The Spanish had a number of Rodeleros units armed with swords and small shields in the early 1500s, but they never formed the bulk of their armies. Initially, they formed 1/3 of a tercio, but the swordsmen were eventually replaced by more pikes and arquebuses.
That’s a good example, although history has a lot of them. This one is particularly important because it had a significant impact on history, and because it illustrates one of the advantages of the sword: it’s a use anti-spear tool. Swordsmen were a common response to spear-formations, precisely because spears are tactically inflexible.
It’s hard to directly answer Doyle directly, however, because we don’t have detailed records. We do see that swords were pretty common across European and Asian armies for the last eon or two.
Sort of. Some of these armies sometimes used tightly-packed shield formations. This was often a temporary formation adopted to meet a specific military need, and then loosened to counter-attack. We know it was used in Northern Europe, but it’s not clear how often. Even with that, spears were decidedly optional.
Yes. They probably fought like late-Roman armies.
This does go into another point regarding the sword: it was critical to the use of cavalry operations, which is probably why it was so prized. Consider why the sword is virtually a universal military symbol. It’s because functionally every cavalry unit on the planet adopted its use - and professional cavalry were often the backbone of the military and even came from the social and political elite.
The reasons for favoring swords should be fairly obvious: spears are useful from horseback, but often short-lived and can be easily broken or lost, plus are very useless if you get close to the foe. The axe is awkward to use from horseback and difficult to swing precisely. The sword, however, is well-designed for cavalry use. Not surprisingly, most cavalry swords are either straight or slightly curved, and these tend to be viewed as “iconic” sword forms. (While there’s a lively debate over curved vs. straight cavalry swords, in practice there’s not that much difference.)
Well… really? I’m certainly no expert on cavalry tactics throughout history, but I think this must at least come with some qualifications. Some of the best cavalry-based armies that I do know about, namely anything that comes out of the Eurasian Steppe, seem to have run on a combination of horse archers and heavy lancers. Or that has always been my impression of them, anyway.
I’m thinking Scythians, Parthians, Huns, Mongols.
I’m confused by this, too. Nineteenth century cavalrymen armed with swords tended to get mauled by enemy lancers. The British in particular were behind the power curve as far as cavalry went, and after the Napoleonic Wars they started converting dragoon squadrons to lancers.
Cavalry would certainly have needed a sword for when their lance was broken or lost, and after their ranged weapons were expended. This fits what we have been saying all along: That the sword was the secondary or back-up weapon.
Qualify it, maybe. But you’ll note that every one of the cultures you name had distinctive cavalry swords of their own.
Well, yeah, maybe so. But not as a primary weapon, or primary weapon system. We agree?
Not arguing, just checking if we agree. I’m here to learn.
In those cases. But a form of cavalry that did use the sword as their primary weapon were the 17th-18th century Swedes and some of their imitators. Often they carried firearms as well ( either carbines or pistols or both, depending on the period ), but charges were pressed home with swords rather than lances.
Yes and no.
Even those cultures would use the sword primarily in some battles and not in others, as the case may be. The Mongols were especially known for horse-and-bow tactics, but needed swords when that wasn’t feasible (as during sieges). Many cavalrymen throughout history most definitely did use swords first, or expected to switch over immediately after using up their lance for a single charge or pass. It all depended on the situation and the available tools for the job. Yet swords have clearly been favored in melee fighting among many cultures for a very long time.
Wealth played a role here as well. In many cultures, a warrior just starting his career might well not be able to afford a sword. If military equipment was provided by the state, then the quality of arms would depend on the state’s wealth or the unit. Nonetheless, swords were so common for cavalry soldiers that they almost inherently came to identify the owner as a professional warrior.
For an interesting example, consider Japan. During the early medieval period (for Japan, not Europe), swords were indeed primary battlefield weapons, partly due to the dominance of cavalry. A warrior would open a fight with the bow, from horseback, but any melee often meant swordplay, though retainers might fight spears. Over centuries, a rank-and-file line army came into being, mostly armed with long spears and the arquebus. The elites were now often fighting on foot as well, using spears or bows; on horseback they mixed spear and sword.
Fascinating discussion.
My answer to the OP is as follows:
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The various types of swords did not have any spectacular warfare-changing properties over other, earlier weapon systems, such as spears or clubs.
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However, what a sword can do, is be quite versatile and portable. Again, not a huge change, but … unlike earlier weapon systems (spears, clubs, axes, bows, etc.) swords are specific in function: they are only used for fighting other people - rarely for (say) hunting animals for the pot. The other weapons all developed from things that have other uses, even though their ‘war’ versions may be far removed from their ‘hunting’ predecessors.
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Swords are universally more expensive and difficult to make than most other weapons that preceded them. In the Bronze Age, they also used a considerably greater quantity of expensive metal than (say) a spearhead.
Combined with versatility, portability, and specialized use for war, this marks them as being a weapon uniquely suited to being a symbol of aristocratic power - which, cross-culturally, appears to be true in many places.
The act of wearing a sword marks out a person more than the act of carrying a spear, club, axe or bow.
- Swords therefore represent an important social marker, more so than it does a tactical change to the process of fighting.
The Mongols used a reflex bow, I believe.
I realize this thread is two weeks old, but I was reading Hanson’s book “The Western Way of War” and came across some information that might add clarity.
Hollywood tends to present the idea that if large formations of men meet in battle, they will break down into a bunch of individual duels. We’ve already discussed up-thread how this is incorrect: The goal of training and military discipline was to fight as an organized unit. Whichever side maintained its integrity the longest was the side most likely to win. To abandon formation and fight as an individual was usually the last stage before a rout (which is when most casualties were inflicted).
I think one of the problems with this discussion is a lack of a clear timeframe. If the question was about the *introduction *of swords, then we are talking about the very earliest ages of recorded history. Ancient warfare, as we understand it, was very clearly dominated by shield walls and spearmen in phalanxes. Attempting to break the enemy’s phalanx (without disorganizing your own) was explicitly the goal.
This idea holds true for millennia. The Battle of Agincourt, for example, happened in 1415 and was pretty much the last gasp of an increasingly obsolete form of warfare (some might argue it demonstrated why medieval warfare was obsolete, but anyway…) John Keegan writes of the French: “The object would have been to knock over as many of them as possible, and so to open gaps in the ranks and isolate individuals who could then be killed or forced back on to the weapons of their own comrades; ‘sowing disorder’ is short-hand description of the aim.”
Now, in the event the French charge did not actually succeed for otherreasons, but Keegan’s point is about the goal of warfare at that time: The attacker was trying to drive his opponent to become disordered and disorganized, because as individuals in a melee they would become easy prey.
But to return to the example of the Greeks, Hanson makes another observation. Greek warfare centered on Hoplite warfare, in which men with large shields shoved at each other like a giant rugby scrum and attempted to stab their spears over or under the enemy’s shields. On page 165, Hanson submits: “Once the spear was gone, the first choice of the hoplite was his secondary short sword - a weapon notorious for its diminished range…”
This emphasizes the point that even at the dawn of civilization the sword was considered the back-up weapon. Nobody willingly walked into battle with their sword drawn, and nobody picked the sword over the spear because they expected the battle to break down into a series of slow-motion kung-fu fights. It was, rather, a last resort. I was very amused that Hanson chose to describe the sword with the word “notorious” rather than “awesome.”
From the Wiki link above:
Is this actually true, or are you making an assumption?The earliest sword I know of is the khopesh, and I think that it’s likely based on the sickle (though the wiki says it’s descended from battle axes).
But a sword could also develop from a knife, be elongating it, or from a spear by swapping out shaft with blade progressively, over the years.
But I would agree that it’s likely that the sword had no impact on war since it’s either an evolution of a pre-existing idea or served more as a backup weapon for most soldiers.
Its real impact would have been in the city, to preserve order, though even there it would just be replacing a stick with sharp bits on it.
It probably is, but the battleaxe in question, the epsilon axe, isn’t shaped like e.g. a daneaxe. Here’s one guy’s sketch of possible evolution.
If the khopesh had evolved from the sickle, why would it be sharpened on the outside, unlike the sickle?
That’s the accepted evolution of the oldest swords we know of (Arslantepe, ~3000 BCE), which predate the khopesh (~2500 BCE) by several hundred years. There’s a little controversy over whether the Turkish finds are long enough to be swords, proper, but there’s a clear dimorphism between the swords and daggers in the cache.
This is clearly the path that Zulu weaponry was on under Shaka with the development of the long-bladed thrusting iklwa from the long-hafted short-bladed throwing assegai.While the design may have already existed, it was Shaka who made it a mandatory weapon for his troops.
There’s a tendency among military historians to see pre-modern warfare as consisting solely of large armies facing each other across open fields. The fact is that there has always been more than one form of battle. There were also skirmishes, raids, nighttime attacks, not to mention siege warfare and urban hour-to house fighting, all of which was combat that did not involve men fighting in close formation. In many of these, the sword would be the primary weapon, not the backup - I mean, could you imagine climbing a siege ladder carrying a pike?
Seems likely enough. A sword may have evolved in a sense from several different weapons, but it is further removed from its predecessor than any of the rest - a war bow is much more recognizably like a hunting bow than a sword is like a knife, a spear, or an axe (all of which have non-military use).
The difference is in part technological, and in part that it has a specialized function - what makes a sword a sword is its length. Not easy to make a blade that long that does not fold or break. No point to having a sword, other than to fight other people - for most hunting applications, a spear is both easier to make and uses less metal, and is more useful.
The weapon most like a sword is a simple club in its various forms - also mostly used to fight other people. Like a sword, a club has symbolic function for this reason - as in the ceremonial mace used in Parliament. The club is of course much more ancient, and naturally a lot easier to make.
Watch this Sword vs Spear fight it should clear up, why the sword is inferior to the spear.
Some club designs, like the knobkierie and the throwing stick, were also used as hunting weapons. I’m not saying clubs didn’t mostly end up as anti-personnel weapons, but they weren’t initially dedicated to the task, as swords were from the get-go.
Agreed; clubs were mostly, but not exclusively, used for fighting.
I’m just pointing out that the war club in particular has gained a similar social and symbolic cachet as the sword, and did so from an early date.
See: the Narmer Palette:
An in modern day, the Canadian ceremonial mace:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/About/House/Collections/collection_profiles/CP_mace-e.htm
The same symbolic notion is at work: war club = power of life or death over others = the monarch. A sword often has the same symbolic purpose, as in a “sword of state”.
I suppose other weapons may be used from time to time with that symbolic meaning, but the club/mace and the sword are the most common.
There’s also things like the macuahuitl: