Military History: The Birthplace of War

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Apparently, it was a potent force, but it lacked any long-range offensive capability. The composite bow did not make its first-known appearance until the days of Sargon’s grandson, Naram-Sin of Akkad, on a rock carving of the mid-third millennium b.c. So dominant did this weapon become that it was still decisive on the battlefield thousands of years later.The sickle sword, probably Sumerian in origin, eventually became the standard close-in weapon of the ancient Israelite and Egyptian armies. The Sumerians also introduced the socketed ax to the battlefield, probably in response to the appearance of body armor. Placing the ax socket over a shaft and securing it with rivets made it a much more reliable weapon. This, in combination with its tapering blade, made it the first truly penetrating hand weapon — the logical reaction to armor. All told, Sumerian ingenuity accounted for at least six major innovations on early Near Eastern battlefields.

At the southwestern extreme of the Fertile Crescent, the nascent kingdom of Egypt — although its military development lagged somewhat — broke plenty of new ground. Possible warfare between Egypt and Sumer is hinted at as early as the Naqada II Period (3500-3300 b.c.) on the Gebel el-Arak flint knife. The carvings on the ivory handle of this artifact seem to depict a battle between indigenous Nile boats, on the one hand, and Mesopotamian boats with flat bottoms and high prows and sterns, on the other. Less ambiguous is the narrative from the tomb of Uni (circa 2300 b.c.), which seems to be the first coherent written account of any military campaign. Uni was a general under Old Kingdom Pharaoh Pepi I, and his tomb walls tell the tale of a combined land-sea expedition to the ‘Gazelle’s Nose,’ believed to be Mount Carmel, near the Mediterranean coast in present-day northern Israel.

Three centuries later, from the Twelfth Dynasty tomb of Khety at Beni Hasan, comes the first depiction of an early battering ram. It was a simple affair, three soldiers in a covered enclosure hammering away at a wall with a long pole. About the same time, the Egyptians constructed the first ‘Maginot Line,’ a line of forts strung 250 miles between the first and fourth cataracts of the Nile, along the boundary of Upper Egypt and Nubia.

Probably because it was protected by sea to its north and by desert to its east and west, Egypt seems to have been constrained in warfare by ritual and anachronism, even through the Middle Kingdom (1991-1785 b.c.). Bronze weaponry was already well known throughout the region, even in Egypt itself, but pharaonic armies prior to the rearmament program of the New Kingdom (1550-1070 b.c.) were armed primarily with clubs and flint spears. They wore neither helmets nor body armor, even though both had already long been in use among their rivals.

Even so, the Egyptians made innovations during the Old Kingdom period that would become widely adopted. For instance, they were the first to use conscription to levy troops, and the first to devise military titles and ranks.

Early Egyptian fighting was not always merely ritualistic in nature, as shown by the gaping ax wound in the skull of the Seventeenth Dynasty pharaoh Sekenre. In all likelihood, Sekenre died fighting the Hyksos invaders who had dominated Egypt in its Second Intermediate Period, from the eighteenth to the sixteenth centuries b.c. The Hyksos had swept out of the East firing composite bows from their revolutionary new two-wheeled fighting platforms — chariots.

The development of the light chariot and the composite bow seems to have coincided fairly closely, probably by the middle of the eighteenth century b.c. Although it is unclear which innovation came first, the pairing of the two made the chariot, in the words of ancient historian William McNeill, ‘the master weapon of the age.’ The composite bow, shorter and more powerful than its predecessors, was perfectly suited for firing above the chariot rail. In combination, they created a lethal strike force that no army of the day could withstand. Such was the impact of the chariot on the power balance of its time that thirty-seven hundred years later, when the Israeli army developed its first tank, they named it the Merkava, or Chariot.

But chariots demanded both a level of specialization and a support structure previously unknown to warfare. Use of the chariot often depended on a specially trained warrior class, the maryanu. Probably Mitanni in origin, the maryanu (literally ‘chariot warriors’) were early international mercenaries — high-priced and loyal only when convenient. Beyond the need for this specialized fighting force, the vehicle itself demanded its own small army of support technicians to build and maintain it, to train and feed its horses (at least two per chariot), and to service it on campaign. The reliefs of the Battle of Kadesh (1294 b.c.) at Abu Simbel show not only battle scenes but also much about the logistics of the campaign, with special attention to the chariot-repair depots.

The expulsion of the Hyksos in the sixteenth century b.c. did not signal a return to the military status quo in Egypt: The days of ritual warfare protected by geographic insularity were over. From then on, Egypt would be an integral part of the larger geopolitical picture. During the New Kingdom period, Egypt would use her new weapons and technologies to become the region’s next formidable power, reaching its broadest expanse under Eighteenth Dynasty Pharaoh Thuthmose III (1490-1436 b.c.), who is often called the ‘Napoleon of Egypt.’ (It is interesting that, although the pharaoh preceded the emperor by roughly thirty-three hundred years, no one ever thinks of calling Napoleon the ‘Thuthmose of France’!)

Thomas J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson was fond of saying that the book of Joshua is the model of a perfect battle report. However, an Egyptian scribe named Tjaneni in the fifteenth century b.c. actually gave us history’s first detailed battle account. Tjaneni recounted Thuthmose’s stunning victory at the Battle of Megiddo, 1469 b.c.:

Year 23, first month of summer, day 21, the exact day of the feast of the new moon. Appearance of the King at dawn. An order was given to the whole army to pass. His majesty set out on a chariot of fine gold, decked in his shining armour like strong-armed Horus, lord of action, like Mont of Thebes, his father Amun strengthening his arm. The southern wing of his majesty’s army was at a hill south of the Qina [brook], and the northern wing to the northwest of Megiddo, while his majesty was in their centre, Amun protecting his person [in] the melee, and the strength of [Seth pervading] his limbs.

Thuthmose smashed his enemies in a great chariot battle, but his men stopped to loot the enemy camp, allowing their quarry to escape behind the city walls and forcing Thuthmose to lay siege. Siegecraft being still in its infancy, Megiddo re-sisted for seven months before finally suing for peace. Refinement and perfection of siege techniques would have to wait for the rise of the Assyrian Empire several centuries later.

Still, the Egyptian army of the New Kingdom introduced a number of its own significant firsts. Horseback riding is known to have occurred along the Nile by the fourteenth century b.c. Soon after, there are depictions of a mounted soldier. He is hardly a cavalryman. He rides bareback, lacks stirrups, and sits too far back on his mount to be an effective fighter — but there he is. And even one of the first major battles on salt water (circa 1186 b.c.), between Ramses III and the Sea People — mainly Philistines — is depicted in the reliefs at Medinet Habu.

The Israelites appeared on the scene in the thirteenth century b.c. Although never the greatest military force in the region, they too would contribute to the evolution of warfare. ‘With ruses make war,’ advises Proverbs 20:18, written in the time of Solomon, circa 970-928 b.c. (Five hundred years later, Sun Tzu would write, ‘Warfare is the art of deceit.’)

When ‘Joshua fit the battle of Jericho,’ he may well have been history’s first general to use psychological warfare. For seven days he had his army — accompanied by priests blowing rams’ horn trumpets and carrying the ark of the covenant — circle the Canaanite city’s walls. We can imagine that at the first appearance of the Israelites’ noisy procession, the Canaanites must have scrambled to man Jericho’s defenses. On the second day, too, they leapt to their positions. And again on the third. But after the same thing had happened six days in a row, they probably became inured. On the seventh day, the Israelites made seven circuits. Whatever the bizarre performance meant, the defenders must have thought that it obviously was not a threat. But upon finishing the seventh lap, the Israelites let out a shout and attacked, catching the defenders off guard.

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Tags: Ancient-Medieval, Foreign Affairs, Military Technology

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