by William Weir
The Longbow
There has probably been more nonsense written about the English longbow than any other weapon, with the possible exception of the Kentucky rifle.
First, the longbow had more range than the Genoese expected, based on their rather limited experience with other bows, but it did not outrange the crossbows. The Genoese did not open fire at extreme range, but at a range at which they could easily sight their crossbows. A crossbow, like a rifle or a longbow, gets maximum range when elevated about 43 degrees. Because of the way it is made, it’s easier to aim a longbow at that elevation than it is to aim a crossbow.
Around the turn of the last century, Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, using restored medieval crossbows, was able to shoot arrows up to 450 yards. A few years later, Dr. Saxton T. Pope, an expert archer and bowyer, used a replica of an English longbow to shoot 250 yards.
Second, the power of the longbow did not depend entirely on its length. The power of any bow depends on three things: (1) how much strength it takes to draw it, (2) how quickly it springs back to its original shape, and (3) over what distance the bow string is pushing the arrow. The old English war arrow was 28 inches long. To draw an arrow of that length to its fullest, the bow also had to be long. An old archers’ adage holds that “A bow full drawn is 9/10 broke.” A half round yew bow, with sapwood on the back and heartwood on the belly, had to be about 5 1/2 feet long to draw a standard arrow without breaking if its draw weight was 70 or 80 pounds.
Third, the longbow did not have a draw weight of 150 or 200 pounds and require a lifetime of training to use it. Dr. Pope made an exact replica of a longbow stave recovered from the wreck of the Mary Rose, an English warship that sank in 1545. The bow stave was 6 feet, 4 3/4 inches long. He made an exact replica of choice yew, strung it, and tested it. The bow had a draw weight of only 52 pounds and shot a flight arrow 185 yards. He cut the length to 6 feet. It now weighed 62 pounds and shot the flight arrow 227 yards. Pope again trimmed the bow, this time to 5 feet, 8 inches. It now weighed 70 pounds when drawn 28 inches and shot the flight arrow 245 yards. From Pope’s experiments, it would seem that the average longbow had a draw weight of 70 or maybe 80 pounds.
Most archers today would consider that a moderately heavy bow, but certainly not one that would require a lifetime of training.
Fourth, the longbow was neither a new weapon nor a particularly sophisticated bow. Longbows almost exactly like the English weapon have been dug out of European bogs and dated by radiocarbon technology to as early as 6000 B.C.
In Neolithic times, the bow seems to have been the most important European weapon, perhaps because Neolithic people were primarily hunters. In the early Bronze Age, a people known to archaeologists as the “Beaker People” swept across Europe from Spain to central Europe. The graves of Beaker men contained bone or stone bracers, worn on the inside of the bow arm to prevent injury by the released bow string, and flint or bronze arrow heads. But the people of central Europe, after learning — often firsthand — of the effectiveness of the armored Greeks, had adopted the Greek tradition of shock warfare. In the densely forested central Europe of that time, shock warfare was probably more effective than mobile tactics based on the bow. The descendants of the Beaker People traded their bows for battle axes, spears, and, later, swords.
The bow continued to be an important weapon in Scandinavia, particularly in Norway, where almost all transportation was by boat or ship. Missile weapons have always been important in naval warfare. The descendants of the Northmen, the Normans, didn’t lose their taste for archery during the time they stayed in France. Archery played a big part in Duke William’s victory at Hastings over Harold Godwinsson. King Harold was even struck down by an arrow. A longbow was difficult to shoot from horseback, so the chivalry of England neglected the weapon until they invaded Wales, where the archery tradition was still strong.
Welsh arrows perforated Norman armor and even penetrated a castle door made of seasoned oak 4 inches thick. The success of the Welsh archers led to the revival of the longbow by the English Infantry.
The English longbow was the simplest type of bow — a “self bow,” one made of a single piece of wood. It was fairly sophisticated for a self bow, because the back — the part facing away from the archer — was the more flexible sapwood, which allowed the bow to be bent more sharply without breaking. More sophisticated than the self bow are: the laminated bow, composed of several layers of wood glued together; the backed bow, with animal sinew on the back to deter breakage and increase springiness; and the composite bow, a thin wood core backed with sinew and a belly — the part facing the archer — made of horn.
The Composite Bow
The composite bow was the reason the Hyksos conquered Egypt, the Romans failed to conquer Parthia, the Crusades failed, and the troops of Genghis Khan defeated every foe they met.
The manufacture of the composite bow was a long process, often taking a year or more, and one demanding a high degree of skill. The wooden core was first bent with the aid of steam so that it curved in the opposite direction from the direction it would be drawn. The back was covered with shredded sinew from the neck of a horse or bull that had been soaked in animal or fish glue and molded to shape. On the belly of the bow, the bowyer glued strips of previously bent horn. After a period of seasoning, the bow was strung — a difficult operation because some bows described almost a full circle, bent away from the belly.
The result was a short bow flexible enough to shoot an extremely long arrow.
The composite bow was invented in central Asia and was the principal weapon of Asian nomads. With it, Scythians, Huns, Mongols, Turks, and other Asian nomads mowed down enemy infantry and cavalry from China to Gaul. It was the most powerful hand weapon before the introduction of gunpowder. Tradi-tionally, all Turkish sultans had to learn one trade that involved manual labor.
Most of them chose the bowyer’s profession. The English longbow changed warfare in western Europe for a century or so. The composite bow changed warfare in Asia for at least four millennia. We’ll discuss the composite bow further in the Chapter 6.
Chapter 3
The Symbol of War: The Sword
A variety of swords. From top: Turkish yataghan, Philippine Moro kris, French naval cutlass, Japanese naval officer’s sword, Indian Tulwar, U.S. Model 1913 cavalry sword.
“Masters of the sword are called strategists. As for the other military arts, those who master the bow are called archers, those who master the spear are called spearmen, those who master the gun are called marksmen, those who master the halberd are called halberdiers. But we do not call masters of the Way of the long sword ‘longswordsmen,’ nor do we speak of ‘companion-swordsmen.’ Because bows, guns, spears, and halberds are all warriors’ equipment, they are certainly part of strategy. To master the virtue of the long sword is to govern the world and oneself, thus the long sword is the basis of strategy.”
So wrote Miyamoto Musashi in 1645. Musashi was a ronin, a kind of Japanese knight-errant, and a master of the long sword. Shortly before he died, Musashi wrote A Book of Five Rings: A Guide to Strategy. Musashi was Japan’s most celebrated duelist, a man who literally lived by the sword, so his estimate of the importance of his favorite weapon might seem to be somewhat prejudiced. However, his countrymen agreed with him. They continued to agree with him for the next three centuries — so much that in the 20th century they named the largest battleship ever built (and probably the largest that ever will be) after him.
The sword has had a unique place among weapons in many cultures beside the Japanese. It has been a symbolic weapon in the Islamic, Indian, and Western cultures. It has been part of the regalia of African kings, and it was the badge of a gentleman in Renaissance and early modern Europe.
Part of the reason for this is that, until the Industrial Age, the sword was hideously expensive. Only important people, and in the earliest times only rulers, could own a sword. In the Bronze Age, it used a lot of that costly metal (bronze would ma
ke many spears, axes, and daggers or scores of arrows). In the Iron Age, wrought iron had to be “steeled” before it could be an effective weapon. That took a long time and a skilled smith. Just tempering a long piece of iron or steel evenly was a tricky process. European and Indian smiths used “pattern welding” — braiding strips of hard steel and soft iron together and welding them to get a blade that was hard enough to take an edge and elastic enough not to shatter from a hard blow. Japanese smiths got these qualities by heating iron over charcoal, pounding it flat and folding it over, and welding again. They did this until the sword consisted of as many as 4 million layers of steel. Then they used a unique tempering process to make the edge and point harder than the rest of the sword. Even if the smith made a pittance per hour, making a sword took so long that one was extremely expensive. Swords were also handed down from father to son for this reason.
Men were willing to pay the very high price of these weapons because the sword had no equal as a weapon for hand-to-hand fighting. It was much longer than the dagger, but short enough to be far more maneuverable than a spear. It could be used to slash, parry, and thrust.
The first swords were long, thin bronze rapiers (straight, two-edged swords with narrow pointed blades) that were useful mostly for stabbing, because the blade was not securely joined to the hit. These early Bronze Age rapiers have been found everywhere from Crete to Ireland. That type was followed by a broader bladed weapon that had a tang that ran all the way through the hilt. The iron swords that followed them retained this cut-and-thrust style.
Swords were important weapons for the nobles of Mycenaean Greece, but to the Greeks of classical times they were merely last-ditch weapons. They would be used if the spear was broken and neither the point nor pointed butt of the spear was available. The Romans, however, made the sword a key part of their weaponry. The legionary threw his pila (spears) at the enemy, but he relied on his gladius, a short sword worn on his right side, to finish off his opponents. The gladius was worn on the right side so the Roman’s enormous shield wouldn’t interfere with drawing it.
The success of Greek and Roman armies established a tradition of close-range, shock warfare in all of Europe. It was a far different way of fighting than the mobile missile warfare practiced by the charioteers and later the horse archers of the Asian steppes. The European barbarians adopted shock warfare, whether they were foot warriors such as the Franks and Alemanni or cavalry suxch as the Goths. Among all of these peoples, from the Celts of Spain to the Teutonic tribes of Scandinavia, the sword was the most important weapon. The lance was good for a horseman’s first contact with the foe, but, after that, the sword was supreme.
The sword was also highly esteemed by the Asian horse archers. The Huns would first open a fight with arrows, but after their enemies became weakened and demoralized, they charged with swords. The Turks were especially fond of swordplay, a characteristic that caused them a great deal of trouble when they met the more heavily armored crusaders. In Africa, the sword was also the principal weapon in the Sudan and the Sahara, among both the warriors of the great kingdoms of the Sahel or wandering nomads like the Tuareg tribes. British and French troops fighting in these areas in the 1890s found the natives still using their traditional swords as they charged the European machine guns.
In the Middle Ages, swords were almost as necessary to the knights as they were to Musashi and his fellow samurai. Infantry, too, carried swords. If anything happened to your spear or halberd, you had to have a “sidearm.” Infantry were still carrying swords in the middle of the 18th century, although they also had muskets and bayonets. When infantry got muskets and pikes, western European cavalry adopted pistols instead of lances, but they kept their swords. Gustavus Adolphus, the great Swedish leader in the Thirty Years War, advocated a minium use of the pistol for his cavalry and charging the enemy with the sword. “Light Horse Harry” Lee, the American Revolutionary hero, said “…the fire of cavalry is at best innocent, especially in quick action…
The strength and activity of the horse, the precision and celerity of evolution, the adroitness of the rider, boot-top to boot-top, and the keen edge of the saber…constitute the vast power so often decisive in the day of battle.”
Today, the sword is merely an item of costume in the military units that still carry it. The exception is the machete, still used in jungle fighting as both a tool and a weapon. For thousands of years, however, from before the Romans until well after the American Civil War, the sword was a key weapon of war. The last users of the sword were the sword-worshiping Japanese. During World War II, there were many reports of Japanese officers charging with their swords and a few of them beating on the sides of tanks with swords.
Chapter 4
The First Warship: The Galley
Galleys clash at Lepanto, the last major battle fought with these craft.
On September 13, 1569, the gunpowder factory at the Venetian Arsenal exploded. The Arsenal was the center of all Venetian military power. The gunpowder factory was only one part of it. Guns were cast there, warships were built there, galleys were docked there, and all kinds of weapons were stored there. Venice was one of the two great powers of the eastern Mediterranean.
But the explosion, it seemed, had instantly rendered the republic helpless.
That blast was a disaster for Venice, but for the other great power of the eastern Mediterranean, it sounded like the knock of opportunity. Turkey, under its aptly nicknamed Sultan, Selim the Sot, began gobbling up outposts of the Venetian Empire. The Christian powers united in the face of the Turkish threat and assembled a fleet of warships. In addition to the ships Venice still had there were galleys from the Papal States, Austria, Naples, Sicily, and, especially, Spain. King Philip II of Spain used the gold and silver he got from his American colonies to pay half the costs of the entire expedition. Then he made his young half-brother, Don Juan of Austria, commander of the fleet.
Don Juan reorganized the Christian fleet. To eliminate national rivalries, with a consequent failure to coordinate with each other, he mixed the nationalities in the three divisions of his fleet. Augustino Barbarigo, a Venetian admiral, commanded the left. Giovanni Andrea Doria of Genoa commanded the right.
Don Juan led the center, with the 75-year-old Doge of Venice, Sebasitiano Veniero, commanding the galley on the left of his flagship and Marco Antonio Colonna, the Papal admiral, commanding the ship on the right. Almost all of the ships in Don Juan’s fleet were galleys, the traditional Mediterranean warships. Galleys, the long, narrow, oar-propelled warships, had dominated the Inland Sea for three millennia. Don Juan added two less traditional ships: galleasses. Galleasses were sailing ships with a high freeboard. They could use oars in a pinch, but they were slow and clumsy when rowed. Don Juan knew that the Portuguese had used similar high-freeboard sailing ships successfully in combat on the Indian Ocean. He thought there might be a place for them in this battle. Though slower and far less agile than the galleys, they had two advantages: their sides were too high for a galley’s crew to board them easily, and they had many guns.
In ancient times, galleys had used bronze rams on their bows to crush the sides of opposing ships. Because cannons had been invented, they replaced the ram. The Turkish galleys had three cannons firing over their bows. The Christian ships had four.
The enemy fleets met in the Gulf of Corinth, the long, narrow bay that almost cuts Greece in two, near the town of Lepanto. In battle, galleys were handled as if they were soldiers in a land battle. They charged each other directly, blasting the enemy with their bow guns. Because their sides were lined with rowers and their sterns occupied by steersmen with huge steering oars, there was no other place for the guns. Like armies, galley fleets attempted to break through an enemy’s line, or attack his flanks, or encircle him. The Christians may have had more guns, but the Turks had more ships. To avoid being flanked, Andrea Doria advanced obliquely to the right, so his division made contact later than the rest of Don Juan’s fleet. The Turkish
admiral commanding the Muslim right, Mohammed Sirocco Pasha, tried to encircle the Christian left. Barbarigo, unfamiliar with the waters, had stayed well off shore. When he saw Sirocco’s ships trying to flank him, though, Barbarigo knew the water was deep enough. He had his ships swivel and charge, catching the Turkish column in the flank and rear. Barbarigo was killed. His nephew succeeded him in command but was killed almost immediately afterwards. But two other Venetian officers, Frederigo Nani and Marco Quirini, took over. They drove the Turks ashore and killed or captured them all.
In the center, Don Juan’s galleasses demonstrated their worth. Their gunfire raised havoc with the Turkish galleys. The Turks saw that they were too high to board and rowed furiously away from them, disrupting their own formation. Then Don Juan and the Turkish commander-in-chief, Ali Pasha, exchanged salutes and closed with each other. In spite of the superior Christian gunnery, Ali drove his galley right up to Don Juan’s while soldiers on the decks of both ships showered each other with arrows and musket bullets. The Turks boarded the Spanish ship, but were pushed off, and the Spanish boarded the Turkish ship. The Turks pushed the Spaniards back to their ship and followed them, only to be again pushed off and boarded again. Veniero, the Doge, and his men joined the melee. Ali was killed and his ship taken. Meanwhile, Colonna, on the other side of the flagship, burned a Turkish galley. The center division began taking or sinking Turkish galleys all along the line. The remaining Turks reversed their ships and fled.