1
a meter) and was only efficient in foot
Cavalry and empires
NIKOLAY N. KRADIN
Russian Academy of Sciences and Far-Eastern Federal
University, Russia
Cavalry (French cavalerie, Italian cavaleria,
from the Latin caballus – horse) is a military
branch which consists of armed cavaliers. The
history of cavalry represents a part of the dra-
matic rivalry between offensive and defensive
armaments in human history. The cavalry
superseded the expensive and clumsy char-
iots. The introduction of cavalry was related
to the cultivation of riding. Images of cava-
liers of the 14th–13th centuries BCE can be
seen in the Egyptian bas reliefs, a period in
which the Assyrians were also depicting fig-
ures of paired horsemen, one of them control-
ling the horse while the other loosed arrows
from a bow. However, it is much more likely
that riding skills were learned earlier by the
steppe inhabitants – by pastoral nomads as
early as the turn of the 2nd–1st millennia
BCE. This took place over a long time span,
extending over a period of several centuries
in a process related to the training of the
horse, the acquisition of skills of control
and riding technique, and the improvement
of both harness and saddle.
It is possible that the Assyrians used
the pastoral nomads – Cimmerians and
Scythians – who almost came into the world
on the horse as auxiliaries in war. At about the
same time, the Arabian nomads began using
mounted camels with the adoption of the sad-
dle. This became the origin of the “cavalry
revolution” (McNeill 1982: 15).
A disadvantage of the cavalry of the ancient
nomads was a lack of long swords. The Aci-
naces of the Scythians was short (about half
The Encyclopedia of Empire, First Edition. Edited by John M. MacKenzie.
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe172
combat. The bow therefore acted as a major
weapon of the horseman. The nomads were
the first to learn to aim and fire at full tilt, also
turning back to shoot to their rear in a tech-
nique named the Parthian shot. It is depicted
in many ancient paintings. This appears to
have boggled the imagination of the inhabi-
tants of the settled countries. Usually, the Par-
thian shot was employed during a false
retreat, a move along the enemy front line,
or during a circular maneuver which allowed
continuous shooting at a motionless enemy.
These became choice tactics for nomads
throughout history and have several styles
(Cantabrian circle, Caracole). Caracole was
used by light horse even after the invention
of firearms in the 16th–17th centuries CE for
continuous firing on the enemy using pistols.
Nomads had mobile and inexpensive
armies which consisted of lightly armed
archers. Every pastoralist was a natural soldier
(warrior) and skilled archer. Ancient nomads
generally used raids on agrarian civilizations
to gain the spoils of war or extract gifts or ran-
som. In combat with foot soldiers they pre-
ferred shooting from a distance. Attempts to
punish nomads in expeditions to the steppe,
even with the use of cavalry, turned out to be
ineffective. The nomads retreated further into
their territory and simultaneously drained the
enemy’s strength by maneuver and shooting at
a distance. The enemy thereby incurred losses
without making contact with the enemy
nomads, communications became attenuated,
food stocks became low, and problems with
drinking water arose. When these forces were
weakened, the nomads changed to the attack.
In this way the Scythians vanquished the
troops of the emperor of Persia, Darius
I (sometime between 516 and 512 BCE), and
2
the several campaigns of Emperor Wu (or
Wudi) of the Han dynasty (between 127 and
87 BCE) against the Xiongnu proved to be
equally unsuccessful.
Over the years cavalry appeared in all
ancient empires, despite concerns about
adopting horses in their armies. Considerable
attention was given to the selection and
breeding of horses, beginning with the Assyr-
ian Empire. The Chinese became aware of the
acquisition of horses from countries to the
west, for which purpose Emperor Wu sent
Zhang Qian twice to Central Asia. In the Per-
sian Empire the cavalry was considered to be
the top branch of the army. In ancient Greece
there were few horses, therefore the cavalry
was small in number and had no critical role
in the battles between the city-states. Instead,
all was determined by the foot soldiers – the
hoplites. Alexander the Great created the
trained light and heavy cavalry which played
a critical part in the Asian campaigns. How-
ever, in the war against the Achaemenid
Empire, the Macedonian phalanx proved to
be tactically stronger than the cavalry and
in Europe and the Middle East this deter-
mined the dominance of foot soldiers for
hundreds of years. The basis of the Greek
and Roman armies was unmounted warriors
armed with spears and swords. In the Roman
army, the cavalry formed part of legions and
was armed with swords and spears. Its role
was to obtain intelligence and to pursue a
defeated or retreating enemy. By contrast,
the army of Carthage was frequently and reg-
ularly used by Hannibal during the Punic
wars for flanking attacks. In all textbooks
on military history, the chief example of
entrapment is provided by the Battle of Can-
nae (216 BCE) when the front line curves
sharply inwards like a horseshoe around the
enemy forces.
In the 1st century BCE, the heavy horse cav-
alry was established. It was invented by the
nomads of the plateau of Iran (the Parthians)
and steppes of Eastern Europe (the Sarma-
tians). This was the original tactical answer
to Roman imperialism. The Sarmatians and
Parthians introduced the cataphract, a heavily
armored horse and rider. The body of the cav-
alier was protected by the scale armor and the
head by a spiked helmet, and he carried a
sword and long pike. In order to sit securely
on the horse, the saddle was developed with
high front and rear arches. These massed war-
riors formed in line were a menacing force,
but frequently archers were first used to
reduce and weaken the enemy forces. So,
for example, using these forces in this manner
the legions of Marcus Licinius Crassus were
defeated in the Battle of Carrhae (53 BCE).
This was one of the worst defeats of the
Roman Empire.
The invention of the stirrup became the
next important stage in cavalry development.
This occurred in the 3rd–4th centuries in
present-day northeast China. The earliest
surviving artifacts belong to the nomads
Xianbei in Manchuria and kingdoms of East-
ern Jin (317–420) and Koguryeo (Korea). The
stirrup allowed the use of the long swords and
enhanced the use of archery at full tilt. The
hard saddle with a high arch allowed the
horseman with a spear to sit securely on his
mount. The kinetic force of the horse and cav-
alier permitted a crushing blow using a long
spear. The stirrup and saddle changed the bal-
ance between cavalry and foot soldiers for
almost a thousand years. After the crushing
defeat of the Rouran Khaganate in 555 CE,
the remainder of the population migrated to
Pannonia where they are known as Avars.
According to the view of Lynn White
(1964), the stirrup became the basis for the
following feudal revolution in Western
Europe. It allowed the development of heavy
cavalry because it enabled the horseman to be
solidly linked with the saddle and to keep
securely in his hands the long and heavy
spear. At the end of the 9th century, the

shoeing of horses also started in Europe, help-
ing to protect and preserve the hoofs of the
horse under the weight of the heavily armed
horseman. The majority of scholars connect
these processes with the name of the king of
the Franks, Charles Martel. When he
returned home after the Battle of Poitiers
(732 or, possibly, 733 CE) with the Arabs, in
which the foot soldiers of the Franks proved
able to withstand the Muslim cavalry, he reor-
ganized the military system. Charles confis-
cated church lands and distributed them
among his vassals, each of them becoming a
knight. This substantial contribution to the
development of knighthood was made by
Martel’s grandson Charlemagne. The heavy
horse cavalry formed the core of the new
army which dominated Europe during the
following several centuries. In battle, the
knights were typically drawn out in line or
in the form of a wedge in order to crumple
up or dissect the enemy forces. These tactics
resembled the method of conducting battles
used by the ancient cataphracts in which
the infantry were of only secondary impor-
tance and provided the coup de grâce – to set-
tle the enemy’s defeat.
In the second half of the first millen-
nium and the first centuries of the second
millennium, the heavy horse cavalry shaped
the destinies of battles. In the caliphate of
the Arabs, the light cavalry initially predo-
minated but they gradually adopted the
use of heavy cavalry. In East Asia the heavy
cavalry began to develop from the first Turk
Khaganate. In the Mongolian Empire the
heavy cavalry was protected by laminar
armor and armed with cavalry swords and
spears. The light cavalry employed archery,
and the Mongolian composite bow was
the most powerful in the Middle Ages. As
to the tensile force and bowshot, it took
precedence over the well-known English
ordinary bow (more than 300 meters versus
230 meters).
3
The Mongols’ crowning tactical ruse was
the famous feigned retreat, when they sent
forward several divisions to first skirmish
with the enemy and then make as if to retreat.
After this, when the enemy set off in pursuit
hoping to pick off some easy prey, the Mon-
gols took advantage of their enemy’s
stretched lines of communication. The battle
was then finished off by the heavy cavalry,
which first advanced at a light trot before
picking up speed and crushing the tired and
disordered opposing forces. The Mongols
preferred fighting from a distance to over-
whelming their opponents in close combat.
It is possible that this was a result of the fact
that the main part of their army was com-
prised of lightly armed archers.
The European path of the medieval cavalry
development was related to improving the
protective armor and offensive arms (sword
and spear) of the knight. The knight had
gradually turned into a menacing, unbeatable
force, a peculiar medieval tank. However,
therein also lies his weakness, because the
mobility of the knightly horse cavalry was
consequently restricted. Every knight encased
in the heavy armor was vulnerable without a
squire. In the course of time, the foot soldiers
learned to use different topographical and
artificial obstacles in order to stand against
the knightly cavalry. During the Hundred
Years’ War, the English army in the Battle
of Crécy (1346) organized its defense upon
a mountain; in the Battle of Poitiers (1356)
behind a fence; while the Battle of Agincourt
(1415) took place in a waterlogged field.
When the knights were deprived of power
of maneuver, they could easily become targets
for arbalesters and archers. In the Battle of
Crécy the English archers picked off the
cream of the French knights. This battle
became a portent of the decline of the
knightly epoch. Later on, the foot soldiers
were armed with long pikes in order to repel
the attacks of the knightly cavalry successfully.
4
The Swiss pike square became a menace to the
knightly cavalry, and the advent of firearms
brought the final decline of the mounted
knight.
It appeared that the role of heavy cavalry
in deciding the outcomes of the battles was
now history. Its place was taken by the light
cavalry armed with firearms. The pursuit of
the retreating enemy or its use in flanking
attacks became the central task of the
mounted forces. In the 17th and 18th centu-
ries three types of cavalry were formed:
heavy (cuirassiers), intermediate (dragoons
and others), and light (uhlans, hussars, Cos-
sacks). The heavy cavalry was used for
attacks in close formation, light cavalry for
intelligence or patrol service, while the inter-
mediate cavalry was used for any and all
tasks. In the course of frontal attack against
the enemy infantry, the cavalry, as a rule,
took a bad knock, but in the case of counter-
ing attacks by cavalry, flanking attacks, pur-
suing the retreating enemy, or employment
in the enemy’s rear, it was indispensable.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the numerical
strength of cavalry reached in many coun-
tries of Europe more than half of the whole
army. However, its use in the decisive battles
has resulted in major casualties (for example,
Borodino 1812 and Waterloo 1815) and the
infantry played the critical role in the out-
come on the battlefields.
With the advent of the rifled and then
multi-firing firearms, the importance of the
cavalry declined dramatically. The negative
experience of the use of cavalry in the Cri-
mean War (1853–1856) and Second Italian
War of Independence (1859) questioned the
value of the cavalry and its existence as a mil-
itary branch. However, the experience of the
American Civil War in 1861–1865 showed
that the cavalry was as capable as before of
conducting active warfare, even in the pres-
ence of the multi-firing guns, under condi-
tions of broad overstretched battlefronts
and in raiding activities to the enemy’s rear.
In the course of the Battle of Mars-La-Tour,
fought on August 16, 1870 during the
Franco-Prussian War, the German cavalry
completely defeated the French infantry
despite being grossly outnumbered. The cav-
alry also found a role in the colonial wars of
empires where there were large areas of terri-
tory and long lines of stretched communica-
tions in difficult country which hampered
infantry and artillery, while the native popu-
lation had no modern arms to counter its use
(in Africa, the Caucasus, Central Asia, India,
and North America).
At the beginning of World War I, the
numerical strength of cavalry reached 8–10
percent of the armies of the combatant coun-
tries. Under the conditions of the continuous
frontal war, dense artillery and machine-gun
fire, the use of cavalry resulted in major
casualties among both military personnel
and horses. The actions of cavalry had some
effect only at the first stage of the war (to
the end of 1914 on the Western Front and
until October 1915 on the Eastern Front
where communications were more stretched).
In the static period of the war, the cavalrymen
were relegated to acting as foot soldiers or
brought out of the front altogether. The cav-
alry was only used in the Middle East where
the communications were stretched and lim-
ited military operations were carried out. At
the end of World War I, there was a large-
scale reduction of the cavalry in the armies
of the Western empires.
Nevertheless, the cavalry played a critical
role in local conflicts between the two World
Wars. During the civil war in Russia, the
numerical strength of cavalry made up about
a half of the warring armies. In the Red Army,
the strategy of creating major cavalry units –
whole armies – was embodied. It countered
the overextension of military power in large
territories, across country, and in the great
empty spaces between the opposing sides.

The cavalry could be used for breakthroughs,
flank-turning maneuvers, and raids in the
enemy’s rear. The mounted attack supported
by the horse-drawn machine-gun platforms
(Russian tachanka) became the major form
of the conduct of combat. When the terrain
constrained the use of cavalry or the enemy
held his own, the horsemen dismounted and
acted as foot soldiers. The civil war in Russia
became the true Renaissance of cavalry war-
fare. Between the two World Wars, the cavalry
continued to be used actively in the colonial
conflicts where indigenous people were unable
to acquire modern military equipment.
During World War II, many armies
included cavalry units (Germany, Italy, Mon-
golia, Poland, and the Soviet Union), but their
role was small and their numerical strength
decreased continually. This was due to the
vulnerability of cavalry to different kinds of
armaments (tanks, artillery, machine guns,
and submachine guns) which caused major
casualties, especially in the case of frontal
engagement. A myth of the combat between
the Polish uhlans and German tanks near
Krojanty is widely known but, in reality, the
uhlans initially drove away the German foot
soldiers and only afterwards were ambushed
and killed by tanks. The cavalry was only
retained in reserve in the Soviet Army. It
was most effectively used on extended, broad
fronts, in counter attacks, and in breakouts.
However, under the conditions of the limited
motorization of the Soviet Army, the creation
of a combined horse-mechanized corps
proved to be efficient.
A decline in the use of cavalry has actually
coincided with the collapse of empires and
emancipation of colonies. It was related to
the development of the quick-firing gun
and motorization of all armies in the 20th
century. Nevertheless, the cavalry continued
to remain as an auxiliary colonial force in
5
the second half of the 20th century. This
was related to the character of combat opera-
tions and substandard infrastructure in the
colonies. The French used cavalry at the time
of the conflict in Algeria and the Portuguese
in Mozambique and Angola. Probably, the
last use of cavalry in war was at the time of
the conflict between China and Vietnam in
1979. In the course of time, the cavalry was
abolished in almost all armies except for the
mounted police and gendarmerie squads. In
a majority of states, the cavalry has been pre-
served as part of the historical tradition, as
participation in the military parades and
other festivals shows. They commemorate
for us the former grandeur of the empires
of the past.
SEE ALSO: Mongol Empire, Great; Steppe
empires; Technology and empire; War,
weaponry, and empire: 1. Ancient; War,
weaponry, and empire: 2. Modern.
REFERENCES
McNeill, W. 1982. The Pursuit of Power: Technol-
ogy, Armed Force, and Society since AD 1000.
Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.
White, L., Jr. 1964. Medieval Technology and Social
Change. London: Oxford University Press.
FURTHER READING
DiMarco, L. A. 2008. War Horse: A History of the
Military Horse and Rider. Yardley, PA:
Westholme.
Khazanov, A. M. 2013. “The Eurasian Steppe
Nomads in World Military History.” In J. Paul
(Ed.), Nomad Aristocrats in a World of Empires:
187–207. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert
Verlag.
May, T. 2007. The Mongol Art of War. Barnsley:
Pen & Sword Military.
Roemer, J. 1863. Cavalry: Its History, Management,
and Uses in War. New York: Van Nostrand.