Mark Grindlay raised the issue of our understanding of the tactics of medieval men-at-arms when discussing Slingshot 284 elsewhere on the forum. This seems a good enough reason to create a thread on the topic here.
I've read quite extensively in secondary and primary sources on this subject and there is a lot of information out there. J.F Verbruggen, Matt Bennett and Clifford Rogers have all written reconstructions of how medieval men-at-arms mounted a charge, for example (and there is a lot of agreement between them). But as Mark pointed out, there are some basic questions we aren't clear on. He particularly queried how the ebb and flow of a melee worked - did small units break off, leaving others to maintain a continuous fight, or did whole divisions fall back together - regroup, then go in again together? There are other controversies, some much more widespread than just medieval cavalry. Two bodies of cavalry charge at each other - what happens as they contact? There is the perennial wargames question "Where medieval cavalry particularly impetuous, or harder to control than cavalry of other periods?" And some about battle experience e.g. how survivable was losing your horse in a melee?
So, there are many questions and much evidence to chew over.
For beginners to this topic, I would suggest a visit to the De Re Militari site and read Matt Bennetts article http://web.archive.org/web/20100325080811/http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/articles/bennett1.htm
Also worth looking at are the description of the battle of Bouvines, Gitres,Lunalonge and Loudoun Hill in the battles section of this forum, which contain descriptions of cavalry melees and also cavalry v. infantry actions. Just a few of the examples of the information out there.
As a starter to our studies, here are two cavalry skirmishes in the 1310's during the Scottish Wars of independence. In both we see a small body of men-at-arms encountering a larger one on the march.
The enemy mounted their horses and formed for action, thinking that they [the English] could not escape from them. The said Thomas, with his people, who were very well mounted, struck spurs to his horse, and charged the enemy right in the centre of their column, bearing many to the ground in his course by the shock of his horse and lance. Then, turning rein, came back in the same manner and charged again, and once again returned through the thick of the troop, which so encouraged his people that they all followed him in like manner, whereby they overthrew many of the enemy, whose horses stampeded along the road. When they [the enemy] rose from the ground, they perceived the grooms of the said Thomas coming up in good order, and began to fly to a dry peat moss which was near, wherefore almost all [the others] began to fly to the moss, leaving their horses for their few assailants.
Gray's Scalacronica
And before mid-morning the mist all suddenly cleared away, and he and his company saw themselves not a bow-shot from the enemy. Then with a shout they dashed upon them; for they saw that if they fled, not a fourth part should well get away, so Sir Edward took the risk of onset rather than of flight, and with a shout the little Scottish company dashed forward. When the English host saw this band come so suddenly and dauntlessly upon them they were confounded with fear, and their assailants rode so boldly among them that at once they bore many to the earth. Sir Aymer's men were right greatly dismayed by the force of that first attack, and were put in great fear, and supposed, because they were so assailed, that the Scottish troop was larger by far. Then Sir Edward's company, having pierced quickly through the enemy, turned their horses' heads stoutly at them again, and at this charge a great number of their foes were borne down and slain. The English were then so much dismayed that they became greatly scattered. And when Sir Edward and his men saw them in such ill array they pricked on them the third time. And the enemy, seeing them come on so stoutly, were cast into such fear that all their rout, both greater and less, fled, scattering each one here and there
Barbour's Bruce
Clearly numbers weren't everything. The small, cohesive bodies are handled aggressively, the larger ones struggling to respond and bring their numbers to bear. Our leaders of the smaller force boldly launch into the middle of the enemy, turn and come back through (in Edward Bruce's case, twice). The enemy break up and run away. Here the authors are showing us their protagonists are paragons of knightly prowess - courageous, decisive, in command. On the impetuosity spectrum, I'd invite comparisons with the 21st lancers at Omdurman, or some of the encounter battles between English and German cavalry in the opening days of the First World War. Yet the latter we would call disciplined regulars.
The Scots in each action begin with two significant advantages: they know their enemy's strength and dispositions, and the enemy is strung out and caught by surprise in country that does not allow him to bring his strength to bear (that is about five advantages, really). The English also do not know the Scots' strength, and opponents believed to be present can be as effective as a reserve that is present.
In each case, the Scots are, or are portrayed as, a single contingent under unified leadership. When multiple Scots contingents - and leaders of rank - were assembled, questions of precedence and honour together with traditional and occasionally ongoing feuds tended to destroy any chance of cohesion. This could also be a problem in the English army (Bannockburn), but one that a strong Plantaganet king could overcome.
Might Falkirk be a good battle to examine to see these factors in action?
Patrick
Actually, the victors in the first story are English and in the second they are Scottish. I suspect they could just as easily have been French or German - European men-at-arms have a pretty international set of combat techniques.
Oops, that was me not paying attention! Sorry, a bit distracted today.
In each of these actions, a resolute band penetrates through the foe, turns around, and rides through again - and then a third time. The melee is not a corps-a-corps shock, but lances nevertheless make contact with targets to good effect. This suggests relatively loose formations, or formations that loosened rapidly when attacked - or conceivably a lack of formation except on the part of the attackers.
Also in each case, the third charge is the one that scatters the foe. Cohesion, discipline, inertia or perhaps simply hope hold up for the first two, but the third is decisive.
Can we imagine how this would look on the wargames table, with elements 'skipping' the enemy line as melee is resolved? And how many pips would be required in DBM(M) to turn them around and charge again?
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on November 18, 2012, 04:16:58 PM
This suggests relatively loose formations, or formations that loosened rapidly when attacked - or conceivably a lack of formation except on the part of the attackers.
And yet the standard topoi are that the wind can't blow through the lances, or an apple or glove, if thrown into the formation, would not strike the ground without hitting someone. Clifford Rogers talks about the two cavalry formations in Soldiers Lives. For cavalry formations to interpenetrate like this, one or both must be in a loose formation. I suspect the Scots in the first example have spread wide to block the English advance and the English have closed up and gone at a weak point, gaining local superiority. In the second case, both sides are surprised but the smaller, more cohesive Scottish force get their act together faster. The English are probably not formed when hit. There is another example of the two cavalry formations in Van Heelu's poem about Woerringen 1288. The army of the Archbishop of Cologne advance "thin and wide" but Liebrecht of Dormaal orders his men to close up "thick and tight". Thin and wide would suggest envelopment tactics, thick and tight break-through tactics.
Which brings us to the question of what happens when two forces drawn up in accordance with the standard topoi thunder into contact with each other. If I remember correctly, the French were considered to be the best at this sort of thing, and given the French emphasis on individual elan throughout much of the period, this might suggest that during the charge formations slackened off a bit as the keener or better-mounted knights got ahead during the final stages of the charge just prior to impact and this loosening would have allowed a degree of interpenetration together with a bit of latitude in picking targets.
The result would thus have resembled a mutual dovetailing, and some less-armoured (or less courageous) knights might have slipped in behind their bolder brethren - this might even have been formalised in the later coustilliers, armigeri falsi and the like. Such behaviour would have allowed a degree of mutual interpenetration, though whether this would extend to progressing all the way through an enemy formation I do not know. It would permit the force of a charge to be dissipated in a number of individual shocks rather than in a great line-long clash of horseflesh and metal.
And then there is the question of how they separated again - assuming they managed to do so before one side or the other cracked.
Medieval face of battle, eh.
evidence for repeated mounted charges does feel more right than wrong. this is promising to be quite interesting.
If I knew the ancients more, I'd be comparing them with the break off examples we have from then too, to see how they stack up.
Quote from: Mark G on November 19, 2012, 09:25:45 AM
Medieval face of battle, eh.
Indeed, the fact that Keegan can ask almost identical questions about cavalry at Waterloo suggests there is something fairly fundamental involved. The text book says the two forces, with the same doctrine, should be in close formation and galloping at each other. If they do this, there is a large crash and a heap of disabled horses and men. Doubtless, there are collisions (there are accounts where some horses are killed by running into one another) but this can't be the main thing happening. Are the two sides "reading" one another, knowing how the other will react on impact and adjusting accordingly? If so, who is doing the reading and adjusting - leaders? the troopers collectively? And how does the adjustment transmit in a body moving, if not at a gallop, then quite quickly?
Conjecturing here, but there may be an element of elan, skill and self-esteem which brings the best or keenest out in front in the last 20-30 yards, making both a leader-related adjustment (natural deference letting the great man get ahead) and various enthusiasm-related adjustments (some are pushing to the limit, seeking out their first kill of the day) and lack of enthusiasm-related adjustments (trying not to be someone else's first kill of the day). These may shake out an otherwise tight formation into a series of prongs and gaps shortly before contact.
There may also be a parallel in fighter combat when two aircraft end up heading directly for each other. In this situation, collisions are extremely rare: it is much more usual for one or both pilots to pull out at the last moment, and I suspect that two knights, with their horses closing head on, would mutually nudge them slightly to the right just prior to impact. Naturally, there would sometimes be occasions when their part of the line did not loosen up enough to allow this, and then horse would slam into horse to their mutual detriment.
On this basis, I would suggest that the 'reading' is an individual thing, with individuals doing the 'micro-compensation' required to avoid direct collisions whenever there is enough space to do so. Naturally, if one is a yard or two ahead of one's immediate neighbours, and the enemy is similarly stringing out, there will be room. The men on one's right or left (usually right if one is nudging the animal right) will try to adjust by either swinging marginally right themselves or holding back a fraction so as to swing into one's wake. From this point everyone is decelerating one way or another, and a formation that has loosened from front to rear will be better able to lose speed under some sort of control than one that is closing with no interval betwen 'ranks'.
Speed cues will be taken from the riders ahead of and around one, and when the clash becomes imminent care and attention will be given to orientation (seeing how fast those around one are moving, and watching for the sudden appearance of opponents through the riders ahead), so the whole formation should be able to decelerate safely and allow a de facto in-filtering by the leading ranks of both sides. Knots of men will begin to develop, especially around banners and popular champions, and the melee will proceed from there.
In essence, rather than two lines closing we have something more like two swarms closing.
in the case on horse and musket era cavalry, once they start charging 'properly' and maintaining a consistent line, there is no real conjecture needed, the accounts of the men themselves are pretty clear, they charged between each other's horses with enough of a gap being allowed to appear in time (hence the emphasis on remaining boot to boot and in line at the 'crash' point).
most wounds demonstrate this in the heavy cavalry - with slashes to forearms and hands - and we see the drilled formation for heavy cavalry showing this as well - the arm our straight and forward and pointed - pretty much like a lance.
(note also the French targetting the backs of Austrian cuirassiers in the earlier Napoleonic wars, when they realised there was no back plate to the cuirass) bad marks for any sculptor who has them waving straight swords above their heads - never happened near the enemy
light cavalry, with their curved sabres take a different approach, but then they are designed for pursuit and scouting, not for battle charges, so its a question of function as much as anything, and the curve is about slashing wounds on unarmoured men.
And of course, if you fail to maintain boot to boot until late enough, it shows you are badly trained - and those guys invariably seem to flinch and expose themselves completely prior to contact - or refuse to meet the charge and bolt - the analogy with dog fights going head on is a good one - turn early and you are done for, but both always just seem to miss each other if they know what they are about.
sadly, I am not aware of any descriptions of lancers charging lancers which we could look at for extrapolation, but the evidence on heavy cavalry is pretty clear - and I would suggest this boot to boot and maintaining frontage is something which we can extrapolate directly onto cataphracts, who the sources do tell us were vulnerable to their sides.
the question of a Sabin like 'hero-leader' taking the front for knights is harder to look into, but there was a strict prohibition amongst French gendarmes about no one being allowed to get ahead of the others (for prestige reasons), was their not? and hence the en-haye (which must have been highly vulnerable to the second line of the enemy if it didn't have one of its own).
There's a battle, in the Barons Wars I think , where one side drops their lances and uses swords as a sign that they really mean business and intend to stay and fight rather than pass with the lance. I rather think that this is what the Vandals are doing at Tricameron when they order their cavalry to use sword rather than lance or spear.
That suggests to me that one might be in closer order with the sword and more cohesive, whereas with the lance the formation is looser because the riders must surely intend to pass as they deliver the point with momentum.
Roy
That makes good sense, and there are accounts of lance-armed Napoleonic cavalry throwing away their lances and drawing swords instead when about to engage enemy cavalry. A contributory factor may have been the greater speed at which a Napoleonic cavalry charge was delivered, making it harder to aim effectively with a (by then considerably lighter) lance.
One interesting battle is Coutras, in 1588 (I draw here on Professor Gerald Mattingly's account in his Defeat of the Spanish Armada). Anne de Montomorency (yes, he is a chap), commanding the Catholic army, placed his reliance on his lance-wielding gendarmes, drawn up en haye, and charged forward against Henri de Navarre's Huguenot millers (cavalry), who were arranged in tight columns and using sword and pistol. Henri also had groups of musketeers or arquebusiers drawn up between his cavalry squadrons, a forerunner of similar Swedish and English Civil War tactics.
Montmorency led his glittering cavalry in a charge, speeding up much too soon in the opinion of the experienced Huguenots, who waited calmly as the gendarmes thundered towards them. At a distance of perhaps 50 yards, the arquebusiers delivered a volley, the millers spurred into a disciplined charge and their tight formations crashed through the disordered gendarmes, subsequently separating to left and right roll up the bewildered Catholics. It was a smashing Huguenot victory.
Here the close-quarter sword-work (perhaps combined with a little selective pistolling) of the millers seems to have been much more effective than the disoriented lance-wielding of the gendarmes. What the outcome would have been had the millers not had their supporting arquebusiers is less easy to tell, but the gendarmes seemed confident enough to suggest that they anticipated success. Would this have been the result of experience or of wishful thinking on their part?
Patrick
Quote from: aligern on November 20, 2012, 09:18:01 AM
There's a battle, in the Barons Wars I think , where one side drops their lances and uses swords as a sign that they really mean business and intend to stay and fight rather than pass with the lance.
Roy
Lincoln, 1141. The contrast made is between jousting and real fighting. Presumably, one side intended to unseat their opponents but the other were going to kill them. Likewise, in Van Heelu's Worringen poem, one side identifies the other as coming on as if they are at a tournament - thin and wide. It seems that, if you meant business, you formed up differently.
Quote from: Mark G on November 20, 2012, 09:14:25 AM
the question of a Sabin like 'hero-leader' taking the front for knights is harder to look into, but there was a strict prohibition amongst French gendarmes about no one being allowed to get ahead of the others (for prestige reasons), was their not? and hence the en-haye (which must have been highly vulnerable to the second line of the enemy if it didn't have one of its own).
There are several medieval sources which note that advancing ahead of the standards or leaving your place in the ranks was frowned upon. Regarding en-haye, there is a nice quote, I think from Bouvines, that lines should be spread wide, as it was not right that knights used others' bodies as a shield. That said, normal formations don't seem to have been one man deep. There was a clearly a group round the leader and standard - they were protected to the front, sides and rear if the Templar rule is anything to go by. Other than this clump a formation in which the fully-armed men-at-arms were expected to front the formation and the less well armed (lesser knights, sergeants, turcopoles, varlets, coustilliers depending on when and where you might be) formed one or two ranks behind seems likely. Germans may, however, have been different as they went on in the late Middle Ages to deep formations and wedges.
I would certainly be happy to find that the 'lance' orgnaisation was in part designed to ensure that the proper knights had the front row, and the second row was the knights retainers. I have never been happy with the wargamer decision to split them out into full knights and separate men at arms on the basis of equipment alone.
The necessity of a minimum a second rank to secure the front line make the notoriously snobbbish catholic gendarmes of the FWoR insisting on a single line only more vulnerable.
Its important to remember that the impact of the charge had to be met with some counter impact - as cavalry who stand and fire always loose - but equally the Huguenots here not only fire, but also short-charge, keep an even frontage and have a depth to exploit the isolation of gendarmes passing through irregularly - and if only one rank of gendarmes, any pistol hit creates a break in the line.
the meissonier painting of French Cuirassiers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cuirassiers_1805_Meissonier_Chantilly.jpg
shows 2 ranks to a single line (those are guns in the rear), and if we could expect to see full knights in the front and then lesser armed/nobled but still viable fighting men in the second rank, I think that would make a lot of sense.
the question is, what medieval descriptions do we have of lances being re-organised on the field itself?
And can we take the examples of repeated charges as indicative of this being the normal knightly thing to do?
H+M squadrons repeatedly charging are in part because they always kept reserve squadrons to ensure there was another line ready to go as the first pulled back - this use of local reserves is not something I am sure we can demonstrate in medieval so easily.
Quote from: Mark G on November 21, 2012, 09:10:54 AM
I would certainly be happy to find that the 'lance' orgnaisation was in part designed to ensure that the proper knights had the front row, and the second row was the knights retainers. I have never been happy with the wargamer decision to split them out into full knights and separate men at arms on the basis of equipment alone.
This may vary depending on when and where. Separate bodies of sergeants, varlets and costilliers are mentioned in various times and places. I'd be tempted to see this as a tactical option, rather than the default though. For example, men-at-arms and varlets are drawn up separately at Agincourt. However, a closer look shows the French have assembled small groups of cavalry on the wings - they have more than enough men-at-arms to be selective, so the varlets are not required. The rest of the men-at-arms are in the infantry role. They don't have any need to dismount the varlets to reinforce the infantry either, so they keep them back as a mounted reserve (though what they were expected to do is lost to us). The selecting out of pure men-at-arms forces (the best men on the best horses) seems to happen often enough but whether the remaining less well equiped stayed in mixed groups is less well evidenced.
Another source, albeit in the later period, is the Burgundian ordnance of 1473, usually considered the first medieval European document to describe weapons drills. It says this about men-at-arms
the captains of the squadrons and the chambres are from time to time to take some of their men-at-arms out into the fields, sometimes partly, sometimes fully armed, to practice charging with the lance, keeping in close formation while charging, (how) to charge briskly, to defend their ensigns, to withdraw on command, and to rally, each helping the other, when so ordered, and how to withstand a charge.
It should be noted that the activities of the other members of a lance were also described but the coustillier isn't mentioned. An oversight, or because he would have been with the men-at-arms?
Note no fancy evolutions are mentioned. The emphasis seems to be on weapon skills and, above all, group action.
Bouvines might be an interesting battle to look at:
http://uk.ask.com/wiki/Battle_of_Bouvines (http://uk.ask.com/wiki/Battle_of_Bouvines)
and
http://xenophongroup.com/montjoie/bouvines.htm (http://xenophongroup.com/montjoie/bouvines.htm) (scroll down about half-way for the battle and never mind the spelling!)
Sadly the page with online original sources (historical accounts link from Wikipedia article) has links that are no longer functioning. Still, Wikipedia has a pretty picture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bataille_de_Bouvines_.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bataille_de_Bouvines_.jpg)
The battle seems overall to have been a kind of mediaeval Marengo, with fighting and success going to and fro, and many cavalry-cavalry and cavalry-infantry actions in addition to the central infantry clash. Swords, axes and lances are all used, and both King and Emperor are unhorsed and rescued. A stand by Reginald of Boulogne involved using 700 Low Countries pikemen and a small but determined force of knights which repeatedly sortied from and retired to the cover the pikes provided.
What observations can we make from this or any other suitable period battle?
Patrick
For sources on Bouvines, try here
http://web.archive.org/web/20110605003651/http://www.deremilitari.org/RESOURCES/SOURCES/bouvines.htm
Some of this was represented in the Bouvines article of our Battles series on this forum.
I personally find Bouvines a hard battle to unravel, as the actions of the various units seem almost like random motion. One thing to note is a lot of the cavalry melees bog down, with knights churning about. Men fight with swords and maces but also grapple and stab with daggers. Infantry get in under the horses and hamstring or disembowel them. This is not the fluid through and back stuff we looked at earlier.
The use of infantry to form an enclosure in which cavalry can rally is, IIRC, a tournament trick. It was more common to use the infantry as a wall, behind which cavalry could rally (although I've never worked out why the pursuers didn't just go round the edges, like the retreating knights did).
Quote from: Erpingham on November 26, 2012, 11:21:47 AM
The use of infantry to form an enclosure in which cavalry can rally is, IIRC, a tournament trick. It was more common to use the infantry as a wall, behind which cavalry could rally (although I've never worked out why the pursuers didn't just go round the edges, like the retreating knights did).
Perhaps the first cavalry to rally were put at the edges ready to hit any pursuers in the flank?
It would be the sort of standard operating procedure that everyone would know about, so no one would bother writing down, and would mean that pursuers would be suitably wary
Jim
I thought at Bouvines that
1) The infantry in question were in a circle. (didn't later Flemish use a 'crown' formation
2) The circle opened to let knights charge out.
I Imagine that knights reforming on a supporting infantry line re let through it rather than going around the edges.
They are certainly let through it going forward.
Roy
Quote from: aligern on November 26, 2012, 12:19:27 PM
I thought at Bouvines that
1) The infantry in question were in a circle. (didn't later Flemish use a 'crown' formation
2) The circle opened to let knights charge out.
Roy
Yes on all counts. However, I don't know of another European battle where this was done. Battles like Arsuf in the Crusades might be the nearest. The forming a wall thing seems to have been more common. I'm interested in the idea that the infantry let cavalry through gaps, which they opened or shut. Do we have a battle account with a description of this being done? Obviously, we don't want to get sidetracked down a line of infantry tactics (Medieval close-order infantry tactics as a break-out topic?) but this use of infantry as a stable base from which the cavalry battle can ebb and flow gets to the heart of some of Mark's questions about the fluidity of mounted combat and the withdrawal of parts of a line to regroup, while others sustained the fight.
This is from Ibn Al Athir's near contemporary description of the battle of Arsuf. It refers a bit to cavalry tactics in that it shows the planning and discipline of the Frankish knights as they mass for the charge, charge and then make repeated charges and halts, reforming to avoid being caught disordered.
I think that there have to be several groups of knights doing this and several gaps opened to drive off all three wings of Saladin's main body.
The Battle of Arsuf
The Sultan was informed that the enemy had moved out towards Arsuf. He rode out and drew up his divisions for battle, with every intention of bringing the enemy to a pitched battle that day. He sent forward a picked body of skirmishers from each division. The enemy marched on until they were close to the woods and plantations of arsuf. The skirmishers loosed their arrows against them and then the divisions pressed them close from every direction. The sultan made them engage closely, but held back some in reserve. The enemy were tightly beset and the fighting was fierce and blazed into flame from both sides. Amongst the enemy were dead and wounded and they quickened their march in the hope of reaching the site where they could camp. Their situation became serious and the noose about them tightened, whilst the sultan was moving between the left wing and the right , urging men on in the Jihad. Several times I encountered him, when he was attended y only two pages with two spare mounts and that was all. I met his brother in a similar state, while the arrows were flying past them both.
The enemy's situation worsened more and the Muslims thought they had them in their power. eventually the first detachments of their infantry reached the plantations of Arsuf. Then their cavalry massed together and agreed on a charge, as they feared for their people and thought that only a charge would save them. I saw them grouped together in the middle of the foot-soldiers. They took their lances and gave a shout as one man. The infantry opened gaps for them and they charged in unison along their whole line. One group charged our right wing, another our left and the third our centre. Our men gave way before them. It happened I was in the centre which took to wholesale flight. My intention was to join the left wing, since it was nearer to me.I reached it after it had been broken utterly, so I thought to join the right wing, but then I saw it had fled more calamitously than all the rest. I determined to join the sultan's guard which was in reserve to support all the others as was customary. I came to him, but the sultan had kept no more than seventeen fighting men there and had taken the rest into battle, but the standards were still there and the drum was beating without interruption. When the sultan saw this reverse that had befallen the Muslims, he returned to his guard and found there this scanty number.
He stood amongst them while men were fleeing on all sides, but he was commanding the drummers to beat their drums without stopping. He ordered men to rally to him, all those he saw fleeing. However, the Muslims were, in fact, in complete rout. The enemy made a charge and they fled, but then the enemy halted for fear of an ambush, so our men halted and made some resistance. Then there was a sec charge and our men fled, but fought as they fled. The enemy halted again and
Roy
Well, although there is much more that could be discussed, we seem, at least for now, to have reached a natural end to our discussion. One thing perhaps we could have looked at further were the command and control aspects of mounted men-at-arms. I've studied medieval warfare for quite a while now and I am reasonably sure that the wargamer stereotype of uncontrollable knights is a distortion. Medieval men-at-arms by and large did what they were told and went where they were led. That they could be led into some stupid places by some headstrong and vainglorious commanders is, however, not in doubt either. Experience and cohesion comes into it too. The men-at-arms of a condottiere company, or an ordnance company, got used to working together in the way that an arriere ban of local gentry did not.
If you look at the working role of the later medieval man-at-arms, he is a jack of all trades. He can deliver a cavalry charge certainly, but he can also ambush, raid, escort, scout and pursue. I think early twentieth century military historians did him a disservice by comparing him to a tank. Much more he stood in the line of later heavy cavalry. Less capable of battlefield manoeuver perhaps but, when well led, not much less controlled either.