The Mongol warfare

Before the emergence of modern totalitarian systems, nomad warrior societies practiced large-scale terrorism with fearsome effectiveness. Of all such tribes, the Mongols were the best organized the most terrifying, and the most destructive. At the height of its power, the Mongo Empire was the largest of all time, encompassing practically the entire Eurasian continent.

In conquering an empire that stretched from the Sea of Japan to the Mediterranean Sea, the typical image of the Mongols is a literal horde of leather-clad warriors sweeping across the steppes bringing death and destruction.

Genghis Khan’s establishment of the Mongol Empire revolutionized steppe warfare with the introduction of strict discipline, new tactics, the creation of a military academy, and the expansion of decimal organization. Although decimal organization and many of the tactics he used had existed for centuries, Chinggis Khan refined them particularly in the area of tactics.

The Mongols under Genghis Khan had at their disposal a military instrument that was superior to every other army of its time. This superiority was a product of their Spartan way of life, their immersion in the military arts from earliest childhood, their military organization, their mobility, and undisputed preeminence in the rigors of discipline. One further asset available to them was the systematic practice of terror against peoples.

While units of horse archers remained the core component of the Mongols, from the very start, the Mongol military quickly developed other units ranging from heavy cavalry, a corps of engineers, artillerists, and even infantry. Large units of infantry were used not only in China but also in other regions.

By comparison to sedentary society, nomad society is demographically quite feeble. Thus, the superiority of the nomad warrior had nothing to do with numbers. It was through the concentration of forces and the element of surprise that nomads sought to overwhelm their adversaries as well as through the psychological impact of their attacks on populations ill prepared for such a scourge. They therefore relied in the terror they inspired in civilian populations and armies to prevent uprisings in their wake. Thus, terror became a basic tool of nomad strategy of conquest.

Genghis Khan’s also developed a Mongol strategy that was to become their campaign model from East to West: first ask for submission, then attack when the answer was negative.

By the time Chinggis Khan died in 1227, the Mongols had mastered the entire length of the overland Silk Route and the world was a much-altered place. By then, the Mongol Empire boundaries had extended from the Caspian Sea in the west to the edge of Korea in the east.

Tamerlane was Genghis equal, in military terms, his every operation enjoying success, even though he sometimes met the same adversaries in battle on several occasion. The key characteristics of his style of warfare was his frequent assaults on great cities, including, Damascus, Baghdad, Aleppo, Delhi and Ankara. His adversaries were far from negligible.

When the sack of a city was complete, Tamerlane raised pyramids of decapitate heads. In the 1397 taking Isfahan, a city of about half million inhabitants, observers estimated the number of dead at 100,000 to 200,000.

After the massacre, Tamerlane had some fifty pyramids built, each comprised of thousands of heads. In doing so Tamerlane hoped to persuade other besieged city to surrender at firsts notice. The tactic did not always work, and many towns still refused to capitulate. The practice of terror remained methodological at all times and he took pains to spare elites, theologians, artists, poets, engineers, architects and so on.
The Mongol warfare

Assyrians army

During the 13th and 12th centuries, Assyria’s kings push their boundaries ever outwards, with campaigns of conquest every summer.

The Assyrians were aggressive in battles but they always offered their enemies the chances to surrender. This tactic came handy in sieges that were usually long and expensive. Their use of brutality to intimidate enemies was to become the distinctive stamps of Assyrians warfare.

In the 12th century, Hittite power collapsed and Assyria began a three-hundred-year rose to power under direction of successive powerful kings that restored in the establishment of the Assyrian Empire in the 9th century.

It is not difficult to imagine the terror that an Assyrian attack inspired. The Assyrian army of the 8th century BC was the most sophisticated army of its time in terms of size weaponry, tactics, siege craft innovation, mobility, logistical support and over all military efficiency. They were vast, well trained and disciplined.

It had several expert commanders, and plentiful supplies of equipment for all types of combat. In 800 BC, the Assyrians could field an army of 20,000 light cavalry armed with bows and spears, and 1200 two horse chariots.

Between 890 and 640 BC, the height of Assyrians power, the Assyrians fight 108 major and minor wars, punitive expedition and other significant military operations against neighboring states. The heavy infantry, clad in coats of mail, wielded daggers, and swords of iron, the new metal which made the Assyrian’s weapon stronger than those of their opponents.

The Assyrians used iron to not only gain military advantage but also to protect their people despite the higher cost of iron and metalworking needed for building amours.

The cavalry, the early days, rode into actions on two horse chariots and dismounted to shoot from behind tail wicker shields. Gradually arches mastered the tactics of shooting accurately from horseback at full gallop.

The Assyrian Empire reached its highest peaks in the 9th, 8th and 7th centuries BC.
Assyrians army