A History of War in 100 Battles

by Richard Overy

  In June, the abandoned garrison opened the gates and surrendered. Although Genghis had wanted to prevent the usual bloodbath, his angry and impatient soldiers looted the city (this was their only source of payment for military duty) and butchered thousands of the inhabitants, though not as mercilessly as in later sieges – at Urgench in 1220, the entire population would be decapitated and pyramids built of their heads. The capital, with its vast walls, was now a Mongol city, signalling the rapid decline of Jin rule. By 1234, the rest of Jin China was subject to the Mongols. Genghis Khan proved himself a shrewd commander, whether fighting on an open plain or besieging vast cities. According to his published Bilik (Maxims), he saw warfare as the finest of activities: A man’s greatest pleasure is to defeat his enemies, to drive them before him, to take from them that which they possessed.’ Warfare was the breath of life for Genghis Khan, a fact that helps to explain his remorseless pursuit of battle and the single-minded quality of his leadership.

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  No. 7 BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN

  23-24 June 1314

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  The famous battle in June 1314 at the small river of Bannock Burn, near Stirling in Scotland, was fought between two leaders whose presence on the day made all the difference between victory and defeat. The English army, large and well-trained, should have defeated a Scottish force less than half its size, but its commander-in-chief, King Edward II, chose to flee the field. His opponent, Robert Bruce, who had declared himself King of Scotland in 1306, knew he was at a disadvantage fighting his powerful neighbour in open battle, but he stayed, rallied his men and won a victory that opened the way to full Scottish independence fourteen years later, with a treaty that acknowledged Robert as Scotland’s true king.

  The battle came at the end of a long period of almost twenty years of violence between the two kingdoms following the death of the last heir to the Scottish throne in 1290. By the early fourteenth century, the English king, Edward I – ‘the Hammer of the Scots’ – had forced Scotland to submit to English government, but in 1306 Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, supported by defiant Scottish noblemen, was chosen as the new King of Scotland and crowned at Scone. He was almost immediately defeated by Edward I. Legend has it that he hid in a cave, where he watched a spider struggling to climb its gossamer thread until it finally reached its goal; this, so it is said, inspired Bruce to return to the fight for a free Scotland. Whether the story is true or not, Bruce was a remarkable military commander and over the seven years that followed Edward I’s death in 1307, he succeeded in retaking many of the English strongholds, including Edinburgh Castle. In the summer of 1313, Bruce’s brother, Edward, agreed with the English commander of Stirling Castle, Sir Philip Mowbray, that if no English army had come to rescue him after exactly one year, the castle would be surrendered to the Scots. This was a challenge the new English king, Edward II, could not ignore. He gathered together a large army, numbering an estimated 18,000 cavalry, archers and foot soldiers, and marched north to restore English rule.

  This nineteenth-century engraving shows the Scottish king, Robert Bruce, at the moment when he brought his axe crashing down on the head of the English knight Henry de Bohun at the start of the Battle of Bannockburn, which secured his rule in Scotland.

  The English army arrived near Berwick-upon-Tweed on 10 June 1314. Edward was an unpopular king, famous for his male favourites, and five of the eight English earls failed to join him. He nevertheless mustered an impressive military force, led by around 2,500 heavily armed and armoured knights, whose giant warhorses, the destriers, acted like tanks on a modern battlefield. Bruce summoned his supporters to the forest of Tor Wood, close by Stirling Castle; they included perhaps 1,000 men from Argyll and the Scottish islands under Angus Óg MacDonald, and a further 6-7,000 foot soldiers. Bruce had only 500 light cavalry under Sir Robert Keith, Marischal of Scotland, and a body of archers. The Scottish army generally avoided pitched battles against a larger enemy, but on this occasion Bruce, warmly supported by his other commanders and his men, decided that a stand had to be made. The battle tactic of the Scots was simple and thoroughly rehearsed. In front of where Bruce expected the battle to take place, the soldiers dug deep pits almost half a metre in diameter, close together and concealed with grass and twigs. Behind the traps, the army relied on the shield ring or ‘schiltron’, 500 men formed in a tight circle, several deep, with long 16-foot (5-metre) iron-tipped spears pointing outwards and upwards to ward off attacking horsemen. These human fortresses were carefully constructed, the outer ring kneeling, the ring behind with spears at chest height, both designed to stop oncoming horses.

  The problem for the Scots was the sheer number of the enemy. On 23 June, one day before Stirling Castle was to be surrendered, Edward moved his vast force north from Falkirk. They arrived at the small river, Bannock Burn, where the Scottish army had been drawn up for battle on New Park, a slope of land beyond the river, which dominated the road to Stirling. The Park had forest behind, through which the Scots could escape, and swampy ground to both the south and east, making a flanking attack by the English difficult. Bruce’s army might nevertheless have succumbed to a frontal assault. Instead the English attacked in the order they arrived, without waiting to assemble a full field of battle. The vanguard under the Earl of Gloucester, seeing what they mistakenly thought was a Scots army withdrawing from an encounter, charged across the pits and swamp. Among those who succeeded in getting across was the young Sir Henry de Bohun. He made straight for Bruce, who was clearly marked out by his golden coronet. Bruce in turn charged on his small grey horse at de Bohun, dodged the lance, and in a deft movement split open de Bohun’s skull with his axe. The vanguard hesitated and withdrew. Another 300 horsemen under Sir Robert Clifford attempted to break through to Stirling Castle, but they were obstructed by a schiltron led by the Earl of Moray. After a vicious engagement, the English again fell back. As dusk fell, Edward ordered his army to set camp.

  There was now a marked contrast between the two forces. Bruce’s single-handed combat had inspired his men, who were now eager for the battle. Edward had misjudged the day and among his commanders there was a despondent expectation that their king lacked the flair or will for the contest. A Scottish knight, fighting with Edward, defected to Bruce that night with news that the English were demoralised by what had happened and the king uncertain of his support. On the morning of 24 June, Edward decided to avoid a fight and to move on to Stirling. The way was blocked by the Scots, who marched in formation down New Park to obstruct the only way through. Edward’s commander, the Earl of Gloucester, again preferred battle and charged at the first schiltron before the army was ready. He was among the first unseated and killed. Edward had to turn his army to face the Scots, and as he did so, the other schiltrons entered the fray. The English archers found it difficult to concentrate their fire, and feared by this time hitting their own knights in the back. Bruce ordered Keith to take his 500 horses and disperse the archers while the English knights were locked in combat. He did so effectively, pursuing them into the marshland. The schiltrons held, partly because the swampy ground hemmed in the English and made it difficult to deploy the foot soldiers behind. Then suddenly, at the height of the battle, Bruce led the islanders of Angus Óg MacDonald in a famous charge down the slope towards the English, screaming and waving their iron axes. Edward fled the field of battle to avoid capture, leaving a leaderless army which, scenting disaster, finally turned and ran, whereupon they were hunted down or drowned in the marshy ground. Bannock Burn was awash with the corpses of horses and men, many of them the noblemen who had rallied to Edward’s cause. Bruce and his commanders survived. No accurate account of the numbers killed on either side can be made.

  The battle proved decisive. Edward returned several times but was unable to overturn the rule of King Robert Bruce, now firmly ensconced as Scotland’s monarch. Edward II was murdered by his opponents in 1327, and the following year Edward III reached agreement with King Robert confirming S
cotland’s independence. The Battle of Bannockburn could so nearly have been an English triumph; but Edward II could not inspire or command his army with the same energy, sympathy and tactical imagination displayed by Robert Bruce.

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  No. 8 BATTLE OF MOHÁCS

  29 August 1526

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  The role of leadership was an important one at the battle on the plain of Mohács that destroyed the Hungarian king and nobility and opened the way to centuries of Ottoman domination of south-central Europe. But it was a role shared by two very different men: the first was the Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman I, scion of the Osmans, later known as the ‘Magnificent’; the second was his grand vizier, Ibrahim Pasha, a young Greek whom Suleiman had met when he was governor of Magnesia. Ibrahim became his close companion and adviser, eating at the sultan’s table, even sharing his tent. The victory over the Hungarians was celebrated as Suleiman’s triumph, but it was sealed by the two men who fought side-by-side that day.

  The conflict between Hungary and the Ottoman Empire went back many years, but by the early sixteenth century, Ottoman encroachment had become more insistent. In 1521, Belgrade fell to the sultan and regular raids were carried out further north towards the Danube. Suleiman’s reputation as a military leader to be reckoned with was secured by the capture of the island of Rhodes in 1522, but he then rested on his laurels. In 1525, the elite janissary guard staged a violent protest against the failure to make war again (for they relied on booty to supplement their meagre pay). Suleiman quelled the rebellion, distributed 200,000 ducats to his troops, and sounded the drum of conquest on 1 December 1525, summoning his people to war. He could have moved east against Persia but decided to return to Hungary; he knew that the kingdom was divided politically and that little help was to be expected from the other Christian monarchies of Europe, occupied with the crisis of the Reformation. He was impelled as Sultan to expand the territory of Islam as a step towards achieving a universal monarchy; for him, expansion against the infidel Christians was a sacred obligation.

  On 23 April 1526, Suleiman and Ibrahim left Constantinople with 100,000 men and 300 guns. It took almost three months before the cavalcade reached Belgrade. Torrential rain had swollen all the rivers, but Ibrahim pushed ahead to make sure they were bridged. Ibrahim was also trusted to sweep aside the few Hungarian troops still found on the road to the Danube. The fortress of Peterwardein was stormed and the garrison of 500 decapitated on Ibrahim’s orders. The Hungarian forces in the path of the Ottoman army, led by Pal Tômôri, the martial Archbishop of Kalosca, retreated back to the Hungarian plain. Here a waterlogged steppe 10 kilometres (6 miles) wide reached south from the small village of Mohács, ending in a line of tree-covered hills. It was there, on the edge of the plain nearest the village, that the Hungarian King Louis and the cream of Hungarian nobility set up their camp. The final number in the Hungarian force is open to conjecture, but is generally thought to be between 25,000 and 30,000, though reinforcements were arriving from Bohemia, Croatia and Transylvania, totalling perhaps 30,000 more.

  As Suleiman’s army drew up among the hills and woods on the far side of the plain of Mohács, the Hungarian nobles pressured the king to fight the battle there and then rather than wait for help. They were confident that the heavy cavalry, armoured man and horse from head to toe, would be able to smash the advancing Turks by a combination of sheer weight and their fiery élan.

  The Hungarian tactic was unsophisticated. Suleiman by contrast thought out how best to be certain of victory. The general of the akinci, the light troops and skirmishers, advised the sultan to let his front line bend inwards as the Hungarian heavy cavalry attacked. This would allow strong forces on either side of the curved line to attack the Hungarians on both flanks and eventually to encircle them. Estimates suggest that there were perhaps 45,000 fighting troops with the sultan, both cavalry and foot soldiers, and an unknown number of guns, a balance less uneven than the later Christian accounts suggested. Both armies took time to reach battle stations and the Hungarians, determined to take the offensive, finally charged the Ottoman line in the middle of the afternoon, commanded by the redoubtable Archbishop Tömöri in his golden armour.

  The battle details vary among contemporary accounts, but the general picture confirms that the Ottoman plan worked almost like clockwork. The Hungarian cavalry charged the first line, commanded by Ibrahim Pasha himself. The Turkish account of the battle, written by the contemporary historian Kemal Pashazade, attributed the victory to the prowess of the vizier, ‘whose lance was like the beak of the falcon in vigour and whose sword, thirsty for blood, was like the claws of the lion of bravery’. Embroidered though the account was, Ibrahim organized the fall-back that created the fatal crescent shape. When King Louis and the reserve saw the Turkish line bend, they eagerly attacked across the plain, expecting victory. They arrived just as the first Hungarian charge, which almost reached Suleiman himself, was spent. The Ottoman cannon opened a murderous fire while the Hungarian horsemen were assailed from both flanks by the light infantry and cavalry clustered around them. The doomed army fought, according to the accounts, bravely but vainly. By evening it was destroyed. Among the slain were three archbishops, five bishops, 500 Hungarian nobles and the king himself, drowned when he tried to escape across the marshy ground. His body was found a month later buried in the mud.

  A 1588 illustration from an Ottoman manuscript shows the Ottoman cavalry at the Battle of Mohacs on 29 August 1526. They pursued and butchered thousands of the fleeing Hungarians as the battle drew to a close.

  A monument in the Hungarian town of Mohacs commemorates the comprehensive defeat of the Hungarian king and army in the Battle on 29 August 1526.

  The defeat was comprehensive. Ottoman soldiers took no prisoners, meaning that more than 20,000 Hungarians died that day, tearing the heart out of the Hungarian nation. Ibrahim’s generalship so impressed Suleiman, who had also bravely stood his ground while lances and arrows struck his breastplate, that he presented his vizier with a heron’s feather covered with diamonds as a token of his esteem. On 31 August, Suleiman noted only the following in his diary: ‘The Sultan seated on a throne of gold receives the salutations of the viziers and officers; massacre of two thousand prisoners. Rain falls in torrents.’ The Ottomans proceeded to the Hungarian capital of Buda. Suleiman had not intended it to be sacked, since the citizens had prudently sent him the keys to the city as a sign of supplication, but his troops were eager for booty and hard to control. Buda and Pest, the twin towns of the Hungarian capital, were both burned down and their treasure ransacked. Hungary was left temporarily to its own ruined devices, but three years later southern Hungary came under indirect Ottoman authority. Once again, Ibrahim and Suleiman proved an irresistible partnership, whose leadership inspired and disciplined an army that was otherwise motley, hard to control and greedy for loot.

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  No. 9 SIEGE OF VIENNA

  12 September 1683

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  The battle that took place outside the Austrian capital of Vienna on 12 September 1683 marked a turning point in the history of European warfare. The victory by a Christian ‘Holy League’ composed of Poles, Germans and Austrians against a huge Ottoman army marked the end of the centuries-long expansion of Ottoman Turkish power in southeastern Europe and saved central European Christianity. After Vienna, the Ottoman sultanate did not inflict serious defeat on Western enemies again, and the Turkish Empire began a long decline.

  The Ottomans had long harboured ambitions to capture Vienna and dominate the trade routes of eastern Europe. Buda, in Hungary, was an Ottoman city and to the south the Ottomans ruled as far as present-day Bosnia and Croatia. A restless frontier between the Austrian Habsburg and Ottoman empires ran through northern Hungary. The Ottoman sultan, Mehmed IV, decided on the advice of his grand vizier, Kara Mustafa Pasha, that it was time to launch a major campaign against the Habsburgs and to extend Ottoman suzerainty over the whole area of central Europe. Plan
s were made to strengthen roads, repair bridges and gather together a large army from among the vassal states of the empire. On 6 August 1682, war was declared on Austria, but the late season postponed the advance of the Ottoman army until the following March. The Habsburgs had plenty of time to prepare defences and seek allies. Emperor Leopold I reached an agreement with the King of Poland-Lithuania, John III Sobieski, for mutual aid in the defence of Christian Europe. This was to prove an inspired choice.

  In the early summer, the huge Ottoman army, followed by herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, wagon trains of supplies and thousands of camp followers, moved north from Thrace, reaching Belgrade in May (where the sultan stayed to await results). The army was commanded by the grand vizier himself, who moved northwards to encircle Vienna by 14 July 1683. Leopold and 80,000 Viennese fled westward to Linz to avoid Ottoman conquest, leaving Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg with 16,000 soldiers and militia and 370 cannons to defend Vienna against the siege. For two months, the defenders endured disease, hunger and the constant threat that Turkish engineers would succeed in mining under the walls and blowing a gap in the defences. Kara Mustafa Pasha did nothing to rush the capture of Vienna. Short of heavy artillery, and confident that there was no prospect of relief, he waited until his miners had breached the walls. This long delay allowed the Christian Holy League to mobilize its forces, prepare the campaign and march to the relief of the city.

  The League was made up of 47,000 Germans and Austrians and an army of 37,000 Poles and Lithuanians. King John III Sobieski was the key figure holding the force together. He was a remarkable commander, with a string of earlier victories against Tatars and Ottomans to his credit. He had been responsible for reforming the Polish army to create a modern force. He understood Ottoman military doctrine, having been an envoy in Istanbul, and he could speak all the major Western languages (plus Tatar and Turkish), a big advantage in a multi-national force. On 6 September, his army crossed the Danube and met up with Imperial forces under Charles of Lorraine, but two days later Ottoman miners succeeded in breaching the defensive walls. The Ottoman army was poised to enter the city.