Fighting cavalry chargers.

I seem to recall Conan Doyle stating in one of his books, that in the Napoleonic Wars, cavalry chargers often fought just as hard as their riders and would kick and bite both the enemy cavalrymen and their mounts.
I have never read this anywhere else, but C-C was an author and historian of no little merit and reputation, so I guess he should be taken seriously. I know from my first hand experience ( a large tooth marked indentation in my left upper arm ! ), that the buggers do bite ( thank Heavens I have never been kicked ! ), but that cavalry mounts actually fought with their riders is something else altogether ! Can anyone throw any more light on this, please ?
Cheers,
BG

 

Medieval warhorses were alledgedly expected to use their hooves on any poor sod that got near. Obviously unless the rider deems otherwise. It is a sensible method of making sure that nobody can get near enough to the horse to stab it (or its rider), but if the horse starts behaving erratically then the rider is in trouble.

 

cavalry mounts may bite other people and horses around them in the heat of a battle but you'd have to be bloody close to them and it's not likly to cause significant injury to a horse.

they are unlikly to kick as that would endanger the rider

they should be trained well enough to walk over someone prone on the floor or charge over a standing soldier though.

FNG

 

IIRC WAR HORSES in the days of mounted knights were specifaly trained to kick the snot out of enemy infantry on command ,the knight would of course be also ready to hang on for dear life as the hooves went flying about ...in a related vein my dad who spent some yearts as a teen being an unpaid stable hand in exchange for saddle time and was later a career soldier often laughs at westerns and action movies where people casualy shoot guns from horseback ..he says that unless a horse is specifally trained from its youth to accept gunfire from its rider , it will absolutly send the would be shooter flying at great speed from his seat with the first crack of gunfire ..many otherwise fine ,fast and deep winded cavalry mounts were sold off or detroyed because they were simply gun shy and could not be made to overcome it.. when he took me rideing as a kid, dad kind of dashed my romantic horse loveing notions ( flicka ,silver ,trigger ..beloved movie horses all ) with the lesson that a horse is not ever your freind , he is very big , very strong and very dumb and will happily bite ,buck or stomp you into a muddy red paste if he thinks he can get away with it ...any sudden movement , a sparrow ,a kitten or a mouse might cause your mount to lose its mind and put you in sudden mortal danger ..there is no ignition kill switch and never turn your back on the dirty buggar his bite is definately worse than his bark and he can kick sideways and frontways very nicely too ...most people today have no idea how very dangerous large farm animals can be and that includes cows and pigs too....

 

On the other hand, it is apparently completely possible to train horses to such an extent that they become one with the rider and turn him into a much more dangerous weapon system. Various peoples throughout history have based their entire military culture and theory on the horse and would not know what to do if asked to fight on foot. They perfected their horse managing techniques until the animal would follow the slightest nudges of their riders as they fired their bows, charged with their sabers or even used their guns. The use of firearms on horseback by Indians and Cossacks prove that even if the weapon itself is foreign to a culture, horses can still be trained to bear its noise and smell.

As regards the opening post, I highly doubt that horses were actually trained to fight along with their riders because cavalry is not meant to stay in any melee situation for a prolonged period. In order to kick and bite for effect, a horse would have to stop its own motion and move from a fixed place - something cavalrymen will always avoid. If they were in fact stuck in a situation where they had to fight it out with infantry or enemy cavalry in a protracted engagement, I don't think they'd want to give up any of their precious mobility and speed just so that the horse would fight with them.

 

Intersting replies ! Thank you, guys ! I quite accept that a cavalry horse and rider are trained to use the shock effect of movement to best effect and that when stopped they become not only less powerful, but also lay themselves open to a sword thrust in the back etc. Alos , of couse, when steeds were heavily armoured, their armour frequently incorporated metal spike and blades and that these dramaticlly increased the ability of the horse and rider to damage the enemy.

Incidentally, given the horse's propensity to panic and damage it's own rider, did anyone know that the mahouts who rode war elephants into battle ( and also those used for peaceful everyday tasks), always carry a small cloth bag with them, into which is put, no, not their sandwiches !,but a hammer and chisel ! So, when the heffalump goes ape-shit (as is their wont ! ) and hurtles off into the thornbushes, the rider can then just , using their foot, position the chisel over the beast's cerebral cortex, and WHACK !!! put paid to poor old heffalump !!! Barbecued elephant steaks for dinner !!
BG

 

roel , i have read in many sources ( and as per ricky ) that medeval war horses were sometimes trained to lash out with hooves fore , aft and sideways if a knight found himself boxed in by enemy infantry ..this was a means of escape like an ejection seat more than a means of offensive combat , i belive ...btw ..where have you been? did you finally sucumb to the joys of strong drink ,loose women and bawdy taverns ??? i was about to post a "what happined to roel thread"...glad to see you back , old boy...

 

Of course, when literally swamped in enemy infantry the cavalryman is already stopped in his tracks so the horse itself can become a weapon. However, as you already point out, this is used as a way to escape that very situation, which is what the rider is likely to strive for.

As for my absence, I'm very busy learning Chinese in Taiwan - it's got little to do with drink, women and taverns, unless I make it so!

 

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Nathan Bedford Forrest had a much loved war horse , with nearly as much scars as his master ,
after the ceasefire , U.S. Army commissioners came by his place to check on his parole ,
the horse , perceiving the hated blue uniforms charged them , kicking and bitting ,as he did on the battlefield
one of the officer drew his pistol which got him to be clobbered on the arm
by a black servant of Forrest , who kept laying it around , to protect the horse and as general policy
When the affray quieten down , one of the officer said
" what is this man whose horses and niggers are willing to fight for ? "

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cool storie jeag ..roel , learning manderin ...yipes ,hard work ,that...best to sleep with the "book " as the G.I S used to say...

 

I remember reading that the horses of olde were something else entirely when compared with the horses of today. That is to say, they were built like freight trains... Mediaeval Destriers were trained to be quite comfortable hand to hand (or hoof to hoof) combat, and were expected to hump 400 pounds of rider, chain mail and plate armor whilst galloping at full pace towards the enemy. The result is that war horses much resembled "Arnold Horse-anegger" and were considerably more built that todays tall, leafy string-bean horses...

 

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chargers were also very big ,massively expensive , often stallions , cranky and useless for any task except fighting anyone in sight ,
knight would ride a destrier when traveling , the charger was held on a lead to be mounted at the time of battle
no the smaller accomplishment of a knight was to keep his war horse under control
getting a few hundreds together facing in the same direction and not bitting or kicking around must have been a nightmare ,
probably a common accident must have been being carried alone in the middle of the enemy by a runaway horse

during the first crusade at the battle of Dorylaeum, the stallions of the Frankish cavalry , took wind of the Turkish forces mounted on mares ,
the charge was impetuous and the franks won !

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People often envision Medieval knight's horses to be big lumbering things like Shire Horses. Not true.

They were much the same size & build as a modern 'hunter' (or the general type of horse used in steeplechases). Nimbleness & speed were good virtues in a warhorse.

Typically a knight would have several horses at hand, and would switch horses during battle if one became tired or was killed. As an example, William the Conquerer rode at least 3 different horses at the Battle of Hastings. This was one of the reasons why being a knight was so damn expensive.

He would ride around on a more low-bred horse, to avod tiring his warhorses.

Destrier was the name used for the warhorse.

 

my 5 year olds horsey sticker book says that English shires are the decendents of the destrier but are smaller than they used to be

FNG

 

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Aaaaahhhh
The breed of the war horse is a bit of mystery since they have disappeared , it seems that there was several breeding strains with the Flemish being the biggest and the Andalusian the loveliest
destrier is a bit of a general term for a warrior's horse
pushed by the long bow , the crossbow and early guns, there was a tendency toward the end of the middle age to go for massive plate armor , the carried weight rose so , probably , did the needed engine size , horses must have been bred to follow this trend until absurdity and obsolescence
The italians wars of the 16th century were the climax of the heavily armored cavalry ,
armor had lost to guns for the next three centuries

 

Well, I can't challenge your source...

 

a horseman checks in

perhaps i'm the only one here with extensive experience around horses. a few thoughts.
yes horses can, have been, and are still trained to fight with their rider. not military but police. a good cop horse will push you, trample over you, or otherwise put dents in your body on command.
old war horses were trained to bite, strike, kick at either a specific target or at anyone close enough to be targeted. these movements can be seen in todays high school dressage movements. included were such things as rearing up and hopping toward the foe on the hind legs and jumping up and kicking front and back at the same time.
horses can be trained to ignore just about anything and to stand still in the face of just about anything. if they trust you
horses will form bonds with riders and will protect them just as they would do with a herd mate.
and no most horses are not waiting for their chance to hurt you. most human injuries come from mistakes on somebody's part [ horse or human] . there are a few that will hurt you on purpose but they are rare. in 40+ years and hundreds of horses i have been bitten once and kicked twice. hardly the result expected if horses were nasty critters
finally a good rider [ and we can include anybody who makes his living fighting ahorseback] can stay in place and even continue fighting while his mount does whatever it takes to survive.

 

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as for the viciousness of horse breed , in the Rhone delta . in the salt marshes, there is a horse breed , the camargais white of robe, short and racy ,
it is used by the locals to herd the black bulls amongst the reeds for the bullfighting at Arles and other places
This breed has a well set reputation of being stubborn as a mule and to be vicious to its rider if it doesn't trust him , bidding its time until it can bite him or sent it flying at the worst possible time .

for training horses to perform unnatural acts I've seen footage of Hungarians riders couching their mounts flat on the ground and cracking whips barely an inch from their ears !

The Australian breed is the whaler , a great stock horse , with fine forms , sweet tempered and a great worker in the worst conditions ,
we also have the mountains ponies , in the snowies mountains ,sure footed as goats and up north in the tropics , plenty of feral horses regularly culled or decimated by drought .



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IIRC .. AN ENGLISH FEILD GRADE cavalry officer took his lesser mount into battle at waterloo or some such scrape (LOYDEs of london would not insure his good and expensive horse in combat ) his ordinary quarter hourse was soon blown and he was alas . ridden down and killed by french lancers (on good horses)...penny wise and pound foolish , i guess ...
his good horse survived the battle and was presumably presented to his widow..

 

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She might have gained in the exchange

Back to WW2, the German army made extensive use of horses for dragging , guns and supplies , there were quite a few mounted units , very useful in petrol rationed Russia , one of the most infamous was the Florian Geyer Cavalry Division , using it's mobility to cut a swath through the jewish village of north-west Ukraine led by Hermann Fegelein later brother in law of Hitler

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