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Last time, we left Cortez and his people, escaped from the clutches of death in the "Night of Sorrow", in the most distressful situation. Yes, they managed to break through, and at first the Aztecs did not even pursue them, busy sacrificing those of them who fell into their hands due to their misfortune. And it gave those who remained at least some hope. Although rather weak. The Spaniards had to get to the allied Tlaxcala, moving around the country, where death threatened them literally from behind every bush. In addition, many of them were injured and their weapons became unusable.
A fragment of a manuscript at the University of Texas at Austin is the earliest of the Tlaxcalan pictographic documents on the conquest. It shows the arrival of Cortez and his soldiers at Tlaxcala after the Battle of Otumba.
Bernal Diaz del Castille reported the following about the situation in which the Spaniards found themselves and their forces:
“All our present army consisted of 440 people, 20 horses, 12 crossbowmen and 7 arquebusters, and all, as has been said many times, were wounded, the reserves of gunpowder were exhausted, the bowstrings of the crossbows got wet … So, there were now the same number of us as when we arrived. from Cuba; the more cautious and restrained we had to be, and Cortez inspired, especially to the people of Narvaez, that no one in any way dared to offend Tlaxcalci …"
Arrival of Cortez and his warriors to Tlaxcala after the Battle of Otumba. ("Canvas from Tlaxcala")
There were still quite a few Tlaxcalans or Tlashkalans in Cortez's army, although Diaz does not tell us their numbers. But all the same, these were Indians who fought with the Aztecs with their own weapons. Almost all Spaniards were wounded. Even Cortez was wounded twice in the head by sling stones during a reconnaissance raid. All the horses were also severely exhausted by the crossings, and almost all of them were also injured. Cortez lost his guns in Tenochtitlan while crossing the canals. There were also cannonballs and barrels of gunpowder at the bottom.
But the sacrifice arranged by the Aztecs after the "Night of Sorrow" gave the Spaniards some head start and they, beaten and battered, but at least alive, moved back towards the allied Tlaxcala. At the same time, they bypassed Lake Teshkoko from the north, and then turned to the east. At the same time, they were constantly pursued by enemy arrows, who threw stones at them from a distance. The Spaniards could not do anything with them, and so they wandered along the road, under the stones and arrows of their enemies. Finally the Spaniards reached the Otumba Valley. It was this plain that the Indians chose for the final blow to the Spaniards. It was located not far from the sacred ruins of the city of Teotihuacan and, according to the Indian commanders, was ideally suited to crush a handful of Spaniards with the masses of their infantry. The Spaniards had already lost their aura of invincibility in their eyes, their enemies had lost the guns that killed them in droves, and the Indian leaders hoped that now it would not be difficult to finish off the Spaniards. As for the large Andalusian horses, so far they have seen them only in the city, where the mobility of the Spanish cavalry was very limited, and the hooves of the horses glided over the smooth stones of the pavements. Therefore, the Aztecs this time completely underestimated the capabilities of the horsemen and, in fact, gave Cortez the opportunity to fight in an area convenient for the action of cavalry, even if it was small in number.
"Battle in the Night". Drawing from the book "History of Tlaxcala".
The battle in the Otumba valley took place on July 7, 1520 and took on the character of close combat, since the Spaniards had nothing to shoot with. The participant in the battle, Alonso de Aguilar, wrote in his memoirs that Cortez had tears in his eyes when he turned to his people with a call to make one more, final effort. Cortez himself, in a letter to King Charles, wrote about it this way: “We could hardly distinguish our enemies from our enemies - they fought with us so fiercely and at such a close distance. We were sure that our last day had come, for the Indians were very strong, and we, exhausted, almost all wounded and weak from hunger, could only offer them little resistance."
This view of things is not surprising, since it is believed that the Spaniards in this battle met with a 20-thousand (and even 30-thousand) army of the Aztecs. However, it is difficult to say how reliable these calculations are. It is clear that the soldiers who fought for many years could determine by eye the number of soldiers standing in close order, but at the same time, the reliability of such calculations "by eye" is always very, very doubtful.
The Mendoza Codex is the most valuable historical source of the era of the conquest of Mexico. Below - images of Aztec warriors in cotton shells and macuavitl swords in their hands. (Oxford University Bodleian Library)
Bernal Diaz, for example, argued that none of the Spaniards who fought had ever met such a large Indian army. It is believed that the entire color of the army of Meshiko, Texcoco and other neighboring large cities of the Aztecs gathered on the Otumba field. Naturally, by virtue of tradition, all the warriors were in the variegated clothes and feathers that were due to them. Well, the leaders flaunted in gold jewelry, sparkling in the sun, and high headdresses made of quetzal bird feathers, visible from afar. Standards developed over their heads - in a word, the military traditions of Mesoamerica in this case manifested themselves especially vividly and clearly, and why would the Aztecs change them, going out to battle against a handful of wounded and exhausted Spaniards, whose mortality was literally just proven on the top of Big Teokali ?! Therefore, both the military leaders of the Aztecs and their priests, who inspired the soldiers to fight, could not imagine any other result of the battle than a complete victory over the Spaniards, followed by their capture and sacrifice.
However, they did not imagine the force of the blow of the heavy cavalry of the Spanish knights, who were especially comfortable in operating on the plain. 23 (Wikipedia data, but it is unclear why so many if Diaz writes about the 20 remaining horses ?!) riders, closing the formation, rolled onto the ranks of the Indians and returned back, and then again accelerated and fell with all their might on the Aztecs, leaving behind a clearing of corpses. “The terrain conditions were very favorable for the actions of the cavalry, and our horsemen stabbed with spears, broke through the enemy's ranks, circled around him, suddenly striking the rear, at times cutting into the thick of it. Of course, all the riders and horses, like all ours, were wounded and covered in blood, both our own and that of others, but our onslaught did not diminish,”says Cortez.
Knight of 1590. (Fig. Graham Turner) Obviously, it was impossible for the Spaniards from the Cortez expedition to keep such equipment after all the troubles that happened!
In the experience of the battle in Tenochtitlan in The Night of Sorrow, the Aztec leaders had never expected blows of such force. But the close formation of the Spanish infantry, supported by the allied Tlashkalans, also, albeit slowly, nevertheless, advanced inevitably, tirelessly working with swords and spears. The excitement that gripped the Spaniards was so great that during the battle many saw visions of Saint Jacob in heaven, who led them into battle. Moreover, each attack of Cortez's cavalry not only led to large losses among the Indian warriors, but cost them many commanders, whom the Spaniards killed in the first place. Everyone saw that the Spaniards were purposefully killing them, and this confused the soldiers. When Cortez was able to defeat their commander-in-chief (he made his way to the place where he was sitting in the palanquin and pierced him with a spear!) - Sihuacu, a general flight immediately began in the ranks of the Indians. The priests ran first, followed by the entire Aztec army.
A warrior with a spear with a wooden tip, seated with plates of obsidian. Codex Mendoza (Oxford University Bodleian Library)
Now let's pause for a bit and ask ourselves a number of questions, the answers to which history does not give us. That is, we have written eyewitness accounts, but a number of points from them remain unclear. So the Spaniards were wounded and emaciated - no doubt about it. And they fought with melee weapons. The horses were also not in their best shape. But … how could 20 (23) riders and horses survive in battle with thousands of soldiers? But what about the maces of the Macuavitl, the blow of which could cut the horse's neck so that its death was only a matter of a few minutes? Oh, were they wearing armor? But which ones? Covering the croup - the most easily injured place on the horse, and the neck? That is, the Spaniards lost their guns, but managed to keep the bulky and heavy horse armor, retreating along the dams in the "Night of Sorrow"? If they were wearing armor, including horse armor, then how did they force the last, deepest breach in the dam? And again, armor … Cortez was wounded by stones in the head, fired from a sling … And where was his helmet? By the way, both Cortez himself and Diaz constantly write that both the Spanish warriors and their horses were covered in blood, and this could only be if they were not wearing armor!
But where then were the Aztec archers who could shoot at the horses, standing to their side? Swordsmen with mace maces? Spearmen with spears, with tips made of wood with plates of absidian? Or maybe the wounds inflicted by all these weapons were not serious? No, it is known that the Indians and the horses of the Spaniards killed … but for some reason not in this battle.
The second interesting point, and what did the Spanish horsemen fight in that battle? The fact is that the length of the rider's spear must be greater than the length of the infantryman's spear, and why this is so is understandable. That is, in addition to their own, and even horse armor, the Spaniards in the "Night of Sorrow" had to carry on themselves (even if the role of porters was carried out by the Tlashkalans!) Also bundles of equestrian spears. And along with this difficult, and most importantly - cumbersome cargo, to cross the breaks in the dams. Something very much this is all from the realm of fantasy.
It is much easier to assume that the Spaniards did not have any armor, except for cotton shells, and maybe a cuirass and several helmets at all. That they cut the Aztecs with swords, and who had spears (Cortes pierced Sihuacu with a spear), but not equestrian, but "what God sent," and that not all.
Page 137 of the "Code of Mendoza", which lists the tribute to the Aztecs from the following villages: Shilotepec, Tlachko, Tsayanalkilpa, Michmaloyan, Tepetitlan, Akashochitla, Tecosautlan in the form of patterns familiar to the Indians: 400 loads of very elegant skirts and uipilas. 400 wears of elegant raincoats of this pattern. 400 wears of skirts of this pattern. 400 wears of elegant raincoats of this pattern. 400 wears of elegant raincoats of this pattern. 400 loads of raincoats of this pattern. 400 wears of elegant capes of such a pattern. The living eagle, which they gave with each tribute, sometimes three, sometimes four, sometimes more or less. One piece of armor with valuable feathers, of this kind. One round shield with valuable feathers, of this kind. One piece of armor with valuable feathers, of this kind. One round shield with valuable feathers, of this kind. Two chests with maize and sage. Two chests with beans and a wautley.
But the Indians, most likely, in this battle generally fought … unarmed, or, at best, threw stones at the Spaniards. "The enemy must be captured alive!" the priests kept repeating to them. The superiority of the Indians on the battlefield seemed overwhelming to them and … they could well, in the literal sense of the word, order their soldiers not to kill the Spaniards and their horses, but to bulk up and … captivate them at any cost in order to please their bloodthirsty gods even more! Well, the Spaniards only played into the hands of such tactics! And if it had been otherwise, not one of the Spaniards would have survived after that battle.
Page 196 from the "Code of Mendoza", where in Spanish is written a tribute to the Aztecs of the villages of Tlachchiauco, Achiotlan, Zapotlan.
Page 195 from the "Code of Mendoza", which lists the tribute to the Aztecs from the villages of Tlachkiauco, Achiotlan, Zapotlan already in the form of drawings: 400 loads of large cloaks. Twenty bowls of pure golden sand. One piece of armor with valuable feathers, of this kind. One round shield with valuable feathers, of this kind. Five sacks were cochineal. Four hundred bundles of quetzali, valuable feathers. Forty sacks of grains called cochineal. One piece of tlapiloni made of valuable feathers of this shape, which served as a royal sign. It is not surprising that the Aztecs were hated for this, and the Spaniards were looked upon as liberators. They didn't need feathers and skins. They had enough gold!
Cortez himself, in a letter to Emperor Charles, explained his success as follows: “However, our Lord was pleased to show his power and mercy, for with all our weakness we managed to shame their pride and audacity - many Indians were killed, and among them many noble and revered persons; and all because there were too many of them, and, interfering with each other, they could neither fight properly, nor escape, and in these difficult matters we spent most of the day, until the Lord arranged so that some very their famous leader, and with his death the battle ended …"
In this miraculous way, the army of Cortez was saved, but could only continue the march to Tlaxcala. Bernal Diaz reported that in addition to the losses that the Spaniards suffered in the "Night of Sorrow," 72 more soldiers were killed in the Battle of Otumba, as well as five Spanish women who arrived in Noave Spain with the Narvaez expedition. By the way, the people of Narvaez, as in the "Night of Sorrow" suffered in it more than others, because they are not yet accustomed to the war for life and death and to the harsh discipline necessary in the war with the Indians.
The heads of the Spaniards and their horses, sacrificed by the Indians to their gods!
Meanwhile, the Aztecs, having suffered defeat on the battlefield, tried to lure the Tlaxcaltecs to their side, and invited them to forget the old strife and join forces against the aliens. And there were people in Tlaxcala who were inclined towards this proposal. But the rulers of the city decided to remain loyal to Cortez, and warned everyone about the consequences of treason and going over to the side of Mexico City. Therefore, when the Spaniards finally reached Tlaxcala on July 10, they were greeted with kind words: "This is your home, here you can relax and have fun after the suffering you endured."
