When a stranger knocks at my gate, It is likely that he is not my enemy.
But the alien sounds of his tongue
They prevent me from taking the Stranger to my heart.
Perhaps there is no lie in his eyes, But all the same, I do not feel the soul behind him.
("Outsider" by Rudyard Kipling)
The publication of the series of materials “Knights from“Shahnameh”and“Knights of nomadic empires”aroused considerable interest of the TOPWAR website visitors. But this topic is so vast that it is very difficult to examine it in detail. We have an interesting monograph by M. V. Gorelik “Armies of the Mongol-Tatars of the X-XIV centuries. Martial art, weapons, equipment. - Moscow: Publishing House "Tekhnika-Youth" and LLC "Vostochny Horizon", 2002 "and its very interesting edition in English and with his illustrations: Mikhael V. Gorelik. Warriors of Eurasia. From the VIII century BC to the XVII century AD. / Dr. Philip Greenough (Editor). - Color Plates by the Author. - Yorkschire: Montvert Publication, 1995, as well as many articles that consider certain issues of oriental armor and weapons in more detail. It is interesting that during his lifetime many criticized his work, but … no one wrote anything better than him. However, any topic can be viewed from different perspectives. For someone, for example, a knight is a complex of social obligations and preferences, for someone - a set of weapons and armor. In this work, it seems interesting to look at the warriors of the East from this very side. Well, the illustrations for it will be the works of Russian artists V. Korolkov and A. Sheps and English ones - Garry and Sam Embleton, as well as photographs from the funds of the Metroliten Museum in New York.
The book by M. V. Gorelika
In the past, any migration of peoples unambiguously meant war, especially if the migrants also fought it for their faith. Now it is difficult to say why the Oguz-Turkmen Turkic-speaking tribes left Central Asia and moved to the southwest, but this happened and had great consequences in all respects. By the name of their leader Togrul-bek Seljuk, who converted to Islam in 960, the new settlers were called Seljuks. In 1040-1050, they subdued all of Iran and overthrew the Bund dynasty that ruled there, and the Baghdad Caliph granted Togrul Bek the title of Sultan. After that, on the territory of Asia Minor and Palestine, the Seljuks formed many feudal states, headed by their nobility, and the local Arabs obeyed her.
In the battle of Manzikert, the Seljuk sultan Alp-Arslan defeated the Byzantine emperor Roman IV Diogenes. After that, rumors spread in Europe about the oppression of Christians by the Seljuk Turks became one of the reasons for the first crusade. The very name "Turkey" was first used in Western chronicles in 1190 in relation to the territory captured by the Turks in Asia Minor.
Quite a long time passed, but the old road was by no means forgotten. At the beginning of the 13th century, the Turkmen tribe Kayy, headed by the leader Ertogrul, withdrew from the nomads in the Turkmen steppes and moved to the West. In Asia Minor, he received from the Seljuk sultan Ala ad-Din Kai-Kubad a small inheritance on the very border with the Byzantine possessions, which, after the death of Ertogrul, was inherited by his son Osman. Ala ad-Din Kai-Kubad III approved his father's land ownership for him and even bestowed signs of princely dignity: a saber, a banner, a drum and a bunchuk - a horse's tail on a richly decorated shaft. In 1282, Osman declared his state independent and, waging continuous wars, began to be called Sultan Osman I the Conqueror.
His son, Orhan, from the age of 12, who participated in his father's campaigns, continued the conquests, and most importantly, strengthened the military strength of the Ottomans. He created infantry (yang) and horse (mu-sellem) units paid from the treasury. The soldiers who entered them, in peacetime, fed from the land for which they did not pay taxes. Later, the service award was limited to land without payment of salary. In order to increase the army, on the advice of the chief vizier Allaeddin, from 1337 they began to enroll in it all the captive non-Muslim youths who accepted the new faith. This was the beginning of a special corps of janissaries (from Türkic, yeny chera - "new army"). The first janissary detachment under Orhan numbered only a thousand people and served as the Sultan's personal guard. The need for infantry among the Turkish sultans grew rapidly, and from 1438 Christian children into the janissaries began to be taken forcibly as a "living tax".
Drawing by V. Korolkov from the author's book "Knights of the East" (Moscow: Pomatur, 2002) Pay attention to the galley on the headdress. Surprisingly, it was so. True, this is not a combat, but a ceremonial uniform!
The armament of the Janissaries consisted of a spear, a saber and a dagger, as well as a bow and arrow. The role of the banner was played by the cauldron for cooking - a sign that they are feeding by the mercy of the Sultan. Some military ranks of the Janissaries also had a "kitchen" origin. So, the colonel was called chobarji, which means "cook". They differed from all the other warriors of the Sultan in a headdress - a tall white felt cap with a piece of cloth hanging behind it, like the sleeve of a robe. According to legend, it was with the sleeve that the saint dervish Sheikh Bektash overshadowed the first janissaries. Another feature of the Janissaries was that they did not wear protective weapons, and all had the same caftans.
The favorite armor of the Sipahi cavalry is the mirror. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
However, the main striking force of the Turkish army was the sipahs - heavily armed horsemen who, like the European knights, had land plots. The owners of large estates were called timars, loan and khasses. They were supposed to participate in the campaigns of the Sultan at the head of a certain number of people armed by them. Admitted to the Turkish troops and mercenaries, as well as soldiers from the conquered Christian lands.
Turban helmet of the 15th century. Iran. Weight 1616 (Metropolitan Museum, New York)
At the beginning of the XIV century, according to European chroniclers, the Turks, as befits nomads who came out of the steppes, had simple lamellar shells made of leather. But very soon they borrowed the best weapons from neighboring peoples and began to widely use chain mail armor, helmets that had chain mail masks, steel elbow pads and greaves.
Legguards. End of the 15th century. Turkey. Weight 727 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
At that time, while the Ottoman Empire was being created, the statehood of the Golden Horde to the north of the Turkish lands was falling into decay, caused by feudal fragmentation. A terrible blow to the Horde was struck by the ruler of the richest city of Central Asia, Samarkand, Tamerlane, known in the East by the nickname Timur Leng ("The Iron Lame"). This cruel, fearless and talented military leader dreamed of making Samarkand the capital of the world, and without hesitation he destroyed anyone who dared to stand in his way. Timur's troops captured Iran, plundered Delhi, after which the troops of the Khan of the Golden Horde Tokhtamysh were defeated on the Terek River in Transcaucasia. Through the southern Russian steppes, Timur reached the city of Yelets and ruined it, but for some reason turned back, thereby saving the Russian principalities from another brutal defeat.
Turkish saber kilich of the 18th century. Length 90.2 cm. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
The most interesting thing is that at this time, at the turn of the XIV-XV centuries, the armament of heavily armed horsemen both in the East and in the West was sufficiently standardized and looked very similar! All the evidence of this similarity was noted by the Castilian ambassador Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, who performed his duties at the court of Tamerlane. So, having visited the palace of the Samarkand ruler, the Castilian, who enthusiastically painted the tents and robes of the courtiers, only reported about the armor that they were very similar to the Spanish ones and were armor made of red cloth lined with metal plates … and that was all. Why is that?
Yes, because this time was the heyday of the brigandine, which was worn over a chain mail armor, but … further the paths of its development in different parts of the world diverged. In the East, lamellar shells began to more and more actively connect with chain mail, which made it possible to combine flexibility with protection. In the West, however, the metal plates under the fabric began to increase more and more, until they merged into one continuous cuirass.
The same thing happened with the helmet, which now covered the entire head of the Western knights. But in the East, even the visor had the shape of a face. All other differences boiled down to the fact that in the West, complex shapes came into fashion, having a cutout for a spear on the right, small shields-tarchi, and among the eastern warriors they were round. Both sides in field battles used the same large rectangular shields on supports, similar to the tate of the Japanese ashigaru. Only those were just made of boards, and the European paveses were covered with leather and, in addition, were richly painted.
Helmet (top) XVIII - XIX centuries India or Persia. Weight 1780.4 g (Metropolitan Museum, New York)
Finding themselves between the East and the West, the Russian warriors, along with the round eastern ones, also used the shields cut off from above in the form of a drop and all the same paveses, which had already become archaic in Europe. In close combat, the sword dominated, although in the Black Sea region the saber was used already in the 11th century, and in the steppes of the Volga region - from the 13th century.
Typically Indian saber and sword.
This is exactly how the forces of the opposing sides of the East and West were armed, which met on August 12, 1399 in the bloody battle of the Middle Ages on the Vorskla River. On the one hand, the Russian-Lithuanian army of Prince Vitovt took part in it, which also included about a hundred crusaders and four hundred soldiers from Poland, who also brought several cannons, as well as their allies - the Tatars of Khan Tokhtamysh. On the other - the Golden Horde troops of Emir Edigei. Light cavalry, armed with bows, moved forward. The formation of the Russian-Lithuanian-Tatar army was covered by light bombards, arquebus arrows and rows of crossbowmen. The attacking Horde was met with a point-blank volley, after which heavy cavalry attacked each other. A fierce hand-to-hand fight began, in which, according to the chronicler, “hands and arms were cut off, bodies were cut, heads were chopped off; dead horsemen and wounded to death were seen falling to the ground. And the scream, and the noise, and the clinking of swords were such that one could not hear the thunder of God."
Indian chain-plate armor of the 17th century. Below is the mace of an Indian pilgrim - an "iron hand".
The outcome of the battle was decided by the blow of the reserve forces of Edigei, which for the time being were hidden in a ravine behind the bulk of the fighting. The defeat was complete, since almost the entire Russian-Lithuanian army perished on that battlefield or while fleeing after the battle. The chronicler with sorrow narrated that seventy-four princes perished in the battle, "and other commanders and great boyars, and Christians, and Lithuania, and Russia, and Poles, and Germans were killed - who can count?"
The Indian six-piers differed from the European ones by the presence of a saber handle and a guard.
Of course, the success of the battle was largely due to the military leadership talent of Emir Edigei, who in 1408 inflicted another defeat on Russia and even managed to defeat the troops of Timur himself. However, the main thing is that the battle of Vorskla this time also demonstrated the high fighting qualities of the traditional steppe bow, in connection with which the question of the next thickening and improvement of armor was clearly on the agenda. Chain mail now began to be universally supplemented with overhead or metal plates woven into it, which were richly ornamented in the Eastern fashion. But since the eastern warriors, in order to shoot from a bow from a horse, required great mobility, the steel plates on their armor began to protect only the torso, and their arms, as before, were covered with chain sleeves.
