War Horse

by Louis A. DiMarco

  Rome was one of the most successful and longest lasting empires in history. This success was due in no small part to the Roman army. The strength of the Roman military was in its infantry. But as the Persians and Alexander the Great demonstrated, consistently successful large-scale campaigning required an effective balance of arms. When adversaries stopped the Roman army, it was often because they did not achieve an effective balance. Because cavalry was not historically central to the Roman army—or the horse to Roman culture and tradition—the Romans struggled to win their empire and protect it with a small, often poorly handled, cavalry force. Just as the expansion of the empire was associated with the prowess of the infantry legions, the limits of the empire was closely associated with the limits of Rome’s relatively small cavalry force.

  Chapter Four

  THE KNIGHT AND HIS MOUNT

  He who has stayed at school till the age of twelve and never ridden a horse is fit only to be a priest.—CAROLINGIAN PROVERB

  Medieval military historian Sir Charles Oman described the art of war in the Middle Ages as the story of “the rise, supremacy, and decline of heavy cavalry as the chief power in war.”1 Oman cites the beginning of the rise of cavalry as the battle of Adrianople where mounted horsemen asserted their domination over infantry. The causes of the Roman defeat at Adrianople were more complex than the superiority of cavalry over infantry. Like the battle of Adrianople, warfare in the Middle Ages was not simply the supremacy of heavy cavalry over infantry formations. Nonetheless, Adrianople does represent the start of the period when cavalry becomes increasingly numerous on the battlefield and military operations make growing use of mounted formations. This phenomenon was unique to Europe, however. In the Middle East the horse had always been the center of military operations and remained so throughout the Medieval period.

  WARFARE IN THE MIDDLE AGES

  The massive societal shift following the fall of Rome occurred around the heart of the eastern Roman Empire and its center in Constantinople. The eastern empire evolved into the Byzantine Empire and in that form, though constantly assailed and occasionally losing or gaining territories along its edges, remained politically stable well into the Middle Ages. It finally succumbed to Muslim invasion in the fifteenth century. In contrast to the relative stability of Byzantium, western Europe suffered a confusing serious of invasions, temporary kingdoms, and further invasions until a series of Frankish kings—Charles Martel, Pepin, and finally Charlemagne—systematically established control of most of central western Europe. After Charlemagne’s death in 814 AD, the Carolingian Empire was divided among his heirs. In addition to territory, they also inherited the armies to maintain political control and a social and political system (feudalism) designed to maintain those armies. The Empire of the Carolingians continued to fragment in the tenth and eleventh centuries, but despite increased political division, the effectiveness of the military system, based on heavily armored cavalry, increased. Thus, after a period of protecting their newly created kingdoms from Muslim (from the Mediterranean), Viking (from Scandinavia), and Magyar (from western Russia) raiders, in the eleventh century, the Frankish kingdoms of western Europe that evolved out of the Carolingian Empire were ready to expand. Muslim historian Ibn-al-Atihir, writing in Mosul in the thirteenth century, saw this period as the “rise of the empire of the Franks,” and recorded the key dates as 1085, the capture of Toledo (Spain), and 1091, the Norman conquest of Sicily. Another success was perhaps the most dramatic example of this expansion: the Norman invasion and conquest of Saxon England in 1066. Expansion continued in a series of religiously justified and materially motivated Crusades. Crusaders expanded European control east across the Elbe River, southwest into the Iberian Peninsula, and southeast into the Holy Lands.2

  Castles

  Although the mounted armored warrior was the dominant military system in battle, he was not the central player in Medieval warfare. Fortifications, including castles. dominated warfare throughout the Middle Ages. Two of the most decisive military campaigns of the period, the campaign to conquer Saxon England and the First Crusade to Palestine, were notable successes for the aggressors because neither region was fortified to a great extent (relative to the density of keeps and castles in western Europe). This situation changed quickly as the Normans and Crusaders consolidated their conquests, partly through an aggressive castle-building program. After the crusader defeat at Hattin in 1187, the extensive and impressive fortifications built by the Crusaders “almost alone resisted Saladin’s victorious progress.” Fortifications allowed the Crusaders to maintain a viable military and political presence in the Middle East for 200 years—despite their general inability to achieve battlefield success against Muslim armies. Battle was not essential to Medieval warfare, but sieges were.3 Effective siege operations were critical to the success of any campaign. Cavalry operations were only a minor aspect of siege warfare.

  The Chevauchée

  The siege was the major large-scale military tactic of Medieval warfare, but the most common was the chevauchée, or raid. A few men or an entire army could conduct this important mounted operation. The chevauchée was a feature of warfare in all regions throughout the period. The English were perhaps the most notorious and successful practitioners of the tactic. One of the most common uses of the tactic, which had many purposes, was to subjugate an area to extract tribute and taxes—generally to support local military forces. A chevauchée could also terrorize and pillage a region in order to deny the region’s resources, including the inhabitants, to the adversary, or could be used to force an enemy army into an open battle. Finally, it was a means of filling the coffers of the chevauchée itself.

  It was not unusual during chevauchée missions to put entire villages to the sword. Small mounted groups systematically hunted down peasants and then tortured them for information about any concealed valuables. Raping women was routine, as was murdering women and children. The English did not spare churches, priests, or nuns during numerous large-scale operations launched in the course of the Hundred Years War. During the Hundred Years War, raids had a major political and military impact on both England and France and were extremely profitable to the English. The potential of a lucrative chevauchée was a major recruiting tool of English kings throughout the war and were a general incentive for military service throughout the Medieval period.

  The chevauchée was a mission ideally suited to cavalry forces. A few mounted warriors were much more capable of intimidating and, if necessary, fighting a larger peasant rabble than unmounted men-at-arms. Mounted forces were capable of approaching and assaulting a village or town quickly before the inhabitants could seek refuge or the landowner could mobilize defensive forces. Chevauchée permitted a relatively small army to have operational and strategic effects out of all proportion to its size.4 Because speed was important, raiding forces avoided engagement with prepared enemy forces, holding ground, and lengthy siege operations. As executed by the English in the Hundred Years War, the raiding force often started out very fast but slowed down as fatigue and accumulated loot weighed down the raiders. It was during the slow return to its sanctuary that the chevauchée was most vulnerable. French armies confronting English chevauchée missions resulted in the famous battles of Crécy, Poitiers, and Agincourt. The devastating effectiveness of and the fear engendered by the chevauchée throughout a region probably contributed as much to the perception of military dominance of cavalry as the performance of mounted men-at-arms in battle.

  The Mounted Charge

  Once open battle was inevitable, the tactical focus of battle was on the employment of mounted forces. The focus of mounted warfare in Medieval Europe was the successful execution of the premier cavalry tactic: the mounted charge. This was the decisive point of all mounted combat as visualized by the Medieval knight. A detailed description of the tactics of the cavalry charge does not exist in the literature. Furthermore, it is likely that many Medieval men-at-arms and commanders did not understand the tactic
al complexity of charging with hundreds, or even thousands, of armored cavalry. Since unit training was nonexistent, the only time a large-scale mounted charge was likely to be attempted was under battlefield conditions.

  The mounted cavalry charge was a complicated tactic. Ideally, the charge began at the walk (3–7 mph), moved to the trot (8–10 mph), and transitioned to the canter (10–17 mph) or gallop (20+ mph) as it closed with the enemy (within missile weapon range). While the rider had several options for carrying and employing the light lance, the rider could only hold the heavy lance upright and then level it as the formation neared the target. The primary task of the men-at-arms was to keep a tight formation, stirrup to stirrup, called a conrois.5 However, the disparities in horsemanship, lack of discipline, and almost complete lack of collective training among the knights made forming a conrois difficult at best. Medieval knights never trained together, except in tournaments where small teams organized to represent a particular household or region. Aligning a large group of mounted men in a tightly controlled formation, and retaining that formation while moving under fire at high speed, required a level of training that simply did not exist in the armies of Medieval Europe.

  Medieval European armies had no standing units; the tactical organizations were useless beyond broad grouping into a battle; and there was virtually no standard system of command and control. In the gallop of the charge, the knight’s ability to control his horse was limited to stopping him, spurring him on, or nudging him slightly left or right. The requirements of handling shield and lance would likely cause him to give the horse his head—and the transition in gaits and the speed of individual horses not under firm control would have resulted in a staggered, strungout charge. Under these conditions, maintaining the cohesion of the attack was unlikely, even if it existed at the start of the forward movement. Once the leader gave the order to charge, each knight and mount became an individual bullet aimed generally in the direction of enemy; often success or failure was a matter of chance. The best a commander could hope for was that small banners of knights, perhaps a few dozen horsemen who had a relationship of some type (feudal, family, or regional association), could retain a tight formation and that these units could achieve a breakthrough.

  If the charge failed, however, it did not mean the battle was lost. Under the right conditions, and with good leadership, a commander could rally the mounted force to charge repeatedly until they achieved a breakthrough. Trumpets and banners served the purpose of identifying rally points. If the attacking force could not be disengaged, or was routed, the charge could be reinforced or a new charge executed by a reserve force. The order to charge could be one step in the execution of a broader tactical plan.

  WESTERN EUROPEAN CAVALRY

  The rise of cavalry on the European battlefield was in direct proportion to the decline of central state authority. Cavalry became more effective because of lessons learned from Middle Eastern adversaries and a marked decline in the quality of infantry. As the control and administration of the Western Roman Empire began to break down, the infantry forces felt most heavily the effects of decentralization. The strength of the Roman legions, and all good infantry in the ancient world, was dependent on cohesion and discipline. It became increasingly difficult to build either of these as central authority declined. Although the breakdown of central authority also adversely affected the cavalry’s capabilities, the effects on cavalry were less debilitating because the core competencies of cavalry were maneuver, shock, and individual skill. The elements of battlefield success returned to balance when military, political, and social conditions permitted the reappearance of disciplined professional infantry forces in the last years of the Middle Ages.6

  Organization

  Charlemagne developed the concept of building a European army around the heavily armored horseman and horse. The senior men-at-arms were knights, who were also minor nobles. Armies of the Middle Ages were relatively small, and the number of men-at-arms, and more specifically knights, was correspondingly small. This was primarily because the states that raised the armies were themselves not very large. In 1300 the population of England was approximately 3 million. The number of knights was as few as 7,000.7

  The ratio of infantry to cavalry in Medieval armies was an important indicator of the relative importance of the arms. Ratios of infantry to cavalry in the English armies were 2 to 1 in the fourteenth century, 3 to 1 in the early fifteenth century, then climbing steeply to 10 to 1 in the 1440s. The French were slower to incorporate increasing numbers of infantry into their force. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, French armies typically had a ratio of infantry to men-at-arms of 1 to 2, but by the middle of the century the ratio was 5 or 6 to 1.8 Overall analysis of the composition of the force supports the idea that heavy cavalry was the dominant force on the battlefield during most of the Middle Ages, and this did not change significantly until the middle of the fifteenth century.

  The battle was the major subunit of armies, and there were normally three of them. The armies typically marched in column of battles and then deployed in line in preparation for fighting. In deploying, the lead battle, known as the vaward, wheeled to become the right of the line. The main battle turned to become the center of the battle line. The king or the senior nobleman who commanded the entire force typically commanded this battle personally. The rearward battle proceeded to its place on the left of the line. In order of prestige, the main battle was foremost, followed by the vaward, and then the rearward battle.9 Banners were the major subunit of battles. These units were of no particular size but could consist of several dozen to several hundred men-at-arms. Banners further divided into smaller units of 25 to 80 men-at-arms. A bannerette knight, who was an experienced soldier and usually of relatively high noble stature, led a banner, which usually consisted of the knight’s retinue and independent knights and men-at-arms whom he hired. 10

  The smallest unit was the lance. The lance was a small self-contained tactical unit that consisted of the knight and his immediate personal retinue. The tradition of a retinue to support the mounted warrior in an informal form existed in the earliest cavalry. In ancient times it may have been merely a single servant or slave to assist with equipment and care for the horse. The lance became a semiformal military organization across Europe by the middle of the fourteenth century.- More important, it had combat capability. This group might consist of only a couple of squires, but it could also include a sergeant and, among English knights, two mounted archers.11 In some cases, lances could number up to a dozen or so men and might even include infantrymen. However, there was never more than one knight, and he commanded the lance.

  Weapons

  At the beginning of the Middle Ages the lance was, as it had been in the Macedonian and Roman cavalry, the primary weapon of the mounted warrior. However, the Middle Ages saw the rise of the sword as the weapon of choice of many, if not most, mounted warriors.

  The technique for the use of the lance did not differ significantly from the employment of the weapon since antiquity. Until the eleventh century, knights could still throw the lance like a javelin. The preferred grip was overhand, and the weapon was used to thrust at an opponent. Most lances in the Middle Ages did not have a butt point, and so it was not easy to reverse the overhand grip to an underhand balance. It was equally effective against a mounted enemy and infantry. The Bayeux Tapestry, an extensive contemporary illustration of the Battle of Hastings in 1066, clearly shows lances employed in both the overhand grip (prepared to be thrown or thrust), an underhanded grip, and couched under the arm. These early light lances were probably made from ash and measured between 6.5 and 7.5 feet in length.12 The lance heads were specifically designed to pierce chain mail.

  During the fourteenth century the lance began to change. It became much longer—up to 14 feet in length. It could weigh as much as 30 or 40 pounds.13 A vamplate—a disc guard that protected the hand gripping the lance—prevented it from sliding through the grip. This lance wa
s designed specifically to be used in the underarm, or couched, position. Designers built supports into the knight’s armor to assist balancing the weight of the large lance and allowed it to brace tight to the rider’s body. The early lances were a practical weapon useful in individual combat; the later heavy lance was an unwieldy weapon that was only useful in the charge. Using the heavy lance correctly took years of practice. Accuracy was extremely important because it was a one-time use weapon. An accurate thrust with the heavy lance could be fatal to both mounted and dismounted adversaries, even if the armor of the enemy was not penetrated. At the battle of Fornovo in 1495, a Venetian observer who was a curious medical doctor determined that very precise lance blows to the neck area killed many of the men-at-arms. The power of the accurate lance attack defeated contemporary armor protection.14

  There were a variety of types of swords to Medieval men-at-arms. Most knights carried the double-edged, flat-bladed broadsword. These swords varied between 30 and 45 inches in length.15 They were heavy, weighing about two and half pounds, but careful balancing made the weapons relatively easy to wield. In the thirteenth century the preference changed to a pointed sword with diamond-shaped cross-section designed for thrusting through chain mail. Some mounted knights carried both types.