Cavalry Essays - Cavalry, Military Animals, Military Tactics

Cavalry Medieval Calvary Throughout time horses have played an important role in society. Since their first introduction, they have continued to prove that they are a valuable asset. The horse fulfilled this role durning the middle ages to almost a key, in both personal and state affiars. It was in state affairs during the middle ages that the Cavalry rose to become an important part of the battle stratagies of medieval commanders. The unit of choice went from Northren Europes intialy based infantry system into a largely dependent cavalary based system. During the cavalarys rain as quaterback of the medieval battlefield, it did not go through untouched, but took some setbacks from certian counter messures designed to combat cavalary . Despite these setbacks, the cavalary managed to maintian it's high level of importnace in medieval battle stratgy. The rise of the calavary in western Europe began for a number of a reasons that all happened around the same time. One of the most influintial of these events was the lose of the Franks to the Romans in 554 A.D. . This lose lead to an increase in the overall size of the average westren European cavalary . It was at this battle that the infantry based Franks faced a tough defeat at the hands of the Romans. The Romans of that day unlike their opponents had come to the battle field with a wide variety of tatical units at its disposal. The unit that proved to be the most effective of them all still was the cavalary, both that day in 554 A.D. and for many future days in European warfare . These horse and rider tandums of the Romans proved to be effective both as heavy cavalry, and mounted archers agianst the Frankish footmen. It was then after this deafeat during the sixth to ninth century that the number of cavalry units per solider in the Frankish military system began to increase. Not only were the Europeans at the time taking lessons from the Romans in the benifiets of a strong cavalry, but they were also being schooled in the beniefits of a good mobile cavalry by the Byzantine empire. The Byzantine Strategos (commanders) like the romans made good use of the many different facets of their army but still used the cavalry as it's focal point. Unlike the Romans though the Westerners learnt of the Bzyantine tatics more through cooperation then through battles agianst each other. These times of cooperation came during the first crusades, when eastern and western Europe united thier forces agianst the infidels of the middle east and sought to reclaim the Holy City. Although the Byzantines used both their Heavy and Light infantry throughout the campaign it was the first of these two styles that was taken up by the Western Europeans. It is this heavy cavalry that would later lead to the developmeant of knights, in medieval warfare. With all of this in mind, the Europeans early on used their cavalry mainly for defensive purposes agianst quick raids from Turks, Ukrainians and Vikings. It wasn't until the fall of Constantinople in 1204 at the hands of Western knights that the western cavalry finally had its place of importance secured in Medieval warfare tatics. It was then with this combination of Western European courage, mixed with Byzantine and Roman military tatics that produced the ever powerful and long standing cavalry of the middle ages. Although the cavalary made great leaps and bounds in securing its position of importance in medeival war tatics, it didn't come with out its fair share of problems. One of the biggest problems facing the medeival cavalary was the archer . A favorite weapon of the English archer, common for causing this type of trouble is the long bow. Used agianst the Turks in 1432 the long bow proved to be far superior weapon agianst the opposing Turkish cavalary as did the short bows of the Turks agianst the European Cavalary. Although the long bow had good success at first, advancements were made in European armour technology that greatly reduced its effectivness. By the 1350s armour was beening developed that was 75% effective in keeping out long bow arrows. But while the armourers were