med. sieges

[VAE VICTUS]

medieval sieges, were they long and drawn out? im reading Cassells history of warfare, and they make it seem that the main weapon of sieges at that time(i guess early period, not sure) was starvation.

and how could knights get their horses to charge into a wall of spears?did they put blinders on them or what? it would seem that a horse wouldnt be too eager to kill itself. also, would knights have done that? i mean horses are expensive...

was light cavalry bunched with the infantry, or did they support the knights?

[Peasant Phill]

I can answer the charge question.

Normally a horse is unwilling to charge a solid object (a spearwall appears solid to a horse), a war horse, however, can be trained to ignore its instinct and trust it rider.
It is trained by letting it charge a wooden plate or something similar which is flattened a moment before the horse would hit it. Because of the positioning of the eyes, the horse can't see directly in front of it and thus 'believes' it ran through the wooden structure. After enough training the horse trusts its rider and will charge at something that appears solid to the horse if the rider wants it.

[conon394]

Peasant Phill

Maybe, but as an operative military tactic/cavalry training method I can't say that I've ever heard of such a strategy being used. In general if spear/pike/bayonet infantry won't break, buckle or run, a cavalry charge is simply going to fail.

[Hurin_Rules]

I'd recommend Randall Rogers' book, Latin Siege Warfare in the Twelfth Century (Bradbury's The Medieval Siege is to simplistic, IMHO).

Also, if you want to read some real accounts of medieval sieges, the De re militari website has hundreds of english translations of medieval accounts of battles and sieges:

http://www.deremilitari.org/

(Click on the 'primary sources' section for medieval texts in translation, and the 'books and articles' for modern historians' writings. In the latter, I'm sure you'll probably find your answer).

IMHO, medieval sieges tended to be brief. Few commanders had the resources to maintian large armies in the field for more than a few months (the term of service of medieval vassals was usually only 40-60 days, and while mercenaries could be hired, they were expensive). If you read the histories of Orderic Vitalis or other contemporary chronicles, the vast majority of sieges were only a month or two long. Exceptions would include the siege of Antioch during the first crusade (about a year long, 1097-8) and the emperor Henry IV's siege of Mantua (11 months) in 1090-1.

Walls were very difficult to reduce, although the introduction of the counterweight trebuchet allowed some commanders to break them down more easily (if you had the money, wood and expertise to make them).

[matteus the inbred]

Light cavalry depends on whose army we're talking about. Certain types of light/medium cavalry were there to support knights, not just on the battlefield but as servants later. Squires, valets, coustilliers etc. often formed (certainly in later Burgundian armies) a reserve behind the knights, and could fight in support or provide fresh horses.
Other kinds included scouts, foragers, reivers, hobilars and the like, who would probably not be placed in the battle line at all as they were not really equipped for it; if used they would take part in the pursuit, but their main job was to harass and scout. Exceptions include Edward IV's use of 200 mounted spears at Tewkesbury in 1471. A more typical use would be the French party who raided Henry V's baggage during the battle of Agincourt, who sallied from the local castle and may have been mounted. Some medieval armies mounted their infantry as a temporary measure; English 100YW armies sometimes used nags to get their archers around quickly when on a chevauchee (large scale raid) and Harold Godwinsson also used Huscarles on horseback on at least one occasion. Mounted crossbows were used throughout Europe.
I can't think of any situations where light cavalry was deliberately used or deployed with infantry though, as to tie them down to an infantry formation would rob them of their greatest tactical advantage of mobility.
Except possibly in Eastern European and Asiatic armies, which often used lots of light cavalry but not much/no infantry. We have loads of 'Mongol and similar' experts in the Org and hopefully one of them will answer this much better than I could.

Any of this seems a bit vague, I'm going to check a few books this evening and try and find a bit more info!

[Aenlic]

By the late 13th and early 14th century, however, sieges became much shorter due to those very same counter-weight trebuchets and other advanced siege engines. It wasn't unusual for fortified towns and castles to surrender within just a few days if no outside help arrived to break the siege. In some instances, towns surrendered at the mere mention of siege engines.

This was because the newer siege engines made sieges much more destructive. Edward I used his massive siege engines to great effect in Scotland. The aptly named Warwolf trebuchet brought several Scottish castles to surrender which were previously considered impregnable, such as Caerlaverock and Urquhart and Stirling. Even though the basic design was invented by the Chinese 1000 years earlier, the trebuchet came into its own in the high middle ages. Just a few 200-300 lb. stones hurled into your walls from beyond archer range was enough to bring most castles and fortified towns to surrender. The big limiting factor, of course, was having the skilled engineers to build it and a supply of local wood sufficient for the task. Castles and fortified towns in areas without a large supply of timber, like deserts, were much safer... until the advent of cannon, anyway.

[Oaty]

Dismount! It all depended on the resistance they faced. The stronger the force the harder it is to assault but the quicker they can be starved. But most of the time the reason they were in the fortification was that there forces were insufficient. forcing either a costly assault if not well planned or starvation.

[matteus the inbred]

Here we go, some examples of light cavalry directly supporting foot;

German medieval armies often deployed mounted crossbows (and later, mounted handgunners) in direct support of pikes, something which I've done in MTW games as well. These in turn were supported by light lancers, protecting both the handgunners/crossbows and the flank of the pikemen.

It's quite likely that Italian condottieri armies of the 14th/15th centuries also did stuff like this.

Arsuf 1191; since the knightly formations including rear supporting turcopoles and other light cavalry, you could argue that they were deployed in support of the infantry too. Howver, in reality, it was the infantry supporting and protecting the cavalry until they could charge.

Byzantines; throughout the 'theme' period and prior to Manzikert in 1071 cavalry and infantry (mainly infantry archers) could co-operate closely in support of one another.

Not much to go on though, it just wasn't common, and frankly not many Western European medieval armies had a lot of light cavalry that actually fought in the battleline.

[VAE VICTUS]

so if a horse wont charge spears, were the knights of use because of a lack of disciplined foot in the medieval period? i mean you can lead a horse to a battle, but you cant make him kill himself.
or did they simply build up the horses momentum to the point where the horse couldnt stop itself?
also if they did this, this could increase the risk of injury to the horse, which were and are expensive, were many knights wiiling to do this? how often did they have to buy destriers?

[CBR]

so if a horse wont charge spears, were the knights of use because of a lack of disciplined foot in the medieval period? i mean you can lead a horse to a battle, but you cant make him kill himself.
or did they simply build up the horses momentum to the point where the horse couldnt stop itself?
also if they did this, this could increase the risk of injury to the horse, which were and are expensive, were many knights wiiling to do this? how often did they have to buy destriers?

A warhorse was trained to charge armed infantry. A horse might not be the brightest animal on Earth but its not stupid or blind. It will not see a large group of men as a wall that it cant go through, but simply as a group of men with the same sticks it saw during training.

AFAIK it didnt take that many losses before a cavalry unit was disrupted enough to cancel its charge and move back to reform. Riders would lose confidence if the tight formation wasnt held and if the overall situation simply didnt feel as if going as planned. Missile fire or ditches/potholes or simple lack of training would be causes of such disruption.

It took lots of confidence to charge an enemy formation and that goes for both infantry and cavalry and such confidence could easily disappear.

Of course just because a unit would charge home didnt mean that the cavalry would automatically defeat the infantry. There is no doubt that there was a huge mental pressure on infantry facing a cavalry charge and there was a risk of some men, if not the whole unit, to rout even before actual contact. But high morale and good weapons and armor meant that infantry had a good chance of defeating the cavalry.

Now what would happen if the cavalry was confident enough to close in and the infantry didnt break before contact? Did the cavalry gallop into the infantry or did they slow down a bit? I have seen one description of a cavalry charge to be like throwing a handful of peas at a window, first one comes, a few more and then the rest. Just as one would expect an infantry charge as some are braver than the others. If the infantry stood firm and had long spears/pikes maybe fewer riders would be inclined to go in and it took a few brave men to charge home for others to follow them. If the infantry didnt look as scary, no long weapons or infantry was disrupted, more riders had the guts to go in.

Each cavalry charge would produce its own unique result: from one extreme end to the other with either cavalry breaking off before contact to infantry routing before contact. And in between there would be actual contact and fighting, with the cavalry sometimes doing a great charge and sometimes not so good with only few men going in and the rest hanging back a bit. Sometimes the whole infantry line stood firm and fought well and in other cases parts of the line would fall back and holes appear.


Knights would always have been of use whether infantry was good or bad, just as well as you see cavalry having a role up until late 19th century. When they were dominant it was because they were the only well equipped and trained force a king could rely on. Even from the late 15th century when infantry clearly was strong (e.g. Swiss and Landsknechts) heavy cavalry was still used and could be important on the battlefield.

But in general you wouldnt see heavy cavalry just making head on charges against prepared infantry: they were simply not numerous enough and used more in combiniation with infantry or out on the flanks. But there are a few examples like Crecy and especially Courtrai but they both ended with defeat, and in both cases the French learned their lesson and started to dismount as they would have a better chance of winning that way.

Warhorses were indeed expensive but it was also expected that lost horses would be replaced by the Kings they fought for. Diseases would take its fair share, but combat could be brutal for a unit if the fighting was tough and I think thats something people back then just accepted.


CBR

[Aenlic]

Very nice post, CBR.

[Watchman]

Infantry who hold their ground in close order tend to stump cavalry charges. Simple as that. It doesn't really matter what either the infantry or the cavalry are or how heavily either side is equipped - if the infantry hold steady, the cavalry charge will lose much of its effectiveness. That doesn't mean the horsemen won't be able to engage the footsloggers at a slower pace, hack and stab their way into the formation and scatter the blighters into the four winds if they're sufficiently better equipped and/or more skilled fighters, but the point is that they'll have to do that without the "impact" their charge would have if the infantry dithered and allowed their formation to waver.

The real impact of cavalry charge (which, due to the necessities of maintaining formation, was commonly done at rather low speeds - trot or canter) was always psychological. If the singularly unnerving effect of the sight of countless armed and armoured men on large animals bearing down on you in close formation wasn't enough to make the footmen give ground, its actual physical impact was greatly diluted.

Medieval militiamen, burghers and craftsmen and reasonably prosperous farmers and suchlike with long pointy sticks and shields, could deflect and defeat massed charges by knightly cavalry by the simple expedient of holding their ground. Parthian and Sassanid cataphracts, armoured from head to toe, riding fully barded horses and armed with four-meter spears, repeatedly demonstrated stark inability to make much of a dent on lines of shortsword-toting Roman legionaires that hadn't first been turned into pincushions by horse-archers. Medieval knights themselves often found it more expedient to fight on foot, and seem to have been perfectly capable of taking on mounted chivalry even without any particularly specialized anti-cavalry weaponry (it's also worth noting commanders generally appear to have avoided sending mounted men-at-arms against their dismounted colleagues if they could help it...).

Heck, there are recorded instances of light horse-archers repulsing heavy cavalry charges simply by closing ranks and refusing to budge. Although one imagines it sucked being in the front ranks in those cases...

This is not to say that heavy shock cavalry was not useful; far from it. In combination of mobility and striking power alone it was extremely useful and a powerful tool for any commander who knew how to employ it. Its ability to take on formed, steady and undepleted heavy infantry head on, however, depended chiefly on shortcomings in training, motivation, discipline and/or equipement on the part of the infantry.


As for Medieval sieges, if the attacker could not quickly take the fortification by cunning plots, surprise, a succesful escalade or by one means or another convincing the defenders to surrender, what he had in store was sitting in siege camp trying to reduce the defenses and starve out the defenders for quite a while. Which was more often that not unsuccesaful, if only because the feudal obligation of the troops ran out and they went home as the lord couldn't afford to keep them in the field with money. One truism of European warfare from after the Migrations until only quite recently was that the advantage was on the side that held the fortified places, and ground could not be actually conquered without taking the fortifications. Defenders who thought themselves unable to take on the invader in a set-piece battle with good chances of winning would seek shelter in their fortifications and pretty much just wait out the aggressor until logistical constraints and suchlike forced him to leave, naturally helped along by constant harassement from supporting fortifications, sallies and other such small-scale raiding which Medieval warfare actually chieflt consisted of. The attacker in turn, aside from trying to capture the fortresses, would seek to motivate the defender to come out and fight usually by despoiling his territory - this also doubled as foraging supplies for his own army, and hurt the defender's resources on the long term so that if this attempt failed the next one would hopefully be little easier.

One reason commanders tended to avoid major set-piece battles were the enormous risks involved. For obvious reasons nobody voluntarily fought such engagements unless they estimated themselves having at least even odds, and the results could go either way regardless. A single day of intense combat could lay waste to strategies, resources and power bases patiently built up over decades if not generations; Hastings, 1066, would probably be a particularly dramatic example of this. As achieving superiority or at least parity on the field usually had to be done via the crude expedient of increasing the number of men present armies preparing for a field battle would tend to strip nearby fortifications of all but skeleton garrisons; in the case they lost, the enemy would then have a comparatively easy time capturing these now only nominally defended strongpoints (although whether he had the resources to actually do so was another thing), even if survivors from the defeated field army would tend to seek refuge in them.

This basic rule of thumb - the almost overwhelming advantage fortifications afforded the defenders - was briefly broken a few times by the introduction of new siege weapons, be they now powerful counterweight trebuchets or true siege artillery. This was however always temporary; countermeasures would be devised, new fortifications designed to deal with the new threat, and defenses upgraded to have suitable weapons for counter-battery fire.

Mind you, the costs of both the siege trains necessary to invest the defenses and the defenses capable of withstanding the siege trains nigh invariably spiraled upwards with each advance... The eternal Red Queen's Race between means of offense and defense again; "running and running just to stay in place".

[matteus the inbred]

Wow. Now that is as a good a post as I've seen on these forums, Watchman!

For those seeking further reading on this sort of thing, John France's Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades 1000-1300 is a good general work with some very detailed specific references and treatments of significant battles such as Bouvines, Frederick II's campaigns and crusading, natch. His section on sieges and castles is sketchy though.
It includes many examples of disciplined heavy 'non-noble' foot defeating knights, the classic example being Courtrai. Inevitably, knights fighting mounted and charging had to stay disciplined and at Bouvines,for example, the French knights were repeatedly launched in echelon, thus wearing down the enemy.

I quote directly -
'In Anglo-Norman warfare of the late 11th and early 12th centuries...the mass cavalry charge was rare and commanders placed a heavy reliance on infantry.'

One reason for this is perhaps that horses of a sufficient size (15 hands or more) to have enough impact were only being bred widely by the end of the 13th century. Prior to this they simply couldn't carry enough armour on both man and horse to have that 'cataphract' effect. As Watchman rightly points out, even middle eastern cataphracts couldn't do the job in all circumstances.
Knights and mounted troops could hand one side a tactical advantage, seize ground and shatter poorly prepared or worn down enemies, but they could rarely break disciplined or well-deployed forces and needed infantry and missile support. Even later 'higher-tech' forces of charging knights could be defeated by steady foot, such as at Crecy.

[Watchman]

The Japanese seemed to have no trouble using horses that by continental Eurasian standards were almost ponies for shock cavalry duties. They apparently just had to leave barding out entirely.

I don't buy the "small horses" theory. While quality mounts are obviously advantageous all you need for close-combat cavalryman is really just something like a mail shirt or roughly comparable degree of armour (you can go entirely without too, but AFAIK some armour helps a lot), helmet, plus whatever combination of weapons and shields is found workable in the context. Plus the appropriate training and suchlike, natch. That's hardly an unbearable load even for a fairly small horse, all the more so as close-combat cavalry rarely attacked at high speeds for the sake of maintaining unit cohesion.

I'm willing to bet the reliance on infantry encountered in some parts during the Early Middle Ages stemmed from surviving traditions of infantry shieldwall combat from God knows how long back and/or geographical and ecological considerations. Take the British isles. The were long under considerable Scandinavian influence and had strong infantry traditions going back to the Anglo-Saxons, and the fyrd levy proved itself quite capable of seeing off the Norman cavalry at Hastings (even if the horsemen apparently mainly fought against the elite huscarles). Scandinavia itself was and probably still is geographically rather unsuited both for raising horses and for mounted warfare, as well as so poor the feudal aristocracy was always comparatively small and weak and conversely the commoner farmers rather strong and assertive. Hardly coincidentially medieval Fennoscandian armies were heavy on infantry and their few knights tended to act more as elite mounted infantry who could secure and hold strongpoints in advance of the main force.

Urbanized regions like parts of Italy and Flanders in turn had the independent and confident urban middle classes to draw on, who long proved to be the source of some of the most steady and capable infantry around.

At least in some parts of Europe the infantry apparently degenerated rather noticeably in quality around the High Medieval period (I'm guessing more pervasive feudalization and similar socioeconomic changes as one major contributor), and the chivalry - who by that point had almost entirely fused with the landowning aristocracy - seem to have become truly decisive as a result. The English learned better in their Welsh and Scottish wars, especially as the medicine for the literally thorny Scottish schiltrom proved to be a combined-arms approach not unlike that the Parthians and Sassanids had employed against the Romans - the heavy cavalry hover in striking position to force the infantry to hold formation, and the missile troops shoot them to bits. When this combined-arms system combined with semi-professional mercenary armies was then pitted against the French feudal hosts in the early stages of the Hundred Years' War the results were rather dramatic. Not being stupid the French were soon trying various schemes to regain at least tactical parity, but until rather late in the conflict (or rather, series of conflicts later lumped together for convenience) had to rely primarily on their fortifications and avoiding field battles. The Ordonnances (in some sources cited as creating the first true standing army in Europe since Roman times) and the jump-started artillery eventually swung the balance around for good, but then by that point cavalry nearly everywhere had already learned to tread carefully around the constantly improving infantry anyway.

You could say that there was a period, at least in places, when circumstances allowed the cavalry to become too decisive and eventually complacent, victims of their own success; a change in circumstances forced them to relearn the virtues of tactical discipline, maneuvering and professionalism.