M2TW Cavalry and EB II

[Cyclops]

Like all other germanic Barbarians the Goths were primarily infantry-based, their stay on the Ukranian steppe had probably heightened their proportion of cavalry to infantry, but they were nonetheless still mostly infantry. It is a question of settled farmers being mostly infantry while nomads/herdsmen are primarily cavalry in that specific setting. Battle of Hadrianopolis was an infantry action until the Goth cavalry with their Alan friends/allies/mercenaries returned from foraging and turned the Roman flank. Nor were the Goths the only tribe to invade the WRE and the others were by and large infantry.

Definitely the germanic footmen were the rats that swarmed the foundered ship of state, but I'd argue they managed it only once the horsey Goths and Huns had cracked the nut. Up until then the Romans cracked german heads as a regular sport for centuries, and only lost if they put pencil-necks in charge who led legions into swamps in winter....

Note that at Tours October 10, 732, the well-trained, armed and disciplined Frankish FOOT soldiers withstood the heavy cavalry of the Umayyads and defeated it. Well-trained, armed and disciplined heavy foot will as a general rule defeat any cavalry you care to mention. It is when they break rank as at Hastings, they get slaughtered.

Poitiers/Tours in 732 was pretty much the first stop on a charge that commenced at Mecca, so they were due for a halt. Not sure about Ummayid heavies, perhaps they were more of a Berber raiding party than formed Kwarazmian style katas?

From the Red Sea to the Loire valley is a fairly impressive run of wins for the horse vs the foot.

However, it generally takes an organised state to arm, produce and train this body of foot. A state that was by and large absent in the middle ages. Instead the small bands of well equipped and trained cavalry dominated all battlefields where they did not meet organised heavy foot. It is easier to maintain a single or a few knights and bring them together in effective if disorganised and undisciplined warbands than to keep heavy foot (not to mention chivalric ideals and general ideology). In that light some military historians have seen The Middle Ages not so much as the age of cavalry as the age of absent foot.

Very good point. The very real breakdown of civilization (in the West) meant there was not the urban administration to rally and arm concentrations of foot.

I liken the spread of the feudal horse culture to the mafia. Its all about honour, families, getting "made" (a knight), private wars (feuds), extortion (dues and levies) and pimped rides.