Introduction
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Introduction Military equipment and tactical organization in pre-modern western civilizationunderwent fundamental changes between the rise of civilizationin Mesopotamia in the late fourth millennium scr and the revival of Europe in the seventeenthcentury of the Common Era. During this four and a half millennium span, the art of warfare reached a sophisticatedlevel, with commandersfully realizingthe tacticalcapabilities of shock and missilecombat in largebattlefield situations, situations where perhaps150,000 men took the field at the sametime along a narrow front. On a battlefield where the force-to- spaceratio wasso high, the ability to orchestratetens of thousandsof infantry and cavalry becamenecessary for ultimate victory. Modern principles of war, such as the primacy of the offensive, mass and economy of force, were understoodby ancient, classical,medieval and early modern generals,and appliedon battlefieldsthroughout the period under study. Warfarein the Medieaal LVorldis the secondvolume of a two-volume study. It covers the developmentof warfare from the rise of Byzantium in the early medievalperiod through to the Thirty YearsWar (c.500--1648cn), following volume l, Warfare in the Ancient ll/orld, which surveyed the evolution of warfare on the battlefields of the Near East and Europe between the beginning of the Bronze Age and the fall of the Western Roman Empire (r.3000BCE - r.500 cr). Through an explorationof fifty-four selectbattlefield engagements(thirty-three battles in volume two and twenty-one battles in volume one), it is this author's intention to survey the changing tactical relationshipsbetween the four weaponsystems - heavyand light infantry, and heavyand light cavalry- focusingon how shockand missilecombat evolved on the battlefieldsof the Near East and Europe. Overview of Warfare in the Med.ieaal World In eastern Europe the torch of Roman imperialism was passed to Constantinoplefor anotherthousand years. The ByzantineEmpire (337-1453) enjoyed its greatest territorial expansion in the century after the fall of the 2 Warforein theMedieual World Western Roman Empire. Emperor Justinian shored up the easternfrontiers and briefly won back ltaly and parts of north Africa and Spain, but, after his deathin 565,later emperorswould losethese lands to the expansionof Islam in the seventhcentury. Faced with a mounted and highly mobile foe,Byzantine emperorsincreased the percentageof cavalryto infantry in their armies,then fused heavyand light cavalryinto one systemby giving bows to someof their heavily armoured shock cavalry. In Byzantine warfare exclusive cavalry engagementsoften took place(Dara, Tricameron,Manzikerl) while combined arms also continuedat a high level, rvith light infantry taking an important placebeside cavalry in military operations,as seenat Taginaeand Casilinum. But centuriesof defensiveaction against assaults from the Bulgars,Muslims and westernEuropeans took their toll, forcing the Byzantineemperors to rely increasinglyon mercenarieg.By the eleventhcentury Byzantium faceda new and dangerousthreat from the east, the Seliuk Turks, who fought from horsebackas lancers and archers. The Byzantineloss at the battleof Manzikert in 1071robbed the EasternRoman Empire of its prime conscriptionlands and precipitateda call for help to the west.In 1095the First Crusadewas born. In westernEurope the fall of the WesternRoman Empire usheredin the earlyMiddle Ages(r.500-r.1000), a time when victoriousGermanic successor kingdoms converted to Catholicism and consolidatedpolitically, with the Franks in Gaul emergingas the most powerful new kingdom in western Europe. Frankish rulers faced new threats as Muslim raiders crossedthe Pyreneesand pillaged France. One such Muslim expeditionaryforce was soundlydefeated in732 at Toursby CharlesMartel, layingthe foundationsfor the Carolingian dynasty that would produce Charlemagne,the first holy Roman emperor in the West. But at Charlemagne'sdeath in 814, Europewas besieged by a new waveof invasionsthat lastedover 200 years.Muslim, Magyar and Viking raidersand invadersstruck the whole of Christian Europe. From their basesin north Africa, the Muslims attackedthe southern coastlineof Europe, while Magyar horsemenswept in from the eastand settledin what is now Hungary, raiding deepinto centraland westernEurope until their defeatin 955 at the handsof the German king Otto I at Lechfeld.Of thesenew invasions,the Viking attacks were the most devastatingand widespread.Masters of ship-to-shipbattles such as the battle of l,,lisa,these fierce Scandinavianwarriors rowed up the rivers and estuariesof Europe in their longships,raiding and then invading territories as far west as Ireland and as far eastas Russia, creating cultural and martial synthesisalong the way. In responseto this 'Second Ag. of Invasions', western European monarchiesdeveloped an art of war unique in world history in its relianceon heavycavalry as the dominant weaponsystem. Needing the kind of strategic mobility only cavalrycould provide, westernEuropean commanders initiated a gradualtransformation in the compositionof medievalarmies. Consequently, Inftoduction 3 heavycavalry replaced infantry as the decisivearm. The mountedknight and lancer,with his stabilizing stirrup, expensivepanoply and well-trained horse, graduallybecame the centrepieceof a combined-armsarmy where all other weaponsystems were subordinatedto heavycavalry. The decentralizationof political authority in westernEurope also had a profound effect on the characterof medievalwarfare. Insufficient resources meantlarge-scale battles such as those seen in the classicalperiod did not take place,and when battle was ioined, the participatingarmies rarely included more than a few thousandmen. In theselimited wars of attrition. battle was often avoidedbecause the outcome was too unpredictable.Instead, medieval warfare revolved around the construction and control of castlesand fortified towns or the destructionof the enemy'seconomic resources. In fact, during this 'Ageof Castles',warfare consisted of perhapsI per centbattles and 99 per centsieges.l The Normans masteredthis strategy of combining castlebuilding and pitched battles in campaignsin Italy and England. In Italy, Duke Robert Guiscardof Apulia and his successorscarved out a Norman statein southern Italy and Sicily then set their sights on expanding, at the expenseof Byzantium, in Albania. At Durazzo, Guiscard defeated an impressive Byzantine infantry host with his heavycavalry supported by light infantry. In England in 1066, the Anglo-Saxon king Harold Godwinson successfully defeatedthe Norwegian king Harald Hardradaat StamfordBridge, but proved unableto masterWilliam, duke of Normandy,at Hastings.The duke usedthese samesophisticated combined-arms tactics to securethe throne as William I. William's victory initiatedan Anglo-Normandynasty and hundreds of yearsof soured Anglo-Frenchrelations. His successorswould add to his conquests, bringing Walesunder English hegemonyand making war with Ireland and Scotland. Through the high Middle Ages(r.100G-c.1300), heavy cavalry lancers ruled the battlefieldsof westernEurope, giving rise to the idealsof chivalry and reinforcing the socialposition of the knightly class.Here, cavalryengagements, supported by infantry, becamethe norm, as illustrated by the French victory over an English-sponsoredimperialist army at the battle of Bouainesin 1214. But the tacticalrealities faced by the mounted aristocracyin the Near East and the British Isles showedthe weaknessesof heavy cavalry.In the Holy Land, Latin knightsfaced a sophisticatedIslamic combined-arms system and learned first-hand at Dorylaeum, Hattin and Arsuf the dangers in confronting composite-bow-wieldinginfantry and horse archers in open terrain. Similar lessonswere learned in the Reconquistain Spain at the battles of Sagrajasin 1086and Las l{aaas de Tolosain 1212. As westernEuropean crusaders were learning new tacticallessons in the Levant, eastern and central Europe was brutally attacked by the most successfulwave of steppe warriors, the Mongols. Under the charismatic 4 Warfarein theMedieual World leadershipof Genghis Khan, Mongol light and heavy cavalry swept out of Central Asia and conquerednorthern China and the Khwarizmian Empire in Transoxiana.After GenghisKhan's death in t?27, his successorscontinued his conquestswestward, pushing first into Russia,destroying the Kievankingdom, and then into Polandand Hungary.The Mongols, who relied exclusivelyon cavalry;perfected shock and missile combat from horsebackand vanquished numericallylarger Christian armiesat Liegnitz andSajo Riaer. European heavy cavalry tactics, always confrontational, fell prey to the traditional steppe- warrior game of luring an attackerwith a retreat. Islamic armies suffered similar fates.But the Mamluks in Egypt fought fire with fire, using their own heavyand light cavalryarms to finally blunt Mongol westwardexpansion at Ain Jalut in 1260. In the late Middle Ages (c.1300-c.1500)the 300-yeardomination of the mountedknight was challengedby the return of a more balancedcombined- armstactical mix, onewhich featuredlight infantry archersand heavyinfantry battlesquares against heavy cavalry. The Anglo-Normancampaigns against the Welsh,and later againstthe Scottish,showed the potentialof light infantry archersagainst enemy infantry formations,and, more ominously,against heavy cavalry.King Edward I's victory at Falkirk was similar to the earlier battlesof Hastings and Durazzo, where heavy cavalry and archers worked together againstdense heavy-infantry