| Author |
Message |
|
Russ Ellis
Industry Professional
|
 Posted: Wed 21 Dec, 2005 8:06 am Post subject: The East vs West |
 |
|
Hey Ruel, here is a new topic so we don't hijack the other (any more then we already have.)
Okay it would appear that there is an East/West divide which starts at approximately the Eastern Shore of the Mediterranean, although of course there is always some cross pollination between cultures. The further East you go the more different the weapons become stylistically from their Western counterparts. Or at least that's the way it appears to me. You seem to feel differently.... why?
As far as weapon design and innovation, I'd be the first to say I have little knowledge about how Eastern weapons changed over time, but it seems that they did not have the same amount of change as in the West. For example despite its invention in the East gunpowder does not seem to have revolutionized warfare there as it did in the West. Why is that?
TRITONWORKS Custom Scabbards
|
|
  |
 |
|
Wolfgang Armbruster
|
| Posted: Wed 21 Dec, 2005 9:26 am Post subject: |
|
|
Thx for making a new thread 
Ok, let me pour some oil into the fire 
The question that interests me the most is why there were (to uneducated western eyes at least) no stylistic changes in weapon designs and art in general. There are no drastic stylistic design changes like in Europe, like the differences between High Gothic, early Reneaissance, Baroque and so on.
I'm quite sure there were stylistic changes, but to me they are invisible.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ruel A. Macaraeg
|
| Posted: Wed 21 Dec, 2005 9:35 am Post subject: |
|
|
Hi Russ, thanks for getting this started.
| Quote: | | The further East you go the more different the weapons become stylistically from their Western counterparts. Or at least that's the way it appears to me. You seem to feel differently.... why? |
I think you captured it right there: The differences represent a cline -- a continuous accumulation of changes in a geographical direction -- rather than an absolute demarcation. Any line we would draw to divide this continuum is arbitrary, and while it's sometimes useful to do so it requires heavy qualification that's rarely done in practice.
Let's take an example we've already discussed on a myArmoury thread, the East Europe/"Islamic" front in the late Medieval and Early Modern Periods. In terms of form and design, the weapons of the former (eg. Poles, Hungarians, Russians) are identical to those of the latter (eg. Ottomans, Persians). In fact, much of the terminology consists of near perfect cognates, showing that the people themselves understood the affinity they shared regarding armament.
Now, in terms of other aspects of warfare -- like ideology or political organization -- it may be useful to posit an EE/"Islamic" divide. Yet for the study of arms and armor, such a distinction is clearly not helpful and should be abandoned. I would even say that it would be counterproductive, as it would make people think Russians of 16thc. Muscovy, for example, were militarily "European" in the sense that Tudor England or Valois France were when in fact they were really "Oriental" in the Turkish or Persian sense.
That's really what I hope we can start doing -- treating the study of arms and armor as an autonomous field that doesn't rely on the categories developed to study other fields, even other fields of military history. They just don't agree with the data we have for arms and armor specifically, and therefore we need to develop our own categories that do agree with our observations.
| Quote: | | As far as weapon design and innovation, I'd be the first to say I have little knowledge about how Eastern weapons changed over time, but it seems that they did not have the same amount of change as in the West. |
Here's what I've noticed about several of the popular "reference" books on arms and armor, like Bull's, Weland's, or Swords and Hilt Weapons. Most of the book will describe by chapters a chronological evolution from the Greeks and Romans through the Nineteenth Century for the West, then in no more than a few chapters skim over the rest of the world.
The impression left is that in the West diversity in weapons occurred diachronically in logical progression, while in the "East" (or Africa, the Pacific, or the Americas) diversity in weapons occurred synchronically in random distribution. That is, the West responded to evolving changing conditions with inspired innovation while everyone else indulged in amassing a wide array of exotic shapes and styles that didn't really help them move forward militarily.
I believe this impression was created by sampling bias -- the time and manner in which non-Western weapons were collected and subsequently studied by our so-called "experts." Remove this bias -- compare our sampling of museum and private collections against the evidence of period artistic and documentary sources -- and the appearance of a stagnant and irrational tradition in Eastern arms is largely overturned.
| Quote: | | For example despite its invention in the East gunpowder does not seem to have revolutionized warfare there as it did in the West. Why is that? |
The following comments are based on Jos Gomman's excellent book Mughal Warfare 1500-1700 which I just read, and which addresses this question in the Indian context. India (Bengal in particular) produced raw ingredients for the best gunpowder at the time, and in fact is why the British set up there in the first place. Yet why didn't the Mughals exploit this resource to equip their own formidable army?
Gommans describes what he terms a military labour market system that prevailed in India and analogously throughout much of Asia. Asia's greatest empires of the time -- the Mughals, Qing China, Persia, the Uzbek Khanate and the Ottoman Turks -- all included some portion of the Eurasian steppe, from which the most effective warriors (horse archers) came. Therefore, all of these empires had to recruit from the steppe in order to maintain effective standing armies because their mobility trumped any tactical advantages enjoyed by sedentary forces. Yet because the nature of early guns made them less effective than archery on horseback, there was no encouragement to stimulate R&D in gunpowder weapons like there was in Western Europe, where there were no steppe armies and gunnery could be put to great use in drilled infantry. It should be kept in mind too that until the late 1800s European guns were only superior in rate of fire to Eastern guns; as late as the Khyber Pass (1841) Afghan jezail matchlocks had better range and accuracy than British muskets.
Even an examination of other Asian guns shows this important difference. European traders noted that places like Ceylon, Siam, Japan, and Vietnam had excellent firearms and ordnance; all of these armies were distant from the steppe and did not include horse archer contingents.
Edited to include:
| Quote: | The question that interests me the most is why there were (to uneducated western eyes at least) no stylistic changes in weapon designs and art in general. There are no drastic stylistic design changes like in Europe, like the differences between High Gothic, early Reneaissance, Baroque and so on.
I'm quite sure there were stylistic changes, but to me they are invisible. |
Hi Wolfgang,
They are there -- it's just that the sampling bias I spoke of above masks those changes. Look at the data from artistic and documentary sources, and those stylistic changes will become immediately apparent. Here's a draft of something I wrote to start you off:
http://weaponspage.homestead.com/talwarspeculations.html
Last edited by Ruel A. Macaraeg on Wed 21 Dec, 2005 9:50 am; edited 1 time in total
|
|
  |
|
Hisham Gaballa
|
| Posted: Wed 21 Dec, 2005 9:38 am Post subject: Re: The East vs West |
|
|
| Russ Ellis wrote: | Hey Ruel, here is a new topic so we don't hijack the other (any more then we already have.)
Okay it would appear that there is an East/West divide which starts at approximately the Eastern Shore of the Mediterranean, although of course there is always some cross pollination between cultures. The further East you go the more different the weapons become stylistically from their Western counterparts. Or at least that's the way it appears to me. You seem to feel differently.... why?
As far as weapon design and innovation, I'd be the first to say I have little knowledge about how Eastern weapons changed over time, but it seems that they did not have the same amount of change as in the West. For example despite its invention in the East gunpowder does not seem to have revolutionized warfare there as it did in the West. Why is that? |
Big topic, deserving of a long post in response. However my tea is nearly ready so I'll have to go. I'll make some brief comments now which I'll expand on later. in terms of Geographical location the "East" also includes some Christian European countries: the weapons and armour used in Russia, Georgia and parts of Poland and Hungary have more in common with Turkey, Iran, Mamluk Egypt and Mughul India than with western Europe.
I also feel than the Near East (AKA the "Middle-East" i.e. Egypt, Greater Syria, Asia Minor and Iraq) had a lot in common with western Europe up until the late 11th Century. The Seljuq Turkish invasion of the Near-East in the 11th century lead to the introduction of large scale horse-archery tactics which revolutionised warfare in that region. However the Arabs and Kurds seem to have retained traditional methods of warfare, i.e. the armoured horse-aman fighting with lance, sword and mace until the late 12th century. When you read the Memoirs of Usamah Ibn Munqidh (Usamah was himself an Arab from an Arab principality) you get the impression that the appearence of him and his companions would have differed little from that of a Norman knight.
On the subject of gunpowder it did dramatically change Ottoman tactics, but that's a long story...
My wife's calling, gotta go.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ruel A. Macaraeg
|
| Posted: Wed 21 Dec, 2005 10:04 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | | Big topic, deserving of a long post in response. |
Yes, but on the other and one that can be conveniently summarized with reference to only a few important points:
1. Our sources of information -- ie. the "experts" and "references" that created our impression of a stagnant and categorically different East -- are inherently biased in their sampling methods and content organization; remove that bias and we remove our false impression.
2. Broad impressions of this nature should always be compared against contemporary historical evidence for corroboration. In this case, because the impression of a stagnant tradition of Eastern arms doesn't match the historical record, it should be abandoned.
3. Categories like East vs. West are arbitrary constructs that must be qualified and field-specific. Often, they cannot be viably imported from one field of study to another and still work; that is why the East-West construct doesn't work in the field of arms and armor and should be abandoned as well.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Felix Wang
|
| Posted: Wed 21 Dec, 2005 10:09 am Post subject: |
|
|
As I understand it, the Mamluks did not aggressively accquire gunpowder technology, which may have had a role in their conquest by the Ottoman Turks. My guess is that the social structure of Mamluk armies retarded the tendency to adopt the new weapons; and (as has been alread noted) the relative lack of continuous local warfare among roughly equal peers didn't exist. In that vein, the fragmented poltitcal situation in Europe may have driven military adavnces forwards, both in technology and in drill and training to utilize the new weapons to maximum advantage.
The presence of steppe warriors in many Asian armies may have also slowed adption of firearms. The horse archer was a very effective warrior, and could be moved rapidly over large empires. He wasn't well suited for the early firearms, however. The infantry, who could have benefitted from new weapons, were of less importance in many Asian armies, and were much slower moving. The first European conquest of a steppe realm was the fall of the Kazan khanate, as I recall, to Ivan the terrible; and of course his army was strongly influenced by the steppe warrior tradition.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ruel A. Macaraeg
|
| Posted: Wed 21 Dec, 2005 10:18 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | | The first European conquest of a steppe realm was the fall of the Kazan khanate, as I recall, to Ivan the terrible; and of course his army was strongly influenced by the steppe warrior tradition. |
By that time Kazan was already a fortified city, and the Muscovites conquered it by siege. But yes, at the time the Muscovites were still very much more "Oriental" than European, even as Kazan was becoming less steppe-like.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Nick K.
|
| Posted: Wed 21 Dec, 2005 10:52 pm Post subject: Re: The East vs West |
|
|
| Ruel A. Macaraeg wrote: |
The following comments are based on Jos Gomman's excellent book Mughal Warfare 1500-1700 |
It is a very good book - I'm rather pleased to find some else who has read it .
| Quote: | | Yet because the nature of early guns made them less effective than archery on horseback, there was no encouragement to stimulate R&D in gunpowder weapons like there was in Western Europe, where there were no steppe armies and gunnery could be put to great use in drilled infantry. |
I think your summation in general is pretty good, except the above sentence gives the impression that there was no drive to improve gunpowder weapons at all. I understand that you are referring to no pressure to develop them in a western style, as your below sentence makes clear...
| Quote: | | It should be kept in mind too that until the late 1800s European guns were only superior in rate of fire to Eastern guns; as late as the Khyber Pass (1841) Afghan jezail matchlocks had better range and accuracy than British muskets. |
...but I just thought it worth emphasizing that Mughal musketry and artillery was of very high quality and indeed key to their early success - they just emphasized different applications ( range and accuracy over rapid massed fire ). As Gomman notes the problems of poor quality powder appears to have been to some extent reduced in muskets by the style of breechloading mechanism used in India.
| Hisham Gaballa wrote: | | The Seljuq Turkish invasion of the Near-East in the 11th century lead to the introduction of large scale horse-archery tactics which revolutionised warfare in that region. |
Minor nitpick, but I would place that introduction earlier, beginning with the larger-scale introduction of such troops under al-Mu'tasim ( 833-842 ) in particular as elite mercenaries and/or mamluks. By 865-870 they probably formed as force of ~10,000-15,000 in the central Samarra garrison and were the most effective arm of the Caliphal army.
The above derived from The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State by Hugh Kennedy ( 2001, Routledge ).
- Nick
|
|
|
|
|
|
Russ Ellis
Industry Professional
|
| Posted: Wed 21 Dec, 2005 11:03 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Hmm I see the point about weapons stylistically being a "continuum" rather then something clearly delineated. However one almost wonders if that demarcation can be made at the German frontier n the North and the Italian one on the South. Oriental influences in weaponry seem to have stopped somewhere along those line. Most elements that we think of as being stylistically Eastern cannot be found to any large degree in either place so far as I know? They seem to peter out in the Balkans and perhaps in what is now the Baltic republics.
As for the explanation about the use of gunpowder, I find that rather enlightening as to why but in the context of the larger question doesn't it make an arguement that the East was stagnant because of the utility of the horse archer?
TRITONWORKS Custom Scabbards
|
|
|
|
|
Hisham Gaballa
|
| Posted: Thu 22 Dec, 2005 4:18 am Post subject: Re: The East vs West |
|
|
| Felix Wang wrote: | As I understand it, the Mamluks did not aggressively accquire gunpowder technology, which may have had a role in their conquest by the Ottoman Turks. My guess is that the social structure of Mamluk armies retarded the tendency to adopt the new weapons; and (as has been alread noted) the relative lack of continuous local warfare among roughly equal peers didn't exist. In that vein, the fragmented poltitcal situation in Europe may have driven military adavnces forwards, both in technology and in drill and training to utilize the new weapons to maximum advantage.
The presence of steppe warriors in many Asian armies may have also slowed adption of firearms. The horse archer was a very effective warrior, and could be moved rapidly over large empires. He wasn't well suited for the early firearms, however. The infantry, who could have benefitted from new weapons, were of less importance in many Asian armies, and were much slower moving. The first European conquest of a steppe realm was the fall of the Kazan khanate, as I recall, to Ivan the terrible; and of course his army was strongly influenced by the steppe warrior tradition. |
If you can find David Ayalon's "Gunpowder and Firearms in the Mamluk Kingdom", it gives an excellent account of the mamluks' attittude towards firearms.
The mamluks fought as armoursed horse-archers, wearing their enemy down with horse-archery tactics, then once the enemy was sufficiently weakened they would close in and fight with lance, sword and mace.
In addition though the mamluks were also a ruling elite, they were jealous of their position and ruthlessly eliminated any possible threat to it. They had no problem with siege artillary as this had always been used in Mamluk armies. All that happened was that cannons replaced trebuchets. The mamluks did have a problem with hand-held firearms and battlefield artillary, as this would have taken away their priveliged position on the battlefields. Mamluk Sultans were never absolute enough to impose firearms the way Ottoman sultans were. They relied on the support of the mamluks, try to change things would just result in their support base being alienated.
Sultan Muhammad Ibn Qaitabay did try to create a unit of Arquebusiers recruited from Nubian slaves in 1496. There was tremendous hostility from the mamluks, who eventually mutinied and massacred the Nubians. Sultan Muhammad was himself assassinated less than 2 years later. What it came down to was jealousy, the mamluks saw that their privileged position as the elite warrior was being usurped by footsoldiers, who worse still were African slaves (at that time considered th lowest-of-the low, right alongside native Egyptian peasants). For them it was an intolerable situation. Non of the sultans who succeeded Muhammad tried to reintroduce firearms, except for sultan Tumanbay who reintroduced arquebuses and battle-field cannon in 1516, by then it was much too late, the Ottomans were already on the doorstep.
| Nick K. wrote: |
| Hisham Gaballa wrote: | | The Seljuq Turkish invasion of the Near-East in the 11th century lead to the introduction of large scale horse-archery tactics which revolutionised warfare in that region. |
Minor nitpick, but I would place that introduction earlier, beginning with the larger-scale introduction of such troops under al-Mu'tasim ( 833-842 ) in particular as elite mercenaries and/or mamluks. By 865-870 they probably formed as force of ~10,000-15,000 in the central Samarra garrison and were the most effective arm of the Caliphal army.
The above derived from The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State by Hugh Kennedy ( 2001, Routledge ).
- Nick |
The use of horse-archers by the Abbassids was still small scale compared to huge armies of horse-archers used by the Seljuqs and their successors. The Abassids also used horse-archers alongside traditional troops such as heavy cavalry and heavy infantry. With Seljuq and post-Seljuq armies horse-archer were the most important type of Warrior.
Furthermore although the Abbassids started to use horse-archers, the Fatimids didn't. they depended mainly on Nubian infantry spearmen, Armenian archers and Arab heavy cavalry. They only used very small numbers of Turkish horse-archers and their role was minor in Fatimid tactics.
Going back to original post, there was change in Islamic/Eastern European armies, although the rate of change was slow and varied from place to place. Early Islamic armies for example would have been similar to Eastern Roman armies, relying mainly on infantry armed with spears and large oval shields, with a smaller number of heavy cavalry wearing mail shirts and armed with lances and straight double-edged swords. The difference with Arab/early Islamic armies was their mobility. All the infantry had camels, meaning that Arab armies could move very quickly and could literally appear out of nowhere (i.e. the desert).
We've not had any pictures so far, time to change that. My apologies to those of you who have seen these already. The pics are from Unsal Yucel's "Islamic Swords and Swordsmiths":
First some early Islamic swords:
The big change here would be the gradual adoption of curved single-edged sabres from the 11th century onwards. Of course the sabres themselves changed over time and varied from region to region with regrads to the shape of the hilt and the presence or absence of a "false edge".
Last edited by Hisham Gaballa on Sat 24 Dec, 2005 2:48 am; edited 1 time in total
|
|
|
|
|
|
Christopher Citty
Location: Florida USA Joined: 20 Dec 2005
Posts: 7
|
| Posted: Fri 23 Dec, 2005 11:02 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I'd say for the most part the variety you find in weaponry tends more to reside in the eastern lands.
Look at european sword development through the ages. Swords were generally straight and primarily double-edged except for afew examples, and eventually you have eastern contact, nomads, etc.., introducing the curved blades, which brings the saber and related bladed weapons into the mix. I'll say that the one major european "departure" from the norm that can't directly claim an outside influence is the rapier. Sad really.
Whereas in the east you find many curved weapons, and fewer straight blades. It's like the yin/yang.
It really isn't a fair comparison in any form, due to the fact that the cultures didn't really have contact during their formative weapon design eras. The europeans didn't choose straight blades after meeting smiths that taught them the benefits of curved blades. The Japanese didn't decide to produce katana after being harassed by 100 merchants and craftsmen with blade designs from across the world.
All in all, you'll find almost every local weapon design without outside influence will likely be based on necessity or common usage. I'm sure if they felt they needed something different, it would have been forged that way.
As a bladesmith myself, I can say functionality is of utmost value in a weapon, especially a "working" weapon.
So with artistic interests aside, I'm sure every culture chose their respective weapons based on tangible needs.
Interesting debate, though.
|
|
   |
|
|
Michael Moss
Location: Barcelona Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 18
|
| Posted: Sun 25 Dec, 2005 9:13 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Christopher Citty wrote: | | I'll say that the one major european "departure" from the norm that can't directly claim an outside influence is the rapier. Sad really. |
Is that scorn I smell, good sir?
La Garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ruel A. Macaraeg
|
| Posted: Mon 02 Jan, 2006 11:33 am Post subject: |
|
|
My profound apologies to all for disappearing -- I was gone for the holidays...
Nick:
I'm glad too that I'm not the only one to have read Gommans. Thanks for clarifying the Mughal gunpowder situation; you have a much better grasp of it than I do. 
Russ: | Quote: |
However one almost wonders if that demarcation can be made at the German frontier n the North and the Italian one on the South. Oriental influences in weaponry seem to have stopped somewhere along those line. Most elements that we think of as being stylistically Eastern cannot be found to any large degree in either place so far as I know? They seem to peter out in the Balkans and perhaps in what is now the Baltic republics. |
Again, I would say that such a demarcation is arbitrary. It's a bit circular: There's an East-West line because we recognize stylistic differences, but we recognize stylistic differences because we make East-West associations. If we simply discard the idea of Eastern and Western categories and just look at the actual data itself -- rather than categories imported from other fields of study -- I believe we'll come to the realization that when it comes to arms and armor, any East/West divide is illusory.
| Quote: | | As for the explanation about the use of gunpowder, I find that rather enlightening as to why but in the context of the larger question doesn't it make an arguement that the East was stagnant because of the utility of the horse archer? |
I wouldn't think so, any more than it makes an argument that the "West "was stagnant because it didn't develop the kind of effective horse archer that the "East" did.
And speaking of the larger question, we should also point out that stability should not be automatically thought of as stagnation. This is very similar to a debate in evolutionary biology: Increasingly, biologists are coming to believe that change does not occur as the incremental accumulation of gradual "improvements" but rather as punctuated equilibria -- long periods of highly effective stability occasionally disrupted by catastrophic events that quickly work back towards new levels of stability. And besides, in the case of Mughal India we're talking about, horse archery and gunpowder may have been rather slow-changing but other things were changing very rapidly -- sword and dagger forms, armor, tactics and logistics, fortifications, etc.etc.
Christopher: | Quote: | | Whereas in the east you find many curved weapons, and fewer straight blades. It's like the yin/yang. |
I don't think this is borne out at all by the historical evidence. But please cite sources if you can support this position; it would be informative to compare your observations with my own.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
|
All contents © Copyright 2003-2024 myArmoury.com — All rights reserved
Discussion forums powered by phpBB © The phpBB Group
Switch to the Basic Low-bandwidth Version of the forum
|
This is a standard topic