Muslim Fortresses in the Levant: Between Crusaders and Mongols (48 page)

Long-range weapons: bows and siege machines and their role in fortress defenses

The garrison’s advantages were mainly its knowledge of and familiarity with the surrounding area, the protection provided by the fortifications, and the fact that it was usually positioned on a higher plane than the enemy. That the besieged have many advantages over the besiegers was pointed out by the Prussian general Clausewitz (1780–1831):

The attacked possesses advantages far in excess of the attacker. He enjoys political sympathies and the moral advantages, which are derived from defending his own territory. He also enjoys the advantages of fighting on terrain more familiar to him than to the enemy, and his operations are conducted on his own lines. Often, he has the advantages of fighting from prepared positions. The conclusion is that in the world of practical fact the defensive is the stronger form of war. In addition it is a stronger form in a philosophical sense.
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Although Mamluk garrisons often raided Īlkhānid siege camps, the fortresses’ defense was hardly based on mounted men, and the outcome of a siege was seldom determined by mounted archers. Both the besieging camp and the fortress garrison based their tactics on long-range weapons. To a large extent these weapons dictated the type of soldiers and the size of the garrison. Most of the burden inside the fortress fell on the teams that operated the siege machines, and on the archers. Since the number of siege machines one can station in a fortress is fairly limited, the majority of the garrison would have been composed of archers.

Types of bows

The crossbow’s weight and somewhat slow and cumbersome drawing mechanism required the archer to find shelter during the long minutes he was occupied in fitting a bolt and drawing the bow. It was because of such qualities that the crossbow was to a certain extent more suitable to fortress defense than fighting in the open battlefield. In addition, training crossbowmen was not as time-consuming as training archers using composite bows. Composite bows were the dominant weapon of the Mamluk
army and were no doubt used also by fortress garrisons. Their main advantage was speed of fire. A professional, well-trained archer could fire 12 arrows a minute,
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as opposed to a crossbowman who could fire only 2.
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The range of both types is 100 to 250m.
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Their force, length of range and accuracy made the archers the most important element of Mamluk fortress garrisons. This had a great influence on how the Mamluks rebuilt the fortresses they had taken.

The
Kitāb ghunyat
ramy an-nushshāb
(‘Essential Archery for Beginners’) is a Mamluk manual dated to c. 1368 that is dedicated solely to archery. It is attributed to
al-Ashrafī al-Baklamishī al-Yūnānī, of whom we know very little. The signature on the front page shows that the book stood in the personal library of the Mamluk amir in charge of the arsenal. This manual deals mainly with types of bows and arrowheads as well as with exercises for mounted archers. It does, however, give some instructions and advice to infantry archers. This is summed in a paragraph of four lines in which he explains how to aim from a position at the head of a curtain wall, at enemy soldiers along the foot of the wall. This paragraph concludes with the author’s directions that the archer (i.e. a garrison archer) should be experienced and that this exercise requires a great deal of training.
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Of all weapons in this period, the influence of the bow on military architecture appears to be the most marked. The number and position of towers, their size and shape, the number of floors in each tower, as well as the number, design and location of arrow slits, were all determined according to the advantages and disadvantages of the bow, and strove to provide the best possible conditions for archers.
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Siege machines

The detailed description of the defense of ayyāfāriqīn during the Mongol siege (656–7/1258–9) illustrates the use of siege machines from within the fortress.

There was someone there [in the city] manning a catapult who was extremely accurate and had killed many with his projectiles. The commanders ere helpless to do anything about him. Badruddin Lu’lu’ also had an extremely good catapult engineer he summoned. He set up a catapult directly opposite the catapult in the city, and the two shot stones from the pan at the same time. The stones collided in midair and shattered. The people on both sides ere astonished by the mastery of the two catapult engineers. In the end the catapult outside was burned.
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Siege machines can be studied according to both the historical sources and the archaeological evidence that is slowly being unearthed. One of the difficulties at this stage is identifying the exact type of siege machine. The area and space needed in order to station and operate the contraption is rather large. One should take into account the base, the length of the central beam, the catapult stones piled nearby and a team of men. The size of the team depended on the type of machine. If it was a counterweight siege engine the number of men needed to operate it was at least four; if it was manually worked, i.e. by a team pulling on ropes, it would need tens of men.

The number of siege machines that a fortress could maintain can be determined according to the size of the towers or the flat platforms that could be used for positioning the siege machines.

According to Chevedden a great change in the dimensions of towers occurred during the early twelfth century. The diameter of twers grew from 5m to 30m. Chevedden’s study focused on the citadel of Damascus, and proposed that it was
(596–615/1200–18) who initiated this change in the defense concept. He raised siege machines to the tower tops and integrated them in the citadel’s defenses. The change allowed the besieged to ward off the enemy and placed attackers and defenders on even grounds.

Chevedden’s main argument is that the major change in the size of towers coincided with the arrival of the counterweight trebuchet. This revolutionized not only siege methods but also methods of defense from within the fortress, and had a considerable effect on the construction of fortifications.
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When you examine this idea and test it on citadels and small frontier fortifications there seem to be very few cases that follow the pattern of inserting grand-scale towers along the curtain walls. At
, for instance, the two largest towers are the southwest and northwest corner towers measuring 8.5 × 8m and 8 × 6m. If siege engines were located on the tower tops they would have had to be of a fairly modest size. At
al-Akrād there are more than nine towers that could have been used for stationing siege machines, some no doubt could have supported counterweight trebuchets. It is important to bear in mind that the changes made by
came after the severe earthquake of 1202 that destroyed many fortresses and central Syrian citadels. The large towers may well have been constructed to withstand the immense force of severe earthquakes.
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Mongol siege warfare and Mamluk methods of defense

The maintenance of a constant state of alert in the garrisons, and of the Mamluk armies in Syria and the sultan’s armies in Cairo, and also the ability to maneuver large contingents in a relatively short space of time can be achieved only by a centralized regime. The sulta’s efforts to repair the damage after every Īlkhānid siege, see to the supplies and reinforce the garrison are all well documented. This ability to respond and repeat these steps after every siege, without faltering, was one of the most remarkable aspects of the Mamluk military structure. Although the majority of the Mongol-Īlkhānid sieges failed, and their army was defeated at the battles of
Jālūt and Homs, the Mongols and later the Īlkhānid armies managed to enjoy and maintain the image of a state with a superior military force. The fear the Mongols instilled in the Mamluks kept the Sultanate in a state of alert for almost six decades.