Cavalry and chariots against infantry

[Nathan Ross]

In the Roman era, the majority of urban population also lived in poverty. In the city of Rome, there was no constant hunger only because the State was sharing out free bread to the poor masses. But eating almost only bread (and almost no meat or vegetables) is not healthy... during times of the Roman Republic before Augustus and before the 1st century AD, there was also extreme poverty in Roman provinces.

Do you have any evidence for this? There were both meat and vegetable markets in central Rome, and I've never heard of 'extreme poverty' in the provinces during the late republic.

Such a video as an example of what horses can do in battle

Not the most accurate reconstruction, I suggest! But I do like the man leaping over the Roman lines and then attacking them with his bare hands, and later breaking up a testudo single-handed ;-)

According to the book, it shows the scene of Constantine's shock cavalry smashing Maxentius' heavy infantry (namely - the Praetorian Guard) in the battle of the Milvian Bridge (312 AD)

This scene actually shows Constantine's light cavalry and archers (including Moorish troops with arrows in their headbands) pursuing Maxentius' army across the broken bridge and driving them into the river. The Maxentian soldiers have horses in the water with them, and so probably represent the Equites Domini Nostri of the imperial guard.

It does not, therefore, represent a clash on the battlefield itself but during the rout that followed. However, the note from the panegyric I quoted earlier suggests that clibanarii were indeed trained to attack and break infantry formations.

[Domen]

And no, I don't know why archery succeeded at Carrhae and failed at Gaugemala. None of us do.

I know.

Most importantly - because Carrhae was a very long battle, which lasted for many days and de facto was not one but a series of nearly constant clashes (and that's why the Parthians had plenty of time to shoot at the Romans - as well as to charge them, because let's remember that apart from 9,000 horse archers, there were 1,000 cataphracts who also killed many of Roman infantry and horsemen).

Secondly - the Parthians had practically unlimited number of arrows, thanks to having 1000 pack-mules fully loaded with arrows (and each such a mule could carry hundreds of arrows).

Thirdly - because they used special bows and arrowheads, read this article please:

http://www.casematepublishing.com/dlc/97...033892.pdf

I think we're talking about, at most four thousand Gothic cavalry, and substantially more Gothic infantry, against at least ten thousand Roman infantry.

The Roman army at Adrianople had at least (according to Osprey's "Adrianople"):

Infantry:

Scholae - 1500
Legiones palatinae - 5000
Auxilia palatinae - 6000

Cavalry:

Equites palatinae - 1000
Equites comitatenses - 1500

So in total this gives 15,000 men.

According to another book ("Adrianople - Frigidus" from Polish "Historical Battles" series by Bellona, written by Daniel Gazda) the Roman army at Adrianople was even bigger than 15,000.

According to Gazda, the Roman army brought by Valens with him to Adrianople (which included his personal guard) numbered 15,000 - 17,000 men.

But - according to this book - these 15,000 - 17,000 men were reinforced by operational group of Sebastianus (ca. 2,000 - 3,000 men), part of the field army of Thrace (of undefined strength) and some unit of the Germanic Batavi, under command of Richomeres.

In total Gazda estimates this army as "at the very most 30,000 - that is around 20% of all forces of the eastern part of the Empire". But "at the very most" - so it could be in fact anything between 20,000 and 30,000 (after adding units from Thrace, Sebastianus and Richomeres).

Perhaps indeed it was much closer to 20,000 than to 30,000.

Regarding the Gothic army:

We know that the main part of the Gothic army were the tribes of the Thervingi (living to the north-east of the Danube river before) and the Greuthungi (who lived in steppe areas located more to the east than areas inhabited by the Thervingi). Apart from this the Gothic army was reinforced by the nomadic tribes of the Huns, the Alans and the Taifals, by Gothic units from the Roman army, by fugitive Roman slaves, prisoners of war liberated from Roman captivity, deserters from the Roman army and some number of miners from local gold mines, "who could no longer sustain the heavy burden of Roman taxes".

The Gothic army included men between ca. 15 years old and ca. 50 - 60 years old.

We know that the Greuthungi, the Huns, the Taifals and the Alans fielded almost only cavalry (but of these three, the largest proportion of infantry - if indeed any took part in the battle - had to be among the Greuthungi - and if there was such infantry deployed by them in the actual battle, then it was mostly skirmish infantry and archers). Vast majority of the Greuthungi cavalry was shock cavalry armed with melee spears, swords and large oval shields, rather than skirmish cavalry.

The Alan army consisted primarly of heavy shock cavalry. The difference between the Greuthungi cavalry and the Alan cavalry was its heaviness - the Greuthungi cavalry was using shock charges and was armed with spears, but most of their troops wore no metal armor - they had their large, oval shields though - while Alan horsemen were usually armored, and also shock cavalry.

Regarding the Thervingi - historians assume, that they had more infantry than cavalry.

Both Gothic tribes were considered as excellent in using spears in combat.

Other men such as fugitive slaves and gold miners were surely footmen, but they don't deserve to be called "infantry" or "soldiers" - they were a rabble, that maybe added some numbers to the overall strength of Gothic foot forces, but they did not add much of combat value.

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All in all the Gothic army can be estimated as (basing mostly on Ammianus):

Thervingi:

- ca. 8000 infantry (including perhaps all those fugitive slaves, miners, etc.)
- ca. 1000+ foot archers and skirmishers (maybe also some missile cavalry among them)
- ca. 1000 "heavy" shock cavalry
- ca. 800 Roman-Gothic troops of Colias and Sueridas (perhaps infantry, but it is not certain)

Greuthungi:

- most likely ca. 4000 "heavy" shock cavalry
- ca. 500+ light missile cavalry

Maybe the Greuthungi also fielded some infantry (but Ammianus doesn't say).

The Huns, the Alans and the Taifals:

- most likely ca. 2500 cavalry

In total the barbarian army at Adrianople probably included:

- ca. 9000 melee-oriented infantry (including perhaps all those fugitive slaves, miners, etc.)
- ca. 1500 Gothic missile-oriented troops (infantry and cavalry)
- ca. 5000 Gothic shock, melee-oriented cavalry

- ca. 2500 of the Huns, the Alans and the Taifals cavalry (of them the Alans and the Taifals were mostly heavy shock cavalry, while the Huns were perhaps mostly horse archers)

In total perhaps some 18,000 - 20,000 troops.

And perhaps at least 40% of that barbarian army was cavalry.

[Marja]

Why do you assume the Greuthungi were all cavalry?

The total strength of the Roman field armies comes out to about 20% cavalry, 80% infantry. But given the presence of the scolae, the need to detach units to garrison cities, etc. the actual proportion at Hadrianopolis may exceed 30% cavalry.

The Goths were refugees, basically, joined by rebel miners, rebel Roman soldiers, and a limited number of mercenaries. The Goths came from an agricultural society, probably with pastoral elements, but the situation isn't right for creating large cavalry forces.

So the Roman ratio of 20% overall is a good upper limit to the Gothic ratio. And the Roman armies probably outnumbered the Goths.

[Domen]

Daniel Gazda in his "Adrianople - Frigidus" mentions (he wrote that he based on Ammianus Marcellinus in this case - I have no time to check this on my own at the moment by looking through Ammianus) that the Greuthungi included 3,000 - 4,000 "heavy" cavalry and 500 - 1,000 light cavalry (horse archers).

But - as a matter of fact - Greuthungi (contrary to Thervingi) lived in the steppes.

And as steppe people, they rather certainly relied on cavalry mostly.

I know that there are accounts which say that they had also infantry (according to some accounts they had "more infantry than the Vandals" - but this alone tells us nothing, because we don't know how many infantry the Vandals had). But the fact that the Greuthungi armies - in general - used infantry, does not mean that their infantry took part in this particular battle (Adrianople) or even was present in this area, at the time when the battle was fought. The Parthians also had infantry - and used large numbers of infantry in most battles - but at Carrhae the Parthian army was 100% cavalry. The same can be true regarding the Greuthungi at Adrianople, which is indirectly confirmed by fact that Ammianus mentions their cavalry, while not mentioning infantry when describing their army (if Gazda is correct).

The Goths came from an agricultural society, probably with pastoral elements.

This is true for the Thervingi - they came from agricultural society with pastoral elements (that lived to the north-east of the Danube). But the Greuthungi - who had their homeland more to the east than the Thervingi - were a pastoral / nomadic society, probably with agricultural elements.

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Edit:

Now I see why Gazda doesn't mention any Greuthungi infantry in the battle.

He assumes that those 500 - 1000 missile troops mentioned by Ammianus, were horse archers.

On the other hand, the Osprey book writes that those 500 - 1000, were foot archers.

Anyway - they count as missile-oriented troops, so whether they were mounted or dismounted is not so important, as we are trying to establish the number of melee-oriented cavalry.

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Regarding the Huns:

There were 500 Huns according to Osprey's "Adrianople", and they were all horse archers. But according to this Osprey's book, it is doubtful whether the Huns actually took part in the battle, because they are only mentioned as present there after the battle, but no sources mention their participation in the battle itself. It is possible that they arrived to late to take part in combat. This fact is favourable for my point of view, that missile troops did not play the decisive role in defeating the Romans.

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Also check the info about the battle of Milvian Bridge I posted above.

A propaganda frieze?

An infantry formation can collapse for many reasons: caught while deploying, caught while retreating, outflanked, etc. Unless we know what happened, we don't know what this shows.

According to wikipedia article about the battle of the Milvian Bridge, this is what happened:

"Maxentius' Praetorian Guard seem to have made a stubborn stand on the northern bank of the river."

And yet the frieze shows this fiercely resisting infantry getting smashed and trampled by horses.

Why do you assume that it is propaganda?

Then I will claim that all accounts which say how infantry easily defeat cavalry are also propaganda.

I really don't think that labelling sources which proof something that we don't like as "propaganda" will help us to establish the truth. One can deny everything which they don't like using this method.

It is easy to label any source that we for some reason don't like as "propaganda". But much harder is to prove that it really is propaganda. Credibility of any source can be "undermined" this way.

But do you have any single proof that this frieze is lying and not showing the reality?


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Hi Nathan,

This scene actually shows Constantine's light cavalry and archers (including Moorish troops with arrows in their headbands) pursuing Maxentius' army across the broken bridge and driving them into the river. The Maxentian soldiers have horses in the water with them, and so probably represent the Equites Domini Nostri of the imperial guard.

It does not, therefore, represent a clash on the battlefield itself but during the rout that followed. However, the note from the panegyric I quoted earlier suggests that clibanarii were indeed trained to attack and break infantry formations.

The Osprey's "Adrianople" claims that it shows heavy cavalry supported by horse archers smashing the Praetorian Guard. But maybe you are right and this Osprey's book is wrong. Anyway - we can clearly see hooves of horses trampling down men (whether they are infantry or "forcefully dismounted" cavalry whose horses already drowned in the river, is of secondary importance - what is important is that horses are trampling these men, while I remember that someone in this thread claimed that a horse won't trample and run over even a lying man, not to mention standing or squatting ones).

[Domen]

The Osprey's "Adrianople" claims that it shows heavy cavalry supported by horse archers smashing the Praetorian Guard. But maybe you are right and this Osprey's book is wrong. Anyway - we can clearly see hooves of horses trampling down men (whether they are infantry or "forcefully dismounted" cavalry whose horses already drown in the river, is of secondary importance - what is important is that horses are trampling those men, while someone in this thread claimed that a horse won't trample and run over even a lying man, not to mention standing or squatting ones).

[Marja]

It's the purpose - to make the emperor seem invincible - that makes it propaganda.

It may present truth or present falsehood, and be propaganda either way. I suspect it presents actual events, in stylized form. But there's nothing in it to show that it represents the stand of the Praetorian Guard as opposed to the rout.

Ammianus' only numbers are the estimate of 10,000 Gothic troops at the camp. He doesn't believe that, but doesn't offer any alternative. He doesn't say anything about the number of Gothic reinforcements, the number of cavalry, etc. Everything else is impressionistic.

Ammianus' account contrasts the Huns, genuine pastoralists, with the Goths. I don't think that would work if the Greuthungi were also pastoralists. And although steppe peoples may need cavalry forces, refugees don't get that choice. How many of the refugees were soldiers, as opposed to civilians, and how many were herders who might also have riding skills? How many of them were able to smuggle horses across the Danube or obtain horses south of it?

Some modern interpretations suggest that the Gothic camp at Ad Salices [whose location is in dispute] may have been primarily composed of the Greuthungi, rather than the Thervingi [although I'm not convinced that the camps can be identified with the tribes]. In which case we see them taking shelter within their fortifications and later fighting an infantry battle to drive the Romans away.

[Domen]

It's the purpose - to make the emperor seem invincible - that makes it propaganda.

A similar purpose was to make Henry V invincible after Azincourt... That makes propaganda.

Ammianus' account contrasts the Huns, genuine pastoralists, with the Goths.

The Goths were not a monolith - a homogenous, one tribe - various branches had different lifestyles.

Thervingi (their name literally means "people of the forest") were not the same as Greuthungi (their name literally means "people of the steppe"). Gradually they were assimilating with each other, but during times of Adrianople they were much different, as they came from different environments.

Thervingi lived closer to the Roman border (just behind the Danube river). Perhaps Ammianus was thus describing customs and lifestile of Thervingi, as he knew them better than steppe Goths.

How many of them were able to smuggle horses across the Danube?

All of them?

In exactly the same way as they managed to "smuggle" themselves across the Danube.

How many of the refugees were soldiers, as opposed to civilians

What "civilians"? In the Gothic society there was no such thing (only women and children).

But every man between ca. 15 and ca. 50-60 years old in the Gothic society was a warrior.

Of course apart from being warriors many of them also did something else for a living.

there's nothing in it to show that it represents the stand of the Praetorian Guard as opposed to the rout.

It can't be determined for sure whether it represents the stand or the rout.

But it is more than clear that it represents hooves of horses trampling down people.

[Nathan Ross]

The Osprey's "Adrianople" claims that it shows heavy cavalry supported by horse archers smashing the Praetorian Guard. But maybe you are right and this Osprey's book is wrong. Anyway - we can clearly see hooves of horses trampling down men (whether they are infantry or "forcefully dismounted" cavalry whose horses already drowned in the river, is of secondary importance - what is important is that horses are trampling these men, while I remember that someone in this thread claimed that a horse won't trample and run over even a lying man, not to mention standing or squatting ones).

This isn't just my opinion, or interpretation! - if you look at the complete frieze it's quite clear what's going on here. You can see the bridge, both banks of the river, the spirits of Rome and Tiber and the men and horses in the water. This was the pivotal moment of the conflict, when Maxentius' fleeing troops fell from the collapsing bridge, and Maxentius himself was drowned. It's described in all accounts of the battle, from the Panegyrics to Lactantius and Zosimus. Constantine's cavalry are shown unarmoured, with only helmets, in contrast to the defeated Maxentian guard cavalrymen. These are surely the same Equites whose headquarters was later demolished to build the Lateran Palace.

The battle itself isn't shown on the arch, only this particular incident. Therefore we don't know whether it featured cavalry attacking infantry or not. However, Nazarius' Panegyric IV (if you want some real imperial propaganda!) pictures Constantine at the battle as follows:

You are the first to fall upon the enemy line. Alone you break it... These men, who his beam of a spear threw down, his horse leaps at and crushes underfoot. The noble helmet glitters and with gems flashing light shows off the divine head. The shield shines with gold, with gold the arms....

And so on. Obviously the bit about Constantine's horse crushing the enemy underfoot is hyperbole, but it might at least suggest that the emperor was leading a cavalry charge at some point!

However, the Arch does not show this charge - only the aftermath of it.

It can't be determined for sure whether it represents the stand or the rout.

See above! Or any study of Constantine, the Arch, or the battle ;-)

[Domen]

Not the most accurate reconstruction, I suggest!

When it comes to this charge (against testudo here) of chained camels at 7:08 - 7:17 of the video.

Hungarian Late Medieval cavalry used similar tactics but with chained horses instead of camels.

So this part is not inaccurate (but I agree that there are some inaccuracies in this video).

[Marja]

How many of the refugees were soldiers, as opposed to civilians

What "civilians"? In the Gothic society there was no such thing (only women and children).

But every man between ca. 15 and ca. 50-60 years old in the Gothic society was a warrior.

Of course apart from being warriors many of them also did something else for a living.

Not true.

Look at the Gothic word for soldier: gadrauhts, member of a warband. Look at the Passion of St. Saba, which contrasts the civilian village with Atharidus and his soldiers. There's an immense gap, and sometimes conflict, between soldiers and civilians in Gothic society. That civilians, or at least those civilians of the free class, might also be militia in emergencies doesn't make them soldiers.

[Domen]

You are talking about sources describing Goths - but Goths from which period exactly?

If this source describes Gothic society 100 years after Adrianople - then it's worthless.

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Perhaps reading a criticial analysis of a source and other sources is better.

I found this reference to a book about the Gothic society:

http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2009/2009-12-41.html

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Edit:

It seems that the Passion of St. Saba is describing the "Visigothic" (Thervingi) society.

And they didn't have many horses, so didn't need to smuggle them across the Danube...

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Coming back to those... camels - we ommited them in this thread. :woot:

And camel cavalry was also used in the Ancient Era in battles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Qarqar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thymbra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_cavalry

And when it comes to chariots - some of the early chariots were drawn by oxen.

But I'm not sure if ox-drawn chariots were ever used in combat.

But perhaps yes - considering that there was ox cavalry (in China):

http://the-scholars.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=19137

And this oxen cavalry (also in China / India region):

http://www.messybeast.com/genetics/hybrid-bovines.htm

[Marja]

Thervingi, not Visigoths!

And I brought up the Passion of St. Saba because of the contrast between the soldiers and the civilians, in response to your claim that every adult man was a warrior, not because of anything directly involving horses.

[Domen]

I know that Thervingi is not the same as Visigoths at that time, hence I wrote Visigoths in brackets.

The Romans were on the verge of an Industrial Era Society, they just had to link all their different inventions together.

Regarding the Romans being supposedly "on the verge of an Industrial Era". This is huge exaggeration considering that the Romans had not developed nor were interested in adopting (despite the fact that some Greek inventors could and had developed such machines) practically any mechanisation of production. The best what they had were early manufactures (without use of machines - just manual production by many craftsmen and division of labour) or a kind of putting-out system.

And at least the same (if not higher) level of development (early manufactures with division of labour) was seen again in some parts of Medieval Europe (mainly Flanders and Italy) as early as the 1200s.

The difference was that the 13th century Flanders and Italy were already capitalistic societies (not even feudal), while the Romans had a society relying heavily on slavery and slave labour. At least up to some point - as later they were running short on slaves due to lack of new conquests. And that shortage of influx of new slaves was also one of factors which contributed to economic crisis.

Medieval Europe in the 1200s and especially 1300s was most likely also already on a higher level of development than the Roman World when it comes to various mechanical inventions.

We might say that Ancient Greek inventors were "on the verge of building a steam engine" - but this is irrelevant, considering that nobody was interested in using steam engines, because they had slave labour and other forms of cheap labour - all much cheaper and more reliable than some "weird machines".

It is similar situation to that in Ancient China - they also invented many amazing things, most of which remained interesting details and curiosities though, while never becoming widely used in practice.

Knowledge of a small group of elite people of science is not enough - you need certain conditions of social structure and social organization to start an industrial era - and Rome didn't have it.

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Regarding urbanisation in the Roman Empire. It was also not very developed.

Looking at a tiny handful of cities within the Roman Empire which exceeded 100,000 inhabitants (and only one which was a real giant - namely the city of Rome) can be very misleading.

Majority of Roman towns had only few or a few thousands inhabitants each. In total around 10% of population of the Empire lived in ca. 1300 towns and cities that existed within the Empire.

The remaining 90% of population of the Empire lived in the countryside.

And these numbers refer to the "Pax Romana" period of the 1st and the 2nd centuries AD. By comparison - regions of Europe such as Flanders or Northern Italy, had already much better level of urbanization in the 1200s and the 1300s, than the Roman Empire had at its peak (1st - 2nd centuries AD).

Not to mention their standard of living and lifespans were much higher/longer.

I do not think so. Do you have any proofs that the average standard of living and lifespans in the Roman Era were "much higher / longer" than in the Medieval Era and why?

I saw somewhere an Age Pyramid of population of the High Medieval Bologna (Northern Italy) basing on the actual local population census carried out in that Italian city-state.

The data was surprising - there was a large number of old people over 65 years old.

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BTW - whether modern horses can smash into solid infantry standing firm can be checked in an experiment. We need:

- an army of standing mannequins representing infantry

- horses and professional stuntmen in protective suits riding them

- special training for horses and for these stuntmen

[Robert]

You may be overlooking the fact the Romans had a very industrial pottery/rooftile production (Nijmegen being proof, but there will be plenty of other sites of similar scale) and had essembled craftsmen to make arms in fabrica. If you consider the size of the Roman army, the amount of weapons and armor needed are staggering. Marble blocks were sawed into slabs using water powered saws. The proces of mining and smelting was well developed. I fail to see what you are trying to prove, as there is plenty of evidence the Romans were a near-industrial society and by no means like the cottage industry of the early Middle ages.

On you suggested experiment of the horses charging a solid body of men, do not forget to have the mannequins shout, shoot and throw spiky things at the horses. On contact, you will want them to jab sharp spears at them and hack them with swords. Without that, it proves nothing other then that you can train a horse to approach an obstacle at speed, much like teaching it to jump a hedge or fence. All fine and well untill that obstacle starts becoming violent and you loose a lot of valuable trained horses. There is a very relevent comment about modern police horses in this thread. I assure you, jab a horse with a sharp stick/spear or pierce it with an arrow or plumbata and as a rider, you have a challenge getting control, let alone getting it to plunge into the fray.

[Domen]

by no means like the cottage industry of the early Middle ages.

Of course! But I wasn't talking about the Early Middle Ages.

The 1200s and the 1300s are not Early Middle Ages - but High Middle Ages.

Technological advancement at that time was similar if not higher than in the Roman Era.

If you talk about Early Middle Ages or Dark Ages - then nobody here disputes that the Roman World was more advanced. But I was talking about 13th and 14th centuries in case if you didn't notice.

If you consider the size of the Roman army, the amount of weapons and armor needed are staggering.

The size of territory and population of the empire which provided that amount, was also staggering.

The Achaemenid Persian Empire also provided such amount of weapons and armor, as it fielded armies of similar size (yet somehow nobody claims that the Achaemenid Empire was a near-industrial state).

On the other hand, High Medieval Europe was extremely politically fragmented (feudalism and such) - and that's why individual states, duchies, counties and city-states had much smaller armies.

But if you unite entire 13th century Europe under one political power, and summ up their armies together - then this is a different story. In such case they would be able to field huge armies as well.

Without that, it proves nothing other then that you can train a horse to approach an obstacle at speed

I want horses to smash into mannequins and trample them, rather than just approaching near.

You can provide those mannequins with some very large shields, if you want.

Sharp weapons rather not, because it will be hard to find stuntmen ready to risk their lifes.

Marble blocks were sawed into slabs using water powered saws.

Both water powered saws and windmills were widely used in High Medieval Europe.

First windmills were used in Europe already by the end of the 12th century.

On the other hand - the Romans had no knowledge of windmills.

The proces of mining and smelting was well developed.

Even more developed these branches of industry were in High Medieval Europe.

the Romans had a very industrial pottery/rooftile production

And High Medieval Europe had a very industrial - for example - weaving.

BTW - what do you mean by "very industrial" pottery production - do you mean large scale of production, advanced methods of production, or both? In case of High Medieval weaving I mean both.

The Romans were certainly producing pottery on large scale - but what about methods?

Rome was ahead of High Medieval Europe in some areas - like road-building techniques - but lagging behind it in some others - like banking (banking was known in Rome, but not as advanced).

First banks were created in Medieval Italy already in the 1100s.

there is plenty of evidence the Romans were a near-industrial society

They were no more "near-industrial" than many parts of High Medieval Europe.

And High Medieval Europe needed circa +/- 500 years more to become really industrial.

The Roman state existed as a great power for more than 500 years, and did not so much of technological progress during that time (for example between years 100 BC and 400 AD).

So that's that regarding the Roman civilization being supposedly "near" to industrial era... :whistle:

I can agree only if you understand "near" as several hundred or a few thousand years...

I assure you, jab a horse with a sharp stick/spear or pierce it with an arrow or plumbata and as a rider, you have a challenge getting control, let alone getting it to plunge into the fray.

Heavily wounded, mad with pain horses, were doing this on their own:

Such an account testifying to great resistance of horses to wounds (from WW1):

"(...) great resistance of horses to wounds. During a charge only killed horses or those which had crushed leg bones were falling immediately. Other horses, often wounded several times, even mortally, in a zeal of attack continued to run and with their entire mass - with riders or without them - were blindly bumping into the enemy, parting and trampling their lines. From distance this apparent lack of casualties of the charging unit was creating an impression of inefficiency of infantry fire. Infantry was confused enough, that most of bullets were starting to fly too high, (...)"