The ancient Athenian Admiral/General/Historian is a logical starting point. Driven by the need to find lasting lessons from his experience in the Peloponnesian War, 434-404 BCE, Thucydides first asked many of the enduring questions central to military history. In particular, he was concerned with why the war happened, why the war happened when it happened, how it was fought, and why it turned out the way it did. Since it was disastrous for both Greece as a nation and his native Athens, the war had to have some universal significance. Thucydides' ground breaking treatment of structure and agency, goals and grand strategy, innovation and change, and, of course, chance resonate throughout history, military or otherwise down to today.
Thucydides reflected on three ways to look at the "why war" question. First, it could be caused by structural reasons. Existing political, military, social, economic, and cultural factors combined to make a situation where war was inevitable. This is a top down approach as the web of factors becomes increasingly complex in moving from the very general to the specific.
The converse to structure is human agency. This approach is usually taken to explain the cause of war as a failure to manage crisis. Here, individual decisions get more complicated. Less deterministic, with more freedom of choice--choices actively taken, according to Thucydides. Human agency works from the bottom up as opposed to top down. Complex, individual choices combine into more general consequences.
In the first Book of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides provided empirical support for a more balanced third approach which combined the two. He spent a great deal of time describing the evolving city-state relationships in the aftermath of the Persian Wars and the climate which became conducive to war. But it took human choice in the face of the Corcyrean crisis to precipitate hostilities. Here, our site will offer a straight line chronology. Hyperlinks to already existing sites, particularly at MIT, will provide amplifying texts. Since the entire History itself is on-line, important speeches like Archedamus at Sparta, Pericles' funeral oration, and Nicias at Sicily can be viewed at the browser's option, without a break in the overview.
The point Thucydides makes about human agency is also related to grand strategy and innovation. Sparta used a traditional approach. March up the peninsula, devastate the crops, plunder the land, and besiege Athens. Look for the decisive hoplite battle on land and beat the Athenian army with Sparta's best asset, its army. In contrast, the Athenians retreat behind newly constructed city walls and let the Spartans ravage their crops. Athenian strength is with her navy. Use it to isolate and blockade Sparta. That is the card Pericles endeavors to put into play.
How the war is fought is in large measure contingent on unforeseen events. Natural disasters, the plague that hit Athens, storms, not to mention the failure of any plan at first contact with the enemy all present the players with critical decision points. That the range of choice collapse as events unfold, still does not make any particular outcome inevitable.
A judicious use of graphics will more fully portray the essence of chance and choice for Athenian intervention at Sybota and the role reversal that occurred at Pylos--Athenians fighting like Spartan soldiers, Spartan soldiers fighting like Athenian sailors. Further, graphics will highlight the Syracusans victory over the Athenian fleet in the Great Harbor, where, ironically, the Athenians were beaten in a manner which called to mind their own previous victory at Pylos.