(Continued from February issue.)
An excellent picture of the times is contained in contemporary reports of the siege of Jerusalem in 1099 by eye-witnesses and participants in the event. A number of these reports are contained in the above-mentioned work of Duncalf and Kreg, from which the following extracts are taken.
Firebrands were hurled into the city. They consisted of burning wood and straw.
“The wood was dipped in pitch, wax, and sulphur, then straw and tow were fastened on by an iron band, and when lighted these firebrands were shot from the machines, all bound together by an iron band, I say, so that, wherever they fell the whole mass held together and continued to burn.“ (Raymond of Agiles. Canon of Puy. “History of the Franks who captured Jerusalem”—written about 1112.)
This writer follows on with a description of the incidents after the capture of the town.
“But now that our men had possession of the walls and towers, wonderful sights were to be seen. Some of our men (and this was more merciful) cut off the heads of their enemies ; others shot them with arrows, so that they fell from the towers; others tortured them longer by casting them into the flames. Piles of heads, hands and feet were to be seen in the streets of the city. It was necessary to pick one’s way over the bodies of men and horses. But these were small matters compared to what happened at the temple of Solomon, a place where religious services are ordinarily chanted. What happened there ? If I tell you the truth, it will exceed your powers of belief. So let it suffice to say this much at least, that in the temple and portico of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins. Indeed it was a just and splendid judgment of God, that this place should be filled with the blood of unbelievers, when it had suffered so long from their blasphemies. The city was filled with corpses and blood.”
Another writer states : —
“Neither woman or children were spared;”
and adds:—
“Our squires and poorer footmen discovered a trick of the Saracens, for they learned that they could find byzants [gold coins] in the stomachs and intestines of the dead Saracens, who had swallowed them. Thus, after several days they burned a great heap of dead bodies, that they might more easily get the precious metal from the ashes.” (Fulk of Chartres, “The Deeds of the Franks who attacked Jerusalem.”)
Another contemporary author says : —
“Afterwards, the army scattered throughout the city and took possession of the gold and silver, the horses and mules, and the houses full of loot for all.” (“Deeds of the Franks and Crusaders,” by an anonymous author.)
Curious how little war has changed, in its fundamental aspect, across the ages.
Towards the end of the Middle Ages, after the introduction of gunpowder to Europe in 1320, cannon replaced the former feeble siege weapons in the attacks on strongholds. Primitive though they were, they yet hurled missiles heavy enough and forcefully enough to batter breaches in the walls of the most powerful fortifications. From that time dates the decline of the impregnability of the mediaeval castle. The capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 was due to the use of artillery. The Turks changed over to artillery long before Europe. They used arquebuses and field-pieces—the latter joined together by chains to prevent horsemen charging between them.
As the big barons swallowed little ones the internal wars began to come to an end. Military protection being no longer needed by the town and country people, the baron was transformed into a courtier. When gunpowder had revolutionised mediaeval warfare, the power of the baron declined still further. The equipment and maintenance of a company of artillery was so expensive that it became the monopoly of the wealthier princes, and the power of the latter consequently grew as the barons declined.
Gunpowder finally brought back into war the mass of the people as a fighting power when the infantrymen, with gun and cannon, ousted the armoured cavalrymen as the supreme striking force and cut the ground from under the privileged aristocracy of Feudalism.
Thus, gunpowder helped to destroy the mediaeval lord, raise the bourgeoisie (the monied class, as such) and established for a time the power of kings. We have now reached the end of one form of social organisation and the beginning of another— the end of the mediaeval world and the beginning of the modern or capitalist period.
Before continuing the discussion of the development of the implements of war we would like to direct attention to some points that are worth bearing in mind.
Imperialism and the building up of empires commenced with the introduction of slavery as a general feature of communities. All the great antique civilisations were based upon chattel slavery, which freed fighting men for the pursuit of loot—in fact, built up masses of wealth worth looting. In the period of tribal communism, which preceded the introduction of slavery, there were no empires. Even the largest aggregations of settled tribal peoples, such as the confederation of Iroquois tribes occupying what is now the State of New York, exhibited no empire-building traits.
Another interesting fact is that empires grew cut of small city states like Babylon, Athens and Rome, or were established by war chiefs like Mahomet, Genghis Khan and Tamerlaine. In each case, behind the apparently accidental growth of a mushroom empire there was productive development of a high order. This is shown in the invention and workmanship of the offensive and defensive armour. The mail-clad Arabians and the gunpowder-using warriors of Genghis Khan are evidence of this.
When the economic development within a group reached the point of enabling them to produce a supreme weapon or method of warfare it started them on the road to conquest. If other conditions are favourable, such as the position of Rome on crossing trade routes, then the bid for empire is likely to be successful.
Some of the empires of the past were of huge extent, even judging by present-day standards. The Tartar Empire of Genghis Khan, in the 13th century, was one of the largest ever built up, comprising a vast area of Russia, China and Central Asia—half of the known world of the time. After the oft-repeated legends of the barbarous Mongol hordes it is refreshing to read the following recent description of the effect of the Tartar conquest: —
“The blood feuds of the grand princes of ancient Russia—lords of Iwer and Vladimir and Sasdol were buried under a greater calamity. All these figures of an elder world appear to us only as shadows. Empires crumbled under the Mongol avalanche, and monarchs fled to their deaths in wild fear. What would have happened if Genghis Khan had not lived, we do not know.What did happen was that the Mongol, like the Roman peace, enabled culture to spring up anew. Nations had been shuffled to and fro—or rather the remnants of them—Mohammedan science and skill carried bodily into the Far East, Chinese inventiveness and administrative ability had penetrated into the West. In the devastated gardens of Islam, scholars and architects enjoyed, if not a golden age, a silver age under the Mongol ll-khana; and the thirteenth century was notable in China for its literature, especially plays, and its magnificence—the century of the Yuan”.—(Pages 200 and 207. “Genghis Khan, Emperor of All Men,” by Harold Lamb.)
Apparently neither Chinese nor Mongols knew how to cast cannon, but they were well-acquainted with the detonating effect of gunpowder and used it in fire-projectors to burn or frighten the enemy.
A Chinese annalist at the Siege of Kaifong, in 1232, records the following: —
“As the Mongols had dug themselves pits under the earth where they were sheltered from missiles, we decided to bind with iron the machines called chin-tien-lei (a kind of fire-projector) and lowered them into the places where the Mongol sappers were ; they exploded and blew into pieces men and shields” (quoted by Lamb, page 224).
Now to get back to the development of gunpowder-using weapons.
We will first examine the evolution of small-arms, leaving until later the evolution of cannon, which were first used in ships.
The principal steps in the development of firearms concerned the method of igniting the charge. The progression was: Primer and match, matchlock, wheel-lock, flint-lock, percussion cap.
Early in the 15th century a hand cannon came into use. It was probably the first form of hand firearms and consisted of a small cannon fixed to a wooden stock, and it was fired by applying a match to some fine powder that had been poured on the touch-hole. These hand-guns required two men to handle, one levelling the gun while the other applied the priming and the match. The loading, levelling and fixing, however, took such a long time that in their early use they rarely fired more than one shot during a battle. In spite of this their effect upon enemy troops was considerable. They were used successfully by the Swiss in 1476 at the battle of Morat, at which were employed 6,000 of these hand-guns or culverins. Their most successful use at the time, however, was by cavalry, to which they were soon adapted. In practice, one group of cavalry fired a volley and then made way for another group to do the same, while they reloaded, thus keeping up a constant fire.
Early in the 16th century the Spaniards invented the arquebus, or match-lock. Its great feature was a lighted match held in a serpentin or hammer in such a position that when the trigger was pulled the serpentin dropped into the flashpan and the match ignited the priming powder. This speeded up the firing.
The match-lock was troublesome in wet weather and when a method of covering the match was devised it was necessary to blow it into flame before firing or it might not ignite the charge.
The next step was the invention of the wheel-lock in Germany in the 16th century. In this a flint was placed in the serpentin, which dropped to the flash pan when the trigger was pulled. The edge of a wheel, rotating at the side of the stocks after the style of a ratchet, came in contact with the flint and produced sparks that ignited the priming.
The wheel-lock was intricate and very expensive to use, consequently it did not come into general use, being employed mainly by the wealthy for sporting purposes.
Early in the 16th century the flint-lock was invented by the Spaniards. This gun was in use for over a century. In it the cover plate of the flashpan was knocked back by a blow from the flint that was screwed into the cock or hammer, and the resulting sparks ignited the priming powder.
In 1807 the Rev. M. Forsythe patented the percussion principle of igniting gunpowder in muskets by means of detonating powder, and percussion caps came into use between 1820 and 1830.
This brief description will give some idea of the steps in the development of small firearms. After their introduction the best workmanship and much ingenuity was employed in producing very fine specimens, both for quality and for ornamentation. Some of the guns were very richly embellished. It was not until the introduction of the rifled barrel that the accuracy of these guns could be depended upon in spite of intricate sighting arrangements.
We will have to leave for the next article a consideration of the effect these different inventions had on the conduct of warfare.
Gilmac.
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