The great wars of our past

[j0]

The concerned party is feminine

Peshwajee I hope your reading of history is far better than your reading of posted threads
Yes now that you have spoken and in such a confused manner at that, we'll get back to the thread

[estranged_gnrs]

Nowadays reading " The Young Carthaginian- G.A. Henty". Exploits of one of the greates generals of history..Hannibal.
This is an excerpt from the book...read the way how Hannibal so ingenniously batterred the Romans in one of the battles :

This had been skillfully chosen. The river, whose general course
was east and west, made a loop, and across this Hannibal had drawn
up his army with both wings resting upon the river. Thus the Romans
could not outflank him, and the effect of their vastly superior
numbers in infantry would to some extent be neutralized. The
following was the disposition of his troops.
The Spaniards and Gauls occupied the centre of the line of infantry.
The Africans formed the two wings. On his left flank between the
Africans and the river he placed his heavy African and Gaulish
horse, eight thousand strong, while the two thousand Numidians were
posted between the infantry and the river on the right flank.
Hannibal commanded the centre of the army in person, Hanno the
right wing, Hasdrubal the left wing; Maharbal commanded the cavalry.
Varro placed his infantry in close and heavy order, so as to reduce
their front to that of the Carthaginians. The Roman cavalry,
numbering two thousand four hundred men, was on his right wing,
and was thus opposed to Hannibal's heavy cavalry, eight thousand
strong. The cavalry of the Italian allies, four thousand eight
hundred strong, was on the left wing facing the Numidians.
Emilius commanded the Roman right, Varro the left. The Carthaginians
faced north, so that the wind, which was blowing strongly from the
south, swept clouds of dust over their heads full into the faces
of the enemy. The battle was commenced by the light troops on both
sides, who fought for some time obstinately and courageously, but
without any advantage to either. While this contest was going on,
Hannibal advanced his centre so as to form a salient angle projecting
in front of his line. The whole of the Gauls and Spaniards took
part in this movement, while the Africans remained stationary;
at the same time he launched his heavy cavalry against the Roman
horse.
The latter were instantly overthrown, and were driven from the field
with great slaughter. Emilius himself was wounded, but managed
to join the infantry. While the Carthaginian heavy horse were thus
defeating the Roman cavalry, the Numidians maneuvered near the
greatly superior cavalry of the Italian allies, and kept them
occupied until the heavy horse, after destroying the Roman cavalry,
swept round behind their infantry and fell upon the rear of the
Italian horse, while the Numidians charged them fiercely in front.
Thus caught in a trap the Italian horse were completely annihilated,
and so, before the heavy infantry of the two armies met each
other, not a Roman cavalry soldier remained alive and unwounded on
the field.
The Roman infantry now advanced to the charge, and from the nature
of Hannibal's formation their centre first came in contact with
the head of the salient angle formed by the Gauls and Spaniards.
These resisted with great obstinacy. The principes, who formed
the second line of the Roman infantry, came forward and joined
the spearmen, and even the triarii pressed forward and joined in
the fight. Fighting with extreme obstinacy the Carthaginian centre
was forced gradually back until they were again in a line with the
Africans on their flanks.
The Romans had insensibly pressed in from both flanks upon the
point where they had met with resistance, and now occupied a face
scarcely more than half that with which they had begun the battle.
Still further the Gauls and Spaniards were driven back until they
now formed an angle in rear of the original line, and in this
angle the whole of the Roman infantry in a confused mass pressed
upon them. This was the moment for which Hannibal had waited. He
wheeled round both his flanks, and the Africans, who had hitherto
not struck a blow, now fell in perfect order upon the flanks of
the Roman mass, while Hasdrubal with his victorious cavalry charged
down like a torrent upon their rear. Then followed a slaughter
unequalled in the records of history. Unable to open out, to fight,
or to fly, with no quarter asked or given, the Romans and their
Latin allies fell before the swords of their enemies, till, of the
seventy thousand infantry which had advanced to the fight, forty
thousand had fallen on the field. Three thousand were taken prisoners,
seven thousand escaped to the small camp, and ten thousand made
their way across the river to the large camp, where they joined
the force which had been left there, and which had, in obedience
to Varro's orders, attacked the Carthaginian camp, but had been
repulsed with a loss of two thousand men. All the troops in both
camps were forced to surrender on the following morning, and thus
only fifteen thousand scattered fugitives escaped of the eighty-seven
thousand two hundred infantry and cavalry under the command of the
Roman consuls.
Hannibal's loss in the battle of Cannae amounted to about six thousand.

[samsite]

hi
well to me wht eludes the most are the holy wars n the medival wars.the best in tis are the elite units of diffrent civilizations.to name a few----
1.the french knight--the best in the histoy french knights were unparralled.no matter wht the war is the greatest force for the french was their cavalary.a pupil will be joining as a squire to a knight looking after his weapons tents etc at the age of 12 n later grow to begin a knight.
2.the tuetonic knight--u all must have heard bout the order of selpuchars.the tuetonic knight rose frm thr only.these were warrior monks who followed there strict manuals.feared by ne one these used to fight on ground and had the power
of defeating a knight or for that matter any form of cavalary.they cud be seen on the roads to palestine wearing there traditonal white clothes wid the red cross of jesus.i can give u more insights but for now i leave it here.
3. the jannisaries---i love them the most......janasaries of say yenicharies were the elite unit of turks.no matter what the circumstances were tis unit of the ottoman empire never faced defeat.the peril has it that due to passage of time there power grew so much that the sultan ordered to kill them while they were sleeping in there barraks.as we know in the later part of medival era the turks controlled almost all the christan holy places a holy war was waged against them.the turkish army was badly defeated n wht was left were a mere 10000 jannisaries,.the king also fled but they stood there ground.wid a swing of the sword a great soldier of turks broke apart the head of the king of holland.it was later discovered though.ahhh i forgot to tell u one thing all the jannisaries were christan slaves u were inducted in the army when they were 8 to 10 forcefully by the christan lands occupied by the turks.


well i can go on wriitng bout mamelakes,the long bowmen,yeomen etc etc etc etc it has no end.instrested people try n find on the internet.thr r quite a few pages thr.enjoi

sameer

[The Peshwa]

Originally Posted by samsite

hi
well to me wht eludes the most are the holy wars n the medival wars.the best in tis are the elite units of diffrent civilizations.to name a few----
1.the french knight--the best in the histoy french knights were unparralled.no matter wht the war is the greatest force for the french was their cavalary.a pupil will be joining as a squire to a knight looking after his weapons tents etc at the age of 12 n later grow to begin a knight.
2.the tuetonic knight--u all must have heard bout the order of selpuchars.the tuetonic knight rose frm thr only.these were warrior monks who followed there strict manuals.feared by ne one these used to fight on ground and had the power
of defeating a knight or for that matter any form of cavalary.they cud be seen on the roads to palestine wearing there traditonal white clothes wid the red cross of jesus.i can give u more insights but for now i leave it here.
3. the jannisaries---i love them the most......janasaries of say yenicharies were the elite unit of turks.no matter what the circumstances were tis unit of the ottoman empire never faced defeat.the peril has it that due to passage of time there power grew so much that the sultan ordered to kill them while they were sleeping in there barraks.as we know in the later part of medival era the turks controlled almost all the christan holy places a holy war was waged against them.the turkish army was badly defeated n wht was left were a mere 10000 jannisaries,.the king also fled but they stood there ground.wid a swing of the sword a great soldier of turks broke apart the head of the king of holland.it was later discovered though.ahhh i forgot to tell u one thing all the jannisaries were christan slaves u were inducted in the army when they were 8 to 10 forcefully by the christan lands occupied by the turks.


well i can go on wriitng bout mamelakes,the long bowmen,yeomen etc etc etc etc it has no end.instrested people try n find on the internet.thr r quite a few pages thr.enjoi

sameer

Hey this thread is back , after a while

Yep i gotta admit me a big AOE fan too these days .
Was readin thru the history section on d game and found some interesting facts
The Turks were pretty close to austria in the mid 1400's , (after their 16,000 gunmen had raised down the fortified walls of constantinople)
For much of the period between the 8 th to the 15 th century , the muslims were militarily superior (if not superior at least on par ) to the european christians

In fact if it werent for a lot of bravery on the part of the Frankish Cavalry ,Spain would never had been liberated from the moors (muslims)
Not to mention the fierce mongols who reached the plains of vienna too ,only to go back home to resolve the dispute over their leadership .(i think it was kublai khan who died)

Which actually leads to me to the question .....why did the islamic empries not progress militarily beyond the 15 th century ?quite difficult to tell for sure .


P.S : was seeing a good documentary on the history channel of a greek military general who used the concept of strong flanks to stop a persian army nearly three times its size .
Many battles have been won in history by the effective techinque of spreading out your armies to match your larger opponents breadth ,strengthing your flanks and then boxing in your opponents centre
From an Indian perspective i think a battle which immediately springs to my mind was the defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan , much stronger in numbers to Ghauri yet lost due to his center getting boxed in by the islamic flanks.

Cheers!