So yeah maybe my assumption is outright wrong, and possibly my terminology is wrong as well, but what i'm interested in is this - throughout most of (European) history, wars to me seem like a series of 'compartmentalized' or 'discrete' engagements that are fairly quickly over before the two sides disengage for a noticeable period of time.
Except from some point onwards, it feels as if things suddenly got bigger and longer (tee hee) and much more fluid. Like no longer would two armies meet at a place of their choosing and battle for a few hours. Now it's a continuous (well not really, but you get the idea) line of much more soldiers spread over a long frontline, various parts of which are seemingly always engaged with the enemy at some point in time.
Like - I imagine hundreds or thousands of knights and men at arms meet on a field and hack away at each other until one side breaks. The other pursues. After a while they call it a day. Losing side recovers, nobles raise more troops, lick their wounds, it takes a long time for another battle to be 'set up'.
Fast forward couple of centuries - in, say, WW1 I imagine an extremely long frontline where things are constantly happening. Not everywhere, but also not without a day where a probe, an attack, an artillery barrage, something happening. Constant something versus intermittent sometimes, if I'm making any sense?
Am I wrong in thinking the above? Am I oversimplifying centuries of warfare? Am I overthinking the intensity of more recent warfare? Or am I somehow not entirely incorrect - in which case, how did all this happen, was it a gradual shift or did come about as a result of a particular conflict/development/period of history?
Like - I imagine hundreds or thousands of knights and men at arms meet on a field and hack away at each other until one side breaks. The other pursues. After a while they call it a day. Losing side recovers, nobles raise more troops, lick their wounds, it takes a long time for another battle to be 'set up'.
Well, this is a large misconception that medieval/ancient armies used to be just two big 'hammers' being swung at one another with little or no control over finer movements.
There was plenty of probing, scouting, skirmishing along fronts, attacking outposts, small garrisons, raiding, etc. before modern warfare, throughout the world's history. The short, decisive battles where both sides muster as many soldiers as they can and commit them to one big battle were the minority of battles.
Most conflicts throughout history have generally consisted of sieges, often with little to no major battles occurring. Major battles in the field where both armies decided to commit their forces were less common. Siege assaults were the least common of all.
During sieges, you can certainly expect many smaller excursions by defenders as well as probing attacks by the invaders. The invaders may or may not also be engaging in raiding of the countryside around the castle/town/settlement, which would generally be conducted by small bands. Meanwhile, a big 'decisive' siege assault was incredibly rare, relatively speaking.
The major differences arise from the difference in scale.
World War I is a landmark war because of the sheer scale of the battlefield and the numbers involved. Strategies and tactics begin to mature during this war on maintaining momentum and pressure on the operations level.
This does NOT mean that wars prior to this were completely devoid of small unit actions. Large movements of large bodies of men and women, whether in the 2000s or in the 200s, always require lots of planning, 'set up time', and complex logistics.
Technology also has to do with how warfare has changed in tempo from 'ending' when nightfall came to the modern warfare standard of round the clock operations whenever possible. Real time communications technology is the key because it allows for greater command and control (C&C) by the command structure, allowing for greater finesse and sophistication in field communications. Wireless comms greatly increase this command capability as well.
But really, there isn't that stark of a difference. Well, besides the big leaps in technology.
The misconception that warfare in medieval, classical, and ancient times revolved around the 'big battle' is perpetuated by both our selective story telling (people like structure to their narratives and battles are good places to anchor a stream of events like wars) as well as popular media (its more dramatic to hinge victory on titanic struggles with thousands of men bashing each other than to show the low intensity conflicts that most wars were, with casualties and fighting a trickle or stream more than a river).