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Heavy cavalry
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Heavy cavalry is a term referring to a class of cavalry whose primary role was to engage in direct combat with enemy forces (shock troops). Although their equipment differed greatly depending on region and historical period, they were generally mounted on large powerful horses and armed with some kind of sword.
ough some form of cavalry had been in use in Mesopotamia since 3000 BC, the chariot was the predominant mobile striking force in most armies in the region.
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Heavy cavalry is a term referring to a class of cavalry whose primary role was to engage in direct combat with enemy forces (shock troops). Although their equipment differed greatly depending on region and historical period, they were generally mounted on large powerful horses and armed with some kind of sword.
History of heavy cavalry
Antiquity
Although some form of cavalry had been in use in Mesopotamia since 3000 BC, the chariot was the predominant mobile striking force in most armies in the region. By 600 BC armoured cavalry began seeing use, though it was not until the later ancient Greek era that true heavy cavalry emerged.
Greeks
The ancient Greeks called armored cavalry kataphraktoi. The term was later borrowed by the Romans and until the Middle Ages in Europe, continued to be used to designate armored cavalry. However as with other types of cavalry, heavy cavalry was not employed in any significant capacity in wars between the Greek city states until later, mainly due to the prevalence of hoplite warfare as well as the mountainous terrain of Central Greece.
The exception was in Northern Greece, where large flat areas of grassland made cavalry much more practical. Eventually, encounters with Persian cavalry led the Greeks to create their own cavalry arm, the Hippeis, composed mostly of upper-class citizens who could afford to maintain a horse. While cavalry played an increasingly greater part in Greek warfare, its roles were restricted to scouting, skirmishing and pursuit.
The development of the saddle as well as increasingly larger horse breeds led to creation of the Macedonian Companion cavalry, developed during the reign of Philip II of Macedon and later used with great effect by his son, Alexander the Great, in cavalry charges on enemy flanks. In both role and equipment, the Companions could be considered the first true heavy cavalry.
In the aftermath of the Macedonian Empire, the Diadochi, successor states created by Alexander the Great's generals, continued the usage of heavy cavalry in their own forces.
Persians
The Persian Parthian Empire was the first to utilize armored cavalry, though these did not share the same role of conventional heavy cavalry.
Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman general and historian, who served in the army of Constantius II in Gaul and Persia, fought against the Persians under Julian the Apostate and took part in the retreat of his successor, Jovian. He describes the Persian knight as:
"All their companies clad in iron, and all parts of their bodies were covered with thick plates, so fitted that the stiff joints conformed with those of their limbs; and forms of the human faces were so skillfully fitted to their heads, that since their entire bodies were covered with metal, arrows that fell upon them could lodge only where they could see a little through tiny openings opposite the pupil of the eye, or where through the tips of their noses they were able to get a little breath."
"The Persians opposed us serried bands of mail-clad horsemen in such close order that the gleam of moving bodies covered with closely fitting plates of iron dazzled the eyes of those who looked upon them, while the whole throng of horses was protected by coverings of leather. "
Sarmatians
Up to the fifth century, Sarmatians cavalry units were stationed in Britain as part of the Roman army (see Roman departure from Britain), allowing for a direct influence of Roman cataphracts on Migration Period Europe. According to a theory of Littleton and Thomas (1978), the legend of King Arthur, the prototypical knight of High Medieval literature, was directly inspired by these Sarmatian troops (however, it is most likely that the only reason we view Arthur and his retainers as knights was simply because the Arthurian Cycle became popular in a time in which knighthood was predominant); and Sir Thomas Malory's descriptions reflect his own time, in which the plate-wearing tournament knight was again prevalent.
Romans
The roots of the cataphract probably lay with the nomad peoples of the steppes; their armoured cavalry traditions (reserved for their nobility) were probably passed onto the sedentary peoples of the ancient Near East. The western Greeks then first encountered heavily armoured cavalry during their wars with the Persian Empire. The Romans learned cavalry techniques from the Greeks and thus armoured cavalry traditions made their way to the West, where they were epitomised by the knights of western Europe.
Equipment and tactics varied, but cataphracts generally wore heavy armor of scale armour, mail, lamellar armour, horn, or thick quilted cloth, carried a shield, sat on an armoured horse, and charged with lances (kontos) in a tight knee-to-knee formation.
Middle Ages
Byzantines
Byzantine cataphracts were a much feared force in their heyday. The army of Emperor Nicephorus II, the 'Pale Death of the Saracens' himself, relied on its cataphracts as its nucleus, coupling cataphract archers with cataphract lancers to create a self-perpetuating 'hammer blow' tactic where the cataphract lancers would charge again and again until the enemy broke, all the while supported by cataphract archers.
Contemporary depictions however imply that they were not as completely armoured as earlier Roman and Sassanid types — horse armour is noticeably absent. Byzantine cataphracts of the 10th century were drawn from the ranks of the middle class landowners through the theme system, providing the Byzantine Empire with a motivated and professional force. An experimental type of cataphract was brought to the fore in the 10th and 11th centuries known as the klibanaphoros — named after the clibanarius and a throwback to the very heavily armoured cavalry of earlier days. However, the traditional view is that after the loss of prestige, men and material and the horse-rearing plains of Anatolia after they lost the decisive Battle of Manzikert to lighter Turk cavalry, they slowly dropped out of use.
But according to J. Birkenmeier in "The development of the Komnenian army: 1081-1180", units of 'Kataphraktoi' (cataphracts) were still being used during the twelfth century. The Komnenian restoration of the Byzantine Empire during that century created a new kind of Byzantine army, which is known as the Komnenian army. Yet it seems that the cataphract was eventually superseded by other types of armoured cavalry. The emperor Manuel I Komnenos, for example, re-equipped his elite cavalry in the style of western knights.
It is difficult to determine when exactly the cataphract saw his final day. After all, cataphracts and knights both fulfilled a similar role on the medieval battlefield, and the armoured knight survived well into the modern age.
The Byzantine army maintained units of heavily armoured cavalrymen up to its last years, while neighbouring Bulgars, Lithuanians, Serbs, Russian states and other eastern European peoples emulated Byzantine military equipment.
Knights
In the early Middle Ages the rank of knight was loosely defined. In late Carolingian France (10th century) persons occupying this role were known by the Latin term miles (plur. milities). This term designated a professional fighting man in the emerging feudal system. Many were as poor as the peasant class. However, over time, as this class of fighter became more prominent in post-Carolingian France, they became wealthier and began to hold and inherit land. Eventually fighting on horseback became synonymous with the elite warrior caste.
From the 12th century on, the term became associated to cavalry and nobility in general, and thus to the earlier Roman equestrian class (see esquire) as well as the Greek Hippei class. As the expense of equipping and maintaining a knight's equipment was beyond the ability of the primitive mediaeval state to support, the feudal system became more important as a means of securing the loyalty of knights to the king.
Knighthood was a hereditary title, and was usually passed on by a father to his eldest son. All prospective knights were trained from childhood in the knightly traditions of chivalry as well as war. At the age of six, they first became a servant, or page, in another knight's or lord's household, where they learned etiquette as well as basic combat, and after a few years they become a squire, an apprentice and personal assistant to a fully fledged knight, responsible for maintaining the knight's horse and equipment, as well as arming him for battle. At this point he may choose to remain a squire or become a knight, though many later choose to remain a squire due to the restrictions and expense of becomine a knight. A squire was made a knight through a ceremony known as "dubbing" by their superior lord or king, swearing allegiance to his feudal masters, charity, and protection of other Christians, as well as respecting the law of the land.
Africa and East Asia
The Mongol light cavalry were an unstoppable force across Asia and Eastern Europe until the armoured cavalry of the Egyptian Mamelukes decisively defeated them at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260.
Muslim military advances in Sub-Saharan Africa relied heavily on armoured cavalry, playing a similar role to that in Medieval Europe.
In China, heavy cavalry has been a part of the military since the Qin and Han Dynasties. Armoured cavalry, in which both soldier and steed are clad in complete armour, were employed since the 4th century A.D., and it was the main power of the armies of the northern dynasties of China, 4th century to 6th century. During the Tang dynasty, as the importance of lighter-armed cavalry and infantry increased, and that of the armoured cavalry decreased, the horse-armours were seldom used. However, armoured cavalry were again used by the Song dynasty and its enemies including Jin, Xixia, Mongols, Khitans.
In Korea, the earliest evidence of armoured cavalry is a mural painting drawn in the mid-4th century A.D., Koguryo. Lamellar armours were used for both men and horses, with the soldiers carrying lances. Another mural painting of Koguryo shows a armoured cavalryman wielding his lance using both hands, unlike the couched-lance used by medieval European knights.
During the Chosun dynasty, the armoured cavalry like that of the early Koguryo, was no more used. As for the Koryo dynasty, although contact with Khitans, Jin, and the Mongols might have motivated the dynasty to use similar armoured cavalry, both pictorial and literary evidence are rather poor on this matter.
Renaissance to 20th century
Armoured cavalry, in the form of the Gendarme, was at its highest as a proportion of the total number of combatants, in many Renaissance armies, especially in France.
Eastern Europe saw the emergence of winged hussars that proved a decisive factor in territorial gains of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and its wars with Sweden, Muscovy and Ottoman Turks.
Later, the Cuirassier was the main form, beginning in 1484 with the 100-man strong regiments of Austrian kyrissers for the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian. They fought in the Thirty Years War, killing the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus at the 1632 Battle of Lützen. The French introduced their own cuirassiers in 1666. However, the amount of armour worn by the Cavalry of the European armies in battle had been substantially reduced, with even the cuirass often worn only to the front. By 1705, the Holy Roman Emperor's personal forces in Austria included twenty cuirassier regiments. Imperial Russia formed its own cuirassier regiments in 1732, including a Leib Guards regiment. The Russian cuirassier units took part in the Russo-Turkish War.
Cuirassiers played a prominent role in the armies of Frederick the Great of Prussia and of Napoleon I of France. The latter increased the number of French cuirassier regiments to fourteen by the end of his reign, although they gradually declined in importance as the firepower and accuracy of the muskets and rifles of the infantrymen increased. The Cavalry still remained battle-deciders though, with Napoleon maintaining several Reserve Cavalry Corps to be employed at the decisive moment in battle to finally break the enemy formations with a devastating charge.
The last time cavalry wore a cuirass in battle was during the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, and although the regiments have remained into the 21st century, their large mounts are today used solely for ceremonial duties, such as those of the Blues and Royals in United Kingdom.
See also
Sources
- Weigand, Rudolf Kilian, Halbritter und Schildknechte. Zur Kategorisierung und Illustrierung sozialer Randgruppen im ›Renner‹ Hugos von Trimberg. In: Die Präsenz des Mittelalters in seinen Handschriften. Ergebnisse der Berliner Tagung in der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz, 06. - 08. April 2000, edited by H.-J. Schiewer and K. Stackmann, Tübingen 2002
- Lynn, John Albert, Giant of the Grand Siècle: The French Army, 1610-1715, Cambridge University Press, 1997
- Roemer, Jean, Cavalry: Its History, Management, and Uses in War, D. Van Nostrand, New York, 1863
Further reading
External links
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