while others would be separated for other reasons. Wiping out small detachments would make them afraid to operate in smaller groups and damage their ability to scout and sustain themselves.

2. Attack Europeans only in constricted terrain where they had limited room to maneuver and obstructed fields of fire. In this situation they would have slower response times and horses wouldn’t be able to charge a Mayan formation.

3. Conduct many ambushes and surprise attacks. The less reaction time Europeans had the less organized and cohesive their formations would have been. They would have had less time to prepare cannons and muskets for firing. Attacks at night would have also limited their ability to mass fire and form up.

4. Conduct scorched earth operations to deny the Europeans essential supplies they need. The Spanish can only carry so much with them on their ships and in their wagons. The Mayans could have done this effectively knowing what natural resources were on the routes they were taking.

5. Avoid attacking European fortifications, but siege them and starve them out by killing anyone who leaves them.

There are many other tactics that they could have been effectively employed against the Europeans but I will spare you.

Now let’s look at the total number of the most troops the Europeans could have conceivably massed at any one point in time. The Spanish could probably muster a couple thousand troops from a big armada of ships. However, the Mayans and Aztecs were empires that had millions of subjects. They could have mobilized fifty to one hundred thousand warriors to fight them if they were organized enough. And they could have crushed the invaders with sheer numbers if they were coordinated and disciplined to do so.

The Mayans could have surrounded these European formations and pummeled them with missile weapons. They would have sustained many casualties but the Europeans only had so much gunpowder, but arrows and spears are easy to make.

In addition, the Mayans should have had observation and intelligence capabilities throughout all of their territories. Settlements on the periphery should have been on the lookout for any attacker and had a system of runners to relay intelligence quickly. They could have had observation posts beyond the limits of their territory for advanced warning. Diplomatic contacts with all neighboring states would provide information on contacts from their neighbors.

This early warning system would have enabled them to gain and maintain contact with the Europeans early on and follow all of their movements. Units on the periphery could have overwhelmed small groups of Spanish from the onset or conduct probing attacks to feel the Spanish out. These lessons would have helped the Mayans understand how the Europeans fought and how to avoid their weaknesses before they committed to decisive battle.

Overwhelming the Europeans early on when they were in small numbers would have denied them from establishing settlements that would solidify further conquests. After a few decades of having their landing parties annihilated by the natives, would the Europeans have persisted? This is all speculation of course but a European victory was never inevitable. There were plenty of ways the Mayans and Aztecs could have won.

But in summary, my argument is not weak at all. European victory was not inevitable.

And let me say something about predictability and war. Who would have predicted that the North Vietnamese would have survived about two million casualties and sustained fighting against a vastly superior American enemy who commanded an unimaginable firepower advantage against a logistically inferior foe? Who would have predicted that disparate groups of lightly armed Spanish guerrillas with some help from British regulars would have defeated a vastly superior French force fielded by the great Napoleon?

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