"… his cavalry gallops in different directions"
Habakkuk 1: 8
Military affairs at the turn of the eras. In the last two materials devoted to the military affairs of the late Middle Ages and the beginning of the New Age, we got acquainted with the structure of the cavalry units that appeared at that time and with their armor and weapons. Today we will look at certain differences that existed between these riders, primarily in battle tactics, well, and get to know them all better. And most importantly, we will analyze how the reitars still differed from the cuirassiers and why the latter survived in the armies until the beginning of the First World War.
The whole reason is black oil paint …
Let's start with the name that the Reiters got from the German Reiter (horseman), but above all from Schwarze Reiter (“black horseman”), since they were the ones who wore crudely made armor, painted black. First of all, this was the name given to mercenaries from southern Germany, who were widely used during the wars of faith by both Catholics and Protestants. Well, and then the word "black" was not added a little by little, and there was only one thing left. Well, and the cuirassier is a spearman, whose spear and good horse were taken away, and, of course, dressed in a cuirass. The cuirassier was armed with a pair of pistols. But the Reitars were armed in almost the same way. So what was the difference between the two? And there was a difference, however. Elusive, but there was.
Arme and bourguignot
Recall that the gendarme spearmen wore either full or already three-quarter armor, and closed armé helmets, and cuirassiers were armed in the same way, only instead of spears they had two pistols. And how could you save money here, if it was just about saving? Only on horseback, and even then a little. But it was a matter of tactics. Spearmen, with all their desire, could not use spears of equal length with pikemen. And that means to fight on equal terms with the infantry. And if so, why are they needed at all? So they were rearmed with pistols! In battle, very often cuirassiers were thrown into a counterattack on the spearmen. To stop them, the cuirassiers galloped towards them, and as they approached, they fired from their pistols at the riders and at their horses. Moreover, most often for horses, it was not for nothing that at this time there was a saying: "The horse fell, and then the rider disappeared." On the engravings of that time, we see such a technique all the time. Besides, the rider was not so easy to kill. For a bullet to pierce his armor, it was necessary to shoot at him almost point-blank, seeing the whites of his eyes, and this was not always possible. It was easier to shoot a horse, seeing … the whites of its eyes!
Forward, trotting march
The cuirassiers rode up to the infantry at a trot. They fired two volleys at it and, having upset its ranks, cut into them with swords and swords in their hands. It was here that they needed armé helmets and almost complete knightly equipment, because they had to complete a fire fight with cold weapons.
But the reiters initially relied on firearms. Their arsenal no longer included a pair, but several heavy large-caliber pistols. Two in holsters, two behind the tops of the boots, two behind the belt, and another two, three, four, five, could be at the reiter on a special chest strap. True, the most powerful and large-caliber were only two, in holsters. But on the other hand, the impressive arsenal allowed him to shoot at the infantry almost closely, and it was very difficult to withstand such fire. So instead of chopping down the infantry, the Reitars methodically shot it until it was all killed or ran away. The dragoons had arquebus and therefore dismounted for shooting, but the reitars fired directly from the horse. The carabinieri also fired from a horse, but the reitars were dressed in armor similar to those of the cuirassier. Except for the helmet. The Reitara helmets were worn of the bourguignot type, or as it was called in Germany "Schturmhaube", since they gave the best view.
1545-1550 Belonged to the Archduke Ferdinand II, son of Ferdinand I. Manufacturer: Giovanni Paolo Negroli. (1530 - 1561, Milan)
In written sources, reitars were first mentioned in a letter from the Austrian commander Lazarus von Schwendi, written by him in 1552, and in it these horsemen are called "black reitars". And already mentioned by us La Nu in 1585 in his "Political and military speeches" wrote about them that they had already defeated the gendarmes many times. That is, the effectiveness of this cavalry was, according to contemporaries, very high
All the money in France goes to reiters
It was very profitable to serve in reiters, since they had to receive sufficient payment to buy equipment, horses and, most importantly, pistols! Upon entering the service, the reiter received the so-called "laufgeld" ("running money"), then he was paid travel money ("aufreisegeld"), and only upon arrival at the place of service - the usual "salary". But … it was expensive to have a lot of raiters. For example, in France under King Henry II there were only 7000 of them, and then the French said that all the money in France goes to pay for them.
Reitars in the XVI century. gathered in large squadrons of 500-1000 horsemen, then formed in 20-30 ranks, "knee to knee", and on command rushed towards the enemy infantry, bristling with a hedgehog of their long and sharp pikes. Having approached almost close, line after line fired a volley and made a volt - a turn to the left in order to again take their place in the squadron, but already in the back row. The turn was usually made to the left, in order to enable the rider to shoot while moving backwards, in order to reduce the time he spent under fire from the shooters standing behind the spearmen. But there was a practice of double reversal, some of the riders turned to the left, and the other to the right. In this case, those who turned to the right had to shoot with their left hand. But the distance was so small that "which hand" was of no practical importance. This tactic of attack was called "snail" or "karakol"
Walk, trot and gallop
The Reitars went on the attack with a light step in order to save the strength of the horses, then, approaching the enemy, they switched to a trot, and already coming close to him, they let them into a gallop. Naturally, in order to act so harmoniously under enemy fire, the riders needed good training, and their actions had to be worked out to automatism. After all, they needed not only to make a turn and return in the line to their original place, but at the same time to load a shot pistol or pistols, and this - sitting on a swinging horse and, in addition, keeping the alignment in the line. Of course, in real life, the ranks very often fired a volley, just turned their horses and galloped in every direction, the rear riders pressed on the front riders, besides, those who were behind, in order to quickly end all this horror and murder, simply fired into the air and with a clear conscience rushed back. And then the commanders were forced to make a lot of efforts to reassemble the scattered squadrons and throw them into a new attack. Only the German "black horsemen" or "black devils", as they were also called, were learned so well that they became famous for the successful use of just such tactics.
Killing swing
Cuirassiers, of course, who also had a pair of pistols, often used the same tactic. But they gradually abandoned it. The reason is the development of firearms. The fact is that such a tactic was effective only against the infantry, in which there were more pikemen, but the arquebusier and musketeer shooters were much less. As soon as there were more shooters and fewer pikemen, it became unprofitable for cuirassiers to shoot at infantry. Now it was not they, but she, the infantry, who suppressed them with her fire. That is, the Reitar tactics were quite successful only in a situation where the bulk of the infantrymen had edged weapons, and the number of arquebusiers and musketeers in the army was relatively small. As soon as long-range muskets were adopted by the infantry, the Reiters immediately lost the ability to shoot enemy infantry with impunity. Muskets had a greater firing range than Reitar pistols, greater penetrating power, and the accuracy of firing a musket in a standing position with two hands was incomparably higher than shooting a horseman at a gallop with one hand. Therefore, the Reitars immediately began to suffer heavy losses and, as a branch of the army, began to lose all meaning. But the increase in the number of musketeers in the infantry automatically reduced the number of pikemen. Thus, the infantry became more vulnerable to a horse attack carried out at full gallop with the use of edged weapons. That is why the Reitars disappeared from the army after the Thirty Years War, but the cuirassiers continued to survive for a long time. In some armies up to the First World War. That is, war is like a kind of "swing" - something swayed in one direction - there is only one reaction. Swung in the opposite direction - the other.
Reiters in Russia
In Europe, large contingents of Reitars disappeared by the beginning of the 17th century. For example, the French Reitars were almost completely destroyed in 1587 under the castle of Hainaut near Chartres. The Thirty Years' War finally ended them. However, in Russia, only in 1651, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich established a special Reitarsky order and, having experience of clashes with the reiters of the Swedish king, started the same regiments at home. The Swedish experience was in demand due to the similarity of the horse composition. Both the Swedes and our "boyar children" horses were "so-so" and lost to the Turkish horses and the Turkish horsemen of Delhi proper and the Polish "winged hussars". But on the other hand, our state could afford to arm our warriors with firearms purchased abroad and … give them high-quality officers, again hired abroad. The tsar personally ordered that none of the carbines and pistols fired at the enemy before time. So that no one would shoot from a distance, because this business is "bad and unprofitable." The firing distance in fathoms was directly indicated and that it was necessary to shoot at people and at horses, and not at the air (that is, in the air).
P. S. The author and the site administration would like to thank the curators of the Vienna Armory Ilse Jung and Florian Kugler for the opportunity to use her photographs.
