11-18-2013, 02:06 PM
Interesting observation about the continued use of long sword. Old habits die hard with the Alans it seems.
With the Alans at Chalons. Although occuring about 850 years later than Chalons, in 1302 the Byzantines, hard pressed by the Turks, hired a group of Alans, numbering about 15,000 of which 10,000 were of fighting age & kitted out for war. They fought for the Byzantines for about 3 years & after murdering Roger de Flor who was leader of Catalan mercenaries near Adrianople in revenge for him & his men murdering the son of the Alan chief as well as 300 Alans in an earlier dispute in Asia Minor.
Ramon Muntaner was a member of the Catalan Grand Company & wrote a detailed account of the murder & aftermath, he wrote of the Alans that by 1305 they were down to 9000 men but only 3000 had horses while the rest were infantry so the bulk of their losses were in horses assuming they were all horsemen. Wouldn't the Alans after some hard campaigning in Amorica from 447AD onwards also suffer from a similar, maybe not as severe a shortage of horses as the example I mentioned but if the Huns had a similar lack of fit horses there would have been a lot of dismounted archers in the battle. Although Goar's original Alans may have had large herds of horses when he defected to Romans, I don't know if Alans of 451AD had similar numbers or resources like good grazing land for large herds in Gaul as men would be soldiering for Romans which would take up most of their time, instead of breeding & preparing suitable replacement stock from a young age.
Regards
Michael Kerr
With the Alans at Chalons. Although occuring about 850 years later than Chalons, in 1302 the Byzantines, hard pressed by the Turks, hired a group of Alans, numbering about 15,000 of which 10,000 were of fighting age & kitted out for war. They fought for the Byzantines for about 3 years & after murdering Roger de Flor who was leader of Catalan mercenaries near Adrianople in revenge for him & his men murdering the son of the Alan chief as well as 300 Alans in an earlier dispute in Asia Minor.
Ramon Muntaner was a member of the Catalan Grand Company & wrote a detailed account of the murder & aftermath, he wrote of the Alans that by 1305 they were down to 9000 men but only 3000 had horses while the rest were infantry so the bulk of their losses were in horses assuming they were all horsemen. Wouldn't the Alans after some hard campaigning in Amorica from 447AD onwards also suffer from a similar, maybe not as severe a shortage of horses as the example I mentioned but if the Huns had a similar lack of fit horses there would have been a lot of dismounted archers in the battle. Although Goar's original Alans may have had large herds of horses when he defected to Romans, I don't know if Alans of 451AD had similar numbers or resources like good grazing land for large herds in Gaul as men would be soldiering for Romans which would take up most of their time, instead of breeding & preparing suitable replacement stock from a young age.
Regards
Michael Kerr
Michael Kerr
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
