The next time you take your bow in hand, look upon it with reverence. There was a day in the not too far distant past when it was not used for sport. It was a way to conquer the world.
Archery existed almost before time began. There are remains of bow and arrow parts in Africa that date back to primitive man. The bow and the arrow were probably developed about the same time as the spear as a way of throwing a missile a longer distance.
Egyptian Archer
The archer was a principal weapon of the ancient Egyptians. Their favorite tactic was to use archers on chariots to attack their enemy's flanks and panic the infantry. That is the way they defeated the Hittites. Without the archer, there would be no pyramids, no sphinx, not Egyptian temples. Their civilization would have been overthrown and trampled into the desert.
Archer of India, about 500 BC
The next use of the bow was in India. The picture above of an archer from India using a recurve bow dates from 500 BC.
Lajos Parting illustrating the Partian Shot
In 54 BC an event occurred which foretold The death of the Roman Empire. The Romans were soldier/engineers organized into legions of heavy infantry. They conquered Western Europe and the Mediterranean world. They believed themselves invincible.
Crassus was the Consul of Asia Minor. In a fit of hubris he decided to invade Parthia (Modern Iran). He raised an Army of 40,000 men and met the Parthians in open country near the city of Carrhae.
The Parthians were Horse Archers, well supplied by camel loads of arrows. They did not battle the Legionaries. They stood off at a distance and shot they into oblivion. When the heavy Roman infantry would charge, the Parthians would move away, turning in their saddles to shoot arrows back at their pursuers - hence the name, "The Parthian Shot". Crassus and 20,000 of his men were killed. Another 10,000 were captured. Only 10,000 escaped into Syria.
The lesson was never learned. In the 4th century AD all of Europe became a feast for the horse archers of Asia; first the Avars, then Attila and the Huns, the Goths, the Ostrogoths, the Lombards and the Vandals. For over 400 years, Europe was subjected to rape, pillage, death and destruction. There was no hope. The Dark Ages had descended.
Only one small group of Italians escaped the barbarian horse archers. They went to the lagoon at the northwest corner of the Adriatic Sea and founded the city of Venice in the marshes. Since horse archers could not fight boats, Venice survived lived on for another 1,400 years to become for a time, the richest city in Europe.
The Longbow
The Battle of Crecy
The next great romantic story about archery was the longbow at about 1070. It enabled the English to unite the British Isles and to survive against the much larger and more powerful French armies.
Actually, the longbow was a Welsh invention. It was made of yew, which is why, even today, one sees Yew grown in every churchyard. Yew has a greater ability than other woods to respond to the stress of archery. The inner core is compressible and the hard outer layers will not break and will snap back after the arrow is released.
Every longbow was custom made to fit the archer. A longbow in the hands of a skilled archer was able to drive an arrow so that it would penetrate 4 inches of solid oak. Even at 199 yards it would still penetrate on inch of oak.
This tremendous power meant that the longbow was deadly effective against chain mail and at a shorter distance for a knight in plate armor. It was legally required in England for all "Freemen" to own a bow and to practice archery and to serve when called. It was even carried to the extreme that if an archer killed a man during practice, he could not be prosecuted.
Each archer carried 60 arrows into battle. That meant that 5,00 archers could fire 300,000 arrows. After the Battle of Agincourt, it was said that the ground appeared like snow. It was turned white by the arrow feathers
The longbow was never adopted by the countries of Europe for a simple reason. It was too dangerous for the nobility. It placed too much power in the hands of a peasant or a freeman.
The Mongols
Mongol Horse Archers
The final and most incredible story of archery was the Mongols under Genghis Khan. Think of Mongolia, a little tiny, sparsely populated country in the freezing climate close to Siberia.
Their Expertise
First their horses were exquisitely well trained to respond to the rider, not through his hands and reins but through the pressure of his knees and the tilt of his body. Second, the Mongols were superb horsemen. Consider what a horse archer must do. First of all, he is unarmored. Second, his two hands are occupied with his bow and arrows. Therefore, the horse archer must be trained to guide their mounts through knee and body pressure alone, without the use of their hands - not an easy task.
The Mongols training and expertness in horse archery and the brilliance and toughness of Genghis Khan's tactics enabled these unarmored archers to conquer almost the whole Eurasian continent. They ruled everything from the gates of Vienna to the sea of Japan including all of northern China and India. It was, and still is the largest empire the world has ever known.
Ghengis Khan's four basic tactics were the "magudai", where a picked group of riders would harass, taunt and tempt the opposing forces into a charge that would exhaust the enemy and lead them into a trap between two lines of horse archers. Here two lines of archers, one from each side would destroy them with archery, either killing them directly or shooting their horsed out from under them so they were helpless.
The second tactic was based on the annual "Great Hunt" of the Mongols. In this maneuver, the flanks of the army, instead of curving backward to protect the line, would curve forward to surround the enemy or would break off into small groups to harass his flanks.
This maneuver was only possible because of the Mongol's emphasis on scouting and intelligence. Before every battle, picked groups of fast horsemen would reconnaissance the enemy force to determine their composition and their positions.
The third maneuver was perfected by Ghengis's great commander Subodai. It was to scout the enemy thoroughly, then to break the tumens up into small groups that would surround the enemy and harass his from all sides. Whenever the enemy would charge, the Mongols, on faster horse would retreat and keep them at bay by shooting over the rear of their horses (called the Parthian Shot).
Eventually, the heavy cavalry of the knights would become exhausted by trying to keep up with the unarmored Mongol archers and then destroyed.
The fourth tactic was terror. It a city surrendered and gave up its arms and its wealth, it was spared. If it did not, it was razed. The men, the elderly and the older children were killed or put into slave gangs. The women were raped and taken into captivity and the young children were killed or taken to be raised as Mongols. There was no mercy.
So, the next time you take your bow in hand, gaze upon it with wonder and reverence. This is the weapon that built and destroyed empires and once almost conquered the world.
