Tag: war

The steppe horse should probably be considered a pony rather than a horse, and the distinction between pony and horse is recognized by horsemen today, even if that distinction is not precise. Ponies are generally smaller than horses, usually no more than fourteen hands high, and in the common view this is their principal distinction. However, there are other equally significant differences between ponies and horses, and these are important in considering the effectiveness and threat posed by the steppe peoples who rode them.

Ponies are tough, often stockier than horses, and surprisingly strong. Some modern ponies, such as the halflinger, while not as tall as a horse, may be as heavy. As a rule their proportions are different—their legs may be relatively shorter and thicker and their heads proportionately larger. Their manes and tails are often longer and their hair more coarse. Their generally smaller size may account for the fact that they live longer than horses and require less food, and food of lesser quality. All of these factors, along with some Paleolithic evidence, suggested to a Scottish scientist at the turn of the century that ponies and horses were distinct “races” in ancient times and that size alone might be a rather arbitrary distinction. Clearly the two are very close and are often interbred, but the question of their lineage is not so much a concern here as are the pony’s excellent qualities of strength, stamina and ability to subsist on little food. All of this was well known in antiquity. In the fifth century the Roman author Vegetius wrote of Hun horses that they were ugly and small, but rated them as best for warfare because of their toughness and obedience.

— Warriors of the Steppe, p. 16

Emphasis mine.

…From the late seventeenth to the late thirteenth century [B.C.E.], for the eastern Mediterranean kingdoms warfare was a contest between opposing chariot forces, and the only offensive infantrymen who participated in battle were the ‘runners’—the skirmishers who ran among the chariots…. Although there is distressingly little information for the centuries following the Catastrophe [in the 12th century B.C.E.], what there is suggests that all over the eastern Mediterranean the principal role in battle was now borne by offensive infantrymen. Thus chariot warfare, which in the Late Bronze Age had distinguished cities and kingdoms from the barbarous hinterlands (where horses and a chariot were a luxury that few, if any, could afford), did not survive into the Iron Age, and even the wealthiest kings had now to depend primarily upon footsoldiers.

It is generally recognized that the chariot was less important in the Iron Age than in the Late Bronze Age. By the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III [of Assyria] (745-27 [B.C.E.]) the light, two-horse chariot rarely appeared on the battlefield, since by that time the tasks hitherto assigned to chariots were normally carried out by cavalry. As a result, the Neo-Assyrian chariot became an enormous and cumbersome vehicle, carrying a variety of passengers and drawn by three or four horses. Such vehicles had little in common with the war chariot of the Bronze Age and seem to have served as prestige conveyances for the king and lesser dignitaries. In classical times (if we except the dreadful but ineffective ‘scythed’ chariots of the Persians) the chariot was associated almost entirely with status, parades, and recreation. We may thus say that in the Iron Age cavalry ‘replaced’ chariotry as an effective military arm.

The earliest representations of archers shooting from the backs of galloping horses are ninth-century Assyrian reliefs. These reliefs show the cavalry archers operating in pairs: one cavalryman holds the reins of both his own and his partner’s horse, allowing the partner to use his hands for the bow and bowstring. The early cavalry teams thus parallel exactly the charioteer and chariot archer. The cavalry archer was undoubtedly less accurate than his counterpart on a chariot (bouncing on a horse’s back was less conducive to a good shot than standing—knees bent—on the leather-strap platform of a chariot). But in other respects the cavalry teams were surely superior. They were able, first of all, to operate in terrain too rough for wheeled vehicles. And their chances for flight, when things went wrong, were much better: when a chariot horse was injured, both crewmen were in immediate danger, but if a cavalryman’s horse was killed or injured the cavalryman could immediately leap on the back of his partner’s horse and so ride out of harm’s way. Yet another advantage of cavalry over chariotry was economic, since the cost of purchasing and maintaining a vehicle was considerable. The Chronicler claims…that in the tenth century [B.C.E.] the chariot itself cost twice as much as the team that pulled it.

How early in the Iron Age kings began to use cavalries in place of or alongside chariotries cannot be determined, since there is so little documentary and pictorial evidence for the period 1150-900 [B.C.E.]. By the middle of the ninth century cavalries were obviously well established, since at the Battle of Qarqar Shalmaneser III faced many men on horseback (and some on the backs of camels) and since he himself claimed to have 2,002 chariots and 5,542 cavalrymen. For earlier centuries all we have are Hebrew traditions, and although they are hardly trustworthy it must be noted that they routinely associate cavalries with the kings of the period. Solomon was said to have maintained twelve thousand parashim; David was believed to have defeated enormous horse troops consisting of both chariots and cavalrymen; and Saul was reported to have been slain on Mt. Gilboa by Philistine parashim.

— The End of the Bronze Age, pp. 164-65

Assyria paid a heavy and increasing price for its warlike ways. Although military expeditions were still undertaken for strategic reasons, after 800 [B.C.E.] they began to resemble gangsters collecting protection money. At times, through lax management, they even seemed to encourage revolt, enabling them to squeeze the perpetrators all the harder—Metenna of Tyre was forced to pay Tiglath-Pileser III 150 talents of gold, while Sargon II relieved the city of Musasir of in excess of five tons of silver and more than a ton of gold. Unquestionably Assyria’s lords of extortion profited handsomely; but the evidence also indicates that most of the take was consumed by the army and relentless combat—180 of the 250 years between 890 and 640 [B.C.E.] were devoted to war. Combined arms proved prodigally expensive—plainly exceeding the resources of an economy ultimately based on near-subsistence farming. So the army had to keep on fighting and sacking, and in the process war became an end in itself.

— Soul of the Sword, p. 78

Emphasis mine.

Protected by plate armor and the pride of chivalry, the noble felt himself invulnerable and invincible and became increasingly contemptuous of the foot soldier. He believed that commoners, being excluded from chivalry, could never be relied upon in war. As grooms, baggage attendants, foragers, and road-builders—the equivalent of engineer corps—they were necessary, but as soldiers in leather jerkins armed with pikes and billhooks, they were considered an encumbrance who in a sharp fight would “melt away like snow in sunshine.” This was not simple snobbism but a reflection of experience in the absence of training. The Middle Ages had no equivalent of the Roman legion. Towns maintained trained bands of municipal police, but they tended to fill up their contingents for national defense with riff-raff good for nothing else. Abbeys had better use for their peasants than to employ their time in military drill. In any epoch the difference between a rabble and an army is training, which was not bestowed on foot soldiers called up by the arrière-ban. Despised as ineffective, they were ineffective because they were despised.

— A Distant Mirror, Chapter 4

Emphasis mine.

It is in the nature of honour that it must be exclusive, or at least hierarchic. When everyone attains equal honour, then there is no honour for anyone. Of necessity, therefore, the world of Odysseus was fiercely competitive, as each hero strove to outdo the others. And because the heroes were warriors, competition was fiercest where the highest honour was to be won, in individual combat on the field of battle. There a hero’s ultimate worth, the meaning of his life, received its final test in three parts: whom he fought, how he fought, and how he fared…. The Iliad in particular is saturated in blood, a fact which cannot be hidden or argued away, twist the evidence as one may in a vain attempt to fit archaic Greek values to a more gentle code of ethics. The poet and his audience lingered lovingly over every act of slaughter: “Hippolochus darted away, and him too [Agamemnon] smote to the ground; slicing off his hands with the sword and cutting off his neck, he sent him rolling like a round log through the battle-throng.”

…But what must be stressed about Homeric cruelty is its heroic quality, not its specifically Greek character. In the final analysis, how can prepotence be determined except by repeated demonstrations of success? And the one indisputable measure of success is a trophy. While a battle is raging only the poet can observe Agamemnon’s feat of converting Hippolochus into a rolling log. The other heroes are too busy pursuing glory for themselves. But a trophy is lasting evidence, to be displayed at all appropriate occasions. Among more primitive peoples the victim’s head served that honorific purpose; in Homer’s Greece armour replaced heads. That is why time after time, even at great personal peril, the heroes paused from their fighting in order to strip a slain opponent of his armour. In terms of the battle itself such a procedure was worse than absurd, it might jeopardize the whole expedition. It is a mistake in our judgement, however, to see the end of the battle as the goal, for victory without honour was unacceptable; there could be no honour without public proclamation, and there could be no publicity without the evidence of a trophy.

— The World of Odysseus, pp. 118-19

Emphasis mine.

Certainly the oldest military title that survives in most modern armies is that of captain, from the Latin caput, “head,” and thus the head man. It is notable that in the German army the word for captain is hauptmann, which means precisely “head man.” Almost all modern military titles are drawn from the period when feudalism was dying and when the power of central governments was crystallizing, forming in the process royal or regular armies for the service of the state.

At that time, the title of captain was usually given to the commander of a company, which was the largest and about the only recognized subdivision of these new armies and usually numbered 300 or 400 men, or about as many as could be controlled by one leader on the battlefields of that time. The title itself, however, was of feudal origin. In feudal times, it had been customary for each lord to retain a certain number of armed men to guard his castle; these gradually came to be commanded by a captain, who was not usually a knight or of noble blood but a hired mercenary, trained and experienced in war, who, in most cases, had fought his way up from the ranks. His men, the only trained soldiers of the feudal period, were used to drill the raw levies that were mustered whenever the lord’s suzerain called on him to take the field with his allotted quota of men for war. The complete quota was almost never kept under arms in time of peace. The trained soldiers were known as the lord’s servants, or serventes, which, in military parlance, became corrupted into sergentes, or sergeants. Thus, a feudal levy had not only a group of knights and squires at its head but a captain and several sergeants over a body of more or less raw recruits. The richer the lord, the larger the proportion of trained men at his disposal.

When the royal armies began to appear, the captain became a much more important person. He commanded a company of royal troops instead of the scratch castle guard of a baron or an earl. The jobs were better paid, and consequently were sought after by young men seeking both money and a chance for distinction. Sergeants were also a part of these troops and did much the same work that sergeants have done ever since. As the centralization of power in the king’s person grew, the new and noble captains found that their personal interests required them to spend more time at court and less in the field, and to accomplish this, they hired officers to take their place in the actual command of their companies. These were called placeholders, or, in the term derived from the French, lieutenants.

As the armies grew in size, the number of companies became greater and it was usual to find several companies marching together in column on the same road. The senior officer present commanded the whole column, called colonne in French, and from this source he came to be known as the colonel, or column commander. Later, these columns became permanent regiments, and the same thing happened as with companies; the colonels, to retain their lucrative jobs, frequented the court and secured the services of lieutenant colonels to command their regiments on active service.

Finally, the command of the whole army was given to an officer who originally was called the general captain, or captain general, in distinction to the company captain, who commanded just one company. He, too, had to have a lieutenant general to command for him, or at any rate to assist him, and to this end, the “captain” part of this title was dropped, and officers included generals and lieutenant generals, as well as colonels and lieutenant colonels and captains and lieutenants. At the lowest command level were the usual sergeants. This is the framework of the modern military order, although there have been some later additions, notably the ranks of major general and major.

In the time of Oliver Cromwell, the “new model” army was organized with just about the ranks noted above. In each regiment, however, the need was found for an administrative and supply officer to look after the accounts and the paper work, which Cromwell insisted be carefully kept. Cromwell was doubtless influenced by the example of the Swedish king, Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632 [C.E.]), in whose army many English officers had served out of sympathy for the Protestant cause. Gustavus Adolphus provided his army with a complete administrative organization, which Cromwell adapted to English requirements. In each company a sergeant was appointed to perform the duties of both administration and supply, but at the regimental level an officer was so detailed, and was called the great sergeant, or sergeant major. He took rank next after the lieutenant colonel, being senior to all the captains. Then a corresponding appointment was made for the whole army, as the sergeant-major-general, but the “sergeant” part of both titles was dropped later because the officers concerned doubtless considered it somewhat belittling, and the designations became major and major general. These titles have persisted in the British and American armies to this day. This series of transitions explains, incidentally, why the modern major general ranks one grade below a lieutenant general, while a major is two grades higher than a lieutenant. The grade of sergeant major, in its actual meaning, was later revived for a senior sergeant, a noncommissioned officer.

The title of field marshal, as applied in the British and German armies, or marshal, in the French and [Russian] armies, comes from the old French mareschal, which originally meant a blacksmith or tarrier. In the French army a farrier still has the title of maréchal ferrant. As time went on, the king’s horseshoer, or farrier, rose in importance until the title became equivalent to “master of the horse” at the French court and gradually assumed great military importance. Later, in the French royal armies of the 18th century [C.E.], the need was felt for a rank of subordinate general officers, as in Cromwell’s army, to take charge of the camp, administration, the divisions of the army, and so forth. By that time, the original importance of the title had been lost, but it was revived as maréchal de camp, which was about the equivalent of the major general of the British Army in status, ranking below the lieutenant general but senior to all colonels. This title disappeared under Napoleon, who, however, created the higher title of marshal of the empire, for a senior general officer ranking all generals and serving generally as the commander of an army or an army corps. In the British Army, the title of field marshal as the highest ranking grade was first known in 1736.

The origin of the title of corporal is somewhat obscure. The word seems to have an Italian source, corporale, from the Latin corpo, meaning body, and hence the person in charge of a small body of troops. It appeared in Cromwell’s time in the British cavalry, who, feeling superior to the infantry, wanted a title of their own for noncommissioned officers; they called them corporals instead of sergeants, and, in the British household cavalry regiments, the sergeants are still officially called corporals of horse. Later the title was used to fill the need for an inferior grade of noncommissioned officer….

The ranks of first and second lieutenant developed as companies grew in size and weapons in range and power, so that a company needed three officers instead of two for proper control. Originally, the third officer of an infantry company was called ensign, because part of his duty was to carry the company flag; for the same reason the third officer of a troop of cavalry was the cornet, because he carried a little pennon known then by that name. Later, the flags were laid aside, and these junior officers became known as second lieutenants.

The British titles of lance corporal and lance sergeant, which mean “acting corporal” and “acting sergeant,” were derived from the old lance-pesade, a term used during the 17th century [C.E.] for a full-trained soldier of a grade superior to the common men, or private men, as they came to be called.

— [undocumented encyclopedia entry]

Emphasis mine.

See also Origin of the Rank and Grades of General.

Copper was the first metal regularly exploited by humans, smelted far back into the Neolithic. For use in large tools and weapons, it was characteristically cast as a substitute for stone in ax and mace heads along with dagger blades. Yet its softness precluded much more in the way of new types of arms.

This changed dramatically with the discovery that copper could be combined effectively with arsenic or tin to produce a far harder but still ductile alloy, bronze. Not only could it be cast into the most complex shapes, but after cold-working, yielded weapons of a hardness and tensile strength rivaling those of iron, until Roman times, when tempering came to be understood. The toughness and ductility of bronze made it possible for the dagger form to be stretched to generate a true sword by the middle of the third millennium [B.C.E.] Such an instrument, by virtue of its superior reach, maneuverability, and capacity to inflict both slashing and puncture wounds, was ideal for the kind of close combat that was the specialty of the elite warrior class. Bronze also substantially increased the penetration of holdovers like the spear, arrow, and battle-ax, which, in combination with the sword, rather quickly brought forth defensive reciprocals in bronze and bronze-reinforced helmets, shields, cuirasses, and greaves, to produce a metal-clad combatant largely immune to any but similarly accessorized adversaries.

War’s appetite for bronze fed on itself further encouraging political centralization and the dominance of military elites intent upon controlling the sources of supply: Deposits of tin, in particular, were scattered and relatively difficult to extract. Literary allusions and other records from the Bronze Age make it clear that the metal and its constituents remained valued, rare, and monopolized by those in control.

Iron changed things somewhat. Anatolian armorers had experimented with the metal, probably derived from meteoric deposits, to produce blades as far back as 2500 [B.C.E.]. Iron weapons were tough and held an edge, but were subject to rapid and continuous deterioration through rust. Rather than superiority, its large-scale use was driven more by the relative abundance of ferrous deposits. Once the higher heats required for extracting terrestrial iron were mastered, it could be produced in quantities necessary to begin to provide whole armies with at least some metallic implements.

But bronze had staying power. Because it was only minimally affected by corrosion, it could be used repeatedly and for different purposes simply by melting and recasting. Iron emerged as a red-hot pasty ball that had to be worked by hammering, rather than as a liquid that could be poured into molds. Shaping remained difficult and labor-consumptive. Gradually, a better understanding of metallurgy—basically tempering and the development of steel—led to an increased reliance on ferrous-based weapons, particularly during the [European] Middle Ages.

Yet in the age named for bronze there was no question who and what ruled the battlefield. Here there were two classes of opponents: a relative few wielding and protected by bronze, and the nonmetallic masses, essentially designated victims. Although armies ranged from the low thousands up to around 20,000, battles could be and were decided by several hundred elite fighters. A combat environment in the Bronze Age typically consisted of opposing lines of archers (often supplemented by slingers and javelin throwers) exchanging desultory fire, while champions on each side sought each other out to wage what amounted to individual combat. Yet prior to and particularly after the leadership fought each other, common soldiers were subject to promiscuous killing.

— Soul of the Sword, pp. 70-71

Emphasis mine.

…Taken together the data [on ancient battles] suggest that seven of every ten soldiers of the defeated force would become casualties by day’s end. About one-third of the force would be killed and another third wounded severely enough to be left behind to die or shift for themselves on the battlefield. The victors could expect to lose to enemy arms approximately one in every ten men, either killed or wounded.

— From Sumer To Rome, p. 88

The Assyrians had made major and highly effective use of a tactical feature common in Near Eastern warfare for many centuries. This was the archer-pair, consisting of a spearman bearing a very large, light but sturdy shield made of leather and wicker, and an archer; the spearman faced the enemy and held up the shield, behind which the archer hid and fired off volleys of arrows. The Persians called such shields spara and so named these tactical units sparabara, or “shield-bearers.” Typically, the Assyrians had lined these units up side by side, forming a single row of shield carriers backed by a single row of archers. [The Persians] increased the depth of the formation and also the number of archers per shield, producing a heavier concentration of arrow shot.

— The Persian Empire, pp. 27-28

It is common to assume that battles involving masses of men engaged in close combat were horrifically bloody; in fact, they were rarely so, at least as long as the units remained engaged. When the infantry was arrayed in close phalanx formation, only the first two ranks could actively engage in any fighting, and then not for very long. It has been estimated that the lines of the phalanx could remain engaged in actual combat for less than thirty minutes before exhaustion began to take its toll. Men in the front ranks would be quite fortunate to remain in contact for half that time before being overcome by exhaustion. Moreover, until the introduction of the Marian reforms in the Roman army (100 [B.C.E.]), no army had learned the technique of having its front ranks break contact, withdraw in good order through the other ranks, and be replaced with a fresh line of infantry. For the most part, stamina governed the tempo of the battle….

As long as the men within the phalanx held their ground and remained together, it was difficult for any significant killing to occur. Even the cavalry could not be decisive against infantry formations that held their ground. Cavalry charges were inherently unstable to begin with due to the absence of the stirrup, and horses would not throw themselves against a packed wall of humanity, especially if the spears of the formation were raised against them. Yet, in every army there is a mob waiting to escape, and its motivation is fear. The real killer on the ancient battlefield was fear. Men in combat have their instinctive flight or fight responses held in delicate balance by the thin string of intellect. Continued stress increases the probability that someone within the ranks will lose his nerve and run. Sometimes the actions of a single soldier are sufficient to forge the onset of panic in an entire unit. Once the integrity of the formation began to erode, the ancient soldier was at very great risk of death or injury.

— From Sumer To Rome, pp. 83-84

Emphasis mine.

Experience has shown that last-minute maneuvers were likely to create dangerous gaps in the lines, or to expose a marching flank to missile or shock attack. Therefore tactical ingenuity was not often attempted beyond the point where an enemy would be forced to enter battle on unfavorable ground, or with only a portion of his available forces. The usual objective in battle was to outflank the enemy, since only the flanks and rear of well-armed infantry—10 to 30 ranks deep—were sensitive and vulnerable. Though we shall note a few examples of successful deviation from the parallel order of battle, such deviations more often led to failure.

— The Encyclopedia of Military History, p. 17

Disease has to be counted as one of the wild cards of history, an unforeseen factor that can, in a matter of days or weeks, undo the deterministic sure thing or humble the conquering momentum. History is full of examples. There was the plague that ravaged Athens for more than a year and led to its capture and the dismantling of its empire in 404 [B.C.E.]. An outbreak of dysentery weakened the Prussian force invading France in 1792 [C.E.] and helped to convince their leaders to turn back after losing the battle of Valmy, thus saving the French Revolution. The ravages of typhus and dysentery are the hidden story of Napoleon’s calamity in Russia. The war-vectored influenza epidemic of 1918 [C.E.] may not have changed immediate outcomes, but how many potential reputations did we lose to it—people who might have made a difference to their generation? Bacteria and viruses may thus redirect vast impersonal forces in human societies, and they can also become forces in their own right.

— What If?, p. 2

Among [a general’s] skills, the one by which the eighteenth century [C.E.] set the greatest store was that of coup d’oeil, a facility which enabled a commander to grasp the essentials of a situation and make a speedy and appropriate decision [in a glance].

The process of acquiring coup d’oeil began in peacetime, while the officer was out walking, riding, or hunting. One of the fundamental exercises was to fix a particular measurement in your mind, and the apply it over successively greater distances. The ordinary human pace was assumed to be about 2 feet, and the Prince de Ligne discovered that 80 such paces approximated to the maximum range at which he would consider shooting a hare. Three 80-pace units in turn yielded the length of an Austrian battalion, which came to 240 paces, including the 6 paces allowed for the battalion artillery. The estimation of numbers also demanded practice:

When you see laborers or a herd of cattle in a field, you should guess their number from a distance, then approach more closely and count them, so as to find your margin of error. By repeating this exercise over and over again you acquire a certain assurance of judgment, which will enable you afterwards to make an accurate assessment of a force of infantry or cavalry.

Eventually it became possible to envisage the most peaceful landscape in military terms….

— The Military Experience in the Age of Reason, pp. 140-41

The Byzantines’ attitude to warfare was different from that of many of their undisciplined nomadic enemies, and from the haphazard attitude to military engagements shown by some western medieval European armies. Strategy was all-important. To win a war by diplomacy or failing that, skirmishes and raids, was preferable to engaging in a pitched battle.

— The Medieval Warhorse, p. 27

Medieval strategy does indeed appear to have been dominated by two general principles: fear of the pitched battle, of the confrontation in open country, and what one could call the ‘siege mentality’, in other words ‘an automatic reaction which consisted in replying to an attack by shutting oneself up in the most easily defensible strongholds of the country’. From this emerged the shape which the majority of medieval conflicts assumed—the very slow progress of the attackers, the obstinate defense of those attacked, limited operations both in time and distance, a war of attrition (guerre d’usure), ‘a strategy of accessories’ where each combatant or group of combatants, often in an incoherent and discontinuous fashion, fought primarily for immediate material profit. Contemporaries had an expression to describe this kind of warlike activity on a reduced scale. It was the guerre guerroyante, made up of losses and recaptures, surprises, incursions, ambushes and sallies. ‘War is…above all made up of pillaging, often of sieges, sometimes of battles.’ Moreover, because of a lack of money, men, supplies and provisions, many plans failed to mature: ‘A campaign brought to a conclusion constitutes an exception, an enterprise which defies the rule.’

— War in the Middle Ages, p. 219

Emphasis mine.

Following tradition tracing back to the Roman title of imperator, a European monarch was always the general of his country’s army. His principal military assistant, in peace and war, was usually called a constable, a member of the nobility renowned for military prowess. Other outstanding noble warriors, particularly in France, frequently carried the honorific title of marshal. When a ruler was present in the field, he automatically exercised command as general. His second in command, who might or might not be the constable or one of the marshals, exercised his military functions as the lieutenant general. In the absence of the monarch, the lieutenant general commanded in the king’s name.

Under the operational command of the monarch or his lieutenant general was a senior administrative officer known as the sergeant major general. An experienced soldier, not necessarily a nobleman, the sergeant major general was in effect the chief of staff. He was responsible for supply, for organization, and for forming up the heterogeneous units of a 16th-century [C.E.] army for battle—a long, complicated process, with much shouting and confusion, considerably helped if the sergeant major general had a stentorian voice. In his administrative functions he was assisted in the subordinate units—national and mercenary—by administrative officers known as sergeants major and sergeants.

There was no permanent military hierarchy or chain of command below king and constable. Lieutenant generals and sergeant major generals were appointed for a campaign only.

— The Encyclopedia of Military History, p. 459

See also Origins of European Army Ranks.

Neither Persians, Greeks, nor Chinese [circa 500 B.C.E.] achieved any marked improvement over the engineering techniques which had been employed by the Assyrians. Fortifications had, in fact, progressed about as far as available means would permit; the art of siegecraft had failed to keep pace. Save for a few exceptional instances of surprise, ruse, or betrayal, walled cities or fortresses were impervious to everything but starvation.

— The Encyclopedia of Military History, p. 18

The 6th-century [C.E. Byzantine] soldier was in fact much more than a cavalryman: he had become an all-around mounted warrior. With his bow he could skirmish at a distance, but he was also heavily armoured and well equipped for close mounted combat. When a steady force was needed to hold ground, he was quite happy to dismount and fight as a heavy infantryman. On many occasions Belisarius took only cavalrymen with him, and when Narses needed steady infantry, he dismounted his cavalry.

— Late Roman Cavalryman: 236-565 AD, p. 24

The king’s armiger was originally just what the Latin world literally means, the bearer of the king’s arms. On ceremonial occasions in the eleventh and later centuries [C.E.] the armiger continued to be the royal servant whose duty and privilege it was to carry the king’s sword, lance and shield. But by [King] Sancho II’s [d. 1072] day the responsibilities of this officer were far wider than the merely domestic or ceremonial. The armiger was responsible for overseeing the king’s household militia, the body of troops who formed the king’s escort and were the nucleus of the royal army. While we do not possess any contemporary description of the duties of the armiger, it is likely that he was responsible for recruiting, training and keeping order among these often unruly young men; perhaps for supervising the arrangements for their payment too. He had to have an eye for potential talent, to be demanding in his appraisal of mounts and equipment, to be firm and tactful in sorting out the scrapes his subordinates landed themselves in. He was also one of the king’s principal military advisors. Thus the armiger had to be at once staff-officer, adjutant, regimental sergeant-major—and something of a counselor. It was a demanding job. Usually held by fairly young men, it equipped them for independent command.

— The Quest for El Cid, p. 114

Horsemanship was the first prerequisite for a military career. [A boy] would have had his first riding lessons almost as soon as he could walk. Under the strict gaze of his father’s grooms he would have progressed from donkey to pony, from pony to horse, learning by practice how to keep his seat, how to govern a fractious beast or calm a nervous one, how to ride for long hours over rough country without tiring, and all the other skills that would go to preserve his life in the melee of combat. Hunting and hawking, the nobleman’s pastimes, developed further skills: an eye for country—surface and slope, vantage point and dead ground; the habit of moving on horseback in company, if necessary swiftly and silently; the difficult art of shooting from horseback with bow and arrow at a moving quarry; the courage needed to dismount and face the charge of a boar with only a spear to protect the hunter from its tusks; endurance of heat and cold, hunger and thirst; care of weapons and tack, where a loose knife-haft or girth worn to breaking could cost limb or even life.

— The Quest for El Cid, pp. 109-10