Martial Artist & Battle Tactician

[Awesome King.]

Any time I get into a discussion of William Marshal I begin to feel like one of those sad people who expend all their energy worshipping Bruce Lee. Marshal was simply a phenomenal individual. Easily one of the coolest warriors in history.

Sorry. Obviously my fawning contributes nothing of substance to this thread, so I’ll stop now.

I agree, interesting individual in an interesting time. An exceptional warrior and a canny politician.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

They Muslims were well known for scientific knowlege in medicine and building advance siege weapons, ancient technologies, etc... Although, my knowledge in this area is rather limited, but from what I have heard from historians that the crusade had much impact on Western European culture with all the knowledge and science they had brought back from the Middle East, and also from other places like Greece and Byzantine Empire.

Well...right and wrong. The medieval Islamic civilization did preserve and expand upon the knowledge they gained from the ancient Indian and Greco-Roman worlds, but the Europeans did pretty much the same and it's hard to tell which of them were more instrumental to the preservation and rebirth of medieval science. Personally, I think both of them were important in shaping our history. Without the medieval Europeans, our world wouldn't be as advanced as it it. But neither would it be without the medieval Islamic world.

In terms of military hardware, though, I'd say the Crusaders and their Muslim opponents were more evenly matched than what most people think. By the end of the 11th century (the beginning of the Crusades, that is--the first began in 1095 or something like that), the trebuchet had already travelled all the way from China to Europe, and both Europeans and Muslims were beginning to develop the massive counterweight trebuchets that would later become so important in medieval siege operations. When it comes to personal armament...well, they're largely equivalent in terms of armor, with the heaviest of both European and Islamic warriors wearing comprehensive mail protection reinforced with solid helmets and limb defenses plus some sort of body armor reinforcement made of small plates (the coat-of-plates for the Europeans and the jawshan for the Muslims). Their sword blades were so similar that changes in hilt furniture were all that was needed to convert one side's swords to that of another. (Yes, most of the Islamic warriors at this time carried straight swords, not curved ones, with the Turks--and then not all Turks--being the major exception.) The Islamic states had horse archers and composite bows, but the Crusaders were able to counter this with massed infantry formations armed with crossbows. The Crusaders had the best heavy cavalry formations in the world at that time, but the Muslims were able to counter them with hit-and-run tactics. So the actual picture was one of striking equivalence.

If there was any major difference between them in military terms, then it was the strategic factors. The Crusaders and the Latin principalities depended on continuing support from Europe for success, while the Islamic states were able to draw their resources from immediately adjacent regions with far less expense and bother. So, in a sense, it was a war of attrition, and the Crusaders lost in the end because their supply lines (both material and political) were longer, less reliable, and more vulnerable. But not before contact between the Christian and Muslim forces had enriched the culture of both sides!

[Jason Cheng]

They Muslims were well known for scientific knowlege in medicine and building advance siege weapons, ancient technologies, etc... Although, my knowledge in this area is rather limited, but from what I have heard from historians that the crusade had much impact on Western European culture with all the knowledge and science they had brought back from the Middle East, and also from other places like Greece and Byzantine Empire.

I wanted to add that the Muslim warriors during the Crusades were able to travel with great speed on horseback. They could outrun the knights and their horses both of whom were in heavy armor. Plus, in a hit-and-run operation, a Muslim warrior could rapidly fire arrows from a galloping horse at a slowly moving mounted knight whose armour would keep him from counteracting the Muslim immediately. I understand that the key to a successful victory over the knights for the Muslim warriors were little or no armor for them and their mounts and having a bow and a quiver of arrows.

[s_taillebois]

As far as tactical and personal martial skill, if morality isn't a concern ,might add...for the later period Cortes. Using effective diplomacy to gain unexpected allies, a limited amount of superior technology, along with salvaging the disaster at the night of sorrows...he took an entire country. And if he was not personally skilled he would have fallen as many of his compatriots did at the night of sorrows. The Aztecs had pressed the Spanish very hard...
Another would be men such as Edward 3rd, Henry 5th, and slightly later such as the Duke of Alencon. All of whom were regarded very highly for both personal and tactical skill (and in Alencon's case, an astute awareness of the value of propaganda)
As far as superiority between the Islamic and European cultural fighting arts, and weapons, as noted they'd been fighting so long that cross influencing was inevitable. It could be argued that martial cross influencing began with the Islamic incursion into Gothic Spain clear up to the siege of Vienna.
About all that could be stated there, is the sword remained in common use in the Islamic countries somewhat longer than in the west.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

I wanted to add that the Muslim warriors during the Crusades were able to travel with great speed on horseback. They could outrun the knights and their horses both of whom were in heavy armor. Plus, in a hit-and-run operation, a Muslim warrior could rapidly fire arrows from a galloping horse at a slowly moving mounted knight whose armour would keep him from counteracting the Muslim immediately. I understand that the key to a successful victory over the knights for the Muslim warriors were little or no armor for them and their mounts and having a bow and a quiver of arrows.

That'd be a horrible oversimplification of both Muslim and Crusader tactics. Both of them actually used combined-arms tactical paradigms in a sophisticated manner, and the equation was far more than just "armored man-at-arms vs. unarmored horse archer." For example, the Crusaders quickly learned that massed crossbowmen could drive the lighter horse-archers out of their bows' effective range. The Muslims, too, had fairly large numbers of heavy cavalry right from the start, especially the ghilman and the Mamluk corps who were both designed around the Central Asian lance-and-bow heavy cavalry model.

So please, everyone, stop making these largely untrue generalizations. It's an insult to both the Crusaders' and the Muslims' tactical capabilities.

[samuel acosta]

They weren't the best, but they were certainly good fighters and tacticians, hence we all speak English, a European language. I think this all depends largely who is the leader. During the Crusade, the European had better leader, King Richard the Lion, and he beat the Muslim in their own land eventhough the Muslim forces were much more advance than the European forces....

Sripol

So in what way were the Muslim forces "more advance" than the European forces?

i think the crusaders had a huge advantage in the fact that there weapons were made to fight the muslims and that the muslims weapons were not meant for combating heavily armord knights, i dont know alot on the subject but i think the muslims mainly wore leather and robes and the such,light infantry at best,and wielded scimitars witch are perfect for fighting other light infantry but against armor a scimitar is almost useless i think...im not sure on this but i think its right

on another note the heat of the area,plus mental strain and armor the crusaders would have to be very very seasond warriors to fight in condistions like that.....

[Jason Cheng]

The long, straight double-edged sword carried by the knights were designed for close combat against another knight, infantry soldier, and other adversaries in Europe, as well as enemies outside the continent. The Islamic scimitar was cutting and slashing sword. Not only could it be used for implementing drawcuts, it could be used for thrusting.

This is my theory based on my understanding of engaging in a hand-to-hand combat with an armored warrior : one would stab or cut certain parts of the knight's body not protected by armor with a dagger or sword.

[Corey Roberts]

Specifically to those who seem to be under the impression that Muslim armies were equipped with Scimitars during the Crusades. Muslim armies (Particularly Arabs, the Turks and Persians began using curved weapons earlier) did not carry predominantly curved weapons until the 13th and 14th centuries. During the time period in which we are discussing both the Muslim and Christian armies were armed with two-edged straight-bladed weapons. This Sudanese Kaskara although of modern origin is very similiar to the type of weapon which would have been carried by Muslim armies during the Crusades:

[LafayetteCCurtis]

i think the crusaders had a huge advantage in the fact that there weapons were made to fight the muslims and that the muslims weapons were not meant for combating heavily armord knights

Quite wrong on both counts; the Crusaders' weapons were fundamentally designed to fight other Europeans, while the Muslims' weapons were designed mostly to fight other Muslims, but the technological disconnect between the two was actually so small that they were actually quite effective against each other[/quote]

, i dont know alot on the subject but i think the muslims mainly wore leather and robes and the such,light infantry at best,

Wrong, too; the ghilman and Mamluk cavalry were equipped, trained, and organized according to Central Asian Turkic models of heavy cavalry, which entailed the employment of heavily-armored cavalrymen and often armored horses as well. Most of these men were able to dismount and fight as heavy infantry as well--very much like the contemporary European men-at-arms, in fact, except that the men-at-arms were likely to have used crossbows where the ghilman and Mamluks would have used bows.

and wielded scimitars witch are perfect for fighting other light infantry but against armor a scimitar is almost useless i think...im not sure on this but i think its right

Strike three. Look at Corey's post--I don't think I can add anything much to it, as he has already got the basic facts correct. If anything, the Syrians and Egyptians who were the Crusaders' principal foes were precisely the Muslim cultures that kept the straight blades later than the others--I don't think curved swords became dominant in Syria before the 15th century, while (if I'm not mistaken) the Egyptians only shifted to curved swords on a large scale following the Mamluk defeats under Ottoman Turkish hands in the 16th century.

And remember, remember, the sword was not the only hand-to-hand weapon used on the battlefield. Both sides used lances that could penetrate mail and the padding beneath under the right circumstances, and both obviously had maces. It would have been very unlikely for any heavy cavalryman in the era, whether Crusader or Muslim, to have gone into the battlefield without a mace secured to his saddle or his belt!

[Benjamin Parker]

There were new tests done were they tested a suit of full plate armor, nothing got through it, a swiss crossbow bolt did get through but the chain mail and padding stopped it in its tracks and even maces polearms, and warhammers and other armor piercing weapons had a hard time getting through the plate and even if they did the chain mail and padding once again stopped them, and there was also armor of proof which could protect the wearer from everything even early musket fire. And there was another test which showed that a roman lorica segmenata could take a direct hit from a ballista and the wearer would survive