War Horse Page 21

  The Hungarians were on the verge of victory. However, before they could organize a last concerted attack on Batu, 30,000 horsemen under General Subotai appeared in their rear. Subotai had marched out of the Mongol camp late the night before and moved south along the river, built a makeshift bridge, crossed the river, and then marched against the Hungarian rear. Poor security on the part of the Hungarian scouts allowed the Mongols to execute this complex maneuver completely undetected. With the arrival of Subotai’s force the Hungarians retreated into the protection of their wagon laager.

  As the Hungarians sheltered into their laager the Mongols brought forward their catapults and began to bombard the Hungarian position. Subotai’s force completed the encirclement of the position but intentionally left one break in the Mongol lines that offered an escape. As the Mongol bombardment continued several Hungarian horsemen broke from the defensive position and were allowed to make their escape through the opening in the Mongol lines. This encouraged the bulk of the Hungarian army to give up the defensive position and attempt to retreat. When this occurred the Mongols sprang their trap. Archers had flanked the apparent escape route and created a gauntlet of arrows along the corridor. The Mongols positioned heavy cavalry to ride down any who survived the archers. The Hungarian army was destroyed as it retreated. Bodies littered the road west to a distance of 30 miles. Conservative estimates were that 60,000 men perished in the Mongol trap, though King Bela escaped and survived. The defeat at the Sajo River destroyed the last effective European army between Batu Khan and central Europe. The Mongols advanced to Pest and burned the city but did not cross the Danube. Batu Khan had determined to consolidate his position in Eastern Hungary during the summer of 1241. Continuing the campaign would await the winter freeze of 1241–42.

  The campaign began anew with the first freeze in November 1241. During the summer of 1241 the Mongols had refit their army and received horses and men from the east. The Europeans, in contrast, had done little to prepare additional defenses and forces to oppose the expected Mongol advance. A war was raging between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, King Frederick II of Austria. Neither side would put aside their internal squabble to prepare for the Mongol threat. In fact, Frederick took advantage of the defeat of Hungary to occupy several western Hungarian provinces. The Mongol intelligence system was totally aware of this disarray, and Batu Khan and Subotai were prepared to take full advantage of it.

  The initial Mongol operations seized a base of operations on the west bank of the Danube by seizing the cities of Buda and Gran. With these bases in their possession the Mongols launched a reconnaissance in force toward Vienna. Additionally, they dispatched a tumen south into the Balkans in search of King Bela. The reconnaissance into Austria advanced without encountering any significant field army. The Mongols bypassed several garrisons as the reconnaissance was more interested in information than capturing territory. It advanced as far as the suburbs of Vienna before it returned to the west bank of the Danube and ended that winter’s operations. The army spent the spring and summer of 1242 preparing to resume the campaign the following winter. However, in September word arrived that the supreme Khan, Ogedei, had died in December 1241 and the royal family was required to assemble in Mongolia for the election of a new Khan. This news ended the Mongol plans to attack into central Europe. Instead, the winter of 1242–43 was spent advancing east back into the heart of the steppe as Batu Khan and members of the royal family on the campa-gin began their long trip to Asia. Europe was spared invasion, and the Mongol army would never return.

  Eventually Batu Khan would return to the western steppe. His conquest of eastern Europe had made him fabulously rich and able to establish a separate regional khanate that became known as the Golden Horde. The units recruited from the defeated central steppe tribes proved to be very loyal, and the Mongol officers who commanded them preferred to remain in Europe rather than return to Mongolia. For 200 years the Golden Horde’s horse-archer armies would roam from their base between the Don and Volga Rivers raiding and exacting tribute from the Russian princes.

  Modern historians have speculated on the probable outcome of a return of the Mongol cavalry to Europe. Most conclude that the results would have been devastating to Europe.59 One of the characteristics of the Mongol army was its sophisticated and capable intelligence service. This, combined with the strategic vision of commanders such as Subotai, gave the Mongols an unrivaled ability to accurately visualize operations on a grand scale. The Mongol commanders almost certainly understood that attacking beyond the western steppe of Hungary was an operation that had significant strategic risk. Central Europe would have severely tested the Mongol way of war. Without the immense steppe to sustain the horse herds, the logistics of the army would have been strained. Heavily forested terrain would have constrained the mobility of the horse formations and worked to the advantage of Europeans. Numerous rivers that did not usually freeze in the winter would also have been a further obstacle to mobility. Magyar raids into Germany in the tenth century led to the fortification of the German frontier in Bavaria. This was an effective tactic against raiding.60 As demonstrated in the Middle East, the Europeans excelled at fortification. Unlike the wood palisades of Russia, the numerous stone fortified cities of central Europe would have posed a major challenge to the Mongols, which in turn would have further stressed their logistics system. Certainly, it was within the capability of the Mongol armies to achieve a conquest of Europe, and Subotai had considered a campaign lasting as long as 18 years. Their ability to conquer China demonstrated that no task was beyond them. However, they also understood, as the challenges of fighting in Korea demonstrated, that some victories came at a disproportionate cost. Ultimately, the new Khan decided not to renew the campaign.

  The global Mongol Empire ended with the death of Kublai Khan in 1294. In the fourteenth century the sons and grandsons of the khan continued to rule their inherited regions with increasing autonomy and regional distinction. From the fourteenth century on, each of the individual kingdoms would follow its own history, no longer united by a single leader and global vision.

  The steppe armies reached their zenith in organization and in operational and tactical ability under Genghis Khan, his family, and generals. The Mongols’ talent for organizing, training, and using their horses set them apart from all their contemporaries and from all future armies. The Mongol army was a modern one in every sense except technology. The mobility of the sturdy steppe horse enabled the Mongols to pursue their strategies and their modern concept of operational maneuver. Their horses and horsemanship, as much as their tactics and weapons, made them the master of every enemy that they met. Not until the age of mechanized armies would any army match both their prowess and their intellectual grasp of the art of war.

  Chapter Six

  EARLY MODERN CAVALRY

  The duty of the cavalry on a day of action is to attack, as soon as ordered, in the manner that I have prescribed. — FREDERICK THE GREAT, Instructions to His Generals

  Between 1500 and 1800, Europe underwent a profound period of military and political transition. Europe, which had remained relatively isolated as a civilization during the Middle Ages, reached out to discover new worlds and establish political and economic ties around the globe. Armies applied science to warfare and became professional, marking the beginning of modern military forces. The most significant change in warfare was the introduction of gunpowder. In 1494, the French king Charles VIII fielded the first modern army as defined by historian Michael Howard. The army had three distinct components, cavalry, infantry, and artillery; commanders could arrange these components in various tactical combinations; and a centralized treasury paid the soldiers.1 Man’s relationship with the horse also changed fundamentally during this period. Breeding, long recognized as a means of improving the quality of horses, became a science: more exact, documented, and specialized. Riding too, became a scientific pursuit of techniques and methods designed to achieve the optimum relationship
between horse and rider. Cavalry, which kept pace with the advancing technology and evolving military organizations, remained a decisive force on the battlefield.

  The sixteenth century marked a distinct break from warfare of the Middle Ages. Armies during this period increasingly relied on mercenary professionals for both their numbers and for professional technical expertise.2 Armies included deadly disciplined infantry formations of pike phalanxes pushing against one another and capable of destroying heavy cavalry formations. The Thirty Years War (1618–48) brought back the concept of decisive battle, though sieges continued to be critically important. Infantry formations included muskets along with pikes, artillery was a major factor on the battlefield, and cavalry experimented with the mounted employment of carbines and pistols. In the seventeenth century national and state battalions and regiments, still serving for pay, but united by bonds of language, culture, and loyalty slowly replaced mercenary formations. During the English Civil War (1642–46) cavalry was an important, if not the most important, battle arm, but it struggled to find the balance between shock action and firepower. In the wars of the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries—the French Wars (1667–1714), The Great Northern War (1700–1721) and the Seven Years’ War (1755–63)—true cavalry units, companies, squadrons, and regiments manned by paid national professionals took the field. Cavalry tactics became bolder and more decisive despite great leaps in infantry and artillery weaponry. The dominating theme of the early modern period was adaptation of the war horse, cavalry tactics, and horsemanship to the quickly changing military technology.

  INFANTRY AND ARTILLERY DEVELOPMENTS

  Central to the changes of the early modern period was the development of gunpowder weapons which slowly but decisively changed the nature of warfare. By the middle of the sixteenth century, cannon had achieved a very traditional looking form which did not change significantly for the next 300 years. The gunners of the American Civil War armies would have been familiar with their capabilities and operation. Though still most effective as a siege weapon, field cannon in the sixteenth century were common, made from bronze, and fired a ball of 12 to 15 pounds.3 Their major limitation was mobility. They could not quickly reposition once in place on the battlefield. Commanders planned and executed cavalry maneuvers around the positioning of the enemy’s field cannon.

  The invention and evolution of firearms also greatly changed the nature of the battlefield. The first hand-held firearms were inaccurate, awkward to handle, and slow to fire. The harquebus of the early sixteenth century took several minutes to reload and was accurate only up to 100 yards. As the musket replaced the harquebus, infantry fire became more lethal. In the mid-sixteenth century the heavy matchlock musket became the primary infantry firearm. In 1591, Humprey Barwick stated that a lead musket ball could penetrate the best armor at 200 yards, regular armor at 400 yards, and kill an armored man at 600 yards. The early seventeenth-century matchlock musket took two minutes to reload. Volley fire by ranks could mitigate the problem of rate of fire; the problem of accuracy was more difficult to solve. Aimed fire was still only somewhat accurate between 100 and 200 yards.4 The only way to compensate for lack of accuracy was to increase the number of weapons firing. A long linear formation was ideal to maximize firepower of the musket but was vulnerable to a cavalry attack. A box formation, with integrated guns and pikes, could hold off cavalry but was slow to maneuver and had difficulty achieving maximum effects with the firearms. Eventually, infantry battle lines became a checkerboard of square pike formations and rectangular musket formations. The problem of infantry command became one of managing formations in the heat of combat to achieve maximum effects without creating vulnerabilities. Infantry firepower continued to increase as infantry converted from the matchlock musket to the flintlock musket around the end of the seventeenth century. The flintlock was a more reliable firing system and increased the rate of fire of well-drilled infantry to about three rounds per minute.

  The introduction of the bayonet simplified the tactical problem of managing formations. The conversion from pikes to bayonets began in the 1680s and was largely complete by 1705.5 Bayonets were effective protection against slow-moving cavalry attacks. The adoption of the bayonet drastically increased the number of firearms on the battlefield and improved the versatility of the infantry formation. It also made the command of infantry easier as it removed the requirement to carefully coordinate pike and musket positions.

  SIXTEENTH-CENTURY RENAISSANCE CAVALRY

  The aristocracy of Europe were the leaders of military reform and innovation. Reform progressed rapidly with little opposition because it did not challenge the social structure of society. The military reforms of the sixteenth century included the transition of the aristocracy from feudal mounted warriors to the new positions of authority as the officers commanding the infantry, artillery, and the still important cavalry formations. This change occurred gradually over the course of the sixteenth century, but the major powers of Europe effectively implemented the change by the end of the century. The chivalric ideal of the horse-mounted cavalryman and individual glory had a strong allure within the military culture, but the quest for victory was even stronger.

  Use of the heavy lance had not changed since Medieval times. The sword was the secondary weapon and came into play after the cavalryman discarded the lance in battle. The pistol-armed reiter cavalry at first challenged and then ultimately replaced the traditional lance-armed cavalry. By the end of the sixteenth century, the lance had all but disappeared from the battlefield though manuals such as John Cruso’s Militarie Instructions for the Cavallrie, published in 1632, still considered the lancer to be an important cavalry type.

  Full plate armor was the norm for sixteenth-century cavalry and was very effective protection against lance, sword, or bow. It was also effective against the relatively light harquebus bullet. To deal with bullets, armor plates were reinforced and made thicker at the most vulnerable points, particularly the chest. It became common to “proof” the ability of the armor to protect against bullets by testing each piece with a shot into the chest plate. The resulting dimple in the chest armor remained on the finished armor as the armorer’s mark attesting to the quality of his work. Even this armor, as effective as it was, did not overly encumber the mounted warrior. Fully armored cavalrymen could mount their horses without aid, and could twist and turn in the saddle with no problem. Heavier specialized tournament armor was much more cumbersome.6

  True cavalry emerged over the course of the sixteenth century, as the heavily armored mounted men-at-arms—originally dominated by the nobility—became part of a military branch of service. This change took place at the same time that the concept of battlefield formations evolved into the idea of permanent military units. The mounted arm evolved from groups of mostly noble men-at-arms who were individual warriors to systematically organized tactical units made up of soldiers and horses.7 The difference between the two was the shift from the individual to the organization.

  Light Cavalry

  Many of the more mundane tasks of campaigning—scouting, securing key points, running messages, and protecting the army from surprise—were suited to cavalry but not suited to the armored heavy cavalry. The sixteenth century saw the increasing use of light cavalry to do these important tasks. The term light referred specifically to the fact that riders wore little armor and the horses of the light cavalry were smaller. The light cavalry excelled at tactical tasks that required speed, great mobility, and only a limited amount of combat capability. Light cavalry also were adept at quick attacks against vulnerable supply trains, marching infantry, and artillery formations.8 Many of the best light cavalry came from eastern Europe. By the end of the seventeenth century most armies applied the Hungarian name hussars to the light cavalry even if they had no connection to Hungary. The term hussar derives from the Hungarian word huzz, which means 20, reflecting the fifteenth-century practice of recruiting every twentieth man for the mounted militia.9
<
br />   The Reiters

  A new type of heavy cavalryman appeared in Germany in the 1540s: the reiters, also called cuirassiers. The German historian Hans Delbruck considers the reiters the fathers of the modern cavalry just as the Swiss pikemen were the fathers of modern infantry. Reiters wore the traditional plate armor of the heavy cavalryman and their task was to defeat opposing bodies of infantry and heavy cavalry. However, their primary weapon was not the heavy lance but rather a wheellock pistol, which was small enough to handle in one hand and fire from horseback. The reiters also carried a sword and a dagger, and sometimes a harquebus or musket. Each pistol was good for one shot. Pistols had a limited range of about 10 or 15 feet. The reiters trained to aim at the hip of the rider or at the shoulder or head of the horse. Though the pistol was somewhat unreliable, it was much easier to use with minimum training than the lance. Further, the horse could be smaller and required less training. A mounted pistoleer and his mount could be trained in three months.10 The reiters served for pay and fought for whatever side could afford them. The mercenary aspect of their organization, and the use of the pistol, broke all connection between early modern cavalry operations and Medieval chivalry. Individual combat and glory were not part of the reiter ethos.11