"Why are French Knights undrilled?" Topic

On some rules , French knights are undrilled , compared to other Knights,
Why?

Due to their undisciplined nature, compared to some others, I suspect, given their performance in various battles.

Some also refer to them as "impetuous", e.g. blindly charging off to engage others.

Read the accounts of the battle at Crecy. The French attack was
rushed due to the knights.

ALL knights are "undrilled" on an army level. Nobody drilled whole armies in medieval Europe. (Edit to add: "Nobody" means, armies were all ad hoc and any army level drill was limited to the time the army was brought together, e.g. Wm the Conqueror's army during the summer and early fall of 1066 was evidently drilled; but I can't think of another example of this happening off hand.) The nearest thing to a regularly drilled army was Byzantine drill, and it was spotty, i.e. sometimes done and other/most times left to languish.

French esprit de corps does seem to have been more focused on engaging with the enemy than other chivalry. I like to point to the battle of Nicopolis as a fairly late example. Even after dismounted, due apparently to moving through the stakes, the French knights kept right on going and were not stopped except by overwhelming numbers (and the help of weariness, most likely). This is not the action of a drilled army, but one that its individual members know how to do: charge and keep charging until you win. Or lose, of course, but that is defeatist thinking! French knights seem to have disdained any use of the so-called "withdraw after combat". In our rules we call this "Western charge" and the French do it right through the entire middle ages, whereas everybody else charges with less pugnacious commitment to "all or nothing"….

Yeah, I'm not seeing it at all.

All knights had to be well-drilled: no exception.
Their tactic of choice was the mounted charge – and that just plain cannot be performed by undrilled troops.
Controlling a massive warhorse – which itself had to be highly trained – while riding in knee-to-knee formation with maybe hundreds of others – while holding an 11-foot lance steady on target and matching your pace with the rest of the conroi?
These guys had been training since they were seven. No way could you call them 'undrilled'.

A frontal attack, uphill on wet ground with tired men against prepared stakes (Crecy) or into a tight bottleneck over muddy, ploughed land, also against prepared stakes (Agincourt) are surely examples of over-impetuous, tactically inflexible forces and poor command-&-control, rather than poor drill.

Edited to add:
Cross posted with GWA – undrilled at army level? Agreed, but only in the sense that, as Ace points out, nobody in the period was drilled at army level.

Its much more complex than the rules writers allow. At Arsouf the knights at the rear of Richard's column are ordered to hold. They do so, though under severe pressure from the Saracens , sevevral times sending to Richard 1 to be allowed to charge. When they do charge their protecting infNtry open up ranks to let them through And they then drive back their tormentors and then reform on a hill and charge again twice. This is not the action of undisciplined units.

No good reason is most probably the most accurate response. English knights at Lewes in 1264 were just as eager to charge and difficult to rally. If you don't agree with the national attributes, then I suggest ditching them in your 'house rule'. No wargamer or rules writer who ever lived witnessed first hand a medieval cavalry charge. I'm pretty certain I'm on safe ground here.

I think "undrilled" is just poor terminology; as Norman says they would be very well drilled at unit level – what they wouldn't usually be was disciplined. If they felt like charging then they charged.
On crusade vanguard and restrained positions would go to the military orders since they would generally be more likely to obey orders. I think it was hospitallers who asked permission to charge at arsouf.

it's that outrageous accent!

Crusader armies were almost "regular" troops because of almost constant warfare. Nothing trains troops like steady experience. But at Arsouf, yes it was the Hospitaller rearguard which broke ranks/orders first and charged. And it was Richard who then threw his entire army into charge mode the instant he saw what was happening: he was waiting for it to happen, and that's the insight of an experienced and talented tactician, a realist, who knows just how much he can expect out of his troops….

It was seen on a tapestry in some remote castle by the WRG people back in the mists of time.Nobody has found a new tapestry or poem to challenge the ruling.

I suspect it is just a case of trying to use a single word to categorize them, and/or to be different than the verbiage other rules writers use.

"Undisciplined" would probably be a better description.

English knights at Lewes in 1264 were just as eager to charge

By your own admission we don't know this. It is just as likely to have been an impetuous commander as the knights in general. Cherry-picking single counter examples isn't very useful when describing general behaviour.

(If you subscribe to the "we can never know" argument in full, then historical wargaming is a stupid subject for your attentions. Using that argument you can give the knights hand-guns, since "no wargamer or rules writer who ever lived witnessed first hand" whether they did or not.)

People at the time attributed French losses to the lack of discipline of French knights. Actual eye-witnesses that is. It's not like there were a lack of times they led themselves to disaster by their unrestrained behaviour (Nicopolis is another). And by the end of the 100 Years War they had largely trained themselves out of it, because they recognised what was happening.

If you make French knights have the same level of control as English or German knights, then your high Medieval battles will be a mockery of the real thing. They were known at the time to be better in combat but much harder to control, and rules should reflect that.

People also grossly underestimate the amount of drill medieval soldiers did. When undrilled forces turned up (say peasant revolts) they were slaughtered by the drilled opponents. Even city militia trained regularly. The issue of control wasn't drill, it was that the lines of command in a feudal society were such that socially superior people would not take commands willingly. And this was particularly true of French knights.

"Undisciplined" would probably be a better description.

But that's just it: "undisciplined" means undrilled. Because troops always respond to the level of their drill/training. On a "conroi" level no doubt much firmer command control was achieved. But stick a score or more conrois into a battle and the drill doesn't work to control the lot. It sort of worked. Which means that being undisciplined could produce exactly what the commander wanted, or the exact opposite. Evidence indicates that at Crecy, king Philip wanted to put his men into camp and engage in battle the next day. But as each of his "subcommanders' came within sight of the English, they decided to "give it a good go" in the remaining daylight. Philip changed his mind, since he couldn't change what was already happening, and ordered a general assault. But he couldn't gain control of his knights even then, long enough to order them properly for a massed charge, because they kept arriving and launching themselves piecemeal. I am sure that their cohesiveness was very good. It just wasn't massed big enough. Because their training/drill was accustomed to small bodies of horsemen drilling together and not large, combined "units"….

As a cavalryman myself I am impetuous and undisciplined does that mean I am a Frenchman……..?

Because the English lost their Chuck key.

Ba-da-dump tish!

I agree with GWA don't confused undisciplined with untrained. We use the words "units" but this has implication that just does not work for most western Medieval European combatants, to steal a slogan the fighter was an army of one. And yes there were exception; the English longbow men in how they used their weapons, The Swiss and the religious orders.

We use the words "units" but this has implication that just does not work for most western Medieval European combatants, to steal a slogan the fighter was an army of one.

There is a plethora of evidence that supports Latin knights training and fighting in units (conroi and batallia), as well as being well versed in combined arms cooperation, and that individual action was held up as foolhardy. I'd suggest a look at the History of William Marshall and Jean de Joinville's account of the Seventh Crusade as a starting point for primary source further reading.Tom Asbridge has also just written a useful popular history of Marshall (popular as in lacking footnotes, but historically sound). Far from being the exception, I strongly argue that the Military Orders were seeking to recreate the cohesion found in mesnee by adopting a single tactical doctrine for their disperate recruits that were routinely posted between commands.

In reference to an earlier point, the evidence that the Hospitallers broke ranks at Arsur is not watertight. It rests on two, linked accounts by sources close to King Richard. Richard's own letters, Muslim accounts, and the subsequent treatment of Baldwin le Carron suggest it was a deliberate act rather than a loss of control.

Of course the Hospitaller attack was a deliberate act. If hadn't been you would have seen individual "armies of one" breaking ranks like Pulo. Instead the entire rearguard went over to the attack. But not before warning king Richard first, more than once. He was watching for it. And when it came he launched the entire army. That still does not negate the assertion that the rearguard acted without orders, i.e. impetuously or without "discipline", from a commander in chief's point of view. The Military Order knew its job and behaved with extreme reserve, taking increasing casualties until they had had enough, then they lowered lances and went at them as a single body, knee to knee, responding according to their training.

But, how many Hospitaller cavalry were there? Out of an army of over 20K men? Out of an estimated total cavalry force of c. 5K? A few hundred at most, is the answer. Same with the Templars in the vanguard, a few hundred at most. They were not amenable to taking any "C-in-C"'s orders and never had been. That meant that they were more like allies than part of a whole army. Medieval mindset prevented any commander from taking orders, even from his stupid king. Too many armies lumped together to form a big one.

So it was remarkable when a C-in-C knew what he was working with, and as a realist, planned his tactics accordingly. Richard of England was one of those savvy tacticians who worked with what he had. And what he had was a "one shot weapon". His aim had to be good and the timing just right, or else it would be squandered, even lost. At Arsouf it was remarkable that the knights actually limited their charges in distance and returned to the security of the infantry phalanx, no doubt as previously commanded to do so.

I think that this shows more than anything else just how respected Richard's rep was by Arsouf. Bohemond of Taranto attained a similar status on the First Crusade, but later lost it due to defeats suffered (because of hubris). Reputation is even more fibril than inculcating effective drill.

The more cohesive the "national" point of view is, the more receptive to drill. The English had this advantage all throughout the HYW. The French learned it enough toward the end. The medieval mindset was slowly being replaced with a "nationality" mindset. This had a noticeable affect upon the ability to receive and follow orders from somebody other than your "natural lord", etc. So drill on a small scale melded more effectively with orders on a large scale. Once the minds of thousands of troops are focused on obeying the signals originating from the top, the entire army is more disciplined.

The genius of an organized state is the "hive". Citizens obey because it is their inculcated civic duty. Patriotism isn't an individually flaunted thing, it is a group-think. Breaking ranks is punishable, never lauded. (Pulo, again, back when there was a professional army in the world before the modern age.)

Medieval armies never exhibited this mentality. But at times, e.g. the Third Crusade, HYW English, Swiss, there were armies that worked much better at cohesive drill and tactical capability.

Now that I've mentioned the Swiss, it might be a good idea to point out that troops who influence their commanders are worse for discipline than subcommanders who won't listen to their "betters". If the officer corps is manipulated by the whims of the well drilled mob, then the entire army becomes an emotionally driven mechanism that will, sooner rather than later, behave with enough scorn for the enemy to march themselves to certain destruction, as happened repeatedly to the Swiss at the apogee of their fame.

Back to Richard the Lionheart: he accepted the limitations of his troops, being of their mindset himself, he understood it thoroughly. So with this brittle weapon in hand he could wield it as effectively as possible.

You mention Wm Marshal in support of the notion that a high level of drill and discipline existed as the norm. And I believe that this is widely accepted today vis-à-vis knightly armies. But it has to be emphasized again, that this drill was with small groups, a few score or hundred men at the most. And when lumped together with other like-forces, the commanders found themselves ranged side by side with rivals, even enemies, traditional, personal and political. The larger the medieval army was, the more sewn with such disparate elements it inevitably became. That is why so often there was no capability of the C-in-C to control his subcommanders, and thus his troops. Even a king, such as Philip at Crecy, could not count on his chief vassals having enough respect for his military authority to listen and obey a simple command, "make camp, fight tomorrow"….

Of course the Hospitaller attack was a deliberate act. If hadn't been you would have seen individual "armies of one" breaking ranks like Pulo. Instead the entire rearguard went over to the attack. But not before warning king Richard first, more than once. He was watching for it. And when it came he launched the entire army. That still does not negate the assertion that the rearguard acted without orders, i.e. impetuously or without "discipline", from a commander in chief's point of view. The Military Order knew its job and behaved with extreme reserve, taking increasing casualties until they had had enough, then they lowered lances and went at them as a single body, knee to knee, responding according to their training

I think that you should factor in the presence of Richard's man on the ground, Baldwin le Carron, with the hospitallers and alternative eyewitness accounts. Rather than having had enough, their military commander (the marshal) more likely made a decision in concert with Richard's liaison officer within a framework of the periodic councils of war held on the march from Acre. However, I know that we've covered this before and my piece on Arsur may finally roll off the press early next year

I would argue that to claim that the masters of the two military orders were averse to taking Richard's orders when one of then was previously master of the hospitallers of England and the other had been one of Richard's naval squadron commanders, is problematic – especially when you factor in their role in subsequent discussions for advances on Jerusalem. They were more likely his confidants than rivals, I suggest.

As to the limiting of charge distance and combined arms cooperation, might this not have been practiced during the campaign on Cyprus during which both masters were present – perhaps with their command teams given the presence of the Lusignan brothers on the same campaign? (I'm still working on this one, but hope to have it cracked by early next year).

I would argue that the concept of the council of war was to overcome just the frictions you mention, to establish a common battle plan that allowed subordinates a degree of flexibility with commanders able to intervene when necessary – usually with their (mounted) reserve. Of course, that plan sometimes fell apart, but it also worked very well on ocassion

I think it worked very well on this occasion. Wouldn't you have to go clear back to the First Crusade to find its equal? And the man who inserted himself into the council of war was Bohemond. If his battle plans hadn't been agreed upon, and worked, there would have been no taking Antioch, and therefore no siege of Jerusalem.

Then we have most of a century of poor battle command control. The indigenous armies of Outremer succeed and survive mostly by being lucky in their strategic situation, which deteriorates as the century advances. Fewer and fewer crusader victories accompany the campaigns. The Second Crusade is a total flop and disaster.

Without Richard the Lionheart, there would have been no victory at Acre, because the divided crusaders would have folded and agreed to a truce with Saladin when he asked for it. There would have been no march down the coast. No core genius in the war councils, only division. The Third Crusade was the high tide mark of the entire crusading phenomenon.

So you are right to pursue this angle of a united war council effectively welding the disparate elements of the crusader army into an effective tactical unit. Arsouf proved what it was made of. It sure surprised Saladin! He did not appreciate the control that Richard had, the unusually comprehensive control, until after that battle. His troops sure never forgot it! At Jaffa later, with Richard down to a dozen or so mounted men and a couple of thousand foot (counting everybody from the ships as well), over seven thousand mameluks could not be induced to drive home a single powerful attack and littered the ground with a sprinkling of dead instead.

Medieval warfare is not typified by such command control as Richard wielded. The resulting battles were anybody's guess how they might go. And I don't think that medieval commanders were unaware of this. Which is the main reason why pitched battles were so rarely resorted to. Too risky!…

I think there are more than you suggest. For example, there were a number of victories in the Latin East in the years that followed the First Crusade, such as the Venetian Crusade. Indeed the need for decentralised command was part and parcel of Italian Maritime state naval tactics. Then we have success at Montgisard against Saladin himself. Moreover, the Third Crusaders had shown themselves capable of coordinated action before Richard arrived on the scene, such as the battle of Acre on 4 Oct 1189. Although the Templars allowed themselves to be drawn too far in pursuit of the Saracens, the army seems to have followed the agreed plan and King Guy was well placed to extract much of their forces with his mounted reserve. As for high watermarks, arguably Frederick II's Sixth Crusade deserves consideration. After all, he actually regained Jerusalem

Unfortunately, in my opinion, much of the historiography of medieval warfare has yet to recover from Oman's unhelpful bias against medieval warfare. That said, I think we largely agree on the issue of 'enthusiastic' subordinates and less able generals

Oman's own text undid much or even most of what he asserted: vis-à-vis, that medieval infantry was in a sort of backwater versus knightly cavalry for hundreds of years. He asserts that and points to French examples, then proceeds to show how many other infantry elsewhere were actually quite competent to deal with cavalry charges or the threat thereof.

So Oman did not have anything "against" medieval warfare, but claimed an over all situation that did not in fact ever exist. Infantry sunk to its lowest level in feudal France, but even there, not universally, since the town militias were quite well armed and drilled compared to the "arriere ban" of peasants. There were always mercenaries from outside, e.g. the Spanish bidets and Almogavars, Genoese crossbow, Scots and Flemish/Brabancons, etc. Then there was Germany, always more of an infantry force than cavalry. Just point out how they charged across the stream outside Damascus during the Second Crusade, on foot.

These are "Oman" examples, disproving his assertion/theory that medieval warfare began an eclipse of infantry with the battle of Adrianople, as the Roman legionary waned and the Roman cavalryman arose, etc.

There was nothing puny about how Scandinavian or English infantry fought throughout the "dark ages" (Oman's early middle ages).

In fact, when added up, Europe as a whole maintained effective infantry traditions and drill from the end of the Western Empire right through the so called middle ages….

If maintaining a position that is contrary to your own data isn't an example of bias, I'm not sure what is!

As an aside, it is also interesting how many historians continue to compartmentalize Byzantium/Eastern Rome, and aside from the odd nod to Byzantine influence on crusader tactics, generally ignore its influence on Latin Europe.

Anyway, I've strayed more than a bit off topic (again)

Oman rather saw that we wanted to see I'm afraid; one might make the same point about Kelly DeVries' book on medieval infantry tactics….not a good idea to discuss – for example – Bannockburn if you have n't come to grips with the source material.

I haven't read DeVries' books. (As an aside of possible interest, to me surely, is the fact that he came to my house a couple of times to game, before going off to college. His ambition was to study under Verbruggen. I guess he succeeded!)

Historians always start with a bias, spelled "interest", in something that got them started. So they are pursuing that original interest. That might turn into a pet theory, especially if their interest morphs into a theory that can overturn the "applecart" of some consensus or other. The temptation to become a sensation must seize upon most!

Oman's theory was flawed, but he was sure that the Victorian notions he grew up with were wrong. And, they were in so many ways. But no matter how many times he stated it – medieval chivalry "eclipsed" infantry and infantry tactics went into a stagnant decline – his own prose said otherwise! Too many contrary examples, which Oman himself supplied, belied the assertion that was the core thesis of his giant work.

I still think that Oman is a treasure-trove of information and good reading. His "History" will never disappear while books continue be read. And as pointed out, new historians continue to commit their own versions of slanted, biased writing….

Shock historiography incident…author sells two books in a single year! I fear 'sensation' is hardly what you'd call a regular occurrence in medieval history…more's the pity.
Oman has strong points; his work on the Peninsula is still valuable after 100 years.

I am not sure that Oman can be characterised as biaised against medieval warfare. His work does change between editions and he does have themes which are often relevant to the time of his writing. For example, he definitely warms to the Byzantines because he sees them as professional soldiers with an army raised from sturdy peasants who are suppirted by grants of land for their maintenance. This is also trueof the Byzantine cavalry, but then Western knights could be described in the same way. The Byzantines are in his good books because they have manuals and drills and learn to be horse archers despite that style not being a natural product of the lands they inhabit. He also likes the Anglo Saxons because they have an army of mounted infantry and the British army had just discovered in the Boer War how very useful mounted infantry could be.
Oman lived in a period in which the conceptual framework of military history was that warfare was reawakened in the Renaissance by the rise of effective infantry and that the height of development was infantry who could outface cavalry and cavalry who charged with the arm blanche in suppirt of the infantry. Cavalry who used missiles, or set off on their own jaunt like British cavalry in the Peninsula were definitely not admired.
It is fair to criticise Oman for ignoring the pisitive abilities of medieval cavalry, but he is writing around 1900 and the revolution in thinking about the effectiveness of mediaeval armies only gets going with RC Smail in the 70s? who demonstrates that the Crusader States had. a sophisticated strategy of using fortifications and an army in being to deter Moslem penetrations whilst avoiding the risk of battle. Of course for Oman and well into the twentieth century the orthodoxy was that seeking decisive battle was the purpose behind having an army.
As to Medieaveal infantry…well Oman was not entirely wrong. Viewed through the prism of kate nineteenth century infantry the infantry of the middle ages was poorly organise, very immobile and poor at combining arms. Rogers and De Vries might see an infantry revolution in the XIVth century, but these infantry seek out defensive terrain and often rely upon being passive whilst the opponent loses cohesion by attempting to attack.

The whole notion of military "revolutions" is passé. I don't believe in military revolutions. They are always hindsight.

There was nothing revolutionary about fighting on horseback at the end of the Western Empire. Armies had been doing it for centuries. The stirrup was lauded by White and others as the "revolutionary" invention that made the cavalryman effective as a melee and shock weapon. Balls. The obvious refutation are the many earlier fully armored cavalry who fought with enormously long lances, WITHOUT stirrups. The most that can be said for stirrups is that it makes it easier to be a good/competent horseman. It allows training to be easier. But there is no "shock" value involved here because of stirrups. The high saddle has more to do with shock capability than stirrups.

The use of thousands of bowmen instead of hundreds could be argued as "revolutionary". But actually a more correct word would be effective. The use of bows in deep ranks in their thousands only took an already existing tactic and made it more efficient by killing rates going up. The answers to that tactical ploy were varied and also effective. Refusing combat. Attacking while the archers were not formed and waiting. Using ever more effective armor for man and mount.

Gunpowder did not revolutionize warfare, because it merely replaced the already existing missile weapons. Linear battles continued until firearms had become so effective that lines of troops took cover instead of staying in the open.

Modern warfare grew step by step as weapons grew more effective. There was no "revolution" in tactics. Tactics adapted to the slowly changing landscape of battle.

Finally, just because some or even many commanders are slow on the uptake doesn't mean a "revolution" in warfare is underway….

I'd challenge that GWA a revolution is when change is very rapid and discontinuous. I suggest that metdiaeval warfare in W Europe evolved slowly and out on the steppes and Near East it evolved hardly at all until Round 1600. At that point European armies are roughly in balance with those of the Near East and Central Asia. By 1700 the Europeans will beat any of the other main cultures' armies. The revolution is in having units of infantry that can deliver death at 100 yards , can resist a cavalry charge and , jost importantly, can manoeuvre around on the battlefield in the face of the enemy. The supporting guns do not catch up until the eighteenth century. Cavalry really arrives at effective combination with these new infantry in the 1750s. Beore 1600 gunpowder is mainly a more effective form of crossbow useful for sporting massed pike units that deploy in a medieval style vanguard, main battle, rearguard. There are military revolutions such as the Byzantines adopting mounted archery and the kbights developing a charge that could sweep other cavalry, but their consequences have been mainly restricted to the battlefield, wghereas the XVIIth cent revolution changed the balance of world power and made Western culture the dominant world culture.

A lot more went into making Western culture the dominant culture than battlefield dynamics. (Guns, Germs and Steel, covers this phenomenon of "why Europe?" and not somebody else.)

I'm not convinced that any "revolution" has ever occurred in warfare. Invention, to be sure. But groundbreaking change? Not separate from the general change in every facet of human existence. Warfare changes as does everything else, as our knowledge increases and produces invention.

It is argued that warfare is the "laboratory" for invention and change that exceeds all other laboratories. If there is a "revolution" that occurs, probably it is due to warfare above other causes. Where would the airplane be today if the twentieth century had been one of enormous world peace? Would we even know what nuclear weapons are? Would we have the computer in every hand? I doubt that anything we hold as commonplace today would even exist beyond the drawing board stage. All because of warfare.

But the warfare itself evolves a layer at a time, action and reaction. The "revolution" is continuous, which might as well be like saying nonexistent as an event….

And that's a tenable point of view, but not I believe accurate. All revolutions have their roots in previous events, the French Revolution was at least 50 years in the maiing and dome would have it as the culmination of a process by which Louis XIV resusted the rise if the French bourgeousie and created a system of landed, milutary and civil service nobilities that buttressed the centralused monarchy so effectively that pressure built up that could not be dealt with tradually, gut exploded in the Revolutions of 1789 and after.
I suggest that you are misreading Jared Diamond, but then I don't wholly agree with him anyway. Guns Germs and Steel is a good romp through geographic determinism , but it gives too much of an inevitability to the rise of Europe. A different settlement in China could well have led to wide Chinese naval expansion and a very different world. Had conservative clerics not won the argument that Mohammed had revealed all that needed to be known about the world and shut down Islamic science in the. XIVth century then developments in Europe might have called forth an Ottoman reaction that took Zitaly, Spain and Germany and changed world history. GGaS is too determinist abot Western dominanceand it. is written from the point of view of this is what happened so the causes would always have worked thus, but. it need not. very small events such as Martin Luther being run over by a cart or Ghengis Khan not catching a disease or Mary Tudor producing a child would have radically changed things.
of course military dominance is the result of a combination of things. To have effective musketeer battalions you need metallurgy, chemistry,nthe bayonet, drill, etc etc. You also need the will to conquer. To get to the pitential conquests Europeans needed superior naval technology and good cannon so that small fleets could dominate Asian coasts, but then Chinese junks could have done just the same.
However we see the causes , once they come together Warfare is revolutionised. As I said before after 1600 theWest only has to get an army to the enemy and it will win, a technological lead it keeps mire or less until today. This is definitely not true up until 1600. That sudden change is a revolution.
Oh and I don't just think it happens in 1600 if pushed fir a year I would go foraround 1660 when quite suddenly the Westerners can see off the Turk in the open field.

Oh and I don't just think it happens in 1600 if pushed fir a year I would go foraround 1660 when quite suddenly the Westerners can see off the Turk in the open field.

Western armies had been seeing of the Ottomans in the field long before 1660. During the "Long War" of 1593-1606 the Habsburgs & their allies won 63 of the total of 83 battles and engagements fought in the open field. And western success did not start there, already after the successfull defence of Vienna in 1529 the Ottomans refused to engage fully mobilised Imperial-Spanish armies.

However despite a growing superiority in the field Habsburgs & Ottomans remained equaly matched in sieges and the Ottomans provde superior at mobilising forces and mantaining them in the field while the Habsburg struggled with serious problems with war finances & logistics. Poor logistics effecivly wrecked several campaigns with a combination of saniation & supply problems causing disease while lack of pay lowered morale and disciplin.

I don't agree Daniel look at the battle of Kereszestes link

Here the Turks struggle against the dug in Habsburg arquebusiers, but in the end they win or perhaps mire accrately get a winning draw. The huge difference, though, is that after this war the Turks go bak to Istanbul in triumph, whereas after the 1683 siege the Austrians folliw up and start rolling back the Turkish frontier. In 1600 the Europeans are on the tactical defensive, in 1690 they manoeuvre around the Turkish armies and defeat them in the field.
We could take Western victories back earlier into the fifteenth century, where clearly the Hungarian combination of knights pikes, firearms and wagons is a tough opponent, but as you say these earlier Europeans are restricted to the defensive in order to be effective.
So, of course European armies can be effective against Asian armies in 1450 and 1550, but the difference is that by the end of the seventeenth century the Europeans are head and shoulders above Eastern armies and this is because they have become armies of infantry battalions that can manouevre , can deliver devastating fire and can resist cavalry, something sixteenth century European armies find very difficult.

GWA am I correct in concluding that you doubts of DeVries abilities as a scholar?

@dapeters: Not at all. I haven't read any of DeVries' books (beyond standing in a bookstore and skimming a couple of them), so I would not be able to criticize him as a scholar and historian. He seems to have established a somewhat controversial assertion about infantry development, from what others have said, here and before.

I see historians of all ages needing to go against the "wisdom" of the "old guys" if they want to make themselves known above the main mass of historians. They can either teach history as professors at a university (which DeVries does, I understand) or they can publish (or both, certainly). Those who do not publish "perish" as far as any notable career in the field is concerned. I think that DeVries has already established a name for himself through publishing. Whether or not his theses endure will be determined.

Oman, by contrast, was a published phenomenon and "canon" in the study of medieval warfare for literally generations. Even though his assertions are shown to be incorrect or exaggerated, yet he endures as a seminal source and still retains a considerable level of respect. DeVries can only aspire to become likewise unless his assertions gain widespread acceptance….

Not disagreeing GWA, but De Vries can never be another Oman because the opportunity to be the seminal work in the history of mediaeval warfare has gone. Oman did it and in his day you could cover the whole. subject in two volumes , be comprehensive and say something new. That can never occur again. Its alsoparticularly true thatmodern academics are timid by comparison with Onan. Nowadays bold assertion is not the style and the work if all those who went vefore has to be considered, so a new Oman is unlikely.

Yes sir right up there with Gibbon.