Author: Rise Again
The wars of Medieval Europe depended on the time and place, but generally speaking, before the Hundred Years' War, the scale of the wars was very small, and most of the wars were skirmish between the lords, and the knights of Europe did not like to fight in formation, even in the time of the Crusades. Even during the Crusades, European knights still didn't like to fight in battle, so except for the first Crusade, which took advantage of the civil unrest in the Muslim Empire and was successful, the other Crusades all came back with a crushing defeat. However, the European heavy armor knight's individual combat power is very high, so to cope with the peasant riots is more than enough, until the rise of professional mercenaries with the knowledge of collective action, which began to decline, and the musket is the last push. In France, one of the qualifying exams for a knight is to pass without any armor on his body, and then fight a boar with his bare hands, and only pass if he can finish the boar off.
The heavy armor of the heavily armored cavalry was so protective that before the invention of the musket, few knights died in battle (with the exception of the Hundred Years' War, when most heavily armored knights were killed not by the power of the English longbow but by daggers that slit their throats). But heavy armor was also a burden to the knights. Although the knights could climb walls, climb poles, and do somersaults in heavy armor (the qualification test for French knights included wearing heavy armor, wearing weapons, and climbing over walls), the knights could not walk for a long distance once they lost their horses, especially in the mud, which was even more arduous, and the result was a waste of physical strength. This was the case at the Battle of Archangel, and it was one of the reasons for the French defeat.
But if you think that the heat will put the heavy armor knights to the heat, it is wrong, they have to be so accustomed to such an environment since childhood, and under the armor and airtight heavy robes, so that the clothes because of the evaporation of sweat and internal circulation, so instead of cool (of course, not the kind of air-conditioning cool), this is the Crusaders to the Arabs to learn from the way.
The other weakness of the knights was their horses. If they did not have horses, and relied purely on walking, they would have been exhausted just by walking in heavy armor. The horses had to be strong enough to withstand the heavy armor and the weight of the knights (so the knights had to be as short and compact as possible, even the famous Henry V was only 170mm tall), so the knights tended to love their horses very much, and the price of a good horse could usually be paid for dozens to a hundred longbowmen. So during the Hundred Years' War, the infantry would simply insert sharpened stakes, and the knights would tend to turn around to avoid injury to their horses. Moreover, a horse of any kind can never be persuaded by man to go to the trouble of dying for the sake of nationalism, so the infantrymen were able to stop the horses from charging at them from any angle by forming hollow squares and keeping the points of their lances pointed in unison.
But the noise and visual effect of the heavily-armored knights charging en masse would have shaken the infantrymen who faced them, and the less trained they were, the more likely they would have collapsed due to "cavalry-phobia". Moreover, the knights often ran to the front of the infantry in twos and threw javelins and then quickly left. In the Battle of Hasting, the infantry lost their fighting spirit because of the tactics used by William the Bastard's cavalry, and finally collapsed automatically. However, European knights, with the exception of the early Norman knights, were not in the habit of carrying bows and arrows or javelins, and were not even interested in developing such tactics. The only exception was the Hundred Years' War, when Henry V tried to get the longbowmen to fight on horseback, but the result was not ideal, because the longbow was difficult to use on horseback and at a gallop, and at that time, the longbowmen were only mercenaries, with all their own equipment, so the horse was usually given to the richer longbowmen for transportation, and these people treasured their mounts more than the knights.
The heavy armor of the later knights had reached a point where even an iron-armed crossbow couldn't penetrate them (not counting muskets for the moment), and while there were still a number of vulnerable gaps in this type of armor that could be pierced by bows and arrows, they weren't the most vital parts of the human body. Therefore, the only effective weapon that an infantryman could use against a heavily armored knight, besides a dagger, was the 'alberd', which is a mistranslation of 'halberd', because a halberd is a combination of a hook and a spear, while a halberd is a combination of an axe, a hook, a spear, and a can opener. The halberd is a combination of an axe, a hook, a spear, and a can opener. It can be used as a spear by a group of people, or it can be used in single combat with infantry or cavalry. Usually the infantry used the halberd to hook the cavalry off their horses, and then used the axe or the part that looks like a can opener to finish off the unlucky rider. At the time of Switzerland's independence, the Austrian ally Charles the Burgundian Duke of Burgundy was killed under the halberd because of this, and from then on, the Swiss mercenaries' reputation of fighting bravely and being good at using the halberd was known all over Europe.
If knights were very "individualized" warriors, was the infantry of the Middle Ages very collective? That was true towards the end of the Middle Ages, but before that it was also very individualistic. That's why the battlefield was often a series of one-man battles, rather than inter-service cooperation, and it wasn't until the Hundred Years' War that the British "retrofitted" such tactics. Because of this, the mercenaries in the Middle Ages did not pay attention to discipline, and most of their nutrition is very poor, not to mention that there is little discipline and organization to speak of, so they are based on the individual fighting strength, is by no means a match for the knights. However, when they knew how to act collectively and coordinate their troops, the knights realized that they could no longer belittle these former wuxia men. But the tactics used lead to a loss of fighting spirit among the infantry, and eventually result in an automatic collapse.
Even so, the infantry's counter-cavalry combat is often passive, must first anticipate the direction of the cavalry's attack, and it is difficult to protect themselves on the march, not to mention the arrangement of the defensive formation is the most vulnerable moment of defense, and the cavalry because of the power of the engine, so the time and route of the battle has a greater elasticity of space than the infantry.
In addition, the European infantry in the Middle Ages, you can refer to the Braveheart piece.
In addition, the European infantry in the Middle Ages could refer to the Braveheart piece. However, when mercenaries emerged, because of the cost-effectiveness and the main problem of the double combat object, European infantry mostly abandoned the use of shields and used a large number of spears, with a little bit of money on the use of the halberd, because their main opponents are the "heavily armored knights", and the spear in the close combat, but also do not see that it will be lost to the shield of the knife and axe hand.
Another specialized weapon is the two-handed sword, which is not heavy, at least not as heavy as Arnold's in the movie. The blade of the sword is only sharp at the front, but the rest of the blade won't cut your skin even if you hold it in your hand. So it can be swung to slash, or stabbed, or even turned upside down and hooked around an opponent's weapon with the loop, or the top of the handle can be used to hit them in the face or torso.
Knights' swords were of a different kind, shorter, but very sharp, and could be used to slash at people on horseback as they galloped, or to pierce chinks in their armor. The knight with a spear, that is, looks like a large pencil thing, that is used to scare people more than used to kill with, even if the knight dueling use, but also rarely let a person fatal, the only let me think of an example is a certain king of France in the practice with the guards, accidentally let the protection of the face of the mask on the eye holes on the tip of the spear and fatal.
Cavalry first appeared around 1000 BC, and since then armies on horseback have served several important roles in battle. They acted as scouts, combatants, charging troops in melee, rearguard troops, and chased down enemy troops in a scattering retreat. Cavalry could be categorized into several different types based on equipment and training, and served in different roles depending on the situation. Light cavalry with little or no armor were best suited as scouts, combatants, and rearguards. Heavy cavalry in armor were best suited as a charging force against the enemy. However, all types of cavalry are suitable for pursuit.
Medieval knights were heavy cavalry, and according to the code of chivalry, their role was to charge the enemy and strike at enemy cavalry and infantry. The term "armed soldier" was originally used from the thirteenth century to describe armored warriors who fought on horseback and on foot, but later came to refer exclusively to knights and their escorts, squires and professional soldiers.
Knights had all the advantages of speed, intimidation, aggression, and height in battle. As the Middle Ages progressed, the knight's equipment was enhanced to increase these advantages.
Weapons
Spears and later large spears were the weapons used by cavalry to engage in combat, and were suitable for impaling enemy troops on foot, especially projectile weapon troops. A cavalryman charging forward with a spear could increase the intimidation of the enemy, and the force of the horse's impact could be transmitted through the spearhead at the moment of impact, transforming the charging rider into an astonishingly sharp arrow.
Historians have debated the importance of the stirrup in the rise of the horseman. The stirrup first appeared in Asia and spread to Europe in the eighth century AD. Some believe it was crucial to the rise of the horseman because it allowed the rider to support himself and his spear, thus transmitting the full force of the horse's charge through the spearhead. Although the advantages of this multiplication of power are undisputed, it is thought that the high saddle developed in Rome before the stirrup appeared in Europe already allowed the rider to transmit the power of the charge. A Bardos tapestry depicting William's conquest of Britain in 1066 shows the venerated Norman knights using their spears mainly to thrust or throw their spears rather than to attack; by this time, Europeans had known about stirrups for at least two centuries. In the following Middle Ages, the charge made by knights holding their spears steady was a microcosm of the battle scene, and such a fight was not usually a correct tactic.
Knights often lost their lances or spears after the first attack, or were caught in the middle of a melee. Either way, the knights would switch to another weapon, most often their swords. Cavalry swords evolved into broad, heavy sabers, which the rider in the stirrups was able to bring to bear with great force to bring down on the enemy's head or body. Swords were the most treasured weapons of the knights, because they could be carried on the body, showing off their status and personality. They were the most common weapons used in physical combat between knights. Good swords are expensive, and owning a good sword is another symbol of nobility.
The other weapons used in combat were hammers and hammered spears (developed from clubs), axes, and flails. Clerics and monks who fought as warriors commonly possessed hammers and hammer spears because they were trying to follow the biblical admonition to shed blood, and these sharp weapons could easily kill an enemy with blood.
In any case, knights did not use projectile weapons of any kind. It was considered shameful at the time for a knight to kill or injure an enemy with arrows, crossbows, or projectiles, etc., from some distance away. As long as the situation permitted, knights would try to fight people of the same rank, face to face, and sometimes not fight at all.
Armor
Chain mail was worn by the Romans and some invading Germanic tribes (including the Goths). It was popular with the aristocracy of medieval Europe until the use of more protective armor began in the thirteenth century, but became less important when it was discovered that it could be pierced by arrows or the point of a sword. It was often worn over a short, tight-fitting tunic called a tunic in medieval times, especially during the Crusades, because it reflected the sunlight.
Helmets also evolved from simple conical designs to large metal barrels, which were designed to be blocky to avoid incoming arrows. Later, helmets were developed that latched onto the body armor.
A full suit of armor weighing up to sixty pounds appeared in the fourteenth century. The armor was designed to allow knights to remain surprisingly agile, and a knight wearing it would not fall to the ground in a heap, because he could easily get up and fight again. According to documents and depictions, a person wearing the armor could even perform handstands and other light gymnastic movements. Later generations added attention to the defense against bows and arrows when making complete suits of armor, reinforcing them for the most vulnerable areas. In the Late Middle Ages, a full suit of elaborate sculpted armor appeared, which served a ceremonial and ostentatious function more than a practical one.
Armor was a very expensive burden for knights, who were required to equip themselves as well as their squires. An important lord had to provide armor for many knights. The manufacture of armor was an important business in the Middle Ages, and a large market for its use grew all the time. Common soldiers who won battles could obtain large quantities of armor by stripping the bodies of dead knights and selling them for profit.
Horses
Knights were often particularly proud of the speed and fitness of their mounts. These horses required a great deal of training to make them easy to maneuver in raids and melee. A well-trained horse could respond to the smallest of commands, allowing the knight to hold a shield in one hand and a spear in the other. Historians have often debated whether a knight needed a heavy horse to carry the weight of a fully equipped rider or a smaller horse for speed and agility.
Horsemanship was another feature that distinguished elite knights from commoners. Hunting was a way to become more skillful at horsemanship, and was the most popular leisure activity for the nobility, with traditional fox hunting continuing to this day.
In contrast to the Mongol conquests, in which the role of the cavalry reached its zenith, the infantry began to regain ground on the battlefields of Western Europe. From about the middle of the 13th century, the heavy cavalry of the Middle Ages went downhill. There were three improved infantry weapons that contributed to the loss of the cavalry's advantage. These were the crossbow, which was improved to be more effective and powerful, the longbow, which advanced in England, and the spear, which became formidable in the hands of the Swiss.
In addition, there were two influential technological changes. One was the gradual deterioration of the horse breeds derived from the crossbreeding of European and Arabian horses by the Crusaders, and the other was the replacement of chain mail by sheet metal armor. The crossbred horse and the chain mail had given the heavy cavalry a high degree of tactical mobility, making it an invincible army on the battlefields of Europe in the 13th century. Both of these technological changes robbed the heavy cavalry of its original tactical mobility, and the 14th century heavy cavalry, clad in sheet metal armor, with horses wearing equally heavy armor, and armed with swords, shields, and long, heavy lances, became a slow, lumbering mass of men who could only charge forward with great energy, but could not go fast enough, much less pause and start immediately. Such cavalrymen were often easily disorganized when attacked. Even horses clad in metal armor were not immune to bow and arrow damage. Once a horse was injured, it could not be ridden at all. If the more flexible and agile cavalry or infantry opponents, wearing full armor of heavy cavalry is even more helpless.
The development of the longbow in England in the 13th century accelerated the decline of the cavalry, which was the dominant branch of the army at the time. From Edward I (1272--1307) to Henry VIII (1509--1547 ), the English monarchs of this period decisively vigorously develop the bow and arrow troops, improve the killing power of the bow, so that the longbow this weapon has been greatly developed. Its power and ease of use eventually led to the elimination of the crossbow.
The longbow was made of elm, hazel, etc., and later mainly of yew. The best yew was not produced in England, but was imported from Italy and Spain. The length of the longbow was six feet, and the arrows three feet long. The bow was one and a half inches wide at the hand grip, tapering towards the ends. The ends of the bow are encased in horn. The frame of the bow was rounded at the front and flat at the back. The longbow not only had twice the range of the crossbow (up to 400 yards, with an effective range of nearly 250 yards), but also had a much higher rate of fire (10 to 12 arrows per minute). In the hands of a skilled English soldier, the longbow had a considerably higher hit rate than the crossbow. It appeared to be lighter and easier to master, and was suitable for scattering or shooting in unison. For its time, it was the most effective and versatile single weapon on the battlefield.
One of the shortcomings of the longbow is that its use requires great physical strength, coordination and skill, which can only be achieved through years of training and practice. Even playing soccer was outlawed in 14th-century England so that young people could devote themselves to this grueling training.
At the Battle of Crecy on August 26, 1346, the infantry, as the main element in the combined infantry and cavalry fighting formations, undoubtedly regained a dominant position in the battle. The archers were the key force in the British infantry in this battle, defeating and heavily defeating the French cavalry, which was the most difficult force to deal with at the time.
In July of that year, King Edward III led his troops from Portsmouth across the sea to northern France to support the Allied armies in peril in Flanders and Brittany. In about a month's time he crossed northwestern France behind the European Low Countries (Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, etc.), with King Philip VI of France in hot pursuit at the head of a much stronger army. After the English army had crossed the Seine, Edward decided to make war with the French here, believing that there would be no major obstacles at this point should a further retreat into Flanders be necessary. He found a suitable battlefield near the village of Crecy-Inpenteu, which happened to have a gentle slope that controlled the route the French would take.
The British army took up a careful battle position. Its right flank was close to the city of Crécy, screened by a river; its left flank was just in front of the village of Wadi Coultre, covered by woods and trenches dug by the infantry. The British army was divided into three detachments, each of roughly equal strength. Two of these detachments were side by side, the right detachment being led by the Prince of Wales (the Black Prince), the left detachment being commanded by the Earl of Northampton, and the third detachment was situated behind them, and was led by King Edward himself. The total strength of the English army was about 20,000 men. The King stood in a windmill, from which he could observe the progress of the whole battle, and give orders of battle to his subordinate commanders in due time.
At the center of each detachment was a square of about a thousand unhorsebacked heavy cavalry, six platoons deep, each two hundred and fifty yards long. There were two main reasons why the majority of British cavalry fought without horses. The first was for military operational reasons, which was to provide a strong backing for the archers and the small cavalry reserves engaged in counter-attacks to maneuver in combat. The second is for psychological reasons, that is, to make the archers firmly believe that they will not be abandoned by their own cavalry, and will be able to withstand the charge of the French cavalry.
The archers were deployed on the outer layer of each detachment's flanks, echeloned forward so as to obtain an area of concentrated fire that did not interfere with each other. The flanking archers of the two detachments situated in front of each other were just in front of the center of the British army and would have formed an inverted V formation aimed at the enemy. Behind the center of each detachment was a small reserve of heavy cavalry on horses. If the French broke through the front line, the reserves could launch a counterattack. The English and Welsh infantry dug numerous pits in the undulating terrain in front of the position to stop the French cavalry.
It is estimated that the French strength was close to 60,000, with about 12,000 heavy cavalry (made up of knights and ordinary heavy cavalry), about 6,000 hired Genoese crossbow infantry, 17,000 light cavalry, and 25,000 communal conscripts.
At about six o'clock in the afternoon, this force marched in a lengthy column all the way in line, and stepped unprepared into the British battle positions without any reconnaissance alert. King Philip of France endeavored to halt the advance and to bring the troops into line. He drew his cross-bowed infantry to the front of the line, but the arrogant and reckless knights could not be controlled. Thus the French advance guard swarmed forward behind the Genoese infantry.
The very disciplined Genoese mercenary crossbow infantry formed up in a neat line, crossed the valley and began to climb the slope. They stopped about 150 yards from the British position and fired arrows at the British, but most of them missed their targets. Then they continued to move forward, but were met by a barrage of long British arrows. At once the Genoese were routed and retreated. At this time, the impatient French vanguard immediately spurred their horses forward, they were in a messy formation with a mountain of momentum stepping on the Genoese charge. In a flash, the slope was covered with a mess of armor-clad soldiers and horses. They trampled the Genoese to the ground while English arrows rained down on them. The French charged so hard that some of the soldiers rushed ahead of the British ranks, and in a few minutes a fight to the death ensued. The French attack was driven back by a strong detachment of British cavalry.
At this point, the French troops continued to charge into the terrible melee one after another without reason, and were successively hit by the British arrows. The fighting continued until late in the night. The French, after some fifteen or sixteen surprise charges, had so disorganized their forces that they finally had to fall back on their flags and admit total defeat.
In a small valley lay a ghastly pile of French corpses. Among them were 1,542 lords and knights, about 15,000 heavy cavalry, crossbow soldiers and infantry, and thousands of horse corpses. The total **** of the British army, on the other hand, was only about 200 dead and wounded. Of the British dead, there were only 2 knights, 40 heavy cavalry and archers, plus about 100 Welsh infantry.
The British army had won a great victory by defeating an enemy about three times its size. But the full significance of this victory was not fully estimated even by the English themselves. As for the generals of other countries in the 14th century, although they all followed the example of the British, let the heavy cavalry dismounted, but they failed to find the key to the British victory. They do not know that the secret of the English victory is not only to let the knights and archery cavalry dismounted, but also in the wisdom of letting the dismounted knights and archery cavalry to cooperate with each other, and make them and mounted on the horse cavalry close combination, so that the projectile weapons of firepower, the endurance of the defense and the mobility of the power of assault combined flexibly.
During the 14th and 15th centuries, the ability of the heavy cavalry to fight was threatened not only by the English longbow, but also by other assaults. Over the course of a century and a half, lance squares composed of Swiss mountain men defeated first Austrian and then French cavalry on several occasions. At the same time, with the increasing development of black powder weaponry, cavalry was increasingly unable to withstand attacks by trained infantry.
During the 14th and 15th centuries, the success of the English in the use of the longbow led to many changes in the tactics of defensive and offensive warfare in European wars, and the infantry became more dominant. In particular, the Swiss use of the spear restored the infantry as an important fighting force in offensive warfare. The infantry, consisting of longbows and spears, became the main type of troops in the armies of Western Europe. Under the influence of the infantry, cavalry equipment was also reformed, and cavalry with lighter weapons and armor began to appear in Europe. Western soldiers who fought in the Turkish Wars in Eastern Europe found that the light cavalry of Hungary, Turkey and Albania were more effective, combining the discipline and surprise power of unarmored light cavalry with their mobility and agility. They were a mixture of archery and lance cavalry, and they were very similar to the Byzantine heavy cavalry of the past in their organization and in the weapons and tactics they employed, except that they were lighter in armor. This was the first of a series of major changes in European cavalry, but it was not until the 17th century that it really began to play a role in combat.
The decline of the cavalry and the rise of the infantry, so that militarists realized that the nature and characteristics of the two types of military services have their own characteristics, and can complement each other, thus giving rise to the system of combined arms warfare. With the advent of the Renaissance, military thought flourished, and the system of the army and the art of war were further developed
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