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Pro solo impetu nostro … By our one attack …
From a chronicle of the First Crusade describing how one Crusader charge was enough to break a Fatimid army apart.
By the time the First Crusade had taken Jerusalem the techniques of cavalry warfare depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry were decidedly old hat. The modern way to use a lance was no longer to hold it aloft and to stab at foes as you rode by them, or to hurl it pilum-like as a Roman legionary might. The full potential of ‘shock combat’ and employment of the full force of galloping knights and destriers came with the couched-lance technique.
The First Crusade was a revolution in delivery of the cavalry charge and not because its knights were better armoured or because their horses were larger and heavier than their Muslim opponents. By the time of the Battle of Antioch Fulcher of Chartres recorded that ‘Our knights had been reduced to weak and helpless footmen’ and what horses there were had been obtained from Edessa and were of Arab stock. The key was organisation. Creating an effective charge was, in the medieval age, extremely difficult. The charge is only effective if it is timed to strike the enemy at a point where his formation is already breaking up; charging against well-organised ranks, especially of mounted archers, was a recipe for disaster.
So much for timing, but what of delivery? The charge is a mass movement, requiring men moving as one – the shock is dissipated if members of the unit arrive piecemeal. The Normans, famous for their discipline and mobility, overcame this problem by withdrawing their knights slightly from the front line, usually behind their infantry, to line up before sallying forward. Even this manoeuvre was difficult if the knights were unused to fighting together. Of course, the knights of the First Crusade lived and fought together for an incredibly long period of time and the military genius of Bohemond of Taranto added further to the effectiveness of the manoeuvre.
Bohemond looked to fight on terrain that favoured the Franks and which reduced the opportunity for a mobile and dispersed battle to develop where mounted archery would be able to penetrate the Crusaders’ ranks. A field narrowed by natural barriers such as rivers, lakes or mountain folds and slopes limiting flanking options was ideal. His defeat of Prince Duqaq of Damascus at Antioch was achieved because he thwarted the Turks’ attempts at encirclement by dividing the Crusader force into a forward and rearguard unit. The rearguard effectively plugged gaps around the forward unit, allowing the latter to organise its cavalry charge behind a screen of heavy infantry. Raymond of Aguilers described how all this took place on the day in question:
Bohemond indeed followed at a distance with the rest and guarded the rear lines. For the Turks have this custom in fighting: even though they are fewer in number, they always strive to encircle their enemy. They attempted to do this in this battle also, but by the foresight of Bohemond the wiles of the enemy were prevented. When, however, the Turks, and the Arabs, coming against the Count of Flanders, saw that the affair was not to be conducted at a distance with arrows, but at close quarters with swords, they turned in flight. The count followed them for two miles, and in this space he saw the bodies of the killed lying like bundles of grain reaped in the fields.
