Horseback Archery
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Horseback archery is an equestrian martial art that has been in existence since the early Scythian cultures - it is thought that the Ancient Greeks invented the mythical Centaurs in reaction to the seemingly impossible union of an archer and a fast moving horseman.

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Lajos Kassai on the Competition Course in traditional Magyar dress The history of the steppe tribes is very complex and it is little known in the western world despite the fact that they have had a major impact on all the sedentary peoples that settled on the periphery of their grassland empires.

These horse-nomads owned only what they could carry and were always moving their graze-lands over the vast steppes. They travelled, and often fought, on horseback during their long migrations. There were a number of waves of these Central Asian migrations, beginning with the Scythians around the 8th century BC, followed by the Huns, the Avars, the Magyars and later the Mongolians; however all these peoples shared the same lifestyle and martial art - that of horseback archery.

Horseback archery also required a different method of riding the horse - with both hands occupied with bow and arrow, horses were trained to respond to commands from the legs of the rider as well as the reins. For hundreds of years this fascinating martial art was buried deep in the history of the lands they settled and largely seemed to be forgotten (including the Mongolians who live a similar life to that of the original horse nomad even to this day). In recent history this all but forgotten art has been resurrected and perfected by one foremost proponent - Lajos Kassai. A Hungarian by birth, and an accomplished Olympic-standard archer[citation needed], he re-discovered this equestrian martial art and has brought it into the 21st Century.

History of Horseback Archery

The Scythians used short bows with arrows that had very small cast bronze heads with three edges. These bows were developed further by the Huns, who attached rigid ears to the ends of their asymmetric bows and replaced the tiny bronze arrowheads with huge, triple-edged steel heads. The Mongols and Turks further perfected the designs of both bows and arrows - the Turks used smaller, lighter bows with 'barrelled arrows' while the Mongols added a 'string bridge' to the bows which enabled a faster 'cast' of the arrows which increased their penetrative power. As the bows developed so the cavalry units became more effective.

The typical employment of horse archers in battle was in the manner of skirmishers; lightly-armed missile troops capable of moving swiftly to avoid close combat or to deliver a rapid blow to the flanks or rear of the foe. Using the bows from horseback, the tactics were characterized by swift attacks and rapid withdrawals. Without slowing the horse these skirmishers shot their bows on the advance and in retreat and thus the left flank continually exchanged places with the right, performing a continuous rotating motion. Using their superior speed to keep out of the range of their foes' weapons, they slowly but surely ground down the enemy. Warriors under attack from horse archers were unable to respond to the threat without ranged weapons of their own, resulting in casualties, morale drop and disruption of their defensive formations.

Horse archers were generally proven to be effective against heavily equipped infantry, especially in hot, flat, treeless regions where heavily armoured troops were at a severe disadvantage when confronted with mobile forces of mounted archers. In fact, the only threats to horse archers were arrows and other light cavalry forces. A legendary horse archer tactic was that of the Parthian shot where the horse archer would continue to shoot as they retreated. Horse archers played a pivotal role in the Battle of Carrhae and again in the medieval Battle of Legnica. In both cases, horse archers won the day because their opponents depended on direct contact. Due to the heavy armour worn by Western European troops, they often had difficulty facing the more mobile, missile-armed cavalry of the Eastern nations, as shown by numerous examples during the Crusades - indeed, as the Romans had often drawn their cavalry from the lands of the Sarmatians, the Turkish mounted Janissaries were often also drawn from the Horse nomad tribes.

One of the few western commanders who had success against the horse archers was Alexander the Great who inflicted a defeat against the Scythians in 329BC at the Battle of Jaxartes (Syr Darya) - a historic victory as no western commander had ever crushed a nomad army. Even so the Jaxartes marked the north-easternmost border of Alexander's realm in Asia and he never ventured beyond into the heartlands of the horse nomads.

Like the battle of Carrhae a thousand years before, the medieval Battle of Hattin is a classic example of horse archers contributing to the defeat of armoured troops, via demoralization and continued harassment. Equally the Mongol Khans used similar tactics to create the enormous Mongol Empires which stretched from China to Europe at their peak - thus it has been said of the horsebow that it has had more of an effect on history than any other weapon.[citation needed]

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