The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
-William Shakespeare, Othello

Music has been an integral part of warfare and the soldier’s life since the dawn of history. Even the instruments on which it is played have themselves acquired great symbolic power — a regiment’s drums are second only to its colors as an emblem of honor and tradition. In the 18th century, the act of enlisting was described as ‘following the drum. Even today, those ancient symbols continue to be evoked by titles such as Dave R. Palmer’s Summons of the Trumpet, a study of strategy in the Vietnam War.

The function of music in war has always been twofold: as a means of communication and as a psychological weapon. Among the oldest references to the latter role appears in Chapter 6 of the Old Testament’s book of Joshua, with an exceptionally detailed description of the deployment of ram’s horns against Jericho, the oldest fortified human settlement known to archaeology. Although ram’s horns do indeed make a powerful blast of sound (to use the phrase favored by King James I’s translators), they can hardly be assumed to have been sufficient in and of themselves to level Jericho’s 7-meter-high walls of thick, undressed stone. Still, the biblical account of his campaign makes it clear that Joshua was a most subtle general who compensated for the numerical and technological inferiority of his men (at least some of Jericho’s Canaanite garrison had iron weapons, whereas the Israelites’ were entirely of bronze) by means of intelligence gathering, hit-and-run tactics and psychological warfare. Barring a highly coincidental earthquake, the story’s description of Jericho’s walls collapsing was most likely allegorical. Even if the exact nature of Joshua’s strategy remains conjectural, however, it seems clear that his elaborate scenarios, staged in view of the defenders and climaxing with his priests blowing their horns in unison, fired up his warriors and weakened the Canaanites’ will to resist.

Both the Greek and Roman armies used brass and percussion instruments — including the ancestors of the modern cornet and tuba — to convey information on the march, in the field and in camp. Greek armies on campaign employed musicians to accompany poetic recitations of odes and paeans designed to remind soldier and citizen alike of the valor of past heroes. After the collapse of Rome in the West, its tradition of martial music was preserved and refined by the Eastern empire in Byzantium.

There was no shortage of such practices among Rome’s Celtic enemies, who for centuries charged — and later marched — into battle accompanied by their own array of horns, drums and bagpipes. So integral were bagpipes to the Scottish martial repertoire that Britain outlawed the instruments after the defeat of Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s Scottish army in 1746 — only to lift the ban for the benefit of its own Scottish regiments soon thereafter.

During the first half of the Middle Ages, music was found in the courts and churches of Europe but not on the battlefield. The Crusades changed that, as they did so much else. Impressed by the Saracens’ use of military bands as both a means of instantly transmitting orders to distant formations and as a weapon of fear and affray, as Bartholomaeus Anglicus expressed it in the 13th century, the Christian knights soon emulated them. Among the Saracen instruments adapted were the anafil, a straight, valveless trumpet; the tabor, a small drum, sometimes snared; and the naker, a small, round kettledrum, usually deployed in pairs. The earliest mention of their use in combat appeared in Itinerarum Regis Anglorum Richardi I, a history of the Third Crusade published in 1648. In one battle fought in Syria in 1191, it describes trumpet calls being used to signal the start and recall of a Christian cavalry charge.

When veteran Crusaders returned to Europe, they brought instruments and ideas with them. As they were absorbed into various feudal or mercenary armies, the use of martial music spread rapidly. Such music also acquired new modifications, as different soldiers adapted it to their local tastes and practical needs. To the trumpets and drums were added shawms (early double-reed wind instruments) and bagpipes. Bands accompanied armies on campaign, played aboard ships or added their pomp to tournaments, festivals and other court functions.

In his 1521 treatise Libro della arte della guerra (The Art of War), Niccoló Machiavelli wrote that the commanding officer should issue orders by means of the trumpet because its piercing tone and great volume enabled it to be heard above the pandemonium of combat. Cavalry trumpets, Machiavelli suggested, ought to have a distinctly different timbre, so that their calls would not be mistaken for those pertaining to the infantry. Drums and flutes, he averred, were most useful as an adjunct to discipline on the march and during infantry maneuvers on the battlefield itself. One of his contemporaries commented at that time, Such a custom is still observed in our time, so that one of two fighting forces does not assault the enemy unless urged by the sound of trumpets and kettledrums.

By the end of the 17th century, warfare had become a stylized and highly formal business, as fierce charges gave way to the application of pressure by movement and massed firepower. Soldiers of the 1700s were required to function almost as automatons, to obey, smoothly and in formation, whatever commands were given by their superiors. With clouds of gunsmoke added to the din of combat, oral commands or personal example were not always reliable means of giving direction to an army. An order that was not heard — or worse, not understood — could be as dangerous as the enemy. Musically transmitted signals, however, could be heard above the crash of gunfire. The voice of the trumpet and the cadence of the drums were clear and unambiguous, making them vital to command and control.

Over time, the various national armies of Europe standardized their musically conveyed orders into a set of calls. Manuals from as early as the mid-16th century list such calls as Marche, Allarum, Approache, Assaulte, Retreate and Skirmish. Being able to identify those signals and translate them into specific actions was as basic a training skill as loading a musket.

Every nation eventually adopted its own signature march — the precursor of the modern national anthem — and its troops were required to memorize it as well. Amid the smoke of battle, a column of troops on the move half a mile away might be friendly or hostile, but even if their battle standard was obscured, they might be identified by their march music. Resourceful commanders had a way of sneakily turning those conventions to their advantage. In one incident during the Thirty Years’ War, a German force deceived its opponents by maneuvering to The Scots Marche. During the Battle of Oudenarde in 1708, a key fight in the War of the Spanish Succession, Allied (Anglo-Dutch-Austrian) drummers played The French Retreate so convincingly that part of the French army did, in fact, withdraw from the field.

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