Decision Making and Leadership in Egyptian Warfare

In ancient Egyptian history this is viewed in both war records and in modern scholarship, its own unique system of warfare. Late Bronze Age Egypt had a well-oiled domestic structure where the government could affect long-range policies outside of the momentary threats by a rival power. But modern attempts to see a “grand strategy,” with the Roman Empire as a paradigm, have been unsuccessful. Pharaonic Egypt possessed no elaborate administrative machine filled with foreign policy analysts and a complex decision-making council.

In New Kingdom Egypt (ca 1575-1190 BCE) there were few who could be counted upon to draw up foreign policy —including diplomats or their equivalents, merchant-spies, as well as the vizier. Whereas our technologically advanced society suffers from a glut of information and is highly dependent upon knowledge of others, this kingdom, like its contemporaries, reflects a stage in which decisions were made on the basis of almost random pressures. The imperial pharaohs lacked a refined and well-organized structure that enabled Egypt to execute a steady and consistent foreign policy that was not regularly dependent upon warfare. At best Egypt had a personally directed foreign policy that aimed at its own stability and not on the stability of other nations or the international system as a whole.

Everything hinged upon the nature of the ruler. Thus questions of pharaonic leadership come tothe fore. There was no aristocratic conception of foreign policy, and therefore no aristocratic brake upon the arbitrariness of autocratic rule. Pharaohs’ estimates of themselves were not dependent upon their standing in an administrative structure. To besure, the social connections and structures of powerful families mattered. But Egypt’s military leaders —call them dukes, barons, and the like —had little say in the running of their country.

The ideology of pharaonic power limited the mention of military men within the official royal historical record, both pictorial and written; military power was totally controlled by the monarch. Nevertheless, when we look to the royal command of the army the complex aspects of pharaonic leadership emerge.

The warrior kings of the New Kingdom created numerous and often lengthy royal accounts that enable well-drawn reconstructions of their role in warfare. As a case in point, Thutmose III’s famous historical narrative leads directly to his attack on the reinforced Canaanite city of Megiddo, even if it took months for the besieged citadel to surrender. The account is straightforward and emphasizes certain perennial attitudes of the warrior-pharaoh. But more significantly, there is a narrative arc that rises to a dramatic climax, but Thutmose III ends up being depicted as a sagacious planner and effective strategic general more than an actual battlefield hero.

In this royal account, written on the walls in the core of the temple of Amun at Karnak, we see the key attributes he wished to have represented. To be sure, outside of Megiddo he defeats an enemy that had no recourse but to flee. But the king is also depicted as a protagonist with intellectual and physical characteristics, including a mind for logistics. Leadership entailed thinking carefully and rationally when attempting to defeat the enemy. Thus we are told that Thutmose held a war conference at the site of Yehem; it appears that roads and “traffic time” counted just as much as his vaunted strength and victorious army. In contrast to modern expectations, his historical account recounts the march to Yehem but then stops for a lengthy consultation on war planning.

Instead of listing captives, battles, and surrenders, Thutmose ceases his forward motion, or at least this storyteller does. The portrait of Thutmose then concentrates upon the apparently radical choice of taking the narrow Aruna Pass in order to arrive at Megiddo without encountering any opposing force. The enemy, a coalition of Asiatics, is assumed to have guarded the southern and northern routes to this key city.

Thutmose’s leadership qualities are purposely concentrated within the setting of a war conference at Yehem, not on the later battlefield itself. In fact, the entire raison d’être for the campaign is vague. Much has been written concerning the presumed Asiatic empire of Egypt predating Thutmose’s campaign. But I see his rationale as not indicative of lengthy war office planning or general staff meetings. The king’s decision was to strike out against any enemy city-states who upset his control over Canaan.

At the beginning of these “Annals” Thutmose III tells us about the background to his campaign, but even here military professional concepts related to tactics and strategy are omitted. It is only when we arrive at Yehem that the narrative turns to the war. For some it is sufficient to state that the policy of the pharaoh was taken and that of his army commanders was not. Perhaps this is boilerplate rhetorical history, or a narrative formula of strong king/weak advisors. Because the pharaoh and the author or designer of the account wished to present the king’s decision as the turning point in the record — the royal decision being correct one of course — it had to be set in opposition to the differing policies.

In contrast, there is Ramesses II’s strategy when he, too, decided to march north into Asia and re-establish Egyptian sovereignty over southern Syria. The city-state of Kadesh, like Megiddo, was a perennial thorn in the side of this pro-active monarch and his predecessors. But Ramesses II’s narrative differs considerably from Thutmose III’s. For example, it is essentially metrical in structure, and thus represents a major piece of ancient Egyptian literature that is epic-poetical. The famous Kadesh Poem, owing to its length, presents the king as isolated on the plain, totally open to attack from an enemy who had settled north of Kadesh and east of the river Orontes. The narrative is presented with major speech sections, with other reflections interweaving into the account. As in a historically based stage drama we meet artistically predetermined literary tropes and constructions, not the least of which is the presence of the pharaoh’s liegeman, his charioteer Menna, a true stock character on whom the shadow of pharaoh lies.