Sorry if this has been answered here, or if the information is freely available somewhere simple. I just want to know why chariots went out of style. I’ve asked random people who supposedly know a bit about history, and two people have told me that “when archery was invented, the charioteers became too exposed to arrows”. This is so preposterous that it merits no further comment.
So what happened to chariots? Perhaps you’ll tell me that cavalry proved more effective. So it’s just a matter of people who originally has horses and rode around on them evolved a less effective and more expensive way of fighting: attach a big cart to the horses, only to later figure out that it was better to ride around on horses in the first place?
The stirrup? Wikipedia says the earliest stirrups may have appeared around 500 BC in India, while chariots had fallen out of favor in military contexts by the 4th century BC.
We developed saddles and then stirrups. A mounted warrior can overtake and behead a chariot driver because the weight the horse has to carry is less and the height is enough. Stirrups also make it easier to reach foes without hitting your own horse. As this article points out stirrups are a great advantage over chariots allowing the rider to put his strength behind the swing of a weapon and not fall off the horse, but even mounted riders have some advantage without chariots.
Another issue is the breeding of horses strong and stable enough to support human riders. Chariots have the advantage that you can use multiple animals to pull a single vehicle. Another advantage of chariots–stability for archers–was also rendered obsolete by the invention of the stirrup, since it provided a reasonably stable platform from which to loose arrows.
Not much to add here… but yeah chariots were superceded once two things happened.
1- Development of larger breeds. Chariot breeds (like the Caspian) were roughly 9 hands tall (Most of the orginal horse breeds would likely be considered ponys today). While later cavalry horses ranged from 12 -15 hands. Horses that big took a while to breed. And the smaller horses provided a less stable platform for whatever you were needing to do in a fight.
2- Development of the various accessories; the most important of these were saddle and stirrups. These made the new large horse breeds significanty better as weapon platforms.
This was the big one. Chariots were not an all-terrain vehicle. They needed flat level open ground. That’s fine if you’re fighting a war in Babylon or Egypt - not so good if you’re invading Greece or Italy. The Greeks and Romans became masters of infantry tactics and foot soldiers became the key to winning battles for several centuries. The invention of the stirrup eventually allowed soldiers to fight on horseback and brought cavalry back into battle.
The chariot managed to hang on in Russia, in the form of the Tachanka, a horse-drawn machine-gun cart that was most notably used by Nestor Makhno and his anarchist insurgents around the time of the Russian Revolution. The Poles also used them against the Soviets.
Mainly, horses got bigger, as described above. The first chariot empires did not, and could not, ride on horseback.
Once horses were rideable, you can go off-road. Chariots require very flat terrain, and chariot battles were often preceded by a sort of grading and roadbuilding effort to make the wheels perform better. Horsemen could maneuver in rougher terrain, and faster, since the weight of the chariot added to the load the charioteers’ horses pulled.
Per the OP, archery is what made the chariot deadly in its day. A chariot team could outrun footsoldiers and shoot them at range; deftly handled, it could produce lopsided victories.
Definitely true. War chariots stuck around in some places, and were used off an on again. However, they cost a fortune, even compared to a full knightly regalia. Chariots, particularly bronze ones, were absurdly expensive - they could require more metal than a small city might own!
The other problem was that they simply weren’t all that effective against tough infantry armies. Chariots are primarily useful against light infantry with limited armor. But if you go up against a Roman Legionaire, they will stick together, use their shields to block arrows, and use their own missile troops to take you down. Or just advance and advance, pushing you into a bad position, since chariots don’t manuever that well.
Thanks a lot to all who answered. Let me summarize what it seems people are saying:
It was basically the combination of the development of riding instruments like saddles and stirrups and the breeding of horses large enough to put a warrior on.
Someone above spoke of the challenge of using chariots outside, say, Mesopotamia. This made me wonder if the decline of the chariot might also have been due to the rise of Greece and Italy. If the power in general shifts from Egypt and Mesopotamia to Greece and Italy this might lead to a decline of the use of the chariot. While it’s definitely outside the bounds of this question, are there any succinct answers as to why the power in the West shifted to Greece and Italy?
FWIW, it’s not the wheel- it’s the axle. They had a tendency to snap, what with everyone wandering around going “Huh? Shocks? What are those?” Chariots also weren’t very good at turning. Funny thing is, the inventors of the chariot were the Hittites of Anatolia, a region not particularly flat. It wouldn’t hit Egypt for another 400-500 years. By the time chariots came to military prominence, the whole wheel-splitting problem had been solved with the invention of the spoke.
As for the falling out of favor of the chariot, I blame not only the invention of the stirrup and the breeding of horses, but the invention of the composite bow. The whole reason chariots were so effective was because archers could close in on a target and shoot it point-blank. The moving platform of a chariot allowed the archer to keep a wide, stable stance and thus make an accurate shot. When the composite bow was invented, the archer didn’t need this huge stance anymore, as he didn’t need to put as much strength into his shot. He could fire a deadly shot with much less muscle behind it.
I think this had more to do with it than stirrups, seeing as how the Parthians were shooting effectively from horseback with a composite bow without stirrups.
Stirrups aren’t the answer, since they weren’t in use until very late. The cataphract heavy cavalry of the classical era didn’t have stirrups, and neither did the famed Parthian horse archers. If you read The Iliad, it’s clear that the author knew that in olden times warriors used chariots, but he had no idea how they were supposed to be used, so even then chariots were obsolete.
Charriots can only be used on relatively smooth ground. In a forest, or on rough terrain, they’re pretty useless. However, a horse and rider can jump over obstacles and probably handle a bit better. I can imagine an army with chariots unable to defend themselves against mounted horsemen who can do attack and run maneuvers.
Another factor might be that the introduction of the stirrup made it possible to put the horse’s weight and power behind a lance, rather than just using horseback as a platform to fight from.