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D. Phillip Caron
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 Posted: Thu 29 Dec, 2011 12:29 pm Post subject: |
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I understand that. I was addressing the original question which was; Will horses charge solid objects?
The first casualty of battle is bravado, the second is macho.
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Fri 30 Dec, 2011 10:13 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I understand that. I was addressing the original question which was; Will horses charge solid objects? |
Gotcha. I think the answer is sometimes 
Look at Falkirk for example - we have that initial assault by the cavalry on the Schiltrons. Not many English casualties amongst the knights, but some where killed. Not what one would expect from a full gallop charge into the forest of schiltron spears.
The cavalry then pulled back.
I would think this points to a half-hearted charge, some going into the scottish line at a canter or better, and some stopping short, making contact at no better than a walk, making little headway, and then withdrawing.
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Lafayette C Curtis
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| Posted: Fri 20 Jan, 2012 2:12 am Post subject: |
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| Gary Teuscher wrote: | | A carocole could be devastating to pike armed infantry, as it effectively gives the cavalry a "longer pike". As long as the infantry did not pocess a lot of missile weapons themselves, it was an effective tactic, not unlikethe horse archers practice of running up to point blank range against relatively stagnant infantry and loosing arrows at point blank range, then retreating. |
Any evidence that Renaissance cavalry ever actually "caracoled" before contemporary infantry in this way? The more I look into the primary sources, the more I'm persuaded that this model is just a modern tactical fantasy. On one hand, cavalry mostly worried about fighting other cavalry rather than facing infantry head-on, so a great deal of what we've discussed about cavalry's ability to mount a frontal charge against infantry is basically irrelevant. On the other hand, firing by ranks and retreating to reload was a method largely confined to the "light" cavalry known as Arquebusiers, while proper pistol-armed heavy cavalry (the Cuirassiers) simply charged headlong. Later on, when the two types of cavalry merged into one, the result was basically a troop armed in the manner of Arquebusiers (with pot, cuirass, and carbine/arquebus rather than three-quarters armour) but tactically behaving in a manner more akin to Cuirassiers (charging sword in hand rather than engaging in extended skirmishing with their firearms--mind that, once again, this charge was usually targeted at enemy cavalry!).
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Fri 20 Jan, 2012 9:56 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Any evidence that Renaissance cavalry ever actually "caracoled" before contemporary infantry in this way? |
I can't say I have primary sources that say this, but javelin armed horse performed a similar function - I'm don't know if it was as orderly as the envisioned caracole, but throwing javelins into infantry then retreating was not an uncommon tactic.
| Quote: | | On one hand, cavalry mostly worried about fighting other cavalry rather than facing infantry head-on, so a great deal of what we've discussed about cavalry's ability to mount a frontal charge against infantry is basically irrelevant. |
Yes, it seemed often the tactic of cavalry was to defeat other cavalry, then if sucessful hit the flanks of opposing infantry, preferably while the infantry were still engaged with friendly infantry.
But of course you have the battles where one side has little or no cavalry, like Hastings.
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Kurt Scholz
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| Posted: Fri 20 Jan, 2012 1:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Gene Green wrote: | By contrast, from what I read, the later "cheaper" Ritter (?) style cavalry was supposed to use caracole tactics, not direct assault.
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It's "Reiter", the guys with pistols, increasingly less and blackened armour and cheaper mounts who showed the lance armed knights that they meant to be their equals.
The "Ritter" is the German version of the knight with a lance, excluding non-noble heavy cavalry similar armed or nobles without knighting ceremony, but not "Knappe" any more.
In between the Ritter and the Reiter is possibly the warfare of mounted light/heavy crossbowmen and light/heavy lancers depicted by Thalhofer's fencing manual. But interestingly we know very little of mounted crossbowmen who likely were sergeants and in my opinion the precursor of the pistol/carbine armed famous German reiters and later dragoons.
The javelin and the crossbow in my opinion served a similar role on horseback, but crossbow munition was cheaper, lighter and the weapon easier to use, while javelins themselves were as a weapon system cheaper, but heavier and required more trained skill. I wouldn't compare mounted crossbowmen to mounted archers because they are a different animal and there's no source about a region where a predominance of mounted archers gets replaced by mounted crossbowmen. Although the arrow guide in a way is an intermediate between crossbow and bow and quite successful in mounted combat (In naval warfare it served as an intermediate between bow and crossbow).
Scandinavian and Teutonic Order warfare in my opinion will be the best sources on mounted crossbowmen switching to gunpowder.
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Kurt Scholz
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| Posted: Tue 31 Jan, 2012 4:05 am Post subject: |
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The caracole has in my opinion a lot to do with firepower distribution. Against pikemen with few guns, in a position where they can't mass their fire, it would be a very good idea to use mounted mobility and to quickly shoot as much gunpowder weapons into their ranks as possible before retreating. As soon as guns among the infantry increase, spears and pikes have to decrease, so the cold steel option again offers better chances. Cavalry in my opinion operated in both modes according to the enemy they faced.
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Lafayette C Curtis
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| Posted: Wed 01 Feb, 2012 8:49 am Post subject: |
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| Kurt Scholz wrote: | | The caracole has in my opinion a lot to do with firepower distribution. Against pikemen with few guns, in a position where they can't mass their fire, it would be a very good idea to use mounted mobility and to quickly shoot as much gunpowder weapons into their ranks as possible before retreating. |
But what's the point of that? Any single pass would have killed only a few infantrymen at best, while spending the horsemen's ammunition and the horses' stamina--both of which could have been used more productively elsewhere. Sure, hit-and-run (or shoot-and-scoot) attacks would have been useful against small numbers of infantry in situations where the cavalry could dismount out of sight, lay an ambush, and then bugger off before the infantry patrol/picket/detachment/whatever knew what hit them, rinse, lather, and repeat--basically guerrilla warfare or "small war," which took up the majority of the cavalry's time in useful service anyway. But in massed, open battle, not even horse archers would have expected to perform usefully against infantry with their missiles alone. If you saw horse archers, mounted crossbowmen, or mounted arquebusiers shooting up infantry, it was generally as a prelude to a charge (or at least an attempt to charge), whether by themselves or by some heavier cavalry hanging out nearby. The exception was when the extended missile action was meant to delay the enemy infantry while the battle was won elsewhere (or the retreat was performed safely elsewhere).
By the Renaissance, the usefulness of cavalry only became really apparent once we learn to think big--on the strategic or operational scale, way beyond any single battle or skirmish no matter how large. In fact, this was also true of the Middle Ages, but back then the success of the heavy mounted men-at-arms in battlefield charges rather hid the fact that most of the time they actually operated as light cavalry.
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Jaroslav Kravcak
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| Posted: Wed 07 Mar, 2012 11:04 am Post subject: |
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Just a question regarding flank attacks on infantry occupied from the front:
A hypothetical situation where part of cavalry charges from the front to catch the attention and prepare advantageous situation on flanks so other groups can charge in. Or is it settled than concept of cavalry engaging infantry from the front to allow other cavalry to charge flanks with more ease cant work? To explain what I mean: It seems most times frontal charges would still degrade into infantry standing their ground and no horseman daring to hurl into them, though it seems they would be de facto both occupied by each other.
Second is the idea of attacking line frontally but in a could be said crescend like manner - first units of horsemen would arrive at the flanks of infantry to occupy their attention and ideally cause some disruption that would spread from both flanks and eventually catch whole line as other horsemen arrive from the front assaulting line from both sides.
Of course assuming neither case is assured receipt for sucess just one option how it can be done, would it be too complex a maneuver regarding cavalry in different time periods/any period? Maybe it wouldnt even occur by design but rather by chance.
Also are there any documented examples that describe wuite precisely that something like this was ever performed performed? (I havent found any specific account of it done thiss way explicitly described just vague comments like than line would be at first attcked from flanks)
Especially in second instance I find it quite propable that if any line of infantry in 18-century or onwards was ever broked by frontal cavalry charge something similar could be the case - what would be the difference between a section of line or a side of square in reality when charged frontally? (Of course cavalry had more important roles than this one if someone wanted to object it once again  but if there was noone else to fight with why not?  )
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Kurt Scholz
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| Posted: Thu 08 Mar, 2012 11:06 am Post subject: |
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| Lafayette C Curtis wrote: | | Kurt Scholz wrote: | | The caracole has in my opinion a lot to do with firepower distribution. Against pikemen with few guns, in a position where they can't mass their fire, it would be a very good idea to use mounted mobility and to quickly shoot as much gunpowder weapons into their ranks as possible before retreating. |
But what's the point of that? Any single pass would have killed only a few infantrymen at best, while spending the horsemen's ammunition and the horses' stamina--both of which could have been used more productively elsewhere. Sure, hit-and-run (or shoot-and-scoot) attacks would have been useful against small numbers of infantry in situations where the cavalry could dismount out of sight, lay an ambush, and then bugger off before the infantry patrol/picket/detachment/whatever knew what hit them, rinse, lather, and repeat--basically guerrilla warfare or "small war," which took up the majority of the cavalry's time in useful service anyway. But in massed, open battle, not even horse archers would have expected to perform usefully against infantry with their missiles alone. If you saw horse archers, mounted crossbowmen, or mounted arquebusiers shooting up infantry, it was generally as a prelude to a charge (or at least an attempt to charge), whether by themselves or by some heavier cavalry hanging out nearby. The exception was when the extended missile action was meant to delay the enemy infantry while the battle was won elsewhere (or the retreat was performed safely elsewhere).
By the Renaissance, the usefulness of cavalry only became really apparent once we learn to think big--on the strategic or operational scale, way beyond any single battle or skirmish no matter how large. In fact, this was also true of the Middle Ages, but back then the success of the heavy mounted men-at-arms in battlefield charges rather hid the fact that most of the time they actually operated as light cavalry. |
I agree with you that trying to kill the whole infantry by shooting them from horseback doesn't sound like a good idea. But war is a psychological game. Being shot at without the ability to equally reply puts much stress on the infantry. The dead ones leave holes in their ranks that need to be closed quickly, creating even more stress, and if the infantry tries to move in step against the horses the stress gets even worse because it's complicated in a large ordered group of men that faces constant interruptions. So I would consider it a useful way to exhaust infantry physically and psychologically until they send some guys forward in lose formation that can be butchered or totally lose nerves and stamina, leaving holes for your best armoured mounted troops to spearhead a wedge into the infantry that will scatter them upon impact.
I agree that cavalry has always been vastly more useful in the constant small war than in the few big battles.
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Lafayette C Curtis
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| Posted: Wed 21 Mar, 2012 11:35 am Post subject: |
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| Jaroslav Kravcak wrote: | | A hypothetical situation where part of cavalry charges from the front to catch the attention and prepare advantageous situation on flanks so other groups can charge in. |
Standard Mongol (or, for that matter, Central Asian and Eastern European) tactics...
| Quote: | | Second is the idea of attacking line frontally but in a could be said crescend like manner - first units of horsemen would arrive at the flanks of infantry to occupy their attention and ideally cause some disruption that would spread from both flanks and eventually catch whole line as other horsemen arrive from the front assaulting line from both sides. |
This sounds rather backwards, since the point of the crescent formation in the hands of the armies that used them (Mongols, Turks, Saracens, etc.) was not to contact the enemy with the wings first but to be able to assault the enemy on both the front and the flanks almost simultaneously.
| Quote: | | Also are there any documented examples that describe wuite precisely that something like this was ever performed performed? (I havent found any specific account of it done thiss way explicitly described just vague comments like than line would be at first attcked from flanks) |
I think the Secret History of the Mongols has a description of Mongol drills for their typical envelopment/encirclement tactics. Feigned attacks from the front to draw attention from a real attack against the flanks was practiced on a number of occasions including the battle of Mons-en-Pevele (1304).
| Quote: | | Especially in second instance I find it quite propable that if any line of infantry in 18-century or onwards was ever broked by frontal cavalry charge something similar could be the case - what would be the difference between a section of line or a side of square in reality when charged frontally? |
A square actually has weak points--the corners. 19th-century cavalry manuals advised that if a direct charge had to be performed against an infantry square at all, it had better be launched against a corner, even if the infantry's firepower had been drawn and spent by previous attempts at a charge.
| Quote: | | (Of course cavalry had more important roles than this one if someone wanted to object it once again but if there was noone else to fight with why not? ) |
If you were a cavalry commander and your enemy had nothing but infantry, you actually had no end of options available to you--and the most intuitive of all would have been to use your mobility to outmarch the infantry and cut them off from nearby sources of supply!
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Mikael Ranelius
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| Posted: Wed 21 Mar, 2012 12:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Kurt Scholz wrote: |
I agree with you that trying to kill the whole infantry by shooting them from horseback doesn't sound like a good idea. |
Worked fine for the Pathians at Carrhae...
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Bartek Strojek
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| Posted: Wed 21 Mar, 2012 1:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Mikael Ranelius wrote: | | Kurt Scholz wrote: |
I agree with you that trying to kill the whole infantry by shooting them from horseback doesn't sound like a good idea. |
Worked fine for the Pathians at Carrhae... |
Obviously no one's ever going to have all that accurate data on what killed who, but cataphracts charges obviously made arrow fire possible (and vice versa) and they were most probably able to cause really heavy casualties.
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Lafayette C Curtis
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| Posted: Wed 21 Mar, 2012 2:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Mikael Ranelius wrote: | | Kurt Scholz wrote: |
I agree with you that trying to kill the whole infantry by shooting them from horseback doesn't sound like a good idea. |
Worked fine for the Pathians at Carrhae... |
Nope. Carrhae was a stalemate. The Romans couldn't chase the Parthians, the Parthians couldn't hurt the Romans all that much (despite Plutarch's exaggerated rhetorics). The fact was that the Romans weren't broken until the Parthians captured Crassus by pretending to invite him into a negotiation.
It's worth noting that Mark Antony campaigned against the same enemy some time later and didn't suffer many casualties from enemy action. Most of his losses (and probably Crassus's too) appears to have been due to heat and dehydration.
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Mikael Ranelius
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| Posted: Wed 21 Mar, 2012 3:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Lafayette C Curtis wrote: |
Nope. Carrhae was a stalemate. The Romans couldn't chase the Parthians, the Parthians couldn't hurt the Romans all that much (despite Plutarch's exaggerated rhetorics). The fact was that the Romans weren't broken until the Parthians captured Crassus by pretending to invite him into a negotiation.
It's worth noting that Mark Antony campaigned against the same enemy some time later and didn't suffer many casualties from enemy action. Most of his losses (and probably Crassus's too) appears to have been due to heat and dehydration. |
Which sources contradict Plutarch? According to him and Cassius Dio the Parthian arrow barrage actually disrupted the Roman formation and inflicted casualties:
From Plutarch:
"And when Crassus ordered his light-armed troops to make a charge, they did not advance far, but encountering a multitude of arrows, abandoned their undertaking and ran back for shelter among the men-at‑arms, among whom they caused the beginning of disorder and fear, for these now saw the velocity and force of the arrows, which fractured armour, and tore their way through every covering alike, whether hard or soft.
But the Parthians now stood at long intervals from one another and began to shoot their arrows from all sides at once, not with any accurate aim (for the dense formation of the Romans would not suffer an archer to miss even if he wished it), but making vigorous and powerful shots from bows which were large and mighty and curved so as to discharge their missiles with great force. 6 At once, then, the plight of the Romans was a grievous one; for if they kept their ranks, they were wounded in great numbers, and if they tried to come to close quarters with the enemy, they were just as far from effecting anything and suffered just as much."
From Cassius Dio:
"The missiles falling thick upon them from all sides at once struck down many by a mortal blow, rendered many useless for battle, and caused distress to all. They flew into their eyes and pierced their hands and all the other parts of their body and, penetrating their armour, deprived them of their protection and compelled them to expose themselves to each new missile. 5 Thus, while a man was guarding against arrows or pulling out one that had stuck fast he received more wounds, one after another. Consequently it was impracticable for them to move, and impracticable to remain at rest. Neither course afforded them safety but each was fraught with destruction, the one because it was out of their power, and the other because they were then more easily wounded. "
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Jaroslav Kravcak
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| Posted: Fri 23 Mar, 2012 4:44 am Post subject: |
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So mongol and eastern european armies and their use of cavalry seem to be much ahead of western cavalry even in 16th century (or maybe better said much more creative), or is it just a lack of details about a manner in which for example french gendarmes were deployed in both theory and actual battles?
(It seems to me that even Ordonnance companies, that should be quite profesional and capable of more elabourate maneuvers and cooperation simply charged and then retreated or pursued defeated enemy and were basically unusable for any other sort of action from the biggest part after first commitment into action)
And to the battle of Carrhae: Id say that dehydration and fatique would claim more lives than actual combat, pathians were supposedly in great minority and cataphracts would be only fraction of that. Maybe it was similat to the battle of nibisis to the degree of which I wasnt able to find too much outside of what is found at wikipedia.
Speaking about Plutarch exagerating, I tend to think there is no validity in most numbers and battle descriptions of ancient battles, the only reason theyre accepted as fully valid is because there is much less space for investigating what really happened from other sources. (I recall example of chronicle mention Philip the Good and his expedition against the city of Liege where numbers like 40000 for each army were given while i musterrolls maximal rela strength of burgundian army there was revealed to be no more than 4-5000)
Also partians defeats at the hands of Publius Ventidius Bassus, Id say he mostly achieved victory through routing partian army than actual excessive killing of them. (And many ther examples)
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Kurt Scholz
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| Posted: Fri 23 Mar, 2012 4:45 pm Post subject: |
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Roman authors must explain Roman misfortunes according to certain rules that not necessarily reflect the actual significance or way how things took place.
Heavy infantry can always kneel down and form a low protection of shields over which "light" infantry shoots at a much higher rate of shot at mounted missile units that offer more target area.
The difference between some Mongol and European armies was organization and discipline, the more powerful nobles, the less discipline and the more constantly hired war hardened professional cavalry, the more of it. But discipline as well varied within Europe.
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Jaroslav Kravcak
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| Posted: Fri 23 Mar, 2012 5:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Kurt Scholz wrote: | Roman authors must explain Roman misfortunes according to certain rules that not necessarily reflect the actual significance or way how things took place.
Heavy infantry can always kneel down and form a low protection of shields over which "light" infantry shoots at a much higher rate of shot at mounted missile units that offer more target area.
The difference between some Mongol and European armies was organization and discipline, the more powerful nobles, the less discipline and the more constantly hired war hardened professional cavalry, the more of it. But discipline as well varied within Europe. |
Im mostly interested in french cavalry since the end of the hundred years war through rennaisance. French ordonnance companies seemed quite well disciplined and organized in comparison to previous knightly cavalry of Europe. (I dont know if its exactly like this but they are sometimes mentioned as being the first standing army since Roman times, this could be true for western Europe I suppose)
Yet most knowledge I can gain about many details about how exactly they functioned is very vague. Also battle descriptions are mostly free to interpret as one likes and not explicitlky specific.
But they seem to be best equipped and most succesfull heavy cavalry of late middle ages and early rennaisance, generally able to do what most other cavalry even at the time would rarely dare to. But as to how complex maneuvers they were capable to perform on the battlefield, Im largely lost. I dont recall where exactly it was either at this forum or some other in a discussion it was stated, that while rennaisance light cavalry was capable to perform quite elabourate movements, men at arms were rather inflexible and I cant really say how it really was.
Even quite often mentioned tretises like that of Cruso, Wallhausen or others - hard to say how much informative these are as everyone is advocating what he believes is true and uses examples that fit him, ommiting the opposite. Good example from my reading is Nolan praising light cavalry as the only that was ever usefull in battle in his publication on cavalry history and equipment, or du Picqes complete degradation of cavalry to something unfit for any real combat at all, while praising infantry, especially romans, or maybe Machiavellis opinions. Id like to know what are educated opinions on similar publications.
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Kurt Scholz
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| Posted: Sat 24 Mar, 2012 4:37 am Post subject: |
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It certainly depends on the author's mindset and even I wouldn't try to give a final verdict because I'm just as biased as everyone else.
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Gene Green
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| Posted: Thu 29 Mar, 2012 8:42 pm Post subject: Re: Cavalry charges, help! |
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Well, didn't this topic go off on a tangent somewhere ?
Here's the OP's original statement:
| Ben P. wrote: | Okay I've come across people who say that a horse won't charge a solid object and if they do it won't be in good
order I disagreed but lacking any sources I kept my mouth shut so what do you guys think? is this true or (As I believe)
false? can anyone tell me? |
I think there's plenty of examples showing that properly trained horses will, in fact, charge a solid object / shooting infantry / piked infantry / cannons / machine guns / whatever. As I mentioned earlier, the accounts of the Battle of Borodino are full of French and Polish cavalry mounting direct frontal charges against Russian redoubts; the Charge of the Light Brigade was a frontal one against well defended artillery positions; while the outcome of this kind of frontal cavalry assaults is often less than desirable, they definitely could and did happen all the time.
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Lafayette C Curtis
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| Posted: Fri 30 Mar, 2012 11:51 am Post subject: |
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| Mikael Ranelius wrote: | | Which sources contradict Plutarch? According to him and Cassius Dio the Parthian arrow barrage actually disrupted the Roman formation and inflicted casualties |
Um...Plutarch himself?
To get a good picture of what happened at Carrhae, we can't just focus all of our attention upon that single chapter with its dramatic description of the arrow storm and its alleged effects upon the Roman legionaries. The single largest loss of the day was the annihilation of Publius Crassus's detachment away from the main army; Plutarch says that this detachment consisted of 1300 horsemen, eight cohorts, and 500 archers, so it must have numbered over 5000 soldiers in total even if we take account of the possibility that the legionary cohorts might have been understrength from attrition and desertion and all. Compare this to the number of wounded men that Crassus had to leave in camp later during the night as he made a hurried retreat along with the rest of the army: a mere 4000 men. It would not be unreasonable to assume that these 4000 men would have been all (or nearly all) the casualties Crassus's army would have suffered in the battle itself if it hadn't been for the greater and morally more significant loss of Publius and his detachment. 4000 might have been a fairly heavy loss for an army of 40,000 but I daresay that, without Publius's detachment and its disastrous defeat, this 10% loss would not have been crippling to (Marcus) Crassus's army!
(In fact, if we tally the losses mentioned by Plutarch, we find that the majority was due to the annihilation of small detachments that straggled away from the main body, either during the hurried march to Carrhae (such as Vargontinus and his four cohorts) or as the army disintegrated after Crassus was lured into a trap and murdered. The 4000 men lost during the day's fighting pales in comparison to these).
Another issue is that we don't have Parthian sources for this battle. If any of them had survived (and been translated for our study), I believe they would have mourned the heavy losses they incurred as the price for this victory, particularly during the desperate fighting with Publius Crassus and his cornered detachment. In other words, the heavy casualties probably went both ways, albeit much heavier for the Romans than for the Parthians.
| Jaroslav Kravcak wrote: | So mongol and eastern european armies and their use of cavalry seem to be much ahead of western cavalry even in 16th century (or maybe better said much more creative), or is it just a lack of details about a manner in which for example french gendarmes were deployed in both theory and actual battles?
(It seems to me that even Ordonnance companies, that should be quite profesional and capable of more elabourate maneuvers and cooperation simply charged and then retreated or pursued defeated enemy and were basically unusable for any other sort of action from the biggest part after first commitment into action) |
I normally would deny the idea that cavalry went into a "decline" at the end of the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance but, truth be told, this is one of the few things that actually do make a case for such a decline. Medieval men-at-arms were (generally speaking) a versatile elite force able to fight as heavy cavalry, light cavalry, or heavy infantry as needed. As other troops took over the infantry and light cavalry roles, however, the gens d'armes appear to have become more confined and stereotyped into the heavy cavalry role, losing much of their original flexibility in the process. Of course, this was a very gradual process; in the 1460s and 70s the hommes d'armes were still a multirole force, and even their heavy cavalry actions often involved a great deal of manoeuvre (with sometimes hilarious results, such as the mess at Montlhery). Even the Burgundian ordinances of the 1470s still stipulated that their men-at-arms ought to be able to fight dismounted if necessary. In contrast, while 16th-century men-at-arms could theoretically dismount, it seems that in practice they no longer expected to be regularly ordered to do so.
On the other hand, I have to wonder if the image you get of inflexibility is heavily coloured by the bias in your reading towards major battles and large formations. Montluc in his memoirs relates a number of smaller engagements where the shock cavalry on the French side (though not necessarily gendarmes) were able to conduct flanking manoeuvres, regroup after an attack, and the like. The cavalry in these "small wars" also frequently participated in raids and expeditions, some of which required them to dismount in order to join the friendly forces scaling a town wall or something like that. And of course let's not forget Bayard's lightning raid in 1515, which netted none less than Prospero Colonna himself!
| Quote: | | Im mostly interested in french cavalry since the end of the hundred years war through rennaisance. French ordonnance companies seemed quite well disciplined and organized in comparison to previous knightly cavalry of Europe. |
Administratively neater, yes. But in terms of military practice the Ordonnances were probably just a formalisation of the structures and methods that had become gradually established among the better elements of the French royal forces during the final phase of the Hundred Years' War. The royal Ordonnance did not spring out of a vacuum either; there were a number of ordinances of a more local nature enacted in the preceding decades. The impact of the royal Ordonnance (and the companies (re)organised under its aegis) largely lay in the fact that this time it was the French king doing it with all the resources of the royal administration (and exchequer!) behind him, thus achieving more far-reaching and longer-lasting effects than the previous ducal and comital ordinances.
(As an aside, De Re Militari (the research group) used to have Brian Ditcham's dissertation on foreign mercenaries in French service in the era straddling the promulgation of the Ordinances, but it seems to be gone now due to a malware attack on their site. Which is too bad since it's a really valuable resource, particularly in showing some of the continuities between the Compagnies d'Ordonnance and earlier practice.)
| Quote: | | (I dont know if its exactly like this but they are sometimes mentioned as being the first standing army since Roman times, this could be true for western Europe I suppose) |
Not quite true. Charlemagne (or even one of his immediate predecessors) appear to have established royal scarae as some sort of small standing component serving as a mobile reserve that didn't have to be raised anew for each and every campaign. The military Orders of the Crusades were essentially quasi-independent standing armies. Henry II and Richard I of England also made much use of long-service mercenaries who partook of the character of standing armies while their reigns lasted. Simply said, "the first standing army since Roman times" is pretty much a meaningless epithet since it can be assigned to any number of the better-organised military institutions in the era depending on how we define "standing army."
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