The horse archer
- Key People:
- Chaim Herzog
- Robert Morris Page
The age of cavalry came to be viewed from a European perspective, since it was there that infantry was overthrown and there that the greatest and most far-reaching changes occurred. But it was by no means an exclusively European phenomenon; to the contrary, the mounted warrior’s tactical supremacy was less complete in western Europe than in any other region of comparably advanced technology save Japan, where a strikingly parallel feudal situation prevailed. Indeed, from the 1st century ce, nomadic horse archers had strengthened their hold over the Eurasian Steppe, the Iranian plateau, and the edges of the Fertile Crescent, and, in a series of waves extending through medieval times, they entered Europe, China, and India and even touched Japan briefly in the 13th century. The most important of these incursions into the European and Chinese military ecospheres left notable marks on the military technology of East Asia and the Byzantine Empire as well as on the kingdoms of Europe.
The Huns and Avars
The first of the major horse nomad incursions into Europe were the Hunnish invasions of the 4th century. The Huns’ primary significance in the history of military technology was in expanding the use of the composite recurved bow into the eastern Roman Empire. This important instance of technological borrowing constituted one of the few times in which a traditional military skill as physiologically and economically demanding as composite archery was successfully transplanted out of its original cultural context.
The Avars of the 6th and 7th centuries were familiar with the stirrup, and they may have introduced it into Europe. Some of the earliest unequivocal evidence of the use of the stirrup comes from Avar graves.
The Byzantine cataphract
Although they continued to make effective use of both shock and missile infantry, the Byzantines turned to cavalry earlier and more completely than did the western Roman Empire. After an extended period of dependence on Teutonic and Hunnish mercenary cavalry, the reforms of the emperors Maurice and Heraclius in the 6th and 7th centuries developed an effective provincial militia based on the institution of pronoia, the award of nonhereditary grants of land capable of supporting an armoured horse archer called a cataphract. Pronoia, which formed the core of the Byzantine army’s strength during the period of its greatest efficiency in the 8th through 10th centuries, entailed the adoption of the Hunnish composite recurved bow by native troopers.
The Byzantine cataphract was armed with bow, lance, sword, and dagger; he wore a shirt of mail or scale armour and an iron helm and carried a small round ironbound shield of wood that could be strapped to the forearm or slung from the waist. The foreheads and breasts of officers’ horses and those of men in the front rank were protected with frontlets and poitrels of iron. The militia cataphracts were backed by units of similarly armed regulars and mercenary regiments of Teutonic heavy shock cavalry of the imperial guard. Mercenary horse archers from the Steppe continued to be used as light cavalry.
The Turks
The infiltration of Turkish tribes into the Eurasian military ecosphere was distinguished from earlier steppe nomad invasions in that the raiders were absorbed culturally through Islamization. The long-term results of this wave of nomadic horse archers were profound, leading to the extinction of the Byzantine Empire.
Turkish horse archers, of whom the Seljuqs were representative, were lightly armoured and mounted but extremely mobile. Their armour generally consisted of an iron helmet and, perhaps, a shirt of mail or scale armour (called brigandine). They carried small, light, one-handed shields, usually of wicker fitted with an iron boss. Their principal offensive arms were lance, sabre, and bow. The Turkish bow developed in response to the demands of mounted combat against lightly armoured adversaries on the open steppe; as a consequence, it seems to have had greater range but less penetrative and knockdown power at medium and short ranges than its Byzantine equivalents. Turkish horses, though hardy and agile, were not as large or powerful as Byzantine chargers. Therefore, Turkish horse archers could not stand up to a charge of Byzantine cataphracts, but their greater mobility generally enabled them to stay out of reach and fire arrows from a distance, wearing their adversaries down and killing their horses.
The Mongols
The 13th-century Mongol armies of Genghis Khan and his immediate successors depended on large herds of grass-fed Mongolian ponies, as many as six or eight to a warrior. The ponies were relatively small but agile and hardy, well adapted to the harsh climate of the steppes. The Mongol warrior’s principal weapon was the composite recurved bow, of which he might carry as many as three. Characteristically, each man carried a short bow for use from the saddle and a long bow for use on foot. The former, firing light arrows, was for skirmishing and long-range harassing fire; the latter had the advantage in killing power at medium ranges. The saddle bow was probably capable of sending a light arrow more than 500 yards; the heart of the long bow’s engagement envelope would have been about 100–350 yards, close to that of the contemporary English longbow. Each warrior carried several extra quivers of arrows on campaign. He also carried a sabre or scimitar, a lasso, and perhaps a lance. Personal armour included a helmet and breastplate of iron or lacquered leather, though some troops wore shirts of scale or mail.
Mongol armies were proficient at military engineering and made extensive use of Chinese technology, including catapults and incendiary devices. These latter probably included predecessors of gunpowder, of which the Mongols were the likely vehicle of introduction into western Europe.