During
the first century of Frankish presence in the Holy Land, the field army rather
than its castles had been the Frank’s greatest military asset. This was the
weapon that had enabled five crusader states to be carved out of hostile
territory and spearheaded the expansion of Frankish-controlled territory beyond
the Jordan and down to the Red Sea.
The field
army of the crusader states differed significantly and in various ways from the
contemporary feudal armies of Europe. In Western Europe, hilly and forested
terrain cut by frequent streams and cultivated valleys made the deployment of
large military forces difficult, while the fragmented nature of the political
landscape made them largely unnecessary. Furthermore, large feudal armies
composed of vassals called up for military service were notoriously unwieldy,
undisciplined and ineffective. The men in a feudal levy were essentially
farmers and farm managers (the knights), whose service could not exceed forty
days, making them worthless for sustained warfare. For such a mediocre and
temporary host, kings were usually reluctant to disrupt the economy, as
happened when a feudal host was mustered.
Instead,
Western leaders of the crusader era preferred to employ smaller, professional
forces composed of two elements: on the one hand, the personal retinue or
household of the king and his closest associates and, on the other,
mercenaries. The former was primarily knights, and the latter were sergeants or
men-at-arms and archers along with some siege specialists. Mercenaries were
notoriously expensive, inhibiting the number of such men who could be engaged
at any one time. This reinforced the overall tendency to conduct offensive
military operations with small units of mostly mounted men and to withdraw
inside stout walls when on the defensive.
Lastly,
many conflicts in Europe of this period were subnational, between magnates,
barons or local lords. Even bigger conflicts, such as that between the
Plantagenets and Capets, were usually conducted in the form of short raids or
surgical strikes directed against the enemy’s economic or strategic assets by
small troops of professional soldiers. This kind of warfare between small bands
of professionals fostered ‘an individualistic ethos which valued bravery and
comradeship within the group, rather than discipline’.[i] In
close combat, men fought one-on-one and face-to-face. These military factors
ultimately led to an important social change: the emergence of the knight as a
distinct social class, and with it, the cult of chivalry. The latter reinforced
pride in individual prowess and class-consciousness at the expense of the
infantry.
Fighting
in the Near East looked completely different. The topography of the Near East
was more open, flatter and less cultivated. At the same time, the enemies of
the Franks were centralised states with vast resources that could deploy forces
numbering in the tens of thousands. The Franks, in contrast, could rarely
deploy more than a few hundred knights at any one time and needed to develop
tactics to compensate for this numerical disadvantage.
Modern
calculations of the size of Frankish armies are based primarily on a list of
fiefs and their military obligations put together in the mid-thirteenth century
by John d’Ibelin, Count of Jaffa. It allegedly catalogued the feudal
obligations of vassals pre-Hattin and was presumably based on fragmentary
documentation and contemporary memory. While it is a remarkable document, it is
incomplete and not entirely consistent. Furthermore, in addition to the knights
owing feudal service, most lords would have had household knights who would
have mustered and fought with them. The ratio of retained knights to fief
knights varied between 1:2 and 3:2. Due to vacancies, illness, injuries and
minorities, however, it would never have been possible to field 100 per cent of
the fief knights. Altogether, the fief knights of the kingdom numbered roughly
700, and a further 300 retained knights could be postulated. In addition, the
County of Tripoli had 100 knights and Antioch another 700. However, the knights
of Antioch rarely fought with those of Jerusalem, so the maximum effective
force the Kingdom of Jerusalem could field with the support of Tripoli was
1,100 knights.
Yet,
knights were only one component of the armies of the crusader states. Yuvai
Harari has demonstrated that mounted archers, on average, made up 50 per cent
of the Frankish cavalry and sometimes as much as 80 per cent.[ii]
This combat arm, unknown in the West, was recruited primarily from the native
Christian elites, notably the Armenian and Maronite landowning class. It was
deployed, for example, for reconnaissance, to make lightning raids against
supply and relief columns of the enemy and to lend greater weight to a charge.
In
addition, some fiefs were ‘sergeantries’, and cities and monasteries often owed
sergeant service in specified numbers. Based on the list of John of Jaffa, the
total number of sergeants that could be called up was 5,025. These men were
well-trained, well-disciplined and well-equipped. Sergeants were deployed as
mounted troops and as infantry. They were not serfs, but invariably free men,
drawn from the Latin and Orthodox Christian yeomanry in rural areas and tradesmen
and craftsmen in urban areas. Arab sources testify to the fact that, like the
knights, they could withstand substantial quantities of enemy fire without
sustaining injury, much less casualties, which demonstrates they had effective
armour. They were also capable of carrying out complicated maneuvers while
under fire, including fighting while walking backwards, and opening ranks
simultaneously to permit the knights of the army to charge.
In an
emergency, the king could also issue the ‘arrière ban’, a form of ‘levee en
masse’, which drafted every able-bodied man into the army. Such troops,
like the peasants of Western feudal armies, were generally of limited military
value. Similarly, armed pilgrims, who arrived from the West in unpredictable
numbers and remained for uncertain periods, often participated in military
campaigns. They swelled the numbers but given their unfamiliarity with the
enemy’s tactics, the terrain and climate, their value would have been uneven at
best.
Naturally,
the Frankish kings could also hire mercenaries; these were often crossbowmen
from the Italian mercantile states. Yet, they could also be knights. Henry II
deposited 30,000 silver marks with both the Templars and Hospitallers to
support a future crusade, and the Templar portion was used to hire ’English
knights’. Finally, as will be discussed in more detail below, the Franks could
count on the support of the militant orders.
Altogether,
at the large, confrontational battles during the height of Jerusalem’s power,
such as Le Forbelet and Hattin, the Franks fielded an estimated 3,000 cavalry
and 15,000 infantry. However, in most engagements, from the early battles at
Ramla to Montgisard, the numbers of knights involved were closer to 300, 400
and 500. Almost always, the Saracens outnumbered the Franks by two or three —
and sometimes ten — to one.
Survival
as the outnumbered force required sophisticated tactics. Rather than fighting
as they had in the West, the Franks adopted two tactical innovations that
contributed to their success: the fighting box and mounted archers. The
fighting box was a formation in which the most vulnerable components of an army
(baggage train, sick and wounded) were placed in the centre, surrounded by
mounted knights, who were in turn surrounded by infantry with shields, pikes
and bows. All of whom was protected by a screen of mounted archers. The main
advantage of the fighting box was that it could defend stationary positions or
move as a square across long distances in either advance or retreat. In a retreat,
the Franks would take the dead, giving the enemy the impression there were no
casualties at all. When holding firm positions, fighting strength could be
maintained by rotating the front-line units, giving men a chance to rest and
quench their thirst. There are also examples of fighting boxes being used to
evacuate civilians from vulnerable territory.
However,
the fighting box was not exclusively a defensive tactic. It was also the
platform from which the Franks launched their greatest offensive weapon. The
primary purpose of the fighting box was to protect the knights’ horses from
attrition and thus enable them to be used in a cavalry charge at the
appropriate time. When the commander judged that a charge could be effective,
the infantry opened gaps through which the cavalry charged the enemy.
A charge
of Frankish cavalry could destroy the enemy — but only if it was well-timed,
well-led and coordinated. Given the enemy’s numerical advantage, small charges
were worthless and a dangerous waste of precious resources. Only a massive
charge had a chance of unbalancing, shattering or scattering the enemy.
Critically, like a modern missile, a charge could only be used once. Once
released, the knights became embroiled in close combat, dispersed, cut off from
command structures and practically uncontrollable.
The salient feature of this tactic is that it
required discipline from all participants. Marching and fighting simultaneously
are not easy. To be effective, the fighting box had to work as a single unit.
Gaps between the ranks had to be prevented and progress maintained without
tiring the infantry. It was important for the infantry to keep their shields
locked together — more like a Spartan phalanx than anything common in medieval
Europe. The fact that armies of the crusader states repeatedly used the
fighting box throughout their history testifies to the remarkable discipline of
these armies. The tactic both contributed to and reflected respect for infantry
and the burgesses that comprised it. However, when the discipline necessary for
effective use of this tactic broke down due to poor leadership, the result was
utter obliteration — as at the Battle of Hattin.
The other
key Frankish innovation was the deployment of mounted archers, something
completely unknown in Europe at the time. The crusaders encountered the superb
horse-archers of the Turks as soon as they crossed into Asia, and they not only
learned to respect them, they imitated them. Neither heavy cavalry nor infantry
was suited to conducting reconnaissance, carrying out hit-and-run raids,
providing a protective screen for their ‘fighting box’ or carrying urgent
messages. Frankish horses, bred to carry fully-armoured knights, could not —
one on one — escape the faster, lighter horses of the Turks. Heavy cavalry
deployed on reconnaissance was more likely to be ambushed and eliminated than
return with the intelligence needed. Light cavalry was also more effective in
hit-and-run raids against enemy camps or territory because the faster, native
horses carrying lightly-armoured riders armed with bows were more likely to
surprise the enemy — and escape again; they were also more likely to succeed as
couriers. Lastly, light cavalry wearing similar armour and weapons as the enemy
with a fluent/native command of Arabic was invaluable for intelligence
gathering.
The first
references in the primary sources to Frankish mounted archers date from 1109.
From that point forward, they played an increasingly prominent role in the
Frankish military, in some cases operating independently, and in other cases in
support of the infantry and heavy cavalry. Frankish mounted archers were
misleadingly but consistently referred to as ‘turcopoles’ in the primary
sources of the period. This designation has led to confusion and a common
misconception that they were Muslim troops, Muslim converts or the children of
mixed marriages. In his lengthy analysis of Frankish turcopoles, Yuval Harari
demonstrates that all three assumptions are false. In the Frankish context, the
term ‘turcopole’ simply designated a military arm — mounted archers — without
any ethnic connotations. Most turcopoles were native (Orthodox) Christians.
This explains why they performed poorly in early engagements before the native
Christian elites had developed the necessary skills after centuries of
‘dhimmitude’, but performed highly effectively after several decades of
Frankish rule enabled them to develop the required cavalry and archery skills.
Although primarily deployed in light cavalry
functions, turcopoles had two additional functions when accompanying the
Frankish army on campaign. During the march/deployment, Frankish armies were
almost always harassed by Turkish mounted archers that concentrated on the van
and the rear in an attempt to (1) bring the column to a halt, (2) force the
rearguard to slow down until a gap developed for exploitation, or (3) provoke
an ill-timed charge that could be destroyed. Frankish turcopoles could
neutralise Saracen archers by acting as a screen around the fighting box,
forcing the Saracens out of bow-shot range. Finally, in a set-piece battle, the
turcopoles were folded into the heavy cavalry and provided additional weight
and numbers to the charge.
[i]
John France, ‘Warfare in the Mediterranean Region in the Age of the Crusades,
1095-1291: A Clash of Contrasts’ in The Crusades and the Near East: Cultural
Histories, ed. Conor Kostick (London: Routledge, 2011), 72.
[ii]
Yuval Harari, ‘The Military Role of the Frankish Turcopole: A Reassessment’, in
Mediterranean Historical Review (London: Routledge, 1997), 79. See also:
Steve Tibble, The Crusader Armies (New Haven: Yale University Press,
2018), 117-124.
The bulk of this entry is an excerpt from Dr. Schrader's comprehensive study of the crusader states.
Dr.
Helena P. Schrader is also the author of six books set in the Holy Land
in the Era of the Crusades.
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