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Once more unto the camels, dear friends, once more!

I happened to look at a DBMM list I've never paid much attention, 3/12 Christian Nubian, which has the following passage in the list notes:

QuoteCamel riders are described fighting against Arabs in 850, and other swathed in black felt cloaks and armed with spears fighting the Mamluks in 1276. The consensus of opinion is now that (S) [=Superior] status is not justified since they were easily beaten by Arab cavalry.

This rather sounds like it's based on battle-accounts describing camelry fighting cavalry - would anyone happen to know if this is so (and it's not just inferred on the grounds that the army with the horses beat the one with the camels), and if so what those accounts are and if they're available somewhere?

Relevant threads on the effectiveness of camelry:
A fair deal for camels? (https://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=8808.0)
The camel paradox again (https://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=4122.0)

Definitely specific cavalry fighting camel accounts - one mentions that the Arab cavalry had bells on the horse harness which upset the camels (IIRC). Baladhuri and/or Tabari may be the source.

Quote from: nikgaukroger on February 20, 2025, 11:46:05 AMDefinitely specific cavalry fighting camel accounts - one mentions that the Arab cavalry had bells on the horse harness which upset the camels (IIRC). Baladhuri and/or Tabari may be the source.

Ask not for whom the bell rings.  The answer might surprise you!

Baladhuri and others have Beja camels fleeing from noisy horses:

QuoteArriving in al-Ma'din, he [Al-Qummī] conveyed provisions in ships from al-Qulzum to the land of the Beja. He then proceeded to a sea-coast, called 'Aydhāb, where the ships met him. With these provisions he and his followers were strengthened and fed until they came to the castle (qal'ah) of the king of the Beja (malik al-bujah). Al-Qummī attacked his numerous men on camels fastened with girths. Al-Qummī brought bells and put them on his horses. As soon as the camels heard the bell sounding, they ran away with the Beja men over hills and valleys.

I think the "black felt cloaks" quote is in Thorau's The Lion of Egypt: Sultan Baybars I and the Near East in the Thirteenth Century referring to one of his officers campaigning in Nubia.

I'm sure I've posted these reference online before, but can't find them now. Maybe back in the ancmed days??

Thanks, Nik and Duncan  8)

Al-Qummi's expedition was in the reign of Mutawwakil (AD 847-861), so perhaps this is the incident attributed to 850, though Baladhuri seems to distinguish between Nubians and Beja.

Baladhuri has evidently had rather less influence on wargame designers than Herodotos. But within the small number of accounts of camels in battle we've got at all, it seems a pretty significant proportion has them spooked by horses.

(In DBMM, non-(S) camelry is widely considered very weak. Now imagine if the combat results were reversed so that they fled from horses rather than vice versa!)

I can apparently get The Lion of Egypt (English translation only) by ILL, maybe I'll give it a try.

Quote from: Andreas Johansson on February 20, 2025, 03:07:08 PMBaladhuri has evidently had rather less influence on wargame designers than Herodotos. But within the small number of accounts of camels in battle we've got at all, it seems a pretty significant proportion has them spooked by horses.

However, wargamers remain wedded to their Herodotos based view.

Quote from: Andreas Johansson on February 20, 2025, 03:07:08 PMI can apparently get The Lion of Egypt (English translation only) by ILL, maybe I'll give it a try.

Got it now. Unfortunately, the account of the battle of Dongola 1276 is quite brief, basically saying that the camel-riders could not stand up to the better trained and better equipped Mamluk cavalry.

Thorau offers a whole slew of references, but for the whole campaign rather than the battle specifically, an array of primary sources and four modern works:

Labib, Handelsgeschichte Ägyptens im Spätmittelalter
Imam, Die Einwirkungen der mamlukischen Beziehungen zu Nubien und Begaland auf die historische Entwicklung dieser Gebiete
Garcin, Un centre musulman de la Haute-Egypte médiévale: Qus
Holt, The Age of the Crusades

The last I've got access to, but its account is even less substantial, not even mentioning the Nubians using camels. It does imply that the Mamluk force was just 300 men, so the battle might have been a quite small one.

Not terribly helpful perhaps, but certainly no evidence for camels spooking or discomfitting horses. I guess determined traditionalists could assume the presumably bow-armed mamluks shot down the camel-riders from outside olfactory range.

Not Nubians, but from Tabari (v.12 of the SUNY edition):

"Al-Qa'qa's kinsmen attacked on that day in groups of ten footmen, on camels that were covered and veiled and with their horses surrounding and protecting the camels. Al-Qa'qa ordered them to attack the Persian horses between the two battle lines, simulating elephants. ... These camels were not able to withstand anything, yet the Persian horses took fright and fled."

Persian horses fleeing camels - but they have to be dressed up as elephants...